Part 11

With God's help the happy day arrived, and they both passed. Is my story finished? Not quite. When it came to their being entered in the books, to writing out a check, my Christian was not to be found! What has happened? He, the Gentile, doesn't care for his son to be among so many Jews--he won't hear of it! Why should he, seeing that all doors are open to him anyhow, and he can get in where he pleases? Tell him it isn't fair? Much good that would be! "Look here," say I, "how much do you want, Pani Holiava?" Says he, "Nothing!" To cut the tale short--up and down, this way and that way, and friends and people interfering, we had him off to a refreshment place, and ordered a glass, and two, and three, before it all came right! Once he was really in, I cried my eyes out, and thanks be to Him whose Name is blessed, and who has delivered me out of all my troubles! When I got home, a fresh worry! What now? My wife has been reflecting and thinking it over: After all, her only son, the apple of her eye--he would be _there_ and we _here_! And if so, what, says she, would life be to her? "Well," say I, "what do you propose doing?"--"What I propose doing?" says she. "Can't you guess? I propose," says she, "to be with him."--"You do?" say I. "And the house? What about the house?"--"The house," says she, "is a house." Anything to object to in that? So she was off to him, and I was left alone at home. And what a home! I leave you to imagine. May such a year be to my enemies! My comfort was gone, the business went to the bad. Everything went to the bad, and we were continually writing letters. I wrote to her, she wrote to me--letters went and letters came. Peace to my beloved wife! Peace to my beloved husband! "For Heaven's sake," I write, "what is to be the end of it? After all, I'm no more than a man! A man without a housemistress!" It was as much use as last year's snow; it was she who had her way, she, and not I, as usual.

To make an end of my story, I worked and worried myself to pieces, made a mull of the whole business, sold out, became a poor man, and carried my bundle over to them. Once there, I took a look round to see where I was in the world, nibbled here and there, just managed to make my way a bit, and entered into a partnership with a trader, quite a respectable man, yes! A well-to-do householder, holding office in the Shool, but at bottom a deceiver, a swindler, a pickpocket, who was nearly the ruin of me! You can imagine what a cheerful state of things it was. Meanwhile I come home one evening, and see my boy come to meet me, looking strangely red in the face, and without a badge on his cap. Say I to him, "Look here, Moshehl, where's your badge?" Says he to me, "Whatever badge?" Say I, "The button." Says he, "Whatever button?" Say I, "The button off your cap." It was a new cap with a new badge, only just bought for the festival! He grows redder than before, and says, "Taken off." Say I, "What do you mean by 'taken off'?" Says he, "I am free." Say I, "What do you mean by 'you are free'?" Says he, "We are _all_ free." Say I, "What do you mean by 'we are _all_ free'?" Says he, "We are not going back any more." Say I, "What do you mean by 'we are not going back'?" Says he, "We have united in the resolve to stay away." Say I, "What do you mean by '_you_' have united in a resolve? Who are 'you'? What is all this? Bless your grandmother," say I, "do you suppose I have been through all this for you to unite in a resolve? Alas! and alack!" say I, "for you and me and all of us! May it please God not to let this be visited on Jewish heads, because always and everywhere," say I, "Jews are the scapegoats." I speak thus to him and grow angry and reprove him as a father usually does reprove a child. But I have a wife (long life to her!), and she comes running, and washes my head for me, tells me I don't know what is going on in the world, that the world is quite another world to what it used to be, an intelligent world, an open world, a free world, "a world," says she, "in which all are equal, in which there are no rich and no poor, no masters and no servants, no sheep and no shears, no cats, rats, no piggy-wiggy--------" "Te-te-te!" say I, "where have you learned such fine language? a new speech," say I, "with new words. Why not open the hen-house, and let out the hens? Chuck--chuck--chuck, hurrah for freedom!" Upon which she blazes up as if I had poured ten pails of hot water over her. And now for it! As only _they_ can! Well, one must sit it out and listen to the end. The worst of it is, there is no end. "Look here," say I, "hush!" say I, "and now let be!" say I, and beat upon my breast. "I have sinned!" say I, "I have transgressed, and now stop," say I, "if you would only be quiet!" But she won't hear, and she won't see. No, she says, she will know why and wherefore and for goodness' sake and exactly, and just how it was, and what it means, and how it happened, and once more and a second time, and all over again from the beginning!

