Part 27
They are proud of Chavveh; it is an honor for them each and all (and who are they that they should venture to pretend to it?) to possess such a Chavveh, who was highly spoken of even by rich Gentiles. Hence this embarrassed smile at the mention of her name; she would certainly advise, but at the same time they avoided each other's look. The wise Malkeh had the same feeling, but she was able to cheer the rest. Never mind! It doesn't matter telling her. She is a Jewish daughter, too, and will keep it to herself. These things happen behind the "high windows" also. Whereupon they all breathed more freely, and went up the hill to Chavveh. They went in serried ranks, like soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, relief and satisfaction reflected in their faces. All who met them made way for them, stood aside, and wondered what it meant. Some of their own husbands even stood and looked at the marching women, but not one dared to go up to them and ask what was doing. Their object grew dearer to them at every step. A settled resolve and a deep sense of goodwill to mankind urged them on. They all felt that they were going in a good cause, and would thereby bar the road to all such occurrences in the future.
The way to Chavveh was long. She lived quite outside the Pidvorkes, and they had to go through the whole market-place with the shops, which stood close to one another, as though they held each other by the hand, and then only through narrow lanes of old thatched peasant huts, with shy little window-panes. But beside nearly every hut stood a couple of acacia-trees, and the foam-white blossoms among the young green leaves gave a refreshing perfume to the neighborhood. Emerging from the streets, they proceeded towards a pretty hill planted with pink-flowering quince-trees. A small, clear stream flowed below it to the left, so deceptively clear that it reflected the hillside in all its natural tints. You had to go quite close in order to make sure it was only a delusion, when the stream met your gaze as seriously as though there were no question of _it_ at all.
On the top of the hill stood Chavveh's house, adorned like a bride, covered with creepers and quinces, and with two large lamps under white glass shades, upheld in the right hands of two statues carved in white marble. The distance had not wearied them; they had walked and conversed pleasantly by the way, each telling a story somewhat similar to the one that had occasioned their present undertaking.
"Do you know," began Shifreh, the wholesale dealer, "mine tried to play me a trick with the dowry, too? It was immediately before the ceremony, and he insisted obstinately that unless a silver box and fifty rubles were given to him in addition to what had been promised to him, he would not go under the marriage canopy!"
"Well, if it hadn't been Zorah, it would have been Chayyim Treitel," observed some one, ironically.
They all laughed, but rather weakly, just for the sake of laughing; not one of them really wished to part from her husband, even in cases where he disliked her, and they quarrelled. No indignity they suffered at their husbands' hands could hurt them so deeply as a wish on his part to live separately. After all they are man and wife. They quarrel and make it up again.
And when they spied Chavvehle's house in the distance, they all cried out joyfully, with one accord:
"There is Chavvehle's house!" Once more they forgot about themselves; they were filled with enthusiasm for the common cause, and with a pain that will lie forever at their heart should they not do all that sinful man is able.
The wise Malkehle's heart beat faster than anyone's. She had begun to consider how she should speak to Chavvehle, and although apt, incisive phrases came into her head, one after another, she felt that she would never be able to come out with them in Chavvehle's presence; were it not for the other women's being there, she would have felt at her ease.
All of a sudden a voice exclaimed joyfully, "There we are at the house!" All lifted their heads, and their eyes were gladdened by the sight of the tall flowers arranged about a round table, in the shelter of a widely-branching willow, on which there shone a silver samovar. In and out of the still empty tea-glasses there stole beams of the sinking sun, as it dropt lower and lower behind the now dark-blue hill.
"What welcome guests!" Chavveh met them with a sweet smile, and her eyes awoke answering love and confidence in the women's hearts.
Not a glance, not a movement betrayed surprise on Chavvehle's part, any more than if she had been expecting them everyone.
They felt that she was behaving like any sage, and were filled with a sense of guilt towards her.
