Part 12

He staggered along, casting glances in every direction and knitting his brows so as to see more clearly through the thickly falling snow. He had no notion of whither he was going, nor was he at all interested. He was moving so as not to remain on the same spot. He peered more intently than ever, although he felt that he would see nothing but large snow-flakes. One thing he knew very well, that he wanted and must have something to eat, even if the world came to an end. “Food, food, food!” he groaned within him desperately.

He reached the municipal garden. The pleasure-spot was situated upon a high hill, at the foot of which flowed the broad, deep river. During the winter there was usually skating on the river, and above, in the garden, a crowd of curious onlookers. But now there was not a trace of a human being in the garden. Not even the lamps were visible through the thick snow. They illuminated only the space within a few paces of them. Itsye was at a loss whether to feel vexed or not at the absence of people. He did not look back, and continued on his way. He approached the top of the hill and looked down upon the frozen river. He could see nothing. There came to his ears the shrill blows of heavy iron. Moujiks were opening a hole in the ice. And in his weary thoughts he beheld a broad, deep hole down there, and he was drawn thither. The suggestion came to him to hurl himself down from the hill into the deep stream. He would raise no outcry; he would not call for help. He would drown himself quite silently. But he recognised that this was merely a thought; the important thing was that he felt very weak and was ravenously hungry. “Food, food, food!” He looked about, as if he would have liked to see something eatable in the garden. Before him was only the endlessly falling snow. Snow below him, snow on the bare trees, snow in the air. His legs bent beneath him—now, now he was about to fall. But he did not wish to fall. He desired something to eat, and gathering all his strength he continued his wanderings. Again he moved forward, not knowing whither. He walked along a deserted path, through drifts of snow that fell into his torn shoes,—all alone, the only living creature in the dark, forsaken garden. He could neither hear nor see anything. He moved along because he had nowhere to go, and particularly because he wanted something to eat, eat, eat. He thought of nothing, nor could he think if he tried. Something was driving him on, and he continued on his way with the despairing, inner groan, “Food, food, food!...”

He reached the square before the theatre. The bright gleam of the electric lights brought him to his senses. He stopped. As he did so, he came near falling. He stumbled forward and leaned against the wall of a building. He felt that his shoes were filled with snow. This, however, produced no effect whatever upon him. What did vex him was that he could scarcely stand on his feet, that his heart was fearfully weak and his desire for food persisted in growing. He would remain standing there. Whither else should he go? Here, at least, it was light, and soon he would see people. Many people,—rich, happy. And what of it if he _should_ see the wealthy, sated crowd? He would beg alms. He would say that he hadn’t eaten for three days.

Ask alms! He shuddered with repulsion at the idea. But he was so terribly hungry! He had been on the point of stealing. Which was better, stealing or begging? He leaned against the wall, threw his head back, looked with a dull glance into the snowy distance and, with his blunted mind, sought a reply.

The night-watchman approached him and pushed him away.

“What are you doing here?”

Itsye scarcely moved. He could not raise his feet.

“Do you want to be arrested?”

Itsye nearly fell; he was greatly excited, but he composed himself and gathered all his strength in a desperate effort to walk off. Ouf! He could not feel his legs. Hunks of ice! He began to kick one foot against the other.

“Well! Get a move on! Faster, there!”

Itsye snarled through his clamped teeth.

“Can’t you see I can barely move? What are you driving me for? Better ask whether I’m not hungry!”

He crossed the street. Several stores were still open. Hadn’t he better go in and beg alms? He halted before a window. He desired to consider what to do.

“I see you! I see you over there!” he heard the watchman shout.

