Part 16

She appears in the street, she stands outside at the window, as if she were afraid, as if she had not the power to enter a Jewish home.

She gazes with staring eyes into the room, and sees me there alone.

She looks at me with dismay, supplication, and anger. I understand her.

"Where are they?" she asks in dismay. "Have pity on me!" she says, imploring. And then, in anger, she lays the whole blame of the disaster on us:

* * * * *

"What could I know of your bitter feud with _them_? _You_ knew, you learned all about it in school, _my_ books told me nothing, not a word!

"Living in the same house with you, I led a separate life. My story-books were like mirrors filled with the bright reflection of other women's lives, and, as I read, my own appeared there in all its dreariness!

"I have betrayed something?

"I have been false? To what?

"I only exchanged saffron cakes for cakes of another sort, the tales in Mother's books of legends for others far more vivid and entrancing--a bit of green in the window for the free, fresh green of the woods and fields--litanies for romances--the narrow, stifling routine of my daily life for sunshine and flowers, for gladness and love! I never betrayed _you_--I never knew you!

"I knew nothing of your sorrow, you never spoke to me of yourselves. Why did you not tell me of _your_ love, of the love which is your very being, why did you not tell me of your _beauty_--of the terrible, blood-stained beauty of Israel?

"The beautiful, the precious, the exalted in our religion, you hid it in yourselves, you men, you kept it from me, you kept it from us.

"Of me, of us, with our flesh and blood, with the strength of our youth struggling and crying out for _life_--of us you asked only butter-cake and Gelle Challeh!

"You cast us out!"

* * * * *

He who is high above all peoples, who alone can see clearly through their tangled web of prejudice and hatred--_He_ shall judge her.

XVII

A CHAT

It is warm, real holiday weather, and Reb Shachneh, a tall, thin Jew, one of the last old Kotzkers,[1] and Reb Zerach, one of the few remaining old Belzers,[111] are taking a stroll outside the town.

As young men they had been enemies, hating each other heart and soul. Reb Shachneh led the Kotzkers against the Belzers, and Reb Zerach, the Belzers against the Kotzkers.

But now that they are old, and Kotzkers are "not what they were," and Belzers have lost their "go," they have separated themselves from their former associates, and left the meeting-rooms where less pious, but younger and stronger, men have taken the lead.

They made peace in the synagogue, in winter time, beside the stove, and now, on this intermediate day of Passover, on the first fine afternoon, they have come out together for a walk.

The sun shines in a wide, blue sky. The little grasses are springing up through the mould, and one can distinctly see the angel who stands beside each blade, and cries: grow, grow!

Little birds fly about in flocks, looking for last year's nests, and Reb Shachneh says to Reb Zerach:

"A Kotzker, you see, I mean a real Kotzker--the present ones don't count--never thought much of the Haggadah."[112]

"But only of the dumplings?" smiles Reb Zerach.

"Never mind about the dumplings!" answers Reb Shachneh, gravely, "and don't laugh. You know the meaning of 'thou shalt not deliver up a slave to his master?'"

"For me," says the Belzer with humble pride, "it is enough to know the hidden meaning of the prayers!"

Reb Shachneh pretends not to have heard, and continues:

"The literal interpretation is simple enough: If a slave, or a servant, or a serf, run away, one may not, according to the Law, catch him, bind him, and give him up to his master--it is evident, if a man runs away, his very life was endangered. But the hidden meaning is also quite clear: the body here below is a slave--it is the servant of the soul. The body is sinful, it sees a piece of pork, an idol, a woman, what not, and is ready to jump out of its skin. But when the soul says, thou shalt not! it must desist.

"On the other hand, suppose the soul desires to perform a religious act. The body must be up and doing, however tired and harassed. The hands must work, the feet must run, the lips move--and why? The soul, the lord, commands! And therefore it is written: 'Thou shalt not deliver up!'

"The body may not be handed over unconditionally to the soul. The fiery soul would speedily burn it to ashes. Had the Creator wished for souls without bodies, he would not have made the world.

"The body also has its rights. 'He who fasts much is a sinner.' The body must eat. He who would ride must feed his horse! Comes a feast, a holiday--be merry, too! Take a sip of brandy, rejoice, body, likewise! And the soul rejoices and the body rejoices--the soul in the benediction, and the body in the glass!

