Part 19

Reb Shloimeh repaid his Jewish education with interest. There were not many learned men in the town like Reb Shloimeh. The Rabbis without flattery called him "a full basket," and Reb Shloimeh could not picture to himself the existence of sciences other than "Jewish," and when at last he did picture it, he would not allow that they were right, unfalsified and right. He was so far intelligent, he had received a so far enlightened education, that he could understand how among non-Jews also there are great men. He would even have laughed at anyone who had maintained the contrary. But that among non-Jews there should be men as great as any Jewish ones, that he did _not_ believe!--let alone, of course, still greater ones.

And now, little by little, Reb Shloimeh began to believe that "their" learning was not altogether insignificant, for he, "the full basket," was not finding it any too easy to master. And what he had to deal with were not empty speculations, unfounded opinions. No, here were mathematical computations, demonstrations which almost anyone can test for himself, which impress themselves on the mind! And Reb Shloimeh is vexed in his soul. He endeavored to cling to his old thoughts, his old conceptions. He so wished to cry out upon the clear reasoning, the simple explanations, with the phrases that are on the lips of every ignorant obstructionist. And yet he felt that he was unjust, and he gave up disputing with the teacher, as he paid close attention to the latter's demonstrations. And the teacher would say quite simply:

"One _can_ measure," he would say, "why not? Only it takes a lot of learning."

When the teacher was at the door, Reb Shloimeh stayed him with a question.

"Then," he asked angrily, "the whole of 'your' learning is nothing but astronomy and geography?"

"Oh, no!" said the teacher, "there's a lot besides--a lot!"

"For instance?"

"Do you want me to tell you standing on one leg?"

"Well, yes, 'on one leg,'" he answered impatiently, as though in anger.

"But one can't tell you 'on one leg,'" said the teacher. "If you like, I shall come on Sabbath, and we can have a chat."

"Sabbath?" repeated Reb Shloimeh in a dissatisfied tone.

"Sabbath, because I can't come at any other time," said the teacher.

"Then let it be Sabbath," said Reb Shloimeh, reflectively.

"But soon after dinner," he called after the teacher, who was already outside the door. "And everything else is as right as your astronomy?" he shouted, when the teacher had already gone a little way.

"You will see!" and the teacher smiled.

* * * * *

Never in his whole life had Reb Shloimeh waited for a Sabbath as he waited for this one, and the two days that came before it seemed very long to him; he never relaxed his frown, or showed a cheerful face the whole time. And he was often seen, during those two days, to lift his hands to his forehead. He went about as though there lay upon him a heavy weight, which he wanted to throw off; or as if he had a very disagreeable bit of business before him, and wished he could get it over.

On Sabbath he could hardly wait for the teacher's appearance. "You wanted a lot of asking," he said to him reproachfully.

The old lady went to take her nap, the grandchildren to their play, and Reb Shloimeh took the snuff-box between his fingers, leant against the back of the "grandfather's chair" in which he was sitting, and listened with close attention to the teacher's words.

The teacher talked a long time, mentioned the names of sciences, and explained their meaning, and Reb Shloimeh repeated each explanation in brief. "Physics, then, is the science of--" "That means, then, that we have here--that physiology explains--"

The teacher would help him, and then immediately begin to talk of another branch of science. By the time the old lady woke up, the teacher had given examples of anatomy, physiology, physics, chemistry, zoology, and sociology.

It was quite late; people were coming back from the Afternoon Service, and those who do not smoke on Sabbath, raised their eyes to the sky. But Reb Shloimeh had forgotten in what sort of world he was living. He sat with wrinkled forehead and drawn brows, listening attentively, seeing nothing before him but the teacher's face, only catching up his every word.

"You are still talking?" asked the old lady, in astonishment, rubbing her eyes.

Reb Shloimeh turned his head toward his wife with a dazed look, as though wondering what she meant by her question.

"Oho!" said the old lady, "you only laugh at us women!"

Reb Shloimeh drew his brows closer together, wrinkled his forehead still more, and once more fastened his eyes on the teacher's lips.

