Part 1

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TEMPTATIONS

_A BOOK OF SHORT STORIES_

TEMPTATIONS

_A BOOK OF SHORT STORIES_

BY DAVID PINSKI

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE YIDDISH BY DR. ISAAC GOLDBERG

LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1

_Copyright in U.S.A.; 1919, by Brentano’s_

_First published in Great Britain 1921_

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION vii

BERURIAH 3

THE TEMPTATIONS OF RABBI AKIBA 83

JOHANAN THE HIGH PRIEST 101

ZERUBBABEL 131

DRABKIN: A NOVELETTE OF PROLETARIAN LIFE 169

THE BLACK CAT 255

A TALE OF A HUNGRY MAN 277

IN THE STORM 313

INTRODUCTION

The same traits that distinguish David Pinski as a playwright characterise him also as a writer of short fiction. The noted Yiddish author is concerned chiefly with the probing of the human soul,—not that intangible and inconsequential theme of so many vapourings, dubbed mystic and symbolistic by the literary labellers,—but the hidden mainspring that initiates, and often guides, our actions. Pinski seeks to penetrate into the secret of human motive. It is not enough for him to depict the deed; he would plumb, if possible, the genetic impulse. That is why, if he must be classified, one places him among the psychological realists. He is at his best faithful to both the inner and the outer life.

Thus we find, in his numerous stories and plays, very little of the conventional heroism and villainism with which most authors are concerned, and very much of the deeply human at which the majority of authors shake their heads. This is not to say that Pinski’s work lacks heroic figures; on the contrary, in a measure it constitutes a series of noble and ennobling portraits, representing men and women who meet life face to face and are scorched by its flames. So, too, there are less inspiring personages who compromise with life and their better selves. And in the background lurks our common humanity, faintly quick with the potentialities of ignominy or greatness.

Despite his growing fame as one of the most significant dramatists now active, Pinski began his career as a writer of short stories. He has been recognised as the first Yiddish author to give artistic treatment to the Yiddish proletariat, and no small part of his life has been sacrificed to the cause of the oppressed and the disinherited. His earlier works, both in fiction and in the drama, were devoted to the depiction of life among the lowly, and it is characteristic of the man that he does not allow his personal views to mar his artistic product.

It may be said that three chief periods have thus far appeared in the labours of the Yiddish author. First there is his proletarian “manner” in which the life, problems and aspirations of the Jewish workingman are portrayed in such masterly dramas as “Isaac Sheftel” (written at the age of twenty-seven) and such incisive commentaries as the best of the early tales, “Drabkin.” Then there is the genre of the biblical reconstruction, in which ancient themes are utilised for the purpose of producing thoroughly contemporary works of art. Among his plays “The Dumb Messiah” and “Mary Magdalen” represent this phase of his skill, while among the stories, “Zerubbabel” and “Beruriah” would come under this category.

There is also the treatment of sex problems, as evidenced by such plays as “Jacob the Blacksmith” and “Gabri and the Women,” and tales like “The Awakening” and “The Black Cat.”

I must confess that I am not greatly concerned with the periods and “manners” of authors; classification has little to do with genuine literary appreciation. This is all the more true in a case like Pinski’s, since the various phases of his work follow no chronological order, and often appear side by side, as it were, in the same work. Take for instance the first tale in this book, “Beruriah,” which I consider one of the greatest short stories ever written, insofar as the wide reading of a single person in some half dozen or more languages can substantiate such a statement. Who shall say that the tale is mere reconstruction or elaboration of a Talmudic legend, or a problem in love, or a psychological study, or even a symbolic story? It is all of these, and something more. Who shall say that “Drabkin” is merely a proletarian narrative? To be sure, the background is furnished by the humble Jewish operatives, but is the tale itself any the less universal on that account? Is it any the less a problem in love? Is it any the less a satire upon human foibles, with the same essential theme as Pinski’s remarkable work of genius, “The Treasure,”—one of the outstanding dramas of the century?

The truth is that Pinski harmonises and renders universal almost everything he touches. From an insignificant three or four line suggestion in the Talmud he elaborates a “Beruriah,” producing one of the most striking female portraits that has come from an author peculiarly rich in well-drawn women. Out of various strands from Jewish history he weaves a “Zerubbabel,” which flames with a Jewish patriotism particularly contemporary in application. Nor is this intense devotion any more exclusively Jewish than the crumbling of world-philosophies depicted in the epic play, “The Last Jew.”