Chavvehle excused herself to one or two other guests who were present, and led the women into her summer-parlor, for she had evidently understood that what they had come to say was for her ears only.
They wanted to explain at once, but they couldn't, and the two who of all found it hardest to speak were the selected spokeswomen, Breindel-Cossack and Malkehle the wise. Chavvehle herself tried to lead them out of their embarrassment.
"You evidently have something important to tell me," she said, "for otherwise one does not get a sight of you."
And now it seemed more difficult than ever, it seemed impossible ever to tell the angelic Chavvehle of the bad action about which they had come. They all wished silently that their children might turn out one-tenth as good as she was, and their impulse was to take Chavvehle into their arms, kiss her and hug her, and cry a long, long time on her shoulder; and if she cried with them, it would be so comforting.
Chavvehle was silent. Her great, wide-open blue eyes grew more and more compassionate as she gazed at the faces of her sisters; it seemed as though they were reading for themselves the sorrowful secret the women had come to impart.
And the more they were impressed with her tactful behavior, and the more they felt the kindness of her gaze, the more annoyed they grew with themselves, the more tongue-tied they became. The silence was so intense as to be almost seen and felt. The women held their breath, and only exchanged roundabout glances, to find out what was going on in each other's mind; and they looked first of all at the two who had undertaken to speak, while the latter, although they did not see this, felt as if every one's gaze was fixed upon them, wondering why they were silent and holding all hearts by a thread.
Chavvehle raised her head, and spoke sweetly:
"Well, dear sisters, tell me a little of what it is about. Do you want my help in any matter? I should be so glad----"
"Dear sisters" she called them, and lightning-like it flashed through their hearts that Chavveh was, indeed, their sister. How could they feel otherwise when they had it from Chavveh herself? Was she not one of their own people? Had she not the same God? True, her speech was a little strange to them, and she was not overpious, but how should God be angry with such a Chavveh as this? If it must be, let him punish _them_ for her sin; they would willingly suffer in her place.
The sun had long set; the sky was grey, save for one red streak, and the room had grown dark. Chavvehle rose to light the candles, and the women started and wiped their tearful eyes, so that Chavveh should not remark them. Chavveh saw the difficulty they had in opening their hearts to her, and she began to speak to them of different things, offered them refreshment according to their several tastes, and now Malkehle felt a little more courageous, and managed to say:
"No, good, kind Chavvehle, we are not hungry. We have come to consult with you on a very important matter!"
And then Breindel tried hard to speak in a soft voice, but it sounded gruff and rasping:
"First of all, Chavveh, we want you to speak to us in Yiddish, not in Polish. We are all Jewish women, thank God, together!"
Chavvehle, who had nodded her head during the whole of Breindel's speech, made another motion of assent with her silken eyebrows, and replied:
"I will talk Yiddish to you with pleasure, if that is what you prefer."
"The thing is this, Chavvehle," began Shifreh, the wholesale dealer, "it is a shame and a sorrow to tell, but when the thunderbolt has fallen, one must speak. You know Rochel Esther Leoh's. She is engaged, and the wedding was to have been in eight weeks--and now she, the good-for-nothing, is with child--and he, the son of perdition, says now that if he isn't given more than five hundred rubles, he won't take her----"
Chavvehle was deeply troubled by their words. She saw how great was their distress, and found, to her regret, that she had little to say by way of consolation.
"I feel with you," she said, "in your pain. But do not be so dismayed. It is certainly very bad news, but these things will happen, you are not the first----"
She wanted to say more, but did not know how to continue.
"But what are we to do?" asked several voices at once. "That is what we came to you for, dearie, for you to advise us. Are we to give him all the money he asks, or shall they both know as much happiness as we know what to do else? Or are we to hang a stone round our necks and drown ourselves for shame? Give us some advice, dear, help us!"