"It will soon be time to light the fire," muttered the old lady.

The teacher glanced at the clock. "It's late," he said.

"I should think it was!" broke in the old lady. "Why I was allowed to sleep so long, I'm sure I don't know! People get to talking and even forget about tea."

Reb Shloimeh gave a look out of the window.

"O wa!" he exclaimed, somewhat vexed, "they are already coming out of Shool, the service is over! What a thing it is to sit talking! O wa!"

He sprang from his seat, gave the pane a rub with his hand, and began to recite the Afternoon Prayer. The teacher put on his things, but "Wait!" Reb Shloimeh signed to him with his hand.

Reb Shloimeh finished reciting "Incense."

"When shall you teach the children all that?" he asked then, looking into the prayer-book with a scowl.

"Not for a long time, not so quickly," answered the teacher. "The children cannot understand everything."

"I should think not, anything so wonderful!" replied Reb Shloimeh, ironically, gazing at the prayer-book and beginning "Happy are we." He swallowed the prayers as he said them, half of every word; no matter how he wrinkled his forehead, he could not expel the stranger thoughts from his brain, and fix his attention on the prayers. After the service he tried taking up a book, but it was no good, his head was a jumble of all the new sciences. By means of the little he had just learned, he wanted to understand and know everything, to fashion a whole body out of a single hair, and he thought, and thought, and thought....

Sunday, when the teacher came, Reb Shloimeh told him that he wished to have a little talk with him. Meantime he sat down to listen. The hour during which the teacher taught the children was too long for him, and he scarcely took his eyes off the clock.

"Do you want another pupil?" he asked the teacher, stepping with him into his own room. He felt as though he were getting red, and he made a very angry face.

"Why not?" answered the teacher, looking hard into Reb Shloimeh's face. Reb Shloimeh looked at the floor, his brows, as was usual with him in those days, drawn together.

"You understand me--a pupil--" he stammered, "you understand--not a little boy--a pupil--an elderly man--you understand--quite another sort--"

"Well, well, we shall see!" answered the teacher, smiling.

"I mean myself!" he snapped out with great displeasure, as if he had been forced to confess some very evil deed. "Well, I have sinned--what do you want of me?"

"Oh, but I should be delighted!" and the teacher smiled.

"I always said I meant to be a doctor!" said Reb Shloimeh, trying to joke. But his features contracted again directly, and he began to talk about the terms, and it was arranged that every day for an hour and a half the teacher should read to him and explain the sciences. To begin with, Reb Shloimeh chose physiology, sociology, and mathematical geography.

* * * * *

Days, weeks, and months have gone by, and Reb Shloimeh has become depressed, very depressed. He does not sleep at night, he has lost his appetite, doesn't care to talk to people.

Bad, bitter thoughts oppress him.

For seventy years he had not only known nothing, but, on the contrary, he had known everything wrong, understood head downwards. And it seemed to him that if he had known in his youth what he knew now, he would have lived differently, that his years would have been useful to others.

He could find no stain on his life--it was one long record of deeds of charity; but they appeared to him now so insignificant, so useless, and some of them even mischievous. Looking round him, he saw no traces of them left. The rich man of whom he used to beg donations is no poorer for them, and the pauper for whom he begged them is the same pauper as before. It is true, he had always thought of the paupers as sacks full of holes, and had only stuffed things into them because he had a soft heart, and could not bear to see a look of disappointment, or a tear rolling down the pale cheek of a hungry pauper. His own little world, as he had found it and as it was now, seemed to him much worse than before, in spite of all the good things he had done in it.

Not one good rich man! Not one genuine pauper! They are all just as hungry and their palms itch--there is no easing them. Times get harder, the world gets poorer. Now he understands the reason of it all, now it all lies before him as clear as on a map--he would be able to make every one understand. Only now--now it was getting late--he has no strength left. His spent life grieves him. If he had not been so active, such a "father of the community," it would not have grieved him so much. But he _had_ had a great influence in the town, and this influence had been badly, blindly used! And Reb Shloimeh grew sadder day by day.

