Part 7

And Mordecai, the son of Jair, was garbed in sackcloth and ashes. His forehead was furrowed with deep wrinkles and his eyes were careworn. It was easily to be seen that many thoughts weighed upon his mind. He opened his lips and answered the questioners. “There is no news from Esther. And what would you hear from her? Do you not know that she asked for three days, and that this is only the first?”

All the assembled hearers bowed their heads in mourning and wiped their eyes. And when Mordecai, with a deep sigh, sank upon a bench, the entire house resounded with sighs and groans from all hearts.

Zerubbabel stood alone; none looked upon him. His heart was bitter to the point of crying out, and he would gladly have struck to right and to left with his fists; he relieved his mood with a wild outburst of laughter. All eyes were directed to him in astonishment, and Mordecai spoke. “Zerubbabel, arrayed in his finest clothes, laughs with such incisive laughter.—What ails him?”

Those about Mordecai stepped back, as if to open a path for Zerubbabel, that he might approach Mordecai. Zerubbabel, however, did not stir from his place. Brimming over with scorn and bitterness he cried, “Tell him what ails me!” In a few words they repeated the tenor of Zerubbabel’s speech, saying that he summoned his people to battle and counselled them not to place their faith in Esther.

Mordecai raised his glance to Zerubbabel; both men eyed each other like two enemies measuring each other’s strength. Then Mordecai spoke, emphasising every word. “In every age there are certain persons who imagine that the easiest way to break a wall is with one’s head.”

Zerubbabel answered with aversion and mockery. “But not every age has the misfortune to possess a leader with the timidity of a weak woman, who can only raise his hands to his head and cry bitterly!”

The gathering turned its glances from Mordecai to Zerubbabel and from Zerubbabel to Mordecai. It was as if two gladiators had stepped forth into the arena to wrestle and seek victory. And the onlookers became entirely absorbed in the scene about to take place, forgetting their great misfortune. Yet they crowded more closely about Mordecai, as though expecting protection from him against Zerubbabel.

Mordecai felt that all were with him and none was with Zerubbabel, so he uttered cutting words. “Better a weak old woman as a leader than a madman who inspires to impossibilities. The weakest of women may prevent a calamity, but the most insignificant madman can bring down upon his people the most grievous of disasters. I do not desire to insult you, Zerubbabel, but what you counsel is sheer madness.”

Zerubbabel replied bitterly: “Woe unto the people to whom it is preached that self-defence is madness, and greater woe still unto the people among whom such preachment finds ready ears. Such a people is a heap of dead bones, from which all signs of life have fled.”

Mordecai interrupted him with a calm, self-confident voice. “Who says that self-defence is madness? Am I not, then, for self-defence? Do I desire, then, that we exterminate ourselves before the enemy attacks us? Do I wish, indeed, that we cease to be? Do I not yearn to rescue our people? Let our people defend itself; but the means of self-defence are various, and your way, Zerubbabel, is folly.”

Zerubbabel stood there, looking at Mordecai as if he had not understood, and he asked, in great surprise, with a quivering voice, “How long has the self-defence of a people meant the pretty face of a young woman? Is Esther’s body our self-defence?”

Again Mordecai replied calmly and confidently. “You understand by self-defence only the power of our arms, while I term self-defence the power of beauty and the power of money likewise. You are young, Zerubbabel, and surely you know the power of beauty. Say, is it not the surest way? The king’s heart can be purchased for us with beauty, and Esther must do it. Is not Esther my uncle’s daughter? Was she not to me even as my own child? Is she not the flesh and blood of all of us? And yet we told her to risk her life and go unbidden to the king; and should her beauty not win the king and should she as a consequence be put to death, then we will choose still another Jewish daughter,—one even more beautiful. And even if we should have to sacrifice all our Jewish daughters and sisters and wives, we will do so, despite the great grief it will cause us and the heaviness of the blow. Is not that, too, self-defence? And when our beauty has proved unsuccessful, we will defend ourselves with our money, with our possessions. Haman purchased us with ten thousand silver talents; then we can buy ourselves free for twenty, thirty, forty. From time immemorial these have been the surest means of self-defence. Was not our father Jacob freed from his brother Esau by his possessions? Did not also your great-great-grandfather, King Asa, save himself from Baasha, King of Israel, through bribing Benhadad, King of Aram? And did not Judith with her beauty rescue the Jews from Holofernes? _Your_ self-defence, on the contrary, is self-destruction. Small and few are we among the peoples of the hundred and seven and twenty provinces. Who will fear our weapons? Who will be impressed by our arms? And it may come to pass, moreover, that if the king learns that Jews are arming themselves, he will send against us his powerful army, trained in warfare; and there will not be a vestige left of our people. Would you have it thus, Zerubbabel?”