He proceeded further along the street, at the other end, where it was almost pitch dark. There he paused for a while to kick his feet again. Then he walked along. He made a circle around the theatre and came to a halt before the entrance. There were no policemen in sight. They were inside the lobby seeking shelter from the wind and storm. Itsye remained there, hopping now on one foot, now on the other. Without any definite thoughts, utterly purposeless. He remained here because it was light, because inside sat wealthy, sated persons enjoying themselves. He recalled that he had never been to a theatre. He had never been able to spare the price. It must be very pleasant inside of a theatre, seeing that people were so enthusiastic about it. Such varieties of entertainment folks devised for themselves! And he must stand outside, covered with snow, frozen, hungry, and would be joyful if he found a piece of bread! His anger began to return. And he recollected that in the morning he had desired to do something, to wreak vengeance.... Just what had it been? He wrinkled his forehead. Just what had he meant to do?

“Ah! Much I can think up in there, now!”

He cried this out with an intense self-scorn. He was terrified at the sound of his voice, and glanced at the large glass doors. Nobody was looking at him; then he had not been heard. Whereupon this talking to himself became pleasant. It afforded distraction. So he commenced to speak. Detached phrases,—fragments of his weary, confused thoughts.

“I’ll think up something, pah!... With a knife.... Or set fire.... That’s what I ought to.... That’s something!... Let them all roast alive!... What am I standing here for?... What am I waiting for?... They wouldn’t give me anything!... They’d rather call the police!... Kaplan,—may the fires of hell seize him!”

He did not cease his chatter. And the more he spoke, the angrier he grew. He forgot his hunger, he now “felt” his heart. He cursed with imprecations as bitter as death and felt new life course through his veins. He cast all manner of accusations upon the audience inside, eating and drinking its fill and pursuing all manner of pleasures.

“To steal from those people and murder them is not a bit wrong!” he philosophised. He was now in a mood for anything at all, and would commit in absolute indifference whatever suggested itself. It seemed to him that his strength could cope with any task now,—that it was a giant’s strength.

The glass doors swung open. The gendarmes appeared, followed immediately by the crowd. Itsye remained calmly in his place. He did not even cease talking to himself. The gendarmes had not yet noticed him. They were busy with the sleighs. Itsye was therefore able to continue his conversation undisturbed.

“Here they are already!” he said. “They’ve had a good time and plenty to eat and drink, the dogs! In warm fur coats, arm in arm with their wives, or even with prostitutes....”

A few passers-by eyed the snow-covered individual.

“Drunk or crazy,” remarked one of them. They went on their way. Itsye cried after them:

“You’re drunk yourself! I’m not drunk, you curs! I’m hungry, you pimps! I robbed a poor old woman of her supper, you scamps!... I, drunk! You curs!... I’ve been hunting work for a month, cholera seize you! Not a bit in my mouth for three days, you dogs!...”

A gendarme heard his voice and approached to discover who was shouting and cursing.

“What are you screaming for? Move!”

The officer gave him a violent push.

“What are you shoving about?” cried Itsye and he raised his hand against the officer. He felt that it would be a treat to deliver a slap,—a fiery slap. He waited for one more push.

The gendarme noticed his gesture.

“Ha, you Jewish jaw!”

Itsye’s hand descended. The blow resounded loudly. A crowd gathered. Itsye desired to repeat the act. He was now wild. He wished to strike about him, strangle persons, bite. But he received a hard blow upon the head. He grew dizzy and toppled over. Now he could feel feet upon him. He knew that he was being trampled upon, but he could not open his eyes, nor could he move a limb. Soon he was lifted and dragged somewhere. With blows across the back, the head and the stomach, and with the ugliest oaths. He could not protect himself. He could not even speak. Only rave and groan horribly.

Softer and weaker became the raving and the groaning, and at last he lay quiet, motionless. Dense darkness hovered over him, enveloped him, engulfed him. His eyes were closed, but he felt the darkness. Like a heavy load it pressed down upon him. He knew, in an obscure way, that he had struck somebody and had been beaten up badly in return. And now he was quiet and peaceful, and he wondered at the peaceful feeling. He began to grope about with his hands, his eyes still closed. He struck against a hard, dusty floor. Where could he be? The question flew through his entire being in a most undistinguishable manner. With a great effort he raised his eyebrows. The dense gloom settled upon his open eyes. He could see nothing and his eyes shut heavily again. Once more he began to scrape about with his hands and opened his eyes. Wider, this time. Something dazzled him. Above, on the ceiling, shone a small grey light. It entered from the single window, which was built in high on the wall. Itsye looked first at the strip of light and then at the little window with the iron bars. He eyed it for a long time. As one who has awaked from a dream and has not yet come to himself.