I beg of you--who set the whole thing going? A--woman!

ELIEZER DAVID ROSENTHAL

Born, 1861, in Chotin, Bessarabia; went to Breslau, Germany, in 1880, and pursued studies at the University; returned to Bessarabia in 1882; co-editor of the Bibliothek Dos Leben, published at Odessa, 1904, and Kishineff, 1905; writer of stories.

SABBATH

Friday evening!

The room has been tidied, the table laid. Two Sabbath loaves have been placed upon it, and covered with a red napkin. At the two ends are two metal candlesticks, and between them two more of earthenware, with candles in them ready to be lighted.

On the small sofa that stands by the stove lies a sick man covered up with a red quilt, from under the quilt appears a pale, emaciated face, with red patches on the dried-up cheeks and a black beard. The sufferer wears a nightcap, which shows part of his black hair and his black earlocks. There is no sign of life in his face, and only a faint one in his great, black eyes.

On a chair by the couch sits a nine-year-old girl with damp locks, which have just been combed out in honor of Sabbath. She is barefoot, dressed only in a shirt and a frock. The child sits swinging her feet, absorbed in what she is doing; but all her movements are gentle and noiseless.

The invalid coughed.

"Kche, kche, kche, kche," came from the sofa.

"What is it, Tate?" asked the little girl, swinging her feet.

The invalid made no reply.

He slowly raised his head with both hands, pulled down the nightcap, and coughed and coughed and coughed, hoarsely at first, then louder, the cough tearing at his sick chest and dinning in the ears. Then he sat up, and went on coughing and clearing his throat, till he had brought up the phlegm.

The little girl continued to be absorbed in her work and to swing her feet, taking very little notice of her sick father.

The invalid smoothed the creases in the cushion, laid his head down again, and closed his eyes. He lay thus for a few minutes, then he said quite quietly:

"Leah!"

"What is it, Tate?" inquired the child again, still swinging her feet.

"Tell ... mother ... it is ... time to ... bless ... the candles...."

The little girl never moved from her seat, but shouted through the open door into the shop:

"Mother, shut up shop! Father says it's time for candle-blessing."

"I'm coming, I'm coming," answered her mother from the shop.

She quickly disposed of a few women customers: sold one a kopek's worth of tea, the other, two kopeks' worth of sugar, the third, two tallow candles. Then she closed the shutters and the street door, and came into the room.

"You've drunk the glass of milk?" she inquired of the sick man.

"Yes ... I have ... drunk it," he replied.

"And you, Leahnyu, daughter," and she turned to the child, "may the evil spirit take you! Couldn't you put on your shoes without my telling you? Don't you know it's Sabbath?"

The little girl hung her head, and made no other answer.

Her mother went to the table, lighted the candles, covered her face with her hands, and blessed them.

After that she sat down on the seat by the window to take a rest.

It was only on Sabbath that she could rest from her hard work, toiling and worrying as she was the whole week long with all her strength and all her mind.

She sat lost in thought.

She was remembering past happy days.

She also had known what it is to enjoy life, when her husband was in health, and they had a few hundred rubles. They finished boarding with her parents, they set up a shop, and though he had always been a close frequenter of the house-of-study, a bench-lover, he soon learnt the Torah of commerce. She helped him, and they made a livelihood, and ate their bread in honor. But in course of time some quite new shops were started in the little town, there was great competition, the trade was small, and the gains were smaller, it became necessary to borrow money on interest, on weekly payment, and to pay for goods at once. The interest gradually ate up the capital with the gains. The creditors took what they could lay hands on, and still her husband remained in their debt.

He could not get over this, and fell ill.

The whole bundle of trouble fell upon her: the burden of a livelihood, the children, the sick man, everything, everything, on her.

But she did not lose heart.

"God will help, _he_ will soon get well, and will surely find some work. God will not desert us," so she reflected, and meantime she was not sitting idle.