Zerubbabel made answer in loud and bitter tones: “Shame upon you and upon all who side with you! Shame upon the whole Jewish people which beholds its salvation in money and its self-defence in the beautiful bodies of its daughters! Now will I rend my garments and put on sackcloth and ashes! Now will I weep and wail my bitter lamentation! My people is dead! My people is a putrefying corpse. It is an abode only for worms, reptiles and insects. All living spirits have forsaken it. Where shall I find words to express my abhorrence? Where shall I find the thunder with which to boom forth my wrath? Judah, where are your warriors? Where are your heroes, Israel? Behold who your leaders are, and hear what they counsel! In their debasement they do not revolt against defiling their most sacred possessions, and the honour of their daughters is of less worth to them than the meanest life! Lion of yore, you have turned into a dog!”

Zerubbabel struggled for air and words failed him. He rent his garments and tore his hair, crying aloud and bitterly. He wrung his hands high above his head and kept repeating, “Shame upon them! Shame! Shame!” He left the meeting-house, his legs wavering like those of a drunkard.

The men, gathered in the meeting-house, followed him with frightened, astonished looks, and not a mouth opened to speak a word. Only Mordecai smiled and quoted the popular saying, “Is that not correct? It is better to be a live dog than a dead lion.”

The assembly, however, became as if something had defiled it and rendered it unclean. Yet none found in him the courage to follow Zerubbabel.

VI

Zerubbabel went in search of Sheshana, to pour out his heart to her and cry out his anger. He walked with rapid strides, looking neither to right nor to left, and groaned heavily: “What a grievous shame! What a deep disgrace!”

Impetuously he opened the door to Sheshana’s house, and he felt that he would throw himself upon her bosom and wail out his immense sorrow. He would bemoan his people, which he had lost,—his veneration of it, his belief in it, which had gone never to return. But when he beheld Sheshana he was rooted to the spot and his mouth could utter no sound. She was dressed in sackcloth; she was pale, her eyes red with much weeping, and her small form seemed even smaller and drawn. When she saw Zerubbabel she burst into loud crying as if she had long repressed it. Then, as she swallowed her tears, she spoke.

“You have come at last! At last you are here!—I thought that something had befallen you and I sent after you, but my messengers could not find you. They brought me the news, however, that you were safe and sound and that you were running about among the people, summoning them to armed resistance. I could not believe them and told them that they brought me lies. But one after another came to me with the same report and I was forced to believe it. The world became dark and dreary to me. Naughty Zerubbabel, how could you forget me at such a terrible time? How could you leave me alone in an hour of peril? Don’t you know that your Sheshana is a timorous maiden,—that her courage vanishes at the slightest danger? Oh, I am frightened to death! I am frightened to death!”

Zerubbabel stood as one transfixed; his eyes shone like glowing coals, his glance was stern and angry, and his voice was piercing. “You know what I have been doing, and yet you can speak to me in this manner? Zerubbabel went forth to rouse the Jewish people to self-defence, to armed resistance, and his Sheshana dressed herself in sackcloth and ashes and succumbed to fright! Can you be Sheshana? Can you be my sweetheart? Was not your heart flooded with courage, and did it not shout with jubilation because Zerubbabel was not among the cowards and the despairers?”

Sheshana continued to weep and kept repeating, “Oh, I am frightened to death! I am frightened to death!”

Zerubbabel shook his head and smiled cynically. “I thought I should find a solace in you,—a balm for my grieving heart. Sheshana will understand me and will side with me, I thought, and she will give me strength. But woe to my wretchedness that is so great! Sheshana greets me with tears, with petty fears and harsh words. And she has no ears for me,—no heart....”

