Part 21

Wherein the shame and the disgrace consisted, why and before whom I felt ashamed, to this day I do not know. And yet, on account of the shame and the disgrace, I did not take the shortest way back to the soup-kitchen, but I went round by several streets.

At last I arrived.

The first room, the dining-room, was empty.

The Gehenna of day-time is cooling down, the steam rises higher and higher from the damp floor, and creates a new "heaven" and a new "firmament" between the waters below (from off the feet of the poor people) and the waters above (the drops formed by the vapor). Here and there the drops come raining through.

Thanks to a little window, I can see into the kitchen.

The drowsy cook with the untidy head leans with her left hand on the great kettle and lifts the big soup-spoon lazily to her mouth.

The second, the kitchen-maid, is shredding macaroni for to-morrow noon. She, too, looks sleepy. The superintendent is counting meal tickets distributed by the committee.

There is no one else visible. I cast a look under the tables--no trace of the little boy. I am too late!

"But at least," I think, as I leave the kitchen, "nobody saw me!"

Suddenly I remember that I have been walking the streets for several hours.

Whatever is the matter with me? I mutter, and begin to pace homeward.

I am quite glad to find everyone asleep.

I throw off my goloshes in the entrance, steal up to my room and into bed.

But I had a bad night. Tired out, chilled, and wet through, it was long before I ceased coughing and got warm--a continual shiver ran through my bones. I did not get really to sleep till late in the morning, and then my dreams began to torment me in earnest.

I started out of sleep bathed in cold perspiration, sprang out of bed, and went to the window. I look out; the sky is full of stars--the stars look like diamonds set in iron--they roll on so proudly, so calmly, and so high.

There is a tearing wind blowing at the back--the whole house shakes.

I went back to bed, but I slept no more, I only dozed. My dreams were broken, but the little boy was the centre of them all.

Every time I saw him in a new place: there he lies asleep out in the street--there he crouches on some steps in an archway--once, even, devils are playing ball with him--he flies from hand to hand through the air--later on I come across him lying frozen in a rubbish-box.

I held out till morning and then I flew to the soup-kitchen.

He is there!

Had I not been ashamed, I should have washed the grime off his face with tears of thankfulness. Had I not been afraid of my wife, I should have led him home as my own child. He is there--I am _not_ his murderer!

Well!

And I held out a ten kopek piece.

He takes it wondering; he does not know what a kindness he has done me.

Long life to him!

And next day, when he begged me for another groschen, I did _not_ give it him, but this time I uttered no word of reproof--what is more, I went away ashamed, not satisfied with myself.

I can really and truly not afford it, but my heart is sore: why can I not afford it?

* * * * *

My grandfather, on whom be peace, was not so far wrong when he used to say:

"Whoever is not pious, lives in sorrow of heart and dies without consolation."

XXIV

UNDERGROUND

A big underground lodging room full of beds.

Freude, the tatterdemalion, has been asleep for some time on her chest, in her corner between the stove and the wall.

To-day she went to bed early, because to-morrow is fair-day in a neighboring town, and she will have to be astir betimes in order to drive there with the grease. But she lies uneasy--there is trouble and worry in store.

She had arranged with the driver to take her, Freude, and the _small_ barrel, and now, just as she was going to sleep, it occurred to her that it would be better to take the big one.

She tosses from side to side on her couch.

"Plague take a woman's tongue!" she mutters then, exclaiming against herself:

"The _small_ barrel! Whatever for? To please the driver? Driver be blessed! Can't he give his horses a few more oats for once?"

Grumbling thus over the stupidity of a woman's tongue, she has just managed to doze off. From beneath the counterpane appears a red kerchief that falls dangling round about her face and her pointed red and blue nose.

She breathes heavily, and presses one bony hand to her old heart. Who knows what she is dreaming? Perhaps that the driver has broken his word, and she is left for a whole year without Parnosseh.

The opposite corner belongs to Yoneh the water-carrier.

The wife and two children sleep in one bed, and Yoneh with the elder Cheder boy in another.

Now and then a sigh issues from the beds. Here also people have lain down in sorrow.

The little Cheder boy has been crying for money to pay the rabbi his fee.

And the eldest daughter was left without a situation. She had been doing well, as servant to a couple without children. Suddenly her mistress died. So she came home--she could not stay on alone with the widower.