Then Chavvehle understood that it was not so much the women who were speaking and imploring, as their stricken hearts, their deep shame and grief, and it was with increased sympathy that she answered them:
"What can I say to help you, dear sisters? You have certainly not deserved this blow; you have enough to bear as it is--things ought to have turned out quite differently; but now that the misfortune has happened, one must be brave enough not to lose one's head, and not to let such a thing happen again, so that it should be the first and last time! But what exactly you should do, I cannot tell you, because I don't know! Only if you should want my help or any money, I will give you either with the greatest pleasure."
They understood each other----
The women parted with Chavveh in great gladness, and turned towards home conscious of a definite purpose. Now they all felt they knew just what to do, and were sure it would prevent all further misfortune and disgrace.
They could have sung out for joy, embraced the hill, the stream, the peasant huts, and kissed and fondled them all together. Mind you, they had even now no definite plan of action, it was just Chavvehle's sympathy that had made all the difference--feeling that Chavveh was with them! Wrapped in the evening mist, they stepped vigorously and cheerily homewards.
Gradually the speed and the noise of their march increased, the air throbbed, and at last a high, sharp voice rose above the rest, whereupon they grew stiller, and the women listened.
"I tell you what, we won't beat them. Only on Sabbath we must all come together like one man, break into the house-of-study just before they call up to the Reading of the Law, and not let them read till they have sworn to agree to our sentence of excommunication!
"She is right!"
"Excommunicate him!"
"Tear him in pieces!"
"Let him be dressed in robe and prayer-scarf, and swear by the eight black candles that he----"
"Swear! Swear!"
The noise was dreadful. No one was allowed to finish speaking. They were all aflame with one fire of revenge, hate, and anger, and all alike athirst for justice. Every new idea, every new suggestion was hastily and hotly seized upon by all together, and there was a grinding of teeth and a clenching of fists. Nature herself seemed affected by the tumult, the clouds flew faster, the stars changed their places, the wind whistled, the trees swayed hither and thither, the frogs croaked, there was a great boiling up of the whole concern.
"Women, women," cried one, "I propose that we go to the court of the Shool, climb into the round millstones, and all shout together, so that they may know what we have decided."
"Right! Right! To the Shool!" cried a chorus of voices.
A common feeling of triumph running through them, they took each other friendly-wise by the hand, and made gaily for the court of the Shool. When they got into the town, they fell on each other's necks, and kissed each other with tears and joy. They knew their plan was the best and most excellent that could be devised, and would protect them all from further shame and trouble.
The Pidvorkes shuddered to hear their tread.
All the remaining inhabitants, big and little, men and women, gathered in the court of the Shool, and stood with pale faces and beating hearts to see what would happen.
The eyes of the young bachelors rolled uneasily, the girls had their faces on one another's shoulders, and sobbed.
Breindel, agile as a cat, climbed on to the highest millstone, and proclaimed in a voice of thunder:
"Seeing that such and such a thing has happened, a great scandal such as is not to be hid, and such as we do not wish to hide, all we women have decided to excommunicate----"
Such a tumult arose that for a minute or two Breindel could not be heard, but it was not long before everyone knew who and what was meant.
"We also demand that neither he nor his nearest friends shall be called to the Reading of the Law; that people shall have nothing to do with them till after the wedding!"
"Nothing to do with them! Nothing to do with them!" shook the air.
"That people shall not lend to them nor borrow of them, shall not come within their four ells!" continued the voice from the millstone.
"And _she_ shall be shut up till her time comes, so that no one shall see her. Then we will take her to the burial-ground, and the child shall be born in the burial-ground. The wedding shall take place by day, and without musicians--"
"Without musicians!"
"Without musicians!"
'Without musicians!"
"Serve her right!"
"She deserves worse!"
A hundred voices were continually interrupting the speaker, and more women were climbing onto the millstones, and shouting the same things.
"On the wedding-day there will be great black candles burning throughout the whole town, and when the bride is seated at the top of the marriage-hall, with her hair flowing loose about her, all the girls shall surround her, and the Badchen shall tell her, 'This is the way we treat one who has not held to her Jewishness, and has blackened all our faces----'"
"Yes!"