He began to feel a pain at his heart, a stitch in the side, a burning in his brain, and he was wrapt in his thoughts. Reb Shloimeh was philosophizing.

To be of use to somebody, he reflected, means to leave an impress of good in their life. One ought to help once for all, so that the other need never come for help again. That can be accomplished by wakening and developing a man's intelligence, so that he may always know for himself wherein his help lies.

And in such work he would have spent his life. If he had only understood long ago, ah, how useful he would have been! And a shudder runs through him.

Tears of vexation come more than once into his eyes.

* * * * *

It was no secret in the town that old Reb Shloimeh spent two to three hours daily sitting with the teacher, only what they did together, that nobody knew. They tried to worm something out of the maid, but what was to be got out of a "glomp with two eyes," whose one reply was, "I don't know." They scolded her for it. "How can you not know, glomp?" they exclaimed. "Aren't you sometimes in the room with them?"

"Look here, good people, what's the use of coming to me?" the maid would cry. "How can I know, sitting in the kitchen, what they are about? When I bring in the tea, I see them talking, and I go!"

"Dull beast!" they would reply. Then they left her, and betook themselves to the grandchildren, who knew nothing, either.

"They have tea," was their answer to the question, "What does grandfather do with the teacher?"

"But what do they talk about, sillies?"

"We haven't heard!" the children answered gravely.

They tried the old lady.

"Is it my business?" she answered.

They tried to go in to Reb Shloimeh's house, on the pretext of some business or other, but that didn't succeed, either. At last, a few near and dear friends asked Reb Shloimeh himself.

"How people do gossip!" he answered.

"Well, what is it?"

"We just sit and talk!"

There it remained. The matter was discussed all over the town. Of course, nobody was satisfied. But he pacified them little by little.

The apostate teacher must turn hot and cold with him!

They imagined that they were occupied with research, and that Reb Shloimeh was opening the teacher's eyes for him--and they were pacified. When Reb Shloimeh suddenly fell on melancholy, it never came into anyone's head that there might be a connection between this and the conversations. The old lady settled that it was a question of the stomach, which had always troubled him, and that perhaps he had taken a chill. At his age such things were frequent. "But how is one to know, when he won't speak?" she lamented, and wondered which would be best, cod-liver oil or dried raspberries.

Every one else said that he was already in fear of death, and they pitied him greatly. "That is a sickness which no doctor can cure," people said, and shook their heads with sorrowful compassion. They talked to him by the hour, and tried to prevent him from being alone with his thoughts, but it was all no good; he only grew more depressed, and would often not speak at all.

"Such a man, too, what a pity!" they said, and sighed. "He's pining away--given up to the contemplation of death."

"And if you come to think, why should he fear death?" they wondered. "If _he_ fears it, what about us? Och! och! och! Have we so much to show in the next world?" And Reb Shloimeh had a lot to show. Jews would have been glad of a tenth part of his world-to-come, and Christians declared that he was a true Christian, with his love for his fellow-men, and promised him a place in Paradise. "Reb Shloimeh is goodness itself," the town was wont to say. His one lifelong occupation had been the affairs of the community. "They are my life and my delight," he would repeat to his intimate friends, "as indispensable to me as water to a fish." He was a member of all the charitable societies. The Talmud Torah was established under his own roof, and pretty nearly maintained at his expense. The town called him the "father of the community," and all unfortunate, poor, and bitter hearts blessed him unceasingly.

Reb Shloimeh was the one person in the town almost without an enemy, perhaps the one in the whole province. Rich men grumbled at him. He was always after their money--always squeezing them for charities. They called him the old fool, the old donkey, but without meaning what they said. They used to laugh at him, to make jokes upon him, of course among themselves; but they had no enmity against him. They all, with a full heart, wished him joy of his tranquil life.

Reb Shloimeh was born, and had spent years, in wealth. After making an excellent marriage, he set up a business. His wife was the leading spirit within doors, the head of the household, and his whole life had been apparently a success.

