Part 12

There wasn't a dreier. This time Noah had no remorse; on the contrary, the quarrel was at its height, and there was nothing to be done with him. Yeruchem sent to call him before the rabbi, and he sent the beadle flying out of the house.

When Malkah saw that there was no redress to be had, she seized Noah by the collar in the street, and dragged him to the rabbi like a murderer.

There was a marketful of Belzers about, but who is going to fight a woman? "He who is murdered by women," says the Talmud, "has no judge and no avenger." Noah's wife followed cursing, but was afraid to interfere. At the rabbi's, Malkah told the whole story from beginning to end, and demanded either that Noah should build the fire-wall, or else that the matter should be dropped again.

Our rabbi knew very well that whichever party he declared to be right, the Chassidîm on the _other_ side would be at him forthwith, and he wormed himself out of the difficulty like the learned Jew that he was. _He_ couldn't decide--it was a question of the impulse to do harm--_bê-mê_. There was no decision possible--the case must be laid before the Rebbes.[67]

Noah naturally preferred the Belzer Rebbe, Yeruchem had no choice, and to Belz they went.

Yeruchem, before he left, made his brother-in-law his representative, and trusted him with a few rubles which he had borrowed (people lent them out of pity).

But it all turned out badly.

The brother-in-law spent the money on himself, or (as he averred) lost it--Malkah fell ill of worry.

Yeruchem, it is true, gained his fire-wall with "costs," before the Rebbe, but he and Noah were both caught on the frontier,[68] and brought home with the _étape_.[69]

When Yeruchem arrived, Malkah was dead, and the little house pulled down.

THE MASKIL

And don't imagine Tishewitz to be the world's end. It has a Maskil, too, and a real Maskil, one of the old style, of middle age, uneducated and unread, without books, without even a newspaper, in a word a mere pretense at a Maskil.

He lets his beard grow. To be a Maskil in Tishewitz it is enough only to trim it, but they say "he attends to his hair during the ten Days of Penitence!"

He is not dressed German fashion, and no more is the Feldscher, also a Jew in a long coat and ear-locks.

Our Maskil stops at blacking his boots and wearing a black ribbon round his neck. He has only sorry remnants of ear-locks, but he wears a peaked cap.

People simply say: "Yeshurun waxed fat and kicked."

He does well, runs a thriving trade, has, altogether, three children--what more can he want? Being free of all care, he becomes a Maskil.

On the strength of what he is a Maskil, it is hard to tell--enough that people should consider him one!

The whole place knows it, and he confesses to it himself. He is chiefly celebrated for his "Wörtlech," is prepared to criticise anything in heaven or on earth.

As I heard later, the Maskil took me for another Maskil, and was sure that I should lodge with him, or, at any rate, that he would be my first entry.

"For work of that kind," he said to the others, "you want people with brains. What do you suppose he could do with the like of _you_?"

And as the mountain did not go to Mohammed, because he had never heard of him, Mohammed went to the mountain.

He found me in the house of a widow. He came in with the question of the wicked child in the Haggadah: "What business is this of yours?"

"_Mòi Pànyiye!_[70] what are you doing here?"

"How here?" I ask.

"Very likely you think I come from under the stove? That because a person lives in Tishewitz, he isn't civilized, and doesn't know what is doing in the world? You remember: 'I have sojourned with Laban?'[71] I do live here, but when there's a rat about, I soon smell him."

"If you can smell a rat, and know all that is going on, why do you want to ask questions?"

The beadle pricked up his ears, and so did the half-dozen loungers who had followed me step by step.

There was a fierce delight in their faces, and on their foreheads was written the verse: "Let the young men arise"--let us see two Maskilîm having it out between them!

"What is the good of all this joking?" said the Maskil, irritated. "My tongue is not a shoe-sole! And for whose benefit am I to speak? That of the Tishewitz donkeys? Look at the miserable creatures!"

I feel a certain embarrassment. I cannot well take up the defense of Tishewitz, because the Tishewitz worthies in the window and the door-way are smiling quite pleasantly.

"Come, tell me, what does it all mean, taking notes?"

"Statistics!"

"_Statistic-shmistik!_ We've heard that before. What's the use of it?"