"Yes!"
"So it is!"
"The apostates!"
The last words struck the hearers' hearts like poisoned arrows. A deathly pallor, born of unrealized terror at the suggested idea, overspread all their faces, their feelings were in a tumult of shame and suffering. They thirsted and longed after their former life, the time before the calamity disturbed their peace. Weary and wounded in spirit, with startled looks, throbbing pulses, and dilated pupils, and with no more than a faint hope that all might yet be well, they slowly broke the stillness, and departed to their homes.
LOeB SCHAPIRO
Born, about 1880, in the Government of Kieff, Little Russia; came to Chicago in 1906, and to New York for a short time in 1907-1908; now (1912) in business in Switzerland; contributor to Die Zukunft, New York; collected works, Novellen, 1 vol., Warsaw, 1910.
IF IT WAS A DREAM
Yes, it was a terrible dream! But when one is only nine years old, one soon forgets, and Meyerl was nine a few weeks before it came to pass.
Yes, and things had happened in the house every now and then to remind one of it, but then Meyerl lived more out of doors than indoors, in the wild streets of New York. Tartilov and New York--what a difference! New York had supplanted Tartilov, effaced it from his memory. There remained only a faint occasional recollection of that horrid dream.
If it really _was_ a dream!
It was this way: Meyerl dreamt that he was sitting in Cheder learning, but more for show's sake than seriously, because during the Days of Penitence, near the close of the session, the Rebbe grew milder, and Cheder less hateful. And as he sat there and learnt, he heard a banging of doors in the street, and through the window saw Jews running to and fro, as if bereft of their senses, flinging themselves hither and thither exactly like leaves in a gale, or as when a witch rises from the ground in a column of dust, and whirls across the road so suddenly and unexpectedly that it makes one's flesh creep. And at the sight of this running up and down in the street, the Rebbe collapsed in his chair white as death, his under lip trembling.
Meyerl never saw him again. He was told later that the Rebbe had been killed, but somehow the news gave him no pleasure, although the Rebbe used to beat him; neither did it particularly grieve him. It probably made no great impression on his mind. After all, what did it mean, exactly? Killed? and the question slipped out of his head unanswered, together with the Rebbe, who was gradually forgotten.
And then the real horror began. They were two days hiding away in the bath-house--he and some other little boys and a few older people--without food, without drink, without Father and Mother. Meyerl was not allowed to get out and go home, and once, when he screamed, they nearly suffocated him, after which he sobbed and whimpered, unable to stop crying all at once. Now and then he fell asleep, and when he woke everything was just the same, and all through the terror and the misery he seemed to hear only one word, Goyim, which came to have a very definite and terrible meaning for him. Otherwise everything was in a maze, and as far as seeing goes, he really saw nothing at all.
Later, when they came out again, nobody troubled about him, or came to see after him, and a stranger took him home. And neither his father nor his mother had a word to say to him, any more than if he had just come home from Cheder as on any other day.
Everything in the house was broken, they had twisted his father's arm and bruised his face. His mother lay on the bed, her fair hair tossed about, and her eyes half-closed, her face pale and stained, and something about her whole appearance so rumpled and sluttish--it reminded one of a tumbled bedquilt. His father walked up and down the room in silence, looking at no one, his bound arm in a white sling, and when Meyerl, conscious of some invisible calamity, burst out crying, his father only gave him a gloomy, irritated look, and continued to span the room as before.
In about three weeks' time they sailed for America. The sea was very rough during the passage, and his mother lay the whole time in her berth, and was very sick. Meyerl was quite fit, and his father did nothing but pace the deck, even when it poured with rain, till they came and ordered him down-stairs.