When he had married his last child, and found himself a grandfather, he retired from business, and lived his last years on the interest of his fortune.

Free from the hate and jealousy of neighbors, pleasant and satisfactory in every respect, such was Reb Shloimeh's life, and for all that he suddenly became melancholy! It can be nothing but the fear of death!

* * * * *

But very soon Reb Shloimeh, as it were with a wave of the hand, dismissed the past altogether.

He said to himself with a groan that what had been was over and done; he would never grow young again, and once more a shudder went through him at the thought, and there came again the pain in his side and caught his breath, but Reb Shloimeh took no notice, and went on thinking. "Something must be done!" he said to himself, in the tone of one who has suddenly lost his whole fortune--the fortune he has spent his life in getting together, and there is nothing for him but to start work again with his five fingers.

And Reb Shloimeh started. He began with the Talmud Torah, where he had already long provided for the children's bodily needs--food and clothing.

Now he would supply them with spiritual things--instruction and education.

He dismissed the old teachers, and engaged young ones in their stead, even for Jewish subjects. Out of the Talmud Torah he wanted to make a little university. He already fancied it a success. He closed his eyes, laid his forehead on his hands, and a sweet, happy smile parted his lips. He pictured to himself the useful people who would go forth out of the Talmud Torah. Now he can die happy, he thinks. But no, he does not want to die! He wants to live! To live and to work, work, work! He will not and cannot see an end to his life! Reb Shloimeh feels more and more cheerful, lively, and fresh--to work----to work--till--

The whole town was in commotion.

There was a perfect din in the Shools, in the streets, in the houses. Hypocrites and crooked men, who had never before been seen or heard of, led the dance.

"To make Gentiles out of the children, forsooth! To turn the Talmud Torah into a school! That we won't allow! No matter if we have to turn the world upside down, no matter what happens!"

Reb Shloimeh heard the cries, and made as though he heard nothing. He thought it would end there, that no one would venture to oppose him further.

"What do you say to that?" he asked the teachers. "Fanaticism has broken out already!"

"It will give trouble," replied the teachers.

"Eh, nonsense!" said Reb Shloimeh, with conviction. But on Sabbath, at the Reading of the Law, he saw that he had been mistaken. The opposition had collected, and they got onto the platform, and all began speaking at once. It was impossible to make out what they were saying, beyond a word here and there, or the fragment of a sentence: "--none of it!" "we won't allow--!" "--made into Gentiles!"

Reb Shloimeh sat in his place by the east wall, his hands on the desk where lay his Pentateuch. He had taken off his spectacles, and glanced at the platform, put them on again, and was once more reading the Pentateuch. They saw this from the platform, and began to shout louder than ever. Reb Shloimeh stood up, took off his prayer-scarf, and was moving toward the door, when he heard some one call out, with a bang of his fist on the platform:

"With the consent of the Rabbis and the heads of the community, and in the name of the Holy Torah, it is resolved to take the children away from the Talmud Torah, seeing that in place of the Torah there is uncleanness----"

Reb Shloimeh grew pale, and felt a rent in his heart. He stared at the platform with round eyes and open mouth.

"The children are to be made into Gentiles," shouted the person on the platform meantime, "and we have plenty of Gentiles, thank God, already! Thus may they perish, with their name and their remembrance! We are not short of Gentiles--there are more every day! And hatred increases, and God knows what the Jews are coming to! Whoso has God in his heart, and is jealous for the honor of the Law, let him see to it that the children cease going to the place of peril!"

Reb Shloimeh wanted to call out, "Silence, you scoundrel!" The words all but rolled off his tongue, but he contained himself, and moved on.

"The one who obeys will be blessed," proclaimed the individual on the platform, "and whoso despises the decree, his end shall be Gehenna, with that of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who sinned and made Israel to sin!"

With these last words the speaker threw a fiery glance at Reb Shloimeh.

A quiver ran through the Shool, and all eyes were turned on Reb Shloimeh, expecting him to begin abusing the speaker. A lively scene was anticipated. But Reb Shloimeh smiled.