There were a few rubles owing to her in wages--they would have been just enough to pay the rabbi--but the widower says it is no concern of his, his wife never mentioned it, and he doesn't know--he never mixes himself up with the affairs of women.

They quarrelled a little before going to sleep. The mother advised going to the Jewish court, the daughter was in favor of writing a petition either to the _natchàlnik_[1] or to the _mirovòi_.[139]

Yoneh will not hear of doing one or the other.

The widower will take his revenge, and get Yoneh a bad name among the householders: "He has only to snap his fingers and there's an end of me!" How many water-carriers are there already loafing about with nothing to do since they started the new water-supply?

Beril, the porter, all by himself in an upper bed, is snoring away like a broken-winded horse. The two children sleep together in another place. His wife is a cook, and this evening she has a wedding supper on hand.

Here, too, rest is broken.

Beril has an ache going through his bones, one after the other, and the eldest son sighs frequently in his sleep. He works in a lime-kiln and has burnt his foot.

Further on lies another snorer alone in a bed: Tzirel, the street-seller. In the second bed sleep all three children. Her husband is a watchman. No sooner has _he_ come in than _she_ will go out, with bread and fresh rolls.

We are already in the third corner, where stands another--this time an iron bedstead.

A flushed, unhealthy-looking woman's head is set off by a bundle of rags that serve as pillow.

Her prematurely parched lips open frequently, and a heavy sigh escapes them. Her husband's profession is a hard one, and he has no luck. Last week, at the risk of his life, he conveyed away a copper kettle and buried it in the sand outside the town--and it was discovered. Who knows what he will bring home to-night? Perhaps he is already in jail. It is three weeks since she set on to boil so much as a kettleful of water--and they are clamoring for the rent.

"A hard life and no luck!" sigh the parched lips. "And one has to be on one's guard against neighbors. They are always asking: 'What is your husband's trade? What keeps him out so late?'"

Over all the beds flickers a pale light from the centre of the room. It rises from between four canvas walls that bound the kingdom of a young married couple.

Treine, the young housewife, is still awake. She has only been married two months, and she is waiting for her husband, who will presently return from the house-of-study.

The oil lamp is burning and throws pale patches on to the blackened ceiling. A few feeble rays come through the rents in the canvas walls and dance upon the beds with the poor, worn-out faces.

In Treine's kingdom all is brighter and cleaner.

Between the two beds, on a little white table, lies a prayer-book flanked by two little metal candle-sticks, her wedding gifts. Wedding garments hang on the wall, also a Tallis bag with the Shield of David embroidered on it.

But there are no chairs in the kingdom. Treine sits on one of the beds, making a net to hold the onions which are lying beside her, scattered over the sheet. The soup for supper is keeping hot under the bed-clothes.

The door of the big room opens softly. Treine's cheeks flush, she lets the net fall out of her hands, and springs off the bed. But then she remains standing--it would never do before all the neighbors. One of them might wake, and she would never hear the last of it. The neighbors are bad enough as it is, especially Freude. Freude cannot understand a wife not beginning to scold her husband the very next day after the wedding. "Just you wait," she says, the old cat, "you'll see the life he'll lead you--when it's too late." Freude leaves her no peace.

"A husband," she says, "who is not led by the nose is worse than a wolf. He sucks the marrow out of your bones, the blood out of your veins!"

It is ten years now since Freude had a husband, and she has not got her strength back yet. And Freude is a clever woman, she knows a lot.

"Anything that he has a right to," she says, "fling it out to him as you would a bone to a dog, and--"

Treine has time to recollect all this, because it is some minutes before Yössele manages to steal on tiptoe past all the beds. Every step he takes echoes at her heart, but as to going out to meet him--not for any money. There--he nearly fell! Now he is just outside the partition walls. She breathes again.

"Good evening!" he says in a low voice, with downcast eyes.

"A good year to you!" she answers lower still. Then: "Are you hungry?" she asks.

"Are _you_? Wait."

He slips out between the partitions and returns with washed and dripping hands.

She gives him a towel.

On a corner of the table there is some bread and some salt and the now uncovered soup.

He sits down on his bed, on the top of all the bed-clothes, she on hers, with the onions.

They eat slowly, talking with their eyes--what about, do you think?--and with their lips about the way to earn a living.

