him cheerful. He knows appetite is a good sign; "his" traders, the ones
who send him on errands, are continually lamenting their lack of it. He,
blessed be His Name, has a good appetite; except when he is not up to
the mark, as yesterday, when the bread tasted sour to him.
Why should it have been sour? Soldiers' bread? Once, perhaps, yes; but
now? Phonye[24] bakes bread that any Jewish baker might be proud of, and
he had bought a new loaf which it was a pleasure to cut; but he was not
up to the mark, a chill was going through his bones.
But, praised be He whose Name he is not worthy to mention, that happens
to him but seldom.
Now he is hungry, and not only that, but he has in his pocket a piece of
bread and cheese; the cheese was given him by the trader's wife, may
she live and be well. She is a charitable woman--she has a Jewish heart.
If only she would not scold so, he thinks, she would be really nice. He
recalls to mind his dead wife.
"There was my Shprintze Niepritshkes; she also had a good heart and was
given to scolding. Every time I sent one of the children out into the
world she wept like a beaver, although at home she left them no peace
with her scolding tongue. And when a death happened in the family!" he
went on remembering. "Why, she used to throw herself about on the floor
whole days like a snake and bang her head with her fists."
"One day she wanted to throw a stone at heaven.
"We see," he thought, "how little notice God takes of a woman's
foolishness. But with her there was no taking away the bier and the
corpse. She slapped the women and tore the beards of the men.
"She was a fine woman, was Shprintze. Looked like a fly, and was strong,
so strong. Yet she was a good woman--she didn't dislike _me_ even,
although she never gave me a kind word.
"She wanted a divorce--a divorce. Otherwise she would run away. Only,
when was that?"
He remembers and smiles.
It was a long, long time ago; at that time the excise regulations were
still in force, and he was a night watchman, and went about all night
with an iron staff, so that no brandy should be smuggled into the town.
He knew what service was! To serve with Phonye was good discipline; he
had had good teachers. It was a winter's morning before daybreak, he
went to have his watch relieved by Chaïm Yoneh--he is in the world of
truth now--and then went home, half-frozen and stiff. He knocked at the
door and Shprintze called out from her bed:
"Into the ground with you! I thought your dead body would come home some
time!"
Oho! she is angry still, because of yesterday. He cannot remember what
happened, but so it must be.
"Shut your mouth and open the door!" he shouts.
"I'll open your head for you!" is the swift reply.
"Let me in!"
"Go into the ground, I tell you!"
And he turned away and went into the house-of-study, where he lay down
to sleep under the stove. As ill-luck would have it, it was a charcoal
stove, and he was suffocated and brought home like a dead man.
Then Shprintze was in a way! He could hear, after a while, how she was
carrying on.
They told her it was nothing--only the charcoal.
No! she must have a doctor. She threatened to faint, to throw herself
into the water, and went on screaming:
"My husband! My treasure!"
He pulled himself together, sat up, and asked quietly:
"Shprintze, do you want a divorce?"
"May you be--" she never finished the curse, and burst into tears.
"Shemaiah, do you think God will punish me for my cursing and my bad
temper?"
But no sooner was he well again, there was the old Shprintze back. A
mouth on wheels, a tongue on screws, and strong as iron--she scratched
like a cat--ha, ha! A pity she died; and she did not even live to have
pleasure in her children.
"They must be doing well in the world--all artisans--a trade won't let a
man die of hunger. All healthy--they took after me. They don't write,
but what of that? They can't do it themselves, and just _you_ go and ask
someone to do it for you! Besides, what's the good of a letter of that
kind? It's like watered soup. And then young boys, in a long time they
forget. They _must_ be doing well.
"But Shprintze is dead and buried. Poor Shprintze!
"Soon after the excise offices were abolished, she died. That was before
I had got used to going errands and saying to the gentle folk 'your
lordship,' instead of 'your high nobility';[25] before they trusted me
with contracts and money--and we used to want for bread.
"I, of course, a man and an ex-Cantonist, could easily go a day without
food, but for her, as I said, it was a matter of life and death. A
foolish woman soon loses her strength; she couldn't even scold any more;
all the monkey was out of her; she did nothing but cry.
"I lost all pleasure in life--she grew somehow afraid to eat, lest I
shouldn't have enough.
"Seeing she was afraid, I grew bold, _I_ screamed, _I_ scolded. For
instance: 'Why don't you go and eat?' Now and then I went into a fury
and nearly hit her, but how are you to hit a woman who sits crying with
her hands folded and doesn't stir? I run at her with a clenched fist and
spit at it, and she only says: 'You go and eat first--and then _I_
will,' and I had to eat some of the bread first and leave her the rest.
"Once she fooled me out into the street: 'I _will_ eat, only _you_ go
into the street--perhaps you will earn something,' and she smiled and
patted me.
"I go and I come again, and find the loaf much as I left it. She told me
she couldn't eat dry bread--she must have porridge."