I explained--not exactly to _him_, but to the community, so that they should all have an idea of what statistics meant.

"Ha-ha-ha!" laughs the Maskil loudly and thickly, "you can get the Tishewitz donkeys to believe that, but you won't get me! Why do you want to put down how a person lives, with a floor, without a floor! What does it matter to you if a person lives in a room without a floor? _Ha?_"

It matters, I tell him, because people want to show how poor the Jews are; they think--

"They think nothing of the kind," he interrupted, "but let that pass! Why should they want to know exactly how many boys and how many girls a man has? and what their ages are, and all the rest of the bother?"

"They suspect us of shirking military duty. The books, as of course you know, are not correct, and we want to prove--"

"Well, that may be so, for one thing--I'll allow that--but--about licenses! Why do you note down who has them--and what they are worth?"

"In order to prove that the Jews--"

But the Maskil does not allow me to finish my sentence.

"A likely story! Meantime, people will know that this one and the other pays less than he ought to for his license, and he'll never hear the last of it."

Scarcely had he said so, when the heads in the window disappeared; the beadle in the door-way took himself off, and the Maskil, who had really meant well all along, stood like one turned to stone.

The population had taken fright, and in another hour or two the town was full of me.

I was suspected of being commissioned by the excise. And why not, indeed? The excise knew very well that a Jew would have less difficulty in getting behind other people's secrets.

I was left to pace the market-square alone. The town held aloof. It is true that the Maskil dogged my footsteps, but he had become antipathetic to me, and I couldn't look at him.

The faces in the Gass became graver and darker, and I began to think of escaping. There are too many side-glances to please me--there is too much whispering.

It occurred to me to make a last effort. I remembered that the rabbi of Tishewitz had once been our Dayan, and would remember me, or at least witness to the fact that I was not what they took me for.

"Where does the rabbi live?" I inquire of the Maskil.

He is pleased and says: "Come, I will show you!"

THE RABBI OF TISHEWITZ

No one who has not seen the rabbi of Tishewitz's dressing-gown would ever know the reason why the rebbitzin, his third wife, though hardly middle-aged, already wears a large pair of spectacles on her nose. The dressing-gown looks as if it were simply _made_ of patches.

"If only," complains the rabbi, "the town would give me another two gulden a week, I could get along. _Asö is gor bitter!_ But I shall get my way. Their law-suits they can decide without me; when it is a question of pots and pans, any school-teacher will do; questions regarding women, of course, cannot be put off; and yet I shall get my way, I'm only waiting for the election of the elders; they can't have an election without a rabbi. Imagine a town--no evil eye!--a metropolis in Israel, without elders! And if that won't do it, I shall refuse to try the slaughtering-knives--I've got them fast enough!"

It was no easy matter to divert the rabbi's thoughts from his own grievances, but on the Maskil's promising to do his utmost to induce the community to raise his salary, he begged us to be seated, and listened to our tale.

"Nonsense!" he said, "I know you! Tell the fools I know you."

"They run away from me!"

"_Ett!_[72] They run away! Why should they run away? Who runs away? After what? Well, as you say they run away, I will go out with you myself."

"In what will you go?" calls out a woman's voice from behind the stove.

"Give me my cloak," answers the rabbi.

"Give you your cloak! I've this minute taken it apart."

"Well," says the rabbi, "the misfortune is happily not great. We will go to-morrow."

I give him to understand that it is only noon, that I should be sorry to waste the day.

"_Nu_, what shall I do?" answers the rabbi, and folds his hands. "The rebbitzin has just started mending my cloak."

"Call them in here!"

"Call them? It's easy enough to call them, but who will come? Are they likely to listen to me? Perhaps I had better go in my dressing-gown?"

"It wouldn't do, rabbi!" exclaimed the Maskil, 'the inspector is going about in the Gass.

"For my part," said the rabbi, "I would have gone, but if you say no--no!"

It is settled that we shall all three call the people together from the window. But opening the window is no such easy matter. It hasn't been opened for about fifteen years. The panes are cracked with the sun, the putty dried up, the window shakes at every step on the floor. The frame is worm-eaten, and only rust keeps it fastened to the wall. It is just a chance if there are hinges.