"Well, how are you getting on?"

"Oh," he sighs, "three pupils already!"

"And that is all we have to depend on?" she asks sadly.

"_Ma!_" he answers with gentle reproach.

"God be praised!" she is consoling herself and him together.

"God be praised; but that only makes one hundred and twenty rubles," he sighs.

"Well, why do you sigh?"

"Add it up," he answers; "one ruble a week rent, that's twenty-six rubles a season. And then I'm in debt--there were wedding expenses."

"What do you mean?" she asks astonished.

He smiles.

"Silly little thing! My father couldn't afford to give us anything more than his consent."

"Well, what do they come to altogether?" she interrupts.

"Altogether," he goes on, "twelve rubles. That makes thirty-eight. What remains over for food?"

She calculates:

"Eighty-two, I suppose."

"For twenty-six weeks."

"Well, after all," she says, "it's over three rubles a week."

"And what," he asks sadly, "what about wood--and candles--Sabbaths and holidays?"

"_Ett_, God is faithful," she tries to cheer him, "and I can do something, too. Look, I have bought some onions. Eggs are very cheap. I will buy some eggs, too. In a week or so, perhaps, five dozen eggs will yield a little profit."

"But just calculate," he persists, "what we must spend on firing and lights."

"Why, next to nothing. Perhaps one ruble a week. That leaves us--"

"And Sabbaths and holidays! Child, what are you thinking of?" And the word "child" falls so softly, so kindly, from his lips, that she must needs smile.

"Come, say the Blessing, quick!" she says, "and let other things be till to-morrow. It's time to go to sleep."

Then she feels ashamed, lowers her eyelids, and says as if she were excusing herself:

"You come so late!" with a yawn that is half a sham.

He leans toward her across the little table.

"Silly child," he whispers, "I come in late on purpose, so that we may eat together, do you see? For a teacher, you know, it's not the thing."

"Well, well, say the Blessing!" she repeats, shutting her eyes tighter. He closes his, he _wants_ to say it seriously. But his eyes keep opening of themselves. He presses down his eyelids, but there remains a chink through which he sees her, in a strangely colored light, so that he cannot do otherwise than look at her. She is tired--he feels sorry for her. He sees her trying to sit further back on the bed and letting her head rest against the wall. She will go to sleep like that, he thinks.

"Why not take a pillow?" he would like to say, almost crossly, but he cannot--ahem, ahem--

But she doesn't hear. He hurries through the Blessing, finishes it, stands up, and there remains, not knowing what to do next.

"Treine," he calls, but so low, it could not wake her. He goes up to her bed and bends over her.

Her face smiles, it looks so sweet--she must be dreaming of something pleasant--how beautifully she smiles--it would be a shame to wake her! Only her little head will hurt--_öi_, what hair she must have had--he has looked at her curls, long, black hair--all shorn now[140]--her cap is a thin embroidered one, with holes--she _is_ a beauty! He smiles, too.

But she must be woke. He bends lower and feels her breath--he draws it in hastily--she attracts him like a magnet--half-unconsciously he touches her lips with his own.

"I wasn't asleep at all!" she says suddenly, and opens a pair of mischievous, laughing eyes. She throws her arms round his shoulders and pulls him down to her. "Never mind," she whispers into his ear, and her voice is very sweet, "never mind! God is good and will help us--was it not He who brought us together? He will not forsake us. There will be firing and lights--there will be enough to live on--it will be all right--everything will be right--won't it, Yössele? Yes, it will!"

He makes no reply. He is trembling all over.

She pushes him a little further away.

"Look at me, Yössele!" it occurs to her to say.

Yössele wishes to obey, and cannot.

"Poor wretch," she says gently, "not accustomed to it yet--ha?"

He wants to hide his head in her breast, but she will not allow him to.

"Why are you ashamed, wretch? You can kiss, but you won't look!"

He would rather kiss her, but she will not allow him.

"_Please_, look at me!"

Yössele opens his eyes wide, but not for long.

"Oh, please!" she says, and her voice is softer, "silkier" than ever.

He looks. This time it is _her_ lids that fall.

"Just tell me," she says, "only please tell me the truth, am I a pretty woman?"

"Yes!" he whispers, and she feels his breath hot on her cheek.

"Who told you?"