The very difficulty of her position roused her courage, and gave her strength.

She sold her small store of jewelry, and set up a little shop.

Three years have passed since then.

However it may be, God has not abandoned her, and however bitter and sour the struggle for Parnosseh may have been, she had her bit of bread. Only his health did not return, he grew daily weaker and worse.

She glanced at her sick husband, at his pale, emaciated face, and tears fell from her eyes.

During the week she has no time to think how unhappy she is. Parnosseh, housework, attendance on the children and the sick man--these things take up all her time and thought. She is glad when it comes to bedtime, and she can fall, dead tired, onto her bed.

But on Sabbath, the day of rest, she has time to think over her hard lot and all her misery and to cry herself out.

"When will there be an end of my troubles and suffering?" she asked herself, and could give no answer whatever to the question beyond despairing tears. She saw no ray of hope lighting her future, only a great, wide, shoreless sea of trouble.

It flashed across her:

"When he dies, things will be easier."

But the thought of his death only increased her apprehension.

It brought with it before her eyes the dreadful words: widow, orphans, poor little fatherless children....

These alarmed her more than her present distress.

How can children grow up without a father? Now, even though he's ill, he keeps an eye on them, tells them to say their prayers and to study. Who is to watch over them if he dies?

"Don't punish me, Lord of the World, for my bad thought," she begged with her whole heart. "I will take it upon myself to suffer and trouble for all, only don't let him die, don't let me be called by the bitter name of widow, don't let my children be called orphans!"

* * * * *

He sits upon his couch, his head a little thrown back and leaning against the wall. In one hand he holds a prayer-book--he is receiving the Sabbath into his house. His pale lips scarcely move as he whispers the words before him, and his thoughts are far from the prayer. He knows that he is dangerously ill, he knows what his wife has to suffer and bear, and not only is he powerless to help her, but his illness is her heaviest burden, what with the extra expense incurred on his account and the trouble of looking after him. Besides which, his weakness makes him irritable, and his anger has more than once caused her unmerited pain. He sees and knows it all, and his heart is torn with grief. "Only death can help us," he murmurs, and while his lips repeat the words of the prayer-book, his heart makes one request to God and only one: that God should send kind Death to deliver him from his trouble and misery.

Suddenly the door opened and a ten-year-old boy came into the room, in a long Sabbath cloak, with two long earlocks, and a prayer-book under his arm.

"A good Sabbath!" said the little boy, with a loud, ringing voice.

It seemed as if he and the holy Sabbath had come into the room together! In one moment the little boy had driven trouble and sadness out of sight, and shed light and consolation round him.

His "good Sabbath!" reached his parents' hearts, awoke there new life and new hopes.

"A good Sabbath!" answered the mother. Her eyes rested on the child's bright face, and her thoughts were no longer melancholy as before, for she saw in his eyes a whole future of happy possibilities.

"A good Sabbath!" echoed the lips of the sick man, and he took a deeper, easier breath. No, he will not die altogether, he will live again after death in the child. He can die in peace, he leaves a Kaddish behind him.

YOM KIPPUR

Erev Yom Kippur, Minchah time!

The Eve of the Day of Atonement, at Afternoon Prayer time.

A solemn and sacred hour for every Jew.

Everyone feels as though he were born again.

All the week-day worries, the two-penny-half-penny interests, seem far, far away; or else they have hidden themselves in some corner. Every Jew feels a noble pride, an inward peace mingled with fear and awe. He knows that the yearly Judgment Day is approaching, when God Almighty will hold the scales in His hand and weigh every man's merits against his transgressions. The sentence given on that day is one of life or death. No trifle! But the Jew is not so terrified as you might think--he has broad shoulders. Besides, he has a certain footing behind the "upper windows," he has good advocates and plenty of them; he has the "binding of Isaac" and a long chain of ancestors and ancestresses, who were put to death for the sanctification of the Holy Name, who allowed themselves to be burnt and roasted for the sake of God's Torah. Nishkoshe! Things are not so bad. The Lord of All may just remember that, and look aside a little. Is He not the Compassionate, the Merciful?