Suddenly his blood rushed to his head. He sat up quickly. He recognised the bars and now realised that he was in jail. They had given him a good rubbing and had cast him into a dark hole. He became strangely warm. In a moment’s time he foresaw everything that awaited him: the blows that were yet in store,—the trial and the sentence,—prison and the prisoners’ ward work. He groaned in deep despair. Ah! And now he felt that his head pained excruciatingly; his face and his whole body, likewise. He hastened to feel his head and his face. His hat was gone. His hair was moist and sticky. He touched an open wound. With his fingers he followed the sticky trail. Blood everywhere. On his head, all over his face and on his bare chest.

He had a desire to weep at his great misery and boundless despair.

“Father!” he wished to cry, and “Mother, dear!” and “God!” Words that he had rarely used; beings he had never known. His heart contracted bitterly and he lay with his face to the floor; his body shook convulsively with his deep lamentation.

For the first time in his life was he weeping so. His was a bitter nature, and as often as life had brought him tears he had been able always to swallow them. He knew that his tears would soften nobody,—that they would only make him ridiculous. They would mock him as a soft-hearted fool; and that must never be. With teeth clenched together this wretched orphan had gone through life in eternal hostility to all about him. His eyes had been often suffused with blood, but never with tears.

Now, however, he neither could nor desired to hold them back. He wept until the tears refused to come. Then he was overcome by a fainting sensation, and he thought that death was near. It would come to him just as he lay there. He stretched himself out, closed his eyes and waited for death. To lie thus, to fall asleep forever and cease to be. To be liberated once for all from the desolate days behind him and from all the misery ahead.

He yearned for death.

“Ah, to die!”

Before his sight there began to float dead bodies that he had seen during his life. Such he desired now to become. Then he beheld before him the hanging form of water-carrier Kirillo. All at once he sat up. A certain thought had raised him: he, too, would hang himself. This waiting for death would not do. He would not die so soon, if he waited. He peered into the thick darkness and thought. The impression of his whole life rose before him. Not a single day of happiness; not a moment of rest. Years of unceasing care and of constant struggle, of laborious toil and frequent hunger. And the future threatened still worse. As black as the dense gloom about him. Long years of incarceration, in the prisoners’ ranks, and then—hunger once more.

He raised his eyes to the iron bars of the window and felt the thick rope by which his trousers were held in place. Then he looked around and cocked his ear. Was anybody there? He heard no sound. He could scarcely lift himself up. His legs barely sustained him and he was so dizzy. He reached out to the wall and leaned for a moment against it. Then, with soft step, he investigated the room, groping about with hands outstretched. Nobody was there. He had frightened some mice and could hear the patter of their retreating paws. He stopped at the window and stretched his arms upward. He could not reach the bars. In one of the corners, however, there was a bench, against which he had stumbled as he groped about the cell. With difficulty he dragged it over to the window. The effort so weakened him that he was forced to sit down. Slowly he untied the rope around his trousers. He began to fashion a noose, lapsing into thought as he did so. Once more he looked back upon the wretched past and forward into the dark future. Again he could see not a ray of light neither behind nor before. With teeth tightly clamped he made the knot and cursed life, and his heart seethed with bitter hatred for all humankind. With the self-same noose that he was now making, how gladly would he have encircled the necks of every human being and strangled the whole world. So, and so, and so!

The noose had been ready for a long time, yet he still sat meditating. He cursed and berated humanity, calling down upon it all manner of misfortune. Ah, how gladly he would revenge himself upon them!