This human and universal touch is rendered all the more evident by the author’s attitude, both in life and in the stories that are the product of his actual experience, toward the oppressed and the disinherited whose champion he is. With him the independence of the writer is almost a religion; so much so that he is just as ready to voice fearlessly the faults of his own people as he is to glorify their historic and racial virtues. He reveals them to themselves, and is as little compromising with them as with any other. If he knows their nobility, he knows, too, their pettiness; he sees them in their climb up Mount Sinai to talk with the Lord, and in their grovelling over the heaps of mire called money-making.

Yet it is no part of his art or his purpose to sit in judgment. Indeed, one of the noblest notes arising from the author’s work as a whole is the spirit of “Judge not.” This human note rings from “Mary Magdalene” (an entirely original treatment of the fecund theme, superior, in my opinion, to both Paul Heyse’s and Maurice Maeterlinck’s plays upon the same subject) as from the excellent tales “The Temptation of Rabbi Akiba” and “High Priest Johanan.” He who beholds in such stories as these only a biblical or religious strain, misses more than half of their beauty. Rabbi Akiba and High Priest Johanan are not spirits of an ancient age, individuals of a departed civilisation. Far from it. They are you and I. “Beruriah” is by no means the virtuous wife of an overwrought Rabbi. She is an eternal type; she can be found in the Talmud, in the Icelandic sagas, in a play by Ibsen, in a novel by Hardy; she is Antigone, she is Candida; she is the soul of woman clothed in tragic beauty.

Pinski’s tales, then, of which the following comprise the first series, demand universal appreciation but little less than his dramas. Theirs is that rare beauty which is an indissoluble union of manner and matter. In the original, they represent the most melodious Yiddish that has been written,—a powerful refutation of the unthinking scorn of those who refer to the tongue as a jargon. They are for men and women who read with the mind as well as the eye.

ISAAC GOLDBERG.

Roxbury, Mass. March, 1919.

BERURIAH

DEDICATED

TO THE EVERLASTING MEMORY OF MY BELOVED LITTLE SON

GABRI

(Born March 11, 1909; Died August 14, 1916)

This tale, which I began forty-two hours before his death, in the happy certainty that his slight illness would quickly pass, and without the slightest presentiment that I and his wonderful mother would soon have to seek consolation in it.

THE AUTHOR

BERURIAH

I

Blessed with all the virtues was Beruriah, wife of the noted Master, Rabbi Mayer. It was at the time that God’s heart was filled with pity for the Jewish people, which had just lost its independence and its freedom, and from under His heavenly throne He summoned her soul, and sent her down to earth. “Go, and rejoice the hearts of the wretched and exiled. Go, and bring gladness to the sad and mournful. Let him that beholds you know that life is worth the living, and understand that he has an Almighty Lord who can create glory, and let him praise and bless my Name.”

And therefore was she called Beruriah,—the chosen of God. The Romans, however, called her Valeria,—the blessed one.

So beautiful she was, that at the most glorious sunset, the eyes of the worshipful onlookers wandered from the sun to her and from her to the sun, and none could be sure which was the greater beauty or which the greater miracle. But at the consecration of the moon she dare not show herself upon the street, lest the moon take flight before the greater beauty, and pious Jews be helpless quite to bless it. Whenever she walked along the way, all passers-by stood still, lest they fall into a ditch at their feet or stumble across a rock in their path, for all eyes were turned only upon her. And those who toiled heavily were wont to say, when they had beheld her, “The sight was even as balm to our weary limbs. Now will our labours once again seem light.” And those who sat within doors also said, “Was not our house just radiant with a loving glow? Beruriah must have passed beneath our window.” And then the sages introduced a new blessing, with which Jews should hymn the praises of the Lord for having shared His beauty with a mortal.

Wise was she, too; so that the old men of her time queried, “Shall we not don women’s garb and surrender our men’s habits to her? For before her we are like old women in whom the little sense they had has long evaporated, while she possesses the wisdom of all our years added together.” And when a husband scolded his wife, saying that women had much hair but little brains, the wife would retort: “And what of Beruriah?” Then the husband would see that he had been hasty, and that his own wife was more clever than he, since she had so cunningly reminded him of Beruriah. Whereupon the sages introduced a new blessing, with which Jews should chant the praises of the Lord for having shared His wisdom with a mortal.

But Beruriah was deeply learned, too. In the written lore of the Holy Law she was as sure as if she trod upon a beaten path, and the oral commentaries reposed within her as securely as sacred books within their closet. Great keenness of intellect in her was merged with clear simplicity, and the Torah is a field that may be worked with these tools alone. Many a tangle did Beruriah unravel, and many an obscure spot did she illuminate. Her word and her interpretations were esteemed as highly as those of her own husband, the renowned Talmudist Rabbi Mayer. But of this same Rabbi Mayer, who was the greatest of his epoch, and who was so subtle that he could demonstrate the purity of a reptile in one hundred and fifty different ways, it was said: “Small wonder that he knows so much and that he is so acute. For Beruriah is his wife!”