"Passover, the season of our deliverance--here, body, catch a dumpling! And it is inspirited and cheered, and rejoices to fulfil the commandment.

"Farewell, dumpling! Brother, do not laugh."

Reb Zerach opines that the matter is a deep one and worth consideration; but he himself does not eat Sheruyah?[113]

"Do you _enjoy_ Passover cakes dry?"

"For dessert?" smiles Reb Zerach. "And where are my teeth to eat them with?"

"How then do you observe the precept: 'And thou shalt rejoice in thy feasts,' as regards the body?"

"All sorts of ways. If it likes currant wine--well and good. I myself revel in the Haggadah. I sit and repeat and count the plagues, and count and double them and multiply."

"Materialism!"

"Materialism? After all the misery and the hard labor--after the long exile of the Divine Presence? In my opinion, there ought to be a custom introduced of repeating the plagues seven times, and seven times 'Pour out thy wrath!' But the great thing is the plagues! I delight in them. I wish I could open the door at the plagues--let _them_ hear! Why should I be afraid? Do you suppose _they_ understand Hebrew?"

Reb Shachneh is silent for a while, and then he relates the following:

"Listen! This is what happened one day with us. I assure you I won't exaggerate. In perhaps the tenth house from the Rebbe's of blessed memory, there lived a Shochet who was (may I be forgiven for saying so--he is no more of this world) a mad butcher, a butcher among butchers, one in a thousand. A neck like a bull's, eyebrows like bristles, hands like logs, and a voice, a voice! When he spoke, it sounded like distant thunder, or musketry. He must have been at one time or another a Belzer."

"Well, well," growls Reb Zerach.

"Well, and," continues Reb Shachneh, coolly, "he used to pray with the most extravagant gestures, with shouts and whispers.

"His 'they shall remember' reminded one of sprinkling fire with water."

"Let that pass!"

"You can fancy the uproar when a fellow like this sat down to the Haggadah. In the Rebbe's chamber we could hear every word. He read, of course, like a butcher, and the laugh went round.

"The Rebbe of blessed memory scarcely moved his lips, and yet everyone could see that he was smiling. Later, however, when the butcher began to count the plagues, so that they shot from his mouth like bullets, and brought his fist down on the table, so that the glasses rang again, the Rebbe of blessed memory became melancholy."

"Melancholy? On a feast-day? Passover? What do you mean?"

"Well, we asked him the reason why!"

"And what did he answer?"

"God Himself," was his reply, "became melancholy on the occasion of the Exodus."

"Where had he found that?"

"It's a Midrash![114] When the children of Israel had crossed the Red Sea, and the water had covered up and drowned Pharaoh and all his host, then the angels began to sing songs, seraphim and ophanim flew into all the seven heavens with hymns and glad tidings, all the stars and planets danced and sang, and the celestial bodies--you can guess what rejoicings! But the Creator put an end to them. A Voice issued from the Throne:

"'My children are being drowned in the sea, and you rejoice and sing?'

"Because God created even Pharaoh and all his host, even the devil himself, and it is written: 'His tender mercies are over all His works.'"

"Certainly!" sighs Reb Zerach.

He says nothing more for a while, and then asks:

"And if it _is_ a Midrash, what has he added to it to deserve praise?"

Reb Shachneh stands still, and says gravely:

"First, Belzer fool, no one has the duty to be original; there is no chronological order in the Law--the new is old, the old is new. Secondly, he showed us why we recite the Haggadah, even the plagues in the Haggadah, to a mournful "Sinni" tune, a tune that is steeped in grief.

"Thirdly, he translated the precept: _Al tismàch Yisroel el Gil ko-Ammim_: Materialist, rejoice not in a coarse way--you are no boor! Revenge is not for Jews."

XVIII

THE PIKE[115]

In honor of the feast-day, live fish have been bought.

Two large pike are lying in a great, green glass bowl filled with water, and a little further off, in one of blackened earthenware, two or three small carp. These are no sea-folk, but they come out of a fairly wide river, and they are straightened for room in the bowls.

The poor little carp, in the one of black glaze, have been aware of its confines for some time past.