And yet we succeeded. We opened first one side and then the other without doing any damage.

The rabbi stood in the centre, I and the Maskil on either side of him, and we all three began to call out.

The market was full of people.

In a few minutes there was a crowd inside the room.

"Gentlemen," began the rabbi, "I know this person."

"There will be no writing people down!" called out several voices together.

The rabbi soon loses heart.

"No use, no use," he murmurs, but the Maskil has got on to the table and calls out:

"Donkeys! They _must_ be written down! The good of the Jews at large demands it!"

"The good of the Jews at large," he says, and he goes on to tell them that he has gone through the whole chapter with me, that there is no question of a joke, that I have shown him letters from the Chief Rabbis.

"From which Chief Rabbis?" is the cry.

"From the Chief Rabbi in Paris," bellows the Maskil, "from the Chief Rabbi in Paris (no other will do for him), from the Chief Rabbi in London--"

"Jews, let us go home!" interrupted someone, "_nisht unsere Leut!_"[73]

And the crowd dispersed as quickly as it had come together. We three remained--and the beadle, who came close to me:

"Give me something," he said, "for the day's work."

I gave him a few ten-kopek pieces, he slipped them into his pocket without counting them, and was off without saying good-bye.

"What do _you_ say, Rabbi?" I asked.

"I don't know what to say, how should I? I am only dreadfully afraid--lest it should do me harm--"

"_You?_"

"Whom else? _You?_ If you don't get any statistics, it will be of no great consequence, for 'He that keepeth Israel will neither slumber nor sleep!' I mean the two extra gulden a week."

The rebbitzin with the large spectacles has come out from behind the stove.

"I told you long ago," she says, "not to interfere in the affairs of the community, but when did you ever listen to me? What has a rabbi to do with _that_ sort of thing? Kohol's business!"

"_Nu_, hush, Rebbitzin, hush!" he answers gently; "you know what I am, I have a soft heart, it touched me, but it's a pity about the two gulden a week."

TALES THAT ARE TOLD

Sad and perplexed in spirit, I came down from the rabbi, with the Maskil, and into the street. There we came across the beadle, who assured us that, in his opinion, we should be able to go on with the work to-morrow.

The whole Tararam[74] had been stirred up by two impoverished householders, who were now in great misery; one, a public-house keeper, and the other, a horse-dealer.

The Maskil, for his part, promises to talk the matter over with the townspeople between Minchah and Maariv, and if he doesn't turn the place upside down, then his name is not Shmeril (such a name has a Maskil in Tishewitz!). They may stand on their heads, he said, but the notes must be taken. "The very authorities that forbade will permit."

Well done! It is evident that the Maskil had studied in a Cheder, in the great world one meets with other Maskilîm.

I go back to the inn; the beadle comes, too. At my host's they still have services, the mourning for his wife not being ended. Between Minchah and Maariv, we get on to politics; after Maariv, on to the Jews. The greater part are dreadfully optimistic. In the first place, it's not a question of _them_, secondly, plans will not prosper against "Yainkil,"[75] he has brains of his own; thirdly, it's like a see-saw, now it goes up and now it goes down;[76] fourthly, God will help; fifthly, "good Jews" will not allow it to happen.

The old song!

"Believe me," exclaims one, with small, restless eyes under a low forehead, "believe me, if there were unity among all 'good Jews,' if they would hold together, as one man, and stop repeating Tachanun,[77] Messiah would _have_ to come!"

"But the Kozenitz Rebbe, may his memory be blessed, _did_ stop," suggested another.

"'One swallow,' replied the young man, 'does not make a summer.' Who talks of their imposing a prohibition on All-Israel?"

There are times when one must set one's self against things--defend one's self.

"If they were to issue a prohibition," says someone, ironically, and with a side-glance at me, "the heretics would take to praying, if only for the sake of saying Tachanun, so that Messiah should _not_ come."

The company smile.

"But where is the harm," asks someone else, "if the great people don't agree among themselves?"

The company gave a groan. Doubtless each remembered how many times he had suffered unjustly on account of the want of unity, and the surest proof of Tishewitz having greatly suffered by reason of dissensions is, that no clear explanation was given as to who was at fault that the great were not at one, so fearful were they of provoking a fresh disagreement.