He quietly handed his prayer-scarf to the beadle, wished the bystanders "good Sabbath," and walked out of Shool, leaving them all disconcerted.

* * * * *

That Sabbath Reb Shloimeh was the quietest man in the whole town. He was convinced that the interdict would have no effect on anyone. "People are not so foolish as all that," he thought, "and they wouldn't treat _him_ in that way!" He sat and laid plans for carrying on the education in the Talmud Torah, and he felt so light of heart that he sang to himself for very pleasure.

The old wife, meanwhile, was muttering and moaning. She had all her life been quite content with her husband and everything he did, and had always done her best to help him, hoping that in the world to come she would certainly share his portion of immortality. And now she saw with horror that he was like to throw away his future. But how ever could it be? she wondered, and was bathed in tears: "What has come over you? What has happened to make you like that? They are not just to you, are they, when they say that about taking children and making Gentiles of them?" Reb Shloimeh smiled. "Do you think," he said to her, "that I have gone mad in my old age? Don't be afraid. I'm in my right mind, and you shall not lose your place in Paradise."

But the wife was not satisfied with the reply, and continued to mutter and to weep. There were goings-on in the town, too. The place was aboil with excitement. Of course they talked about Reb Shloimeh; nobody could make out what had come to him all of a sudden.

"That is the teacher's work!" explained one of a knot of talkers.

"And we thought Reb Shloimeh such a sage, such a clever man, so book-learned. How can the teacher (may his name perish!) have talked him over?"

"It's a pity on the children's account!" one would exclaim here and there. "In the Talmud Torah, under his direction, they wanted for nothing, and what's to become of them now! They'll be running wild in the streets!"

"What then? Do you mean it would be better to make Gentiles of them?"

"Well, there! Of course, I understand!" he would hasten to say, penitently. And a resolution was passed, to the effect that the children should not be allowed to attend the Talmud Torah.

Reb Shloimeh stood at his window, and watched the excited groups in the street, saw how the men threw themselves about, rocked themselves, bit their beards, described half-circles with their thumbs, and he smiled.

In the evening the teachers came and told him what had been said in the town, and how all held that the children were not to be allowed to go to the Talmud Torah. Reb Shloimeh was a little disturbed, but he composed himself again and thought:

"Eh, they will quiet down, never mind! They won't do it to _me_!----"

Entering the Talmud Torah on Sunday, he was greeted by four empty walls. Even two orphans, who had no relations or protector in the town, had not come. They had been frightened and talked at and not allowed to attend, and free meals had been secured for all of them, so that they should not starve.

For the moment Reb Shloimeh lost his head. He glanced at the teachers as though ashamed in their presence, and his glance said, "What is to be done now?"

Suddenly he pulled himself together.

"No!" he exclaimed, "they shall not get the better of me," and he ran out of the Talmud Torah, and was gone.

He ran from house to house, to the parents and relations of the children. But they all looked askance at him, and he accomplished nothing: they all kept to it--"No!"

"Come, don't be silly! Send, send the children to the Talmud Torah," he begged. "You will see, you will not regret it!"

And he drew a picture for them of the sort of people the children would become.

But it was no use.

"_We_ haven't got to manage the world," they answered him. "We have lived without all that, and our children will live as we are living now. We have no call to make Gentiles of them!"

"We know, we know! People needn't come to us with stories," they would say in another house. "We don't intend to sell our souls!" was the cry in a third.

"And who says I have sold mine?" Reb Shloimeh would ask sharply.

"How should we know? Besides, who was talking of you?" they answered with a sweet smile.

Reb Shloimeh reached home tired and depressed. The old wife had a shock on seeing him.

"Dear Lord!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands. "What is the matter with you? What makes you look like that?"

The teachers, who were there waiting for him, asked no questions: they had only to look at his ghastly appearance to know what had happened.

Reb Shloimeh sank into his arm-chair.

"Nothing," he said, looking sideways, but meaning it for the teachers.