Sheshana, however, raised her head, pursing her lips with a surly grimace. “I can have neither ears for you nor a heart. For that which you desire is folly, and you are the butt of all men’s mockery. ‘Zerubbabel is a visionary,’ they say,—a dreamer. He demands the impossible and utters dangerous things. He wishes to incite the scant Jewish people against the numberless enemy, and calls that self-defence. Why does he not preach, rather, that great and small, men and women,—all the Jewish people—shall cast itself into the rivers and streams that flow through the hundred and seven and twenty provinces? That is what they are all saying, shaking their heads at mention of you. And are they not right, and do they not speak with justice? Then how could I feel delight, and whence should joy have come to me? Because you forgot me, left me all alone and went in pursuit of dangerous dreams?”

Zerubbabel raised his voice and uttered sharp words. “If you had flayed my body with thorns and stung it with scorpions, you would not hurt me so much as your words have done. When all the mockers ridiculed me, my bosom was filled with anger and scorn, and I felt strong in my opposition. But when you joined the mockery and added your voice to the laughter, then I became the most unhappy, the most wretched man under heaven. You have become a stranger to me, Sheshana; with your words you have dug an abyss between us, and when Zerubbabel has lost Sheshana, he has lost his life.”

With terror in her eyes the maiden cried, “Oh, how can you speak like that?”

As she looked at him with her horror-stricken countenance and her flaming cheeks, Zerubbabel’s heart was softened, and with a passionate impulse he rushed to her, clasping her to him with all his fire and tenderness. “My only one, my love,” he whispered, “do not desert Zerubbabel. Do not mock me. Believe in me. Believe that I have _not_ become demented and that I am _not_ a mere dreamer. Believe that I have been born to great deeds, and I will accomplish them. I will declare war against the scoffers and misleaders of the people and will root them out. I will teach my people to be proud, and will lead it to victory. Be you the spring from which I shall drink strength for my bones and power for my veins. Pour courage into me and cheer my weary soul. Tell me that I am right and they who scoff at me are stricken with blindness. Tell me that you were mistaken and that for only a moment were you alienated from your Zerubbabel.”

But Sheshana wept, hiding her face in her hands, and murmured, “I cannot! I cannot!”

With passion more intense than ever Zerubbabel spoke to her. “See, they wish to buy themselves free of danger with the body of Esther. They send her to risk her life, and themselves they try to save with fasting. And if Esther’s body avail not, they will have recourse to money, or the body of some other beautiful woman, or both these things together. Say, Sheshana, is this not despicable? Is it not base and cowardly? Everything within me cries out in revolt against it; does nothing cry out in you? Men—to send a woman’s body before them! Sheshana, I have no words to express how contemptible that is! Do you feel it, Sheshana? Do you not feel as if you had been soiled, debased, spat upon? Sheshana, see how my muscles stiffen,—do you see my strength? I feel that my arms are giant wings ready to bear my people across every abyss and peril. Why do they fear to take up arms? Victory or Death, but no purchasing our security! Men who hide behind a woman have no sense of honour, and shall my whole people consist of such men? Shall Zerubbabel’s people lack a sense of honour? Does not your soul revolt against it all, Sheshana?”

But Sheshana lay quietly in his arms, speaking not a word. He clasped her still, looking passionately into her eyes and asking as before, “Tell me, Sheshana, tell me.”

At last Sheshana whispered her reply: “You remain with me, and let them do as they deem best.”

“To the shame and dishonour of the whole Jewish people!” exclaimed Zerubbabel, and a deep sadness suddenly came over him.

Then Sheshana spoke her tactless words: “They are in the majority, and they know what is for the best.”

Zerubbabel recoiled as if a snake had bitten him. He was at first impelled to cry with bitter lamentations, but he felt a great anger surging within. He placed his hand on his heart and beat his breast, then all at once turned to the door. He remained before it, leaning heavily against it as he said, with a hoarse voice, “You will never see me again, Sheshana!”

A tremor passed through her every limb; filled with fright and despair she cried out, “But, Zerubbabel!”

Again he murmured, “You will never see me again, Sheshana!”