"Can't I see for myself? You are a queen--a queen!"

"And tell me, Yössele," she continues, "shall you be always just as--just the same?"

"What do you mean by that, Treine?"

"I mean," her voice shakes, "just as fond of me?"

"What a question!"

"Just as dear?"

"What next?"

"Always?"

"Always!" he is confident.

"Shall you always eat with me?"

"Of course," he answers.

"And--and you will never scold me?"

"_Never._"

"Never make me unhappy?"

"Unhappy? I? You? What do you mean? Why?"

"_I_ don't know, Freude says...."

"_Wa_--the witch!"

He draws nearer to her. She pushes him back.

"Yössele?"

"What is it?"

"Tell me--what is my name?"

"Treine!"

"_Phê!_" the small mouth makes a motion of disgust.

"Treinishe," he corrects himself.

She is not pleased yet.

"Treininyu!"

"No!"

"Well then--Treine my life, Treine my crown, Treine my heart--will that do?"

"Yes," she answers happily, "only--"

"What now, my life, my delight?"

"Only--listen, Yössele,--and--" she stammers.

"And what?"

"And when--if you should be out of work any time--and when I am not earning much--then perhaps, perhaps--you will scold."

The tears come into her eyes.

"God forbid! God forbid!"

He forces his head out of her hands, and flings himself upon her parted lips.

* * * * *

"Plague take you altogether, head and hands and feet!" a voice comes from beneath the partition. "Honey-mooning, as I'm alive! There's no closing an eye--"

It is the husky, acidly-spiteful voice of Freude, the tatterdemalion.

XXV

BETWEEN TWO MOUNTAINS

(Between the Rabbi of Brisk and the Rebbe of Byàle)

A Simchas Torah Tale

TOLD BY AN OLD TEACHER

I

Of course you have heard of the Brisk Rabbi and the Byàle Rebbe, but it is not everyone who knows that the holy man of Byàle, Reb Nòach'ke, was at one time the Brisk Rabbi's pupil, that he studied a good couple of years with him, then disappeared for another two, and finally emerged from his voluntary exile as a distinguished man in Byàle.

And he left for this reason:

They studied Torah, with the Brisk Rabbi, only the Rebbe felt that it was _dry_ Torah. For instance, one learns about questions regarding women, or about "meat in milk," or else about a money matter--very well. Reuben and Simon come with a dispute, or there comes a maid-servant or a woman with a question of ritual, and that very moment the study becomes a delight, it is all alive and is there for a purpose.

But like this, without them, the Rebbe felt the Torah, that is, the body of the Torah, the explanation, what lies on the surface, is dry. That, he felt, is not the Law of life. Torah must live! The study of Kabbalah books was not allowed in Brisk. The Brisk Rabbi was a Misnagid, and by nature "revengeful and relentless as a serpent;" if anyone ventured to open a Zohar, a Pardes, he would scold and put him under a ban. Somebody was caught reading a Kabbalah-book, and the Rabbi had his beard shaven by Gentiles! What do you think? The man became distraught, fell into a melancholy, and, what is more wonderful, no "good Jew" was able to help him. The Brisk Rabbi was no trifle, I can tell you! And how was anyone just to get up and go away from his academy?

Reb Nòach'ke couldn't make up his mind what to do for a long time.

Then he was shown a dream. He dreamed that the Brisk Rabbi came in to him and said: "Come, Nòach, I will take you into the terrestrial Garden of Eden." And he took his hand and led him away thither. They came into a great palace. There were no doors and no windows in this palace, except for the door by which they came in. And yet it was light, for the walls, as it seemed to the Rebbe, were of crystal and gave out a glittering shine.

And so they went on, further and further, and one saw no end to it.

"Hold on to my skirt," said the Brisk Rabbi, "there are halls without doors and without number, and if you let go of me, you will be lost forever."

The Rebbe obeyed, and they went further and further, and the whole way he saw no bench, no chair, no kind of furniture, nothing at all!

"There is no resting here," explained the Brisk Rabbi, "one goes on and on!" And he followed, and every hall was longer and brighter than the last, and the walls shone now with this color and now with that, here with several, and there with all colors--but they did not meet with a single human being on their way.

The Rebbe grew weary walking. He was covered with perspiration, a cold perspiration. He grew cold in every limb, beside which his eyes began to hurt him, from the continual brilliancy.