The shadows lengthen and lengthen.

Jews are everywhere in commotion.

Some hurry home straight from the bath, drops of bath-water dripping from beard and earlocks. They have not even dried their hair properly in their haste.

It is time to prepare for the davvening. Some are already on their way to Shool, robed in white. Nearly every Jew carries in one hand a large, well-packed Tallis-bag, which to-day, besides the prayer-scarf, holds the whole Jewish outfit: a bulky prayer-book, a book of Psalms, a Likkute Zevi, and so on; and in the other hand, two wax-candles, one a large one, that is the "light of life," and the other a small one, a shrunken looking thing, which is the "soul-light."

The Tamschevate house-of-study presents at this moment the following picture: the floor is covered with fresh hay, and the dust and the smell of the hay fill the whole building. Some of the men are standing at their prayers, beating their breasts in all seriousness. "We have trespassed, we have been faithless, we have robbed," with an occasional sob of contrition. Others are very busy setting up their wax-lights in boxes filled with sand; one of them, a young man who cannot live without it, betakes himself to the platform and repeats a "Bless ye the Lord." Meantime another comes slyly, and takes out two of the candles standing before the platform, planting his own in their place. Not far from the ark stands the beadle with a strap in his hand, and all the foremost householders go up to him, lay themselves down with their faces to the ground, and the beadle deals them out thirty-nine blows apiece, and not one of them bears him any grudge. Even Reb Groinom, from whom the beadle never hears anything from one Yom Kippur to another but "may you be ... "and "rascal," "impudence," "brazen face," "spendthrift," "carrion," "dog of all dogs"--and not infrequently Reb Groinom allows himself to apply his right hand to the beadle's cheek, and the latter has to take it all in a spirit of love--this same Reb Groinom now humbly approaches the same poor beadle, lies quietly down with his face to the ground, stretches himself out, and the beadle deliberately counts the strokes up to "thirty-nine Malkes." Covered with hay, Reb Groinom rises slowly, a piteous expression on his face, just as if he had been well thrashed, and he pushes a coin into the Shamash's hand. This is evidently the beadle's day! To-day he can take his revenge on his householders for the insults and injuries of a whole year!

But if you want to be in the thick of it all, you must stand in the anteroom by the door, where people are crowding round the plates for collections. The treasurer sits beside a little table with the directors of the congregation; the largest plate lies before them. To one side of them sits the cantor with his plate, and beside the cantor, several house-of-study youths with theirs. On every plate lies a paper with a written notice: "Visiting the Sick," "Supporting the Fallen," "Clothing the Naked," "Talmud Torah," "Refuge for the Poor," and so forth. Over one plate, marked "The Return to the Land of Israel," presides a modern young man, a Zionist. Everyone wishing to enter the house-of-study must first go to the plates marked "Call to the Torah" and "Seat in the Shool," put in what is his due, and then throw a few kopeks into the other plates.

* * * * *

Berel Tzop bustled up to the plate "Seat in the Shool," gave what was expected of him, popped a few coppers into the other plates, and prepared to recite the Afternoon Prayer. He wanted to pause a little between the words of his prayer, to attend to their meaning, to impress upon himself that this was the Eve of the Day of Atonement! But idle thoughts kept coming into his head, as though on purpose to annoy him, and his mind was all over the place at once! The words of the prayers got mixed up with the idea of oats, straw, wheat, and barley, and however much trouble he took to drive these idle thoughts away, he did not succeed. "Blow the great trumpet of our deliverance!" shouted Berel, and remembered the while that Ivan owed him ten measures of wheat. "...lift up the ensign to gather our exiles!..."--"and I made a mistake in Stephen's account by thirty kopeks...." Berel saw that it was impossible for him to pray with attention, and he began to reel off the Eighteen Benedictions, but not till he reached the Confession could he collect his scattered thoughts, and realize what he was saying. When he raised his hands to beat his breast at "We have trespassed, we have robbed," the hand remained hanging in the air, half-way. A shudder went through his limbs, the letters of the words "we have robbed" began to grow before his eyes, they became gigantic, they turned strange colors--red, blue, green, and yellow--now they took the form of large frogs--they got bigger and bigger, crawled into his eyes, croaked in his ears: You are a thief, a robber, you have stolen and plundered! You think nobody saw, that it would all run quite smoothly, but you are wrong! We shall stand before the Throne of Glory and cry: You are a thief, a robber!