Gradually one thing became clear to him. His death in itself would be a good vengeance. When day should come, and they would prepare to resume their ill-treatment of him, they would find him dead. Ba-a-a! A plague upon all of them! Good-bye, Itsye! No more Itsye! No more Itsye to oppress, to persecute, to abandon to starvation! They would stand before his corpse like whipped curs, crestfallen, and would vent their intense disappointment in a vile oath. Ah, that was a precious thought!

He sprang hastily to his feet, jumped upon the chair, reached to the bars and tied the rope around them. His hands trembled; he shook with fever. He poked his head into the noose and kicked over the bench.

And as the rope tightened he was seized with a desire to laugh. To laugh like a conqueror, like a master. But his eyes began to bulge out, his tongue protruded, and his face turned a pale blue.

But the protruding tongue still mocked.

“Ba-a! Good-bye, Itsye! No more Itsye!...”

IN THE STORM

IN THE STORM

A pious woman told it to me as a warning to sinners, to the young, to the moderns.

* * * * *

Black clouds began to fleck the clear sky. Dense, heavy storm-clouds. At first far off, beyond the forest, but very soon they darkened the whole sky over the village. A violent wind lashed and drove them on, and they sped under its whip, angry and sullen, menacing. The wind—a tornado—raged in all the consciousness of its formidable power, raising pillars of dust as high as the driven clouds, tearing off roofs and uprooting trees.

Terror had descended upon the village. Bright day had of a sudden turned to night, such as well befitted the Sabbath of Repentance, the Sabbath before the Day of Atonement.... As frightfully dark, as oppressively heavy as a pious Jew’s heart.

Folks shut themselves up in their houses, fastening windows and locking doors. The earnest faces of the penitent Jews became still more earnest. The depressing moods of the Sabbath of Repentance waxed still more depressing. God was scolding. The sad voices of the psalm-singers became deeper and more tearful.

The darkness grew blacker and blacker. Then old Chyene raised her eyes from the psalms, looked through her spectacles into the street, uttered “Au-hu!” with trembling heart and heaved a sigh.

For a while she sat gazing outside. She shook her head. Her whole soul was full of God’s omnipotence.

It refused to grow lighter. The clouds passed by in endless procession, and the wind howled, whirling thick pillars of dust in its path.

She could recite psalms no longer. She removed her spectacles and placed them between the pages of her thick woman’s prayer-book, rose from her seat and went into her daughter’s room.

“What do you say to....”

She did not conclude her question. Her daughter was not there.

The old woman surveyed the room, looked into the kitchen, then returned to the room. Her daughter’s bonnet was not in its place. With quivering hands she opened the closet. The jacket was missing!

She had gone! And she had warned her daughter, it seemed, not to go out to-day,—that on the Sabbath of Repentance, at least, she might remain at home and not run off to that “Apostate,” the former student.

Her aged countenance became as dark as the sky without. And her heart grew as furious as the storm. She gazed about the room as if seeking to vent her rage,—strike somebody, break something.

“Oh, may she no longer be a daughter of mine!” escaped in angry outburst from her storming bosom, and she raised her hand to heaven.

She was not affrighted by the curse that her lips had uttered on this solemn Sabbath. At this moment she could curse and shriek the bitterest words. She could have seized her now by the hair, and slapped her face ruthlessly.

Suddenly she threw a shawl over her head and dashed out of the house.

She would hunt them both out and would visit an evil end upon both of them.

A flash of lightning rent the clouds, and was followed by reverberating thunder. Then flash upon flash of lightning and crash upon crash of thunder. One more blinding than the other, one louder than the other!

The horror of the population grew greater. That it should thunder on the Sabbath of Repentance, and in such demoniac fashion! All hearts were touched, all souls went out in prayer.

Old Chyene, however, scarcely noticed this.

The wind blinded her eyes with dust, tore her scarf from her, blew her skirts about, twisted the wig on her old head.

She rushed along oblivious to all.

She neither heard nor saw anything before her. Within her it thundered and raged, it stormed and something drove her on. And before her all was dark, for her eyes were shot with blood.