They have lain for a good hour by the clock, wondering what sort of a prison this may be.

And there is plenty of leisure for thinking. It may be long before the cook comes home from market with good things for the feast-day long enough for even a carp to have an idea.

But the pike in the glass bowl have not taken in the situation yet. Time after time they swim out strongly and bang their heads against the hard glass.

Pike have iron heads but dull wits. The two captive heroes have received each a hundred knocks from every part of the bowl, but they have not yet realized that all is closed to them.

They _feel_ the walls, but the weak pike-eyes do not _see_ them.

The glass is green--it is just like river water--and yet there is no getting out.

"It is witchcraft!" says one pike to the other.

The other agrees with him.

"To-morrow there is an auction. The other bidders have bewitched us."

"Some crayfish or frog has done this."

* * * * *

It is only a short time since the net drew them out of the water. When they got into the air they had fainted, to recover consciousness inside a barrel of which the lid had been hammered down.

"How the days are drawing in!" they had observed both at once.

There was very little room in the barrel, scarcely sufficient to turn in, and hardly water enough for anyone to breathe. What with having fainted before, and now this difficulty in breathing, they had fallen into a doze, and had dreamt of all sorts of things, of the fair, and even of the opera and the ballet. But the dream-angel never showed them any kind of barrel.

They heard nothing, not even the opening of the barrel and the hubbub of the market.

Neither perceived they the trembling of the scales in which they oscillated whilst the cook haggled over them with the fish-wife--or remarked the click-clack of the pointer that spoke their doom.

They slept still more soundly in the cook's basket, starting into life again only in the bowl, beneath the rush of cold water. And now, after doing unwilling penance for an hour against the glass, they have only just hit upon witchcraft.

"What are we to do?" says one to the other.

The carp know themselves to be in prison.

They, too, have had experience of a long night, and awoke in a bowl.

"Someone," say they, "had palmed off counterfeit bank-notes on us!"

It will be proved, they are sure, if only one could get hold of someone who will take the matter up properly.

They give a little leap into the air, catch sight of the pike, and fall back more dead than alive.

"They are going to eat us!" they say, trembling. Not until they realize that the pike are likewise in prison do they feel somewhat reassured.

"They, they certainly have been passing counterfeit notes, too!" says one carp to the other.

"Yes, and therein lies our salvation. _They_ will not keep silence, and, with God's help, we shall all be set free together."

"And they will see us, and, with God's help, will eat us up!"

And the carp nestle closer against the bowl.

They can just see a tub full of onions on the kitchen floor.

"If we signed the contract, we might receive a golden order," observes one of the pike.

"Please God, we shall be decorated yet," answers the other. "It is a case of witchcraft, but--"

"But what?"

"There is one thing."

"Well?"

"It sounds almost absurd--but--I wanted to tell you--we ought to _pray_," he stammers, "it is the best thing against sorcery!"

"To pray? Perhaps so!!" Whereupon the two pike discover that it is years since they prayed last.

They cannot remember a word.

"Ashrè,"[116] begins one.

"Ashrè," repeats the other, and comes to a standstill.

"Oh, I want to pray!" moans the first.

"So do I!" chimes in the second, "for when all is said and done, we are but fish!"

A door opens in the wall, a little way, and two heads are seen in the aperture--a tipsy-looking man's head, and a woman's with curl papers.

"Ah," exclaims the man's head, joyously, "this is something like! Pike--carp--and all the other good things."

"I should hope so! And I have sent for meat besides."

"My knowing little wife," chuckles the man's head.

"There, there, that will do."

And the heads disappear.

"Did you hear?" says a pike, "there are carp, too."

"They have the best of it."

"How is that?"

"To begin with, they have made no contracts, they are free agents. Secondly, they can leap."

"If they would only give a _good_ leap, they would find themselves back in the river."

"Quite true."

"And something good might come of it for us. Wait a bit--let's try! Carp!"

The carp have suddenly swum to the surface of the water, and are poking their noses over the edge of the bowl.

The pike, face to face with the carp:

"Bad luck, brothers?" he exclaimed.

"Bad," answer the carp.

"Bitter?"

"Bitter!"

"Very little water?"

"Oh, very little!"

"And it smells?"