And there came over him a great longing, a longing after Jews, after companions, after All-Israel. It was no trifle, not meeting a single soul.

"Long after no one," said the Brisk Rabbi, "this is a palace for me and for you--you will also, some day, be Rabbi of Brisk."

And the other was more terrified than ever, and laid his hand against the wall to help himself from falling. And the wall burnt him. Only not as fire burns, but as ice burns.

"Rabbi!" he gave a cry, "the walls are ice, simply ice!"

The Brisk Rabbi was silent. And the other cried again:

"Rabbi, take me away hence! I do not wish to stay alone with you! I wish to be with All-Israel!"

And hardly had he said it when the Brisk Rabbi disappeared, and he was left alone in the palace.

He knew of no way, no in and no out; a cold terror struck him from the walls; and the longing for a Jew, to see a Jew, if only a cobbler or a tailor, waxed stronger and stronger. He began to weep.

"Lord of the world," he begged, "take me away from here. Better in Gehenna with All-Israel than here one by himself!"

And immediately there appeared before him a common Jew with the red sash of a driver round him, and a long whip in his hand. The Jew took him silently by the sleeve, led him out of the palace--and vanished. Such was the dream that was sent him.

When he woke, before daylight, when it had scarcely begun to dawn, he understood that this had been no ordinary dream. He dressed quickly, and hastened toward the house-of-study to get his dream interpreted by the learned ones who pass the night there. On his way through the market, however, he saw a covered wagon standing, and beside it--the driver with a red sash round the waist, a long whip in his hand, and altogether just such a Jew as the one who had led him out of the palace in his dream.

Nòach (it struck him there was something behind the coincidence) went up to him and asked:

"Whither drives a Jew?"

"Not _your_ way," answered the driver, very roughly.

"Well, tell me anyway," he continued. "Perhaps I will go with you!"

The driver considered a little, and then answered:

"And can't a young fellow like you go on foot?" he asked. "Go along with you, _your_ way!"

"And whither shall I go?"

"Follow your nose!" answered the driver, "it's not my business."

The Rebbe understood, and now began his "exile."

A few years later, as before said, he emerged into publicity in Byàle. How it all happened I won't tell you now, although it's enough to make anyone open his mouth and ears. And about a year after this happened, a Byàle householder, Reb Yechiel his name was, sent for me as a teacher.

At first I would not accept the post of teacher in his house.

You must know that Reb Yechiel was a rich man of the old-fashioned type, he gave his daughters a thousand gold pieces dowry, and contracted alliances with the greatest rabbis, and his latest daughter-in-law was a daughter of the Rabbi of Brisk.

You can see for yourselves that if the Brisk Rabbi and the other connections were Misnagdîm, Reb Yechiel had to be a Misnagid, too--and I am a Byàle Chossid, well--how could I go into a house of that kind?

And yet I felt drawn to Byàle. You can fancy! The idea of living in the same town as the Rebbe! After a good deal of see-sawing, I went.

And Reb Yechiel himself turned out to be a very honest, pious Jew, and I tell you, his heart was drawn to the Rebbe as if with pincers. He was no learned man, himself, and he stared at the Rabbi of Brisk as a cock looks at a prayer-book.[141] He made no objections to my holding to the Byàle Rebbe, only he would have nothing to do with him himself. When I told anything about the Rebbe, he would pretend to yawn, and yet I could see that he pricked up his ears, but his son, the son-in-law of the Brisk Rabbi, would frown and look at me with mingled anger and contempt, only he never argued; he was silent by nature.

And it came to pass on a day that Reb Yechiel's daughter-in-law, the Brisk Rabbi's daughter, was expecting the birth of her first child--well, there is nothing new in that, you say? But "thereby hangs a tale." It was well known that the Brisk Rabbi, because he had shaved a Chossid, that is, caused him to be deprived of beard and ear-locks, was made to suffer by the prominent Rebbes. Both his sons (not of you be it said!) died within five or six years, and not one of his three daughters had a boy, beside which every child they bore nearly cost them their life.

Everyone saw and knew that it was a visitation of the great Rebbes on the Brisk Rabbi, only he himself, for all his clear-sightedness, did not see it. He went on his way as before, carrying on his opposition by means of force and bans.