I put forward that poverty had more to do with the differences than anything.

There is nothing to trade with, people go about empty-handed, seeking quarrels to while away the time with; the proof is that in larger towns, where each goes about his own business, there is quiet.

If someone, I opine, would throw into Tishewitz a few thousand rubles, everything would be forgotten.

"To be sure, we know wealth is everything!" exclaims somebody. "If I had only had _so_ much brains, I could put all Tishewitz into my pocket to-day. It was just a toss-up--I had only to say the word."

"True! True!" was heard on all sides. "It is an actual fact."

The man who had only required to have _so_ much brains, or a little determination, to become rich, looked like poverty itself: lean, yellow, shrunk, "wept out," and in a cloak that had its only equal in the dressing-gown of the Tishewitz rabbi.

Thereupon came the Maskil.

Of course, he laughed.

"Reb Elyeh, you must have bought the lucky number an hour before the drawing!"

"Listen to his cheek!" says Reb Elyeh. "As if he couldn't remember the story!"

"May my head not ache," swears the Maskil, "for so long as I have forgotten--if ever I heard the lies at all."

"Lies!" retorts Reb Elyeh, much hurt, "is that so? Lies? According to you, other things are lies as well."

I interfere and ask what the story may be.

"You've heard of the Tsaddik of Vorke of blessed memory?" begins Reb Elyeh.

Of course!

"Naturally, _Kind und Keit_[78] knew of him. And you will have heard that there came to him not only the pious men of the nations of the world, but even 'German' Jews, even Lithuanians, knowing fellows that they are. May I have as much money as I have seen Lithuanians at his house! There is even a story about a discussion a Lithuanian had with him. A Lithuanian must always be showing off his acumen! He asks a question about the Tossafot on _Vows_. The Rebbe, of blessed memory, explains a bit of the Mishnah to him upside down.

"'Well, I never, Rebbe!' exclaims the Lithuanian, 'why, the Tossafot on _New Year_ dealing with the same subject says exactly the opposite of your words.' Well, what do you say to that? It was a miracle the Rebbe did not seize and strangle him on the spot. But that is not what I was driving at. The 'Vorker' treated the Almighty like a good comrade.

"'Lord of the world (and he sat down in the middle of the room)! Would it not have been enough to torment the Jews with persecutions? Now one cannot even sit and study in peace.'

"Someone, it would appear, answered him from 'up there.'

"'So,' he said, 'that is another thing altogether! I give in; good pay puts everything straight. But, Lord of the world! a little of it here as well!'

"Again one could see in his face that he heard a response, and he answered:

"'Well, if not--not! You are solvent, we will wait!'

"But that is not what I was after. His chief concern was whatever was connected with circumcision. In the matter of circumcision he was steel and iron. In that he would take no denial from the Powers above. And, indeed, they waited for his word up there! Scarce had he given a sign, when the thing he wanted was done and established. He said, that before going to a circumcision, when he merely began to think of the Mohel-knife, the quality of _Fear_[79] straightway diffused itself through his being, and then there could be no doubt all would go as he wanted, for 'the will of those who _fear_ Him He executeth.'

"He was very sorry that people had become aware of this peculiarity of his. He knew that on this account he would not perform the ceremony here much longer, that he would be called to join the Heavenly Academy. His relations to the upper world having become known, the very stability of the world was endangered. It ought to have remained a secret.

"Well, people had become aware of it. I, too. And even sooner than others, because the treasurer, Mösheh, was my first wife's brother-in-law, and he it was who let out the secret. For this he was deprived of his place for half a year, but his distress was so great, the Rebbe had compassion on him, and restored him to his office. But that doesn't belong to the story either.

"Enough that I knew it.

"Well, 'and he kept the thing in his heart.' I waited, for I was not going to plague the Rebbe about a trifle. I waited. I was living just then a mile outside Vorke. My first wife was alive, and she did not fare badly, though it was difficult to make both ends meet. But I earned whatever it was by my match-making, and my wife supported us by means of her stall. And not only us, but also she provided for a married couple, my eldest daughter and her husband, who was an excellent scholar. What, then, was lacking?