"Ugh!"

"Not fit to live in?"

"Not fit!"

"We must get home, back to the river!"

"We--must!"

"We have forgotten what it was like in the river."

"Forgotten!"

"A sin!"

"A mortal sin!"

"Let us beat our head against the wall and do penance."

The carp flatten their bellies against the bowl. The pike run their head against the glass till it rings again.

"One should leap away home!" continues the pike.

"One should leap!"

"Well--leap!"

The pike commands, and the carp are out of the bowl and on the floor--lying there more dead than alive.

"I never knew," says the second pike, "that you were such an orator--your lips drop honey!"

The carp meanwhile are moaning.

"Hurry up!" orders the pike.

The carp give another little spring.

"Oh," they moan, "we do not see any river--and our bones are breaking--and we cannot breathe."

"On with you--make an effort! It is not much further--give a jump!"

But the carp are past hearing.

The carp lie dying on the floor, and the pike are having a dispute.

Both opine that any proper leap would carry one into the river, but one says that other fish are wanted, not stupid carp, who can only leap in the water, who cannot exist for an hour without food, and that what are wanted are--electric fish!

And the other says: "No, carp--only, lots and lots of carp. If one hundred thousand carp were to leap, _one_ would certainly fall into the river, and if _one_ fell in, why, then--ha, ha!"

XIX

THE FAST

A winter's night; Sarah sits by the oil-lamp, darning an old sock. She works slowly, for her fingers are half-frozen; her lips are blue and brown with cold; every now and then she lays down her work and runs up and down the room to warm her icy feet.

In a bed, on a bare straw mattress, sleep four children--two little heads at each end--covered up with some old clothes.

Now one child and now another gives a start, a head is raised, and there is a plaintive chirp: "Hungry!"

"Patience, dears, patience!" says Sarah, soothingly.

"Father will be here presently, and bring you some supper. I will be sure to wake you."

"And something hot?" ask the children, whimpering. "We have had nothing hot to-day yet!"

"And something hot, too!"

But she does not believe what she is saying.

She glances round the room--perhaps, after all, there is something left that she can pawn. Nothing! Four bare, damp walls--split stove--everything clammy and cold--two or three broken dishes on the chimney-piece--on the stove, an old, battered Chanukah lamp--over-head, in the beam, a nail--sole relic of a lamp that hung from the ceiling; two empty beds without pillows--and nothing, nothing else!

The children are some time getting to sleep.

Sarah's heart aches as she looks at them.

Suddenly she turns her eyes, red with crying, to the door--she has heard footsteps, heavy footsteps, on the stairs leading down into the basement--a clatter of cans against the wall, now to the right, now to the left.

A gleam of hope illumines her sunken features.

She rubs one foot against the other two or three times, rises stiffly, and goes to the door.

She opens it, and in comes a pale, stoop-shouldered Jew, with two empty cans.

"Well?" she whispers.

He puts away the cans, takes off his yoke, and answers, lower still:

"Nothing--nothing at all; nobody paid me. To-morrow! they said. Everyone always says to-morrow--the day after to-morrow--on the first day of the month!"

"The children have hardly had a bite all day," articulates Sarah. "Anyway, they're asleep--that is something. O, my poor children!"

She can control herself no longer, and begins to cry quietly.

"What are you crying for?" asks the man.

"O, Mendele, the children are so hungry." She is making desperate efforts to gulp down her tears.

"And what is to become of us?" she moans. "Things only get worse and worse!"

"Worse? No, Sarah! It is a sin to speak so. We are better off than we were this time last year. I had no food to give you, and no shelter. The children were all day rolling in the gutter, and they slept in the dirty courts. Now, at least, they sleep on straw, they have a roof over their head."

Sarah's sobs grow louder.

She has been reminded of the child that was taken from her out there in the streets. It caught cold, grew hoarse, and died--and died, as it might have died in the forest, without help of any kind--no tearing open the Ark[117]--no measuring of graves--nothing said over it to exorcise the evil eye--it went out like a candle.

He tries to comfort her:

"Don't cry, Sarah; don't cry so! Do not sin against God!"

"Oh, Mendele, if only He would help us!"