Rabbi Mayer, however, heeded the words but little, and felt no affront, for he was very proud of her and loved her boundlessly. And every day he would utter in his prayers, “A wondrous jewel hast Thou created, and of all Thy servants, Thou hast chosen me to be illuminated by its brilliancy. How shall I thank Thee, God?”

II

And Rabbie Mayer’s students said, “Beruriah has been blessed with all the virtues, and she is to Rabbi Mayer a wondrous jewel with which God has chosen to glorify our master; yet is not her heart but the weak heart of a woman? And even as the flashes of the jewel, do not human passions play and contend within her? Who can assure us that her ears are sealed against the seductive speeches that fall upon her like glowing sparks and melt her heart like wax? Blessed, too, with all the virtues was Mother Eve, of whom all later generations of women are but a reflection, and yet her ears were open to the serpent. And where Eve succumbed, surely Beruriah will not be able to resist.”

Thus spoke Rabbi Mayer’s pupils among themselves, until at last it came to the ears of the great Teacher. At first he was deeply incensed and his anger boiled like the seething waters of a fiery cauldron. He wished to confront his disciples in all his fury and drive them forth. How dare they question her virtue and her purity,—her will of steel against all tempting tongues! Was not Beruriah a holiday-child of God’s, and did not he who insulted her desecrate the holy day,—was he not a sinner unworthy of sitting before Rabbi Mayer, hearing him expound the Torah?

But he who could demonstrate the purity of a reptile in one hundred and fifty different ways, soon changed his course of thought. Were he to drive forth his disciples for the doubt they had uttered regarding Beruriah, they would take leave and declare, “Had we been wrong in our doubts Rabbi Mayer would have laughed us to scorn, and would soon have forgotten our words. But because they are well-founded he flew at once into a rage and cast us forth from him.”

His seething anger became now an immense scorn, but his sharp mind kept thinking further: Wicked is man’s tongue and low the doubts of his heart. To prove the purity of a reptile one must be a Rabbi Mayer, but to render a Beruriah impure, one need be merely a reptile. They would not cease talking until the day on which she died, and when her glorious soul would depart from her glorious body, unsullied and pure of sin, they would say, “She died pure, because no serpent tested her,—because the Lord never tried her with temptations.” And they would speak even more: “God tries the strong alone; and knowing how weak was Beruriah’s heart against the tempter, He did not try her and shielded her from seduction.”

At this thought an oppressive weakness overpowered his entire body, and his high forehead was bedewed with sweat. What was he to do to keep the venomous tongues from stinging Beruriah? How was he to act so that every thought of her should be as pure as her own heart?

His deep wisdom pondered, and soon whispered a reply: “Let them test her!”

A shudder rippled through him, and it was as if he must feel shame before the four walls in whose shelter he had dared to think such thoughts. Yet he could not free himself from that one suggestion; it was the one way out. Through such a test of Beruriah all evil mouths would be stopped forever, and all would see that his wife Beruriah had a heart as pure as her spirit,—that her virtue was as great as her beauty,—that her fidelity to him was as great as her wisdom. And then indeed would they behold how great was God’s grace to their generation, in which Beruriah lived,—and how great was he himself in the eyes of the Lord that he should have been given her for a wife.

And Rabbi Mayer pondered for one day, and two, and three. He lost all desire for food, and sleep forsook him. Ideas multiplied within him with the rapidity of lightning; one thought generated another, supported it, refuted it. Mountains and mountains of thoughts,—deep, keen, far-reaching. And among them were thoughts that shamed him in his own eyes,—that stirred his unrest and kindled a wrath against his very self. How did they ever come to him? These doubts,—how could they ever have entered his soul? How could he,—he, of all men, who knew her heart so well and to whom her thoughts were as an open book? Had she not shown enough how pious and strong she was, at the death of her two children? Had not all the world then seen that his Beruriah was unparalleled?

But the pious Master who had compared the power of Satan with the power of the Lord, and had issued a thousand admonitions against the Evil One, tremblingly sought protection for him and his one fear of the Evil Spirit. And in shame, with quivering lips, he whispered, “Forgive me, Beruriah, my holy one. But let them now subject you to the test!”

III

Whereupon Rabbi Mayer assembled all his students, and spoke to them.

“Your words about my wife Beruriah have reached me, and your doubts concerning her have come to my ears. When one feels doubt about his companion groundlessly, what is that companion to do? Shall he not come and say, ‘What is the ground for your suspicion, and how have I called forth your misgivings?’ And shall he not say, ‘You are a wicked comrade, else should you have raised no doubts against me, since there is no foundation for them.’ Shall I not tell you all that you are evil minds, unworthy of sitting before me, since your own thoughts are base and you yourselves are a toy in the hands of seduction? Wherefore you doubt, too, the purity of my wife Beruriah? Would I not be right to dismiss you all from me, damming the stream of my learning against you?”