Her small form grew even smaller. She strode along fairly doubled up, hastening breathlessly. She seemed to go faster than the wind. The wind lagged behind her. And whenever it caught up with her, it only spurred her on, and she quickened her step.

She did not look around, did not remark the inquisitive eyes that peered at her from behind the fastened windows by which she ran. She neither saw nor heard anything. Her entire being was merged with the fury of nature. Her thought was a curse, a horrible curse, a deadly curse. Not in words. But in her whole soul. Within her it cried, it thundered,—drowning out the thunder of the black, angry clouds.

She stormed into the “apostate’s” house. She opened the door with a loud bang and closed it with one even louder. Those in the room shuddered at the sudden intrusion and jumped to their feet. She cast a wild, hostile glance at them and dashed through the rooms, from one to the other, from the other to a third. She tore the doors open and slammed them behind her, accompanied by the thunder, as if in a wager as to which of them would make the panes and the windows rattle more violently. A little child took fright and began to cry. She ran from room to room, but neither he nor her daughter was there.

Then she flew back. On the threshold, however, she paused for a moment. She rolled her eyes heavenward and raised her arms to God.

“May flames devour this house!” came from her in a hoarse voice.

Then she departed, pulling the street-door violently and leaving it open. The household stood agape, as if the storm itself had torn into the home. Out of sheer stupefaction the persons forgot to close their mouths.

Out of the clouds poured a drenching rain mixed with hail. The tempest seethed like a cauldron.

This boiling tempest, however, raged in Chyene’s bosom. Something stormed furiously within her. She no longer felt the ground beneath her. The flood soaked her through and through, but this could not restrain her. It served only to augment her savage mood.

She ran from house to house, wherever she might have expected to come upon her daughter and the “apostate.” She stopped nowhere, uttered never a word, but dashed in and then sped out like a flash of lightning, leaving the household open-mouthed with astonishment.

She should find them! Even under the ground. And she did not cease her cursing and her maledictions.

As she rushed from the last house she paused for a moment. Whither now?

She turned homeward. Her heart told her that her daughter was now at home. Her lips muttered the most terrible imprecations, and the inner fury was at its height; the very air, it seemed to her, was laden with her cries, with her curses and oaths.

With a strong gust of wind, a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, she tore into her home.

Her daughter was not there.

She sank upon a chair and burst into wailing.

There was a terrifying crash of thunder. One of those thunderclaps that work the most widespread havoc. Nature seemed to be shaking off the entire residue of energy that had been left to her by the hot summer.

The inhabitants of the village were rooted to the spot in terror. They looked about, then ventured a glance outside. Hadn’t some misfortune occurred? The penitents buried their faces deeper than ever in their prayer-books, and more than ever their voices quivered.

Chyene, however, had apparently not heard the thunder. She continued to wail, to wail bitterly. Then a wild cry issued from her throat, as wild as the thunder:

“May she not live to come home! May they bring her to me dead! Oh, Lord of the universe!”

The clouds replied with a clap of thunder and the wind sped apace, shrieking.

Suddenly she arose and dashed out as before. The wind accompanied her. Now it thrust her forward from behind, now it ran ahead like a faithful dog, smiting all in its path, raising the dirt from the road and mixing it with the thick drops that fell from the clouds, which were still black, and with the seething drops that coursed from her burning eyes.

She was running to the road just beyond the village.

They had surely gone for a walk on the road, where they had been seen several times. She would meet them on the way, or in Jonah’s inn near the big forest.

On the Gentile’s lane, the last one of the village, the dogs in the yards heard her hastening steps upon the drenched earth. Some of them began to bark behind the gates, not caring to venture out into the rain; others were not so lazy and crawled out from under the gates with an angry yelping. She neither saw nor heard them, however. She only gazed far out over the road, which began at the lane, and ran along.

One dog seized her skirt, which had become heavy with the water. She did not heed this, and dragged the animal along for part of the way, until it tired of keeping pace with her in the pelting downpour. So it released her skirt. For a moment it thought of seizing her in some other spot, but at once, with a sullen growl, it set out for its yard.