Berel stood some time with his hand raised midway in the air.

The whole affair of the hundred rubles rose before his eyes.

A couple of months ago he had gone into the house of Reb Moisheh Chalfon. The latter had just gone out, there was nobody else in the room, nobody had even seen him come in.

The key was in the desk--Berel had looked at it, had hardly touched it--the drawer had opened as though of itself--several hundred-ruble-notes had lain glistening before his eyes! Just that day, Berel had received a very unpleasant letter from the father of his daughter's bridegroom, and to make matters worse, the author of the letter was in the right. Berel had been putting off the marriage for two years, and the Mechutton wrote quite plainly, that unless the wedding took place after Tabernacles, he should return him the contract.

"Return the contract!" the fiery letters burnt into Berel's brain.

He knew his Mechutton well. The Misnaggid! He wouldn't hesitate to tear up a marriage contract, either! And when it's a question of a by no means pretty girl of twenty and odd years! And the kind of bridegroom anybody might be glad to have secured for his daughter! And then to think that only one of those hundred-ruble-notes lying tossed together in that drawer would help him out of all his troubles. And the Evil Inclination whispers in his ear: "Berel, now or never! There will be an end to all your worry! Don't you see, it's a godsend." He, Berel, wrestled with him hard. He remembers it all distinctly, and he can hear now the faint little voice of the Good Inclination: "Berel, to become a thief in one's latter years! You who so carefully avoided even the smallest deceit! Fie, for shame! If God will, he can help you by honest means too." But the voice of the Good Inclination was so feeble, so husky, and the Evil Inclination suggested in his other ear: "Do you know what? _Borrow_ one hundred rubles! Who talks of stealing? You will earn some money before long, and then you can pay him back--it's a charitable loan on his part, only that he doesn't happen to know of it. Isn't it plain to be seen that it's a godsend? If you don't call this Providence, what is? Are you going to take more than you really need? You know your Mechutton? Have you taken a good look at that old maid of yours? You recollect the bridegroom? Well, the Mechutton will be kind and mild as milk. The bridegroom will be a 'silken son-in-law,' the ugly old maid, a young wife--fool! God and men will envy you...." And he, Berel, lost his head, his thoughts flew hither and thither, like frightened birds, and--he no longer knew which of the two voices was that of the Good Inclination, and--

No one saw him leave Moisheh Chalfon's house.

And still his hand remains suspended in mid-air, still it does not fall against his breast, and there is a cold perspiration on his brow.

Berel started, as though out of his sleep. He had noticed that people were beginning to eye him as he stood with his hand held at a distance from his person. He hastily rattled through "For the sin, ..." concluded the Eighteen Benedictions, and went home.

At home, he didn't dawdle, he only washed his hands, recited "Who bringest forth bread," and that was all. The food stuck in his throat, he said grace, returned to Shool, put on the Tallis, and started to intone tunefully the Prayer of Expiation.

* * * * *

The lighted wax-candles, the last rays of the sun stealing in through the windows of the house-of-study, the congregation entirely robed in white and enfolded in the prayer-scarfs, the intense seriousness depicted on all faces, the hum of voices, and the bitter weeping that penetrated from the women's gallery, all this suited Berel's mood, his contrite heart. Berel had recited the Prayer of Expiation with deep feeling; tears poured from his eyes, his own broken voice went right through his heart, every word found an echo there, and he felt it in every limb. Berel stood before God like a little child before its parents: he wept and told all that was in his heavily-laden heart, the full tale of his cares and troubles. Berel was pleased with himself, he felt that he was not saying the words anyhow, just rolling them off his tongue, but he was really performing an act of penitence with his whole heart. He felt remorse for his sins, and God is a God of compassion and mercy, who will certainly pardon him.