A terror descended upon the disciples and they were tossed in deep disquietude. Those among them who, more than the others, had uttered the doubts and spread them, sat rooted, with downcast eyes, abashed and crestfallen. But those who had simply listened to the doubts, without repeating them, looked about in fear and consternation, as if seeking the guilty. And one arose, saying, “Rabbi, surely you will not punish those who listened, even as those who uttered?”

Rabbi Mayer replied, “The same penalty for those who listened as for those who spoke. For not alone is the mouse the thief, but the hole also.”

Whereupon the disciples began to murmur, softly and sheepishly, “But we doubt no longer.”

Rabbi Mayer laughed.

“Wise pupils have I in you, and to think that _you_ will spread the Law through Israel! Such as _you_ will prove a reptile pure in only one way: when it will profit you.”

The disciples were now dejected more than ever. And Rabbi Mayer spoke again to them, as was his practice, through a parable.

“A fox met a hen, and said to her, ‘I have heard that you doubt my being the most virtuous of creatures. For that I will straightway devour you.’ The hen was seized with fear and cried, entreatingly, ‘I do not doubt it, and if I ever did, I will never doubt it again.’ And the fox, who was in a pleasant humour because his stomach was full, spoke again to her: ‘This time I let you free. But remember, should you ever in future express the slightest doubt, you will be as good as dead.’ Whereupon the hen took oath that never should she express the slightest doubt. But when the fox had released her and gone on his way, she snuggled her head in between her wings and furtively thought to herself that there was none so wicked as the fox.”

And now Rabbi Mayer raised his voice and said, “No, not with intimidation would I banish the doubts you feel concerning my wife Beruriah. For after all, you will take refuge deep in your hearts, and admonish your thoughts never to dare rise to your lips. You will tell yourselves that you are right, but that because you did not wish to lose me, you pretended to be convinced. I wish, however, that all doubts truly cease,—that they be driven from your hearts and that your souls be cleansed of them.”

The disciples sat still, as if considering how this might come to pass, and one among them who was not over careful, blurted out, “If _you_ will cease to doubt, so will we, too.”

At first Rabbi Mayer’s face grew fiery red, but he uttered not a word, as if to refrain from speaking in great anger. Then his countenance turned ghastly pale, sunken and wan from surging, volcanic wrath. Then he spoke:

“Woe unto him whose thoughts are those of a fool, but greater woe still if he master not his lips. Did you then doubt, at first, because _I_ doubted? Who of you will dare to rise and say that Rabbi Mayer doubted his wife Beruriah? But those doubts which you could not conceal within yourselves, and had to drool out and pour into others’ ears, even as venomous snakes, have become like the source of a plague, spreading pestilence to right and to left, near and afar. Even I have caught the contagion of your doubt, and, as you speak, so speak I now myself. ‘Perhaps Beruriah is true to me because no tempter ever sought her ear.’”

Those of the disciples who had been first to sow the seed of doubt wished to lift their heads in triumph, but they refrained, content to smile within their hearts, and barely able to keep the smile from prancing to their lips. But the wise Rabbi Mayer had noticed the spark of triumph that had flashed in their eyes, and thundered forth in tones that scattered terror:

“Never have I entertained doubt of my wife Beruriah. Nor has the slightest suspicion assailed me as to the purity of her heart. But your evil venom has corroded my being, and the stench of your words has grown foul thoughts within me. Now I tell myself, ‘The apple is wondrous fair, but who can say what passes in its heart?’ This have you wrought with the poison of your doubts: that Rabbi Mayer should feel uncertainty as to the virtue of Beruriah, his wife. Shall I not drive you from me with rods and curses? But no. I have determined otherwise. What does one do to learn whether the beautiful apple be sound at the core? He cuts it open. I, too, will cut open, will peer into, Beruriah’s heart; I will test her soul. And hear, now, what I have resolved upon: For thirty days I will not appear to her in Tiberias,—and thirty days, I believe, will be enough to test the power of a woman’s virtue, when her husband is absent from her. And you—choose from among you one who shall take it upon himself to be her tempter—.”

IV

More than one heart quaked as Rabbi Mayer uttered these words. The possible companionship with the wonderful Beruriah coursed like a hot stream from head to foot in many a student. But strongest of all beat the heart of handsome Simeon, son of Rabbi Ismael, and he had to close his eyes because of the flood of passion that inundated him.