Terrified, again she shrieked, “But, Zerubbabel!” She brought her white, shuddering hands to her cheeks and her glance was that of a frightened, stupefied dove.

Zerubbabel spoke with a quivering voice: “I love you, and my love is as strong as death. At night upon my couch I will call your name and my heart will languish with yearning. I will gash my body with the nails of my fingers and my eyes will burn under hot tears. But not _you_ can be Zerubbabel’s wife,—not _you_ the mother of his children. You will never see me again, Sheshana!”

Sheshana’s bosom heaved convulsively; her rapid breathing was choked with tears, and her shriek was heart-rending. “Zerubbabel!”

But he had already opened the door, and standing upon the threshold he turned his face to the maiden and said, in firm accents, “Go and learn to be Zerubbabel’s wife!” Then he closed the door behind him.

She screamed; it was the cry of a wounded deer. She rushed to the door, but her legs gave way beneath her. She stretched her hands out against the closed door, groaning and bemoaning her great misfortune. She could not speak. Her throat was as if clamped, and her tongue could not move. Only later was she able to whisper the name scarce audibly: “Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel!” Only his name could she murmur, and nothing more. Then she threw herself upon the bed, her hands pressed to her face, and her body in a heap, and it seemed to her as if some one had slapped her.

And Zerubbabel strode on through the night and the gloom, far beyond the city, into deep solitude, to the place where a huge cliff rose high above a deep abyss.

DRABKIN

_A Novelette of Proletarian Life_

DRABKIN

_A Novelette of Proletarian Life_

I

Drabkin was an excellent workman,—a pocketbook maker whose handiwork was the talk of the town. Folks praised him in his presence and in his absence; he knew his worth and held his head proudly erect. It seemed to him that he had been created for the express purpose of speaking the truth to all employers right before their very faces, and upon the slightest provocation he would let them know that they were living off his sweat and blood,—that they were exploiters, bloodsuckers, cannibals, and so forth and so on. So that he never could find a steady place, and through the year he spent more days idle than at his employment.

The bosses pitied him. “He’s a devil with claws,” they would say. “May no good Jew know him!... But he has golden hands!”

“If it weren’t for his crazy notions he’d be rolling in money. Such a workman! His fingers fly, as if by magic!”

Yet they could not suffer him in their shops. They even feared him. He was as widely known as a bad shilling, yet he was hired in the hope that perhaps he had changed for the better; perhaps he had calmed down and become quieter. Moreover, it was a pity to let a hand go around idle, when he could do more work in twelve hours than another could accomplish in twenty-four. But in a couple of days the employer would have to confess with a groan that Drabkin was the same insolent chap as ever, that it was dangerous to have him in a Jewish shop, because he would spoil the rest of the men. So he was shown the door.

He did not take this to heart. It had already become a game to him. He was certain that the employers would finally be forced to come to him, because they needed him and must have him. For “his fingers fly, as if by magic.” And he would simply smile in ironic fashion and pierce the bosses with a look that caused them to shiver in their boots.

“What? You don’t like my ditty?” he would ask. “You’re punishing me for telling the truth, ha? Exploiters! Vampires!”

“You ought to be put into prison, or into the madhouse,” they would reply. “You’re a dangerous character. You’re a mad dog!...”

“Ah, ahem, tra-la!” he would mock, in delight. “But how do you like my work? I’m a fast worker, ha?”

And how this truthful boast cut the bosses!

“May your hands be paralysed!” they would answer. “If your character were only as good as your workmanship, you’d be rolling in money.”

“Working for you people!” he would suddenly revert to his favourite theme. “With a fourteen-hour day at the wages you pay, grass will soon be growing over my head. Exploiters! Vampires! Cannibals!...”

“There he goes again!” they would break in. “March! Off with you. Go shout it from the house-tops!”

“Ah, ahem, tra-la!” he would grunt again. “You don’t like it? Wait! Just wait!...”

At the last words he would point a warning finger at them. Just what they were to wait for he himself did not know, but he had a feeling that something or other was bound to happen that would be not at all to the bosses’ taste.