"Sarah, for your own sake don't take things so to heart. See what a figure you have made of yourself. Do you know, it is ten years to-day since we were married? Well, well, who would think you were the beauty of the town!"

"And you, Mendele; do you remember, you were called Mendele the strong--and now you are bent double, you are ill--and you don't tell me! O, my God, my God!"

The cry escapes her, the children are startled out of their sleep, and begin to wail anew: "Bread! Hungry!"

"Who ever heard of such a thing! Who is going to think of eating to-day!" is Mendele's sudden exclamation.

The children sit up in alarm.

"This is a fast-day!" continues Mendele with a stern face.

Several minutes elapse before the children take in what has been said to them.

"What sort of fast is it?" they inquire tearfully.

And Mendele with downcast eyes tells them that in the morning, during the Reading of the Law, the Scroll fell from the desk. "Whereupon," he continues, "a fast was proclaimed, in which even sucking-children are to take part." The children are silent, and he goes on to say:

"A fast like that on the Day of Atonement, beginning overnight."

The four children tumble out of bed; bare-footed, in their little ragged shirts, they begin to caper round the room, shouting: "We are going to fast, to fast, to fast!"

Mendele screens the light with his shoulders, so that they shall not see their mother's tears:

"There, that will do, children, that will do! Fast-days were not meant for dancing. When the Rejoicing of the Law comes, then we will dance, please God!" The children get back into bed. Their hunger is forgotten.

One of them, a little girl, starts singing: "Our Father, our King," etc., and "On the High Mountain," etc.

Mendele shivers from head to foot.

"One does not sing, either," he says in a choked voice.

The children are silent, and go off to sleep, tired out with singing and dancing. Only the eldest opens his eyes once more and inquires of his father:

"Tate, when shall I be Bar-Mitzwah?"[118]

"Not yet, not for a long time--in another four years. You must grow and get strong."

"Then you will buy me a pair of phylacteries?"

"Of course."

"And a little bag to hold them?"

"Why, certainly!"

"And a little, tiny prayer-book with gilt edges?"

"With God's help! You must pray to God, Chaïmle!"

"Then I shall keep all the fasts!"

"Yes, yes, Chaïmle, all the fasts," adding, below his breath: "Lord of the world, only not any like this one--not like to-day's."

XX

THE WOMAN MISTRESS HANNAH

A PACKET OF LETTERS

1

Two letters which Hannah received from her brother Menachem Mendil, and one letter from her sister-in-law, Eva Gütel; altogether, three letters.

FIRST LETTER

Life and peace to my worthy sister, Mistress Hannah.

I have received your letter, and I can tell you, I wept tears enough over it, and lay sighing and groaning one whole night long. But what was the good, seeing God in heaven is witness that I can do nothing to help you? And as to what you write about the inheritance, I must tell you, dear sister, there is no sense in it. According to the Jewish law, you have no claim upon any part. Ask your husband, he is learned, he will tell you the same thing. But you need not wait for him to tell you: a clever woman like you can open the "German Pentateuch" and see for herself that Zelophehad's daughters only inherited because there were no sons. As soon as there are sons, the daughters inherit nothing, and our father left no deed directing you were to inherit half as much as his male descendants.

And all you say about our father, peace be upon him, not having given you the whole of your dowry, has nothing in it, because, if you come to think, who _does_ get the whole? You know _I_ did not, and yet I have no claim on anyone.

Besides, common sense will tell you that if our father, peace be upon him, did not keep to his engagement, neither did the other side, and so the matter rested. The two parties forgave each other, as is the custom among us Jews.

I would not trust my own judgment, but talked the matter over with our rabbi and his assistants, and we were all agreed that so it should be.

Further, as regards your contention that you boarded at home only half a year instead of a whole one--I know nothing about it. Our father, peace be upon him, never told me. And you know quite well that just then I was living separated from my family and spent the whole time at the Rebbe's, long life to him! and Eva Gütel tells me it was this way: there was a bit of a dispute between you over our mother's seat in the women's Shool (peace be upon her), and you tore each other's hair, and our mother (peace be upon her) was greatly distressed. And one Sabbath evening you picked up your bundle and your husband and were off to his native town. If so, what do we owe you?

Whom do you mean in your letter? Who asked you to run away? When people want to board, they should board.