"And it came to pass on a day that my son-in-law was away at the Ger Rebbe's, there was a fair in the town, and my daughter was in child-bed. It went hard with her, a first baby. Beile Bashe, the midwife, was at her wit's end, and this was the third day of her pains. No cupping, no blood-letting seemed to help--things were very bad. And I hear that the Rebbe is coming to a circumcision.

"What do you think? 'There sprang up light for the Jews!' We were all overjoyed. It put new life into us. We pray that God will preserve her another day and a half, because people were only let in an hour before the ceremony. But meanwhile things got worse and worse, she was near death.

"An hour or two before the ceremony, however, she grew easier, or so it seemed to me. She came to herself, opened her eyes, urged her mother to go to the fair, and called me to her bedside. A foolish woman, they are all alike--they blame us for it.

"She doesn't like Shmülek, she says, she never liked him, she didn't want him from the very first. She can't stand him and had better die. She had sent her mother out on purpose, because she was afraid of her. She, peace be upon her, was a terror to the children--she wanted to slap her daughter on her wedding-day.

"I, of course, gave her to understand that all women are the same, that some even make a vow never to live with their husbands again; that the sin-offering is there on that account--some even swear that--'but no one may be held responsible for what he utters in pain and grief.' But she keeps to it, she bids me farewell, she needs no vows, no oaths, she says, smiling. I am going out, she says, like a candle.

"Well, I listen to her and can see all the while that she is better. She is quite clear again in her mind, and it only wants half an hour to the circumcision. And she looked quite pretty again.

"I sit by the bed and talk to her--even the midwife had gone to buy a cradle at the fair. I look at the clock--it is time to go. I look at her. Upon my word! Quite well! And yet I do not want to go and leave her all alone, and nearly alone in the town.

"The fair, you see, comes once a year, and lasts three days, and it means Parnosseh for the whole twelve months. So, you see, there was no one left at the Rebbe's even--every soul was off to the fair.

"Well, I wait a bit.

"But in half an hour things got suddenly worse. She snatches at my hand, falls back on the pillows, makes grimaces. Bad!

"She begins to moan. I call for help, no one answers. There is a great noise from the fair--nobody hears _me_. Among a thousand men and women--and we might have been in a wilderness. I want to pull away my hands, go and call somebody, but she holds them tight.

"Two, three minutes pass, it grows late, things are bad. I tear away my hands and I run thither. The circumcision was at the further end of the town. I fly along roads, over bales of merchandise, I fly and fly! It is all too long to me. It was July and yet I shivered with cold as I ran--there, there is Tsemach's house, where the ceremony has taken place."

* * * * *

"My heart beats as though I were a malefactor; I feel that _there_, at home, a soul is about to escape. There I am at the first window! I will not wait for the door, I will break a pane and get in that way. I run up to the window, I see the Rebbe is really in the room, he is walking up and down, I am about to enter like a housebreaker. I gather my remaining strength--there is a cry in my ears: Father, father! I leap."

The narrator was out of breath. He takes a rest, lowers his eyes, which are full of large tears, and ends quietly with a broken voice:

"But it was not to be! There was a heap of manure and stones before the window--I fell, and nearly broke my neck. I have a mark on my forehead to this day. When they brought me in to the Rebbe, he motioned me away with his hand.

"When I got home (_how_ I got there, I don't know), she was lying on the floor--either she fell out of bed dying, or I pulled her out tearing away my hands."

The listeners were silent, a stone weighed on our hearts.

The Maskil soon recovered himself.

"Well," he said, "blessed be the righteous Judge! Where are the riches?"

The narrator wiped his eyes with his sleeve, gave a sad smile and continued:

"Yes, I only wanted to show you what one means when one says, it was not to be. There came trouble after trouble--my wife died--the stall went to the bad because it was kept by a man--I was left alone with the children, and there wasn't a crust--I married again--I took an elderly woman on purpose, because I thought she would do for the stall, but I was taken in. There was a baby a year. Meanwhile our fairs fell off, and for a whole twelvemonth the stall wasn't worth a pinch of powder.