He would leave the employers triumphantly, his eyes beaming with happiness, as if he had just won a significant victory; with his glance, as he passed along the street, he would transfix every heavy paunched Jew who looked like an employer of labour. And his brain teemed with cutting remarks that he should have used and which he would be sure to employ in the very next encounter with those exploiters, those bloodsuckers, those cannibals. He saw himself surrounded by a host of toilers who raised their eyes to him as their guardian and defender. His breast swelled with pride and self-confidence and he was contented with himself....

“Jilted again!” was his jocular greeting to his landlady, a thin old woman, as he entered the house.

She looked at him in surprise. “From what gallows has he escaped in broad daylight?” she queried to herself.

“Fired again?” she scolded loudly, eyeing him with scorn. “The Lord protect us, what a man you are!”

She shook her head, as if she had long ago decided that he was a hopeless case; he was a good-for-nothing in the first place and a good-for-nothing he would remain. She turned away with a depreciatory curl of her lips. The wrinkles on her face, which was as dry and yellow as parchment, became even deeper.

“I gave them a bawling-out, all right!” he chuckled, while his eyes sparkled with joy.

“Much satisfaction that is!” replied the old woman, sarcastically. “They must have taken it terribly to heart! Upon my word!”

“Such exploiters,—vampires,—cannibals. The world isn’t enough for them!” he continued, unmindful of her words. “Do you think I’m going to be afraid of them? What? Do you imagine we’re going to let them fatten on our sweat and blood, and look on in silence? Bah! Not a bit of it! I refuse to be silent! Such exploiters, cut-purses! I refuse to be silent!...”

“Psh! As bold as a Cossack!” she ridiculed. “But what satisfaction did you get? It was _you_ who was chased out! You, with your ‘sploiters’ and your ‘poiters’!...”

She was angry with the word, which she did not understand. She even thought that if it had not been for that word Drabkin would not have come to sorrow.

She was ready to spit contemptuously upon the floor and leave him. But Drabkin seized upon her last words.

“Chased out? Not so quick, my dear! They don’t chase _me_ out in a hurry!”

“They’re afraid of you, I suppose!” she snarled. “I wouldn’t let you cross my threshold!”

“Well, you see that they do!” he boasted.

“Wild man!” she commented in disgust.

“Aha!” was his victorious response.

After that “aha” the old woman spoke no more. She spat out in scorn, adjusted the scarf over her wig and walked away from him.

“‘Sploiters, poiters.’” She continued to repeat the evil word to herself with anger.

II

But he was vied in an utterly different light by Chashke, the old woman’s daughter.

When she returned at evening from work—she was a dressmaker—her mother met her with this greeting:

“He’s sitting around idle again.”

And she nodded her head in the direction of Drabkin’s room.

“Well, what of it?” asked the daughter, removing her cloak.

The old woman was taken aback by the girl’s retort and was at a loss whether or not to reply. She was surprised that the news did not affect her daughter.

At this moment Drabkin came out of his room.

“I’m home again!” he announced, merrily.

“What’s happened to you to-day?” asked Chashke.

“What’s happened? What should happen? It happened! They’re a pack of bloodsuckers, exploiters, and that’s all!” he exclaimed, hotly.

“‘Sploiters, poiters,’” interrupted the old woman, mockingly.

“But why should you have thrown up your job on this particular day?” asked Chashke, not heeding her mother’s sarcasm.

“Why? Because!” he shouted. “Why! I can’t look upon their actions in cold blood. It’s inhuman! It’s murderous! Ephraim is supposed to work till nine o’clock at night and he works till half past ten; when he came to work this morning at half past seven, they fell upon him like a mad dog and....”

“Isn’t it his granny’s worry?” interjected the old woman.

“I can’t bear such things. I can’t look on in silence. So I gave it to them!...”

“Psh! Their shirts turned to linen! How they must have trembled before you!”

But Chashke cast an angry look at her mother.

“What then?” she asked, contemptuously: “Are the workingmen to suffer such things without a word of protest?”

“Let Ephraim holler for himself. Why need _he_ do the shouting?” replied the old woman.

“And suppose Ephraim is a meek little lamb? And suppose Ephraim allows everybody to walk all over him?” cried Drabkin, springing to his feet, his countenance burning with indignation.

Chashke eyed her mother with ironic triumph.