Meyerl never knew exactly what happened, but once a Gentile on board the ship passed a remark on his father, made fun of him, or something--and his father drew himself up, and gave the other a look--nothing more than a look! And the Gentile got such a fright that he began crossing himself, and he spit out, and his lips moved rapidly. To tell the truth, Meyerl was frightened himself by the contraction of his father's mouth, the grind of his teeth, and by his eyes, which nearly started from his head. Meyerl had never seen him look like that before, but soon his father was once more pacing the deck, his head down, his wet collar turned up, his hands in his sleeves, and his back slightly bent.
When they arrived in New York City, Meyerl began to feel giddy, and it was not long before the whole of Tartilov appeared to him like a dream.
It was in the beginning of winter, and soon the snow fell, the fresh white snow, and it was something like! Meyerl was now a "boy," he went to "school," made snowballs, slid on the slides, built little fires in the middle of the street, and nobody interfered. He went home to eat and sleep, and spent what you may call his "life" in the street.
In their room were cold, piercing draughts, which made it feel dreary and dismal. Meyerl's father, a lean, large-boned man, with a dark, brown face and black beard, had always been silent, and it was but seldom he said so much as "Are you there, Tzippe? Do you hear me, Tzippe?" But now his silence was frightening! The mother, on the other hand, used to be full of life and spirits, skipping about the place, and it was "Shloimeh!" here, and "Shloimeh!" there, and her tongue wagging merrily! And suddenly there was an end of it all. The father only walked back and forth over the room, and she turned to look after him like a child in disgrace, and looked and looked as though forever wanting to say something, and never daring to say it. There was something new in her look, something dog-like! Yes, on my word, something like what there was in the eyes of Mishke the dog with which Meyerl used to like playing "over there," in that little town in dreamland. Sometimes Meyerl, waking suddenly in the night, heard, or imagined he heard, his mother sobbing, while his father lay in the other bed puffing at his cigar, but so hard, it was frightening, because it made a little fire every time in the dark, as though of itself, in the air, just over the place where his father's black head must be lying. Then Meyerl's eyes would shut of themselves, his brain was confused, and his mother and the glowing sparks and the whole room sank away from him, and Meyerl dropped off to sleep.
Twice that winter his mother fell ill. The first time it lasted two days, the second, four, and both times the illness was dangerous. Her face glowed like an oven, her lower lip bled beneath her sharp white teeth, and yet wild, terrifying groans betrayed what she was suffering, and she was often violently sick, just as when they were on the sea.
At those times she looked at her husband with eyes in which there was no prayer. Mishke once ran a thorn deep into his paw, and he squealed and growled angrily, and sucked his paw, as though he were trying to swallow it, thorn and all, and the look in his eyes was the look of Meyerl's mother in her pain.
In those days his father, too, behaved differently, for, instead of walking to and fro across the room, he ran, puffing incessantly at his cigar, his brow like a thunder-cloud and occasional lightnings flashing from his eyes. He never looked at his wife, and neither of them looked at Meyerl, who then felt himself utterly wretched and forsaken.
And--it is very odd, but--it was just on these occasions that Meyerl felt himself drawn to his home. In the street things were as usual, but at home it was like being in Shool during the Solemn Days at the blowing of the ram's horn, when so many tall "fathers" stand with prayer-scarfs over their heads, and hold their breath, and when out of the distance there comes, unfolding over the heads of the people, the long, loud blast of the Shofar.
And both times, when his mother recovered, the shadow that lay on their home had darkened, his father was gloomier than ever, and his mother, when she looked at him, had a still more crushed and dog-like expression, as though she were lying outside in the dust of the street.
The snowfalls became rarer, then they ceased altogether, and there came into the air a feeling of something new--what exactly, it would have been hard for Meyerl to say. Anyhow it was something good, very good, for everyone in the street was glad of it, one could see that by their faces, which were more lightsome and gay.
On the Eve of Passover the sky of home cleared a little too, street and house joined hands through the windows, opened now for the first time since winter set in, and this neighborly act of theirs cheered Meyerl's heart.