He lets his head drop as though beneath a heavy weight, and the sad
thoughts chase one another:
"And what a wailing she set up when I wanted to pawn my Sabbath
cloak--the one I'm wearing now. She moved heaven and earth, and went and
pawned the metal candle-sticks, and said the blessing over candles stuck
into potatoes to the day of her death. Before dying she confessed to me
that she had never really wanted a divorce; it was only her evil tongue.
"'My tongue, my tongue,' she cried, 'God forgive me my tongue!' And she
really died in terror lest in the other world they should hang her by
the tongue.
"'God,' she said to me, 'will never forgive me; I've been too great a
sinner. But when _you_ come--not soon, heaven forbid, but in over a
hundred and twenty years[26]--when you _do_ come, then remember and take
me down from the gallows, and tell the Heavenly Council that _you_
forgave me.'
"She began to wander soon after that, and was continually calling the
children. She fancied they were there in the room, that she was talking
to them, and she asked their pardon.
"Silly woman, who wouldn't have forgiven her!
"How old was she altogether? Perhaps fifty. To die so young! It was
worse than a person taking his own life, because every time a thing went
out at the door, to the pawn-shop, a bit of her health and strength went
with it.
"She grew thinner and yellower day by day, and said she felt the marrow
drying up in her bones; she knew that she would die.
"How she loved the room and all its furniture! Whatever had to go,
whether it were a chair or a bit of crockery or anything else, she
washed it with her tears, and parted from it as a mother from her child;
put her arms around it and nearly kissed it. 'Oho!' she would say, 'when
I come to die, you won't be there in the room.'
"Well, there; every woman is a fool. At one moment she's a Cossack in
petticoats, and the next weaker than a child; because, really, whether
you die with a chair or without a chair, what does it matter?
"_Phê_," he interrupted himself, "what shall I think of next? Fancy
letting one's thoughts wander like that, and my pace has slackened, too,
thanks to the rubbish!
"Come, soldier's feet, on with you!" he commanded.
He looks round--snow on every hand; above, a gray sky with black
patches--just like my under-coat, he thought, stuff patched with black
sateen. Lord of the world, is it for want of "credit" up there, too?
Meanwhile it is freezing. His beard and whiskers are ice. His body is
fairly comfortable and his head is warm, he even feels the drops of
sweat on his forehead; only his feet grow colder and weaker.
He has not walked so very far, and yet he would like to rest, and he
feels ashamed of himself. It is the first time he ever wanted to rest on
an errand of two miles. He will not confess to himself that he is a man
of nearly eighty, and his weariness not at all surprising.
No, he must walk on--just walk on--for so long as one walks, one is
walking, one gets on; the moment one gives way to temptation and rests,
it's all over with one.
One might easily get a chill, he says to frighten himself, and does all
he can to shake off the craving for rest.
"It isn't far now to the village; there I shall have time to sit down.
"That's what I'll do. I won't go straight to the nobleman--one has to
wait there for an hour outside; I'll go first to the Jew.
"It's a good thing," he reflected, "that I am not afraid of the
nobleman's dog. When they let him loose at night, it's dreadful. I've
got my supper with me, and he likes cheese. It will be better to go
first and get rested. I will go to the Jew and warm myself, and wash,
and eat something."
His mouth waters at the thought; he has had nothing to eat since early
this morning; but that's nothing, he doesn't mind if he _is_ hungry; it
is a proof that one is alive. Only his feet!
Now he has only two versts more to walk, he can see the nobleman's great
straw-covered shed, only his _feet_ cannot see it, and they want to
rest.
"On the other hand," he mused, "supposing I rested a little after all?
One minute, half a minute? Why not? Let us try. My feet have obeyed me
so long, for once I'll obey them."
And Shemaiah sits down by the road-side on a little heap of snow. Now
for the first time he becomes aware that his heart is beating like a
hammer and his whole head perspiring.
He is alarmed. Is he going to be ill? And he has other people's money on
him. He might faint! Then he comforts himself: "God be praised, there is
no one coming, and if anyone came, it would never occur to him that I
have money with me--that I am trusted with money. Just a minute, and
then on we go."
But his lids are heavy as lead.
"No, get up, Shemaiah, _vstavai_!"[27] he commands.
He can still give a command, but he cannot carry it out; he cannot move.
Yet he imagines he is walking, and that he is walking quicker and
quicker. Now he sees all the little houses--that is Antek's, yonder,
Basili's, he knows them all, he hires conveyances of them. It is still a
long way to the Jew's. Yet, best to go there first--he may find
Mezumen,[28] and it seems to him that he approaches the Jew's house; but
it moves further and further on--he supposes that so it must be. There
is a good fire in the chimney, the whole window is cheery and red; the
stout Mir'l is probably skimming a large potful of potatoes, and she
always gives him one. What so nice as a hot potato? And on he trudges,
or--so he thinks, for in reality he has not left his place.
The frost has lessened its grip, and the snow is falling in broad, thick
flakes.
He seems to be warmer, too, in his cloak of snow, and he fancies that he
is now inside the Jew's house. Mir'l is straining the potatoes, he hears
the water pouring away--_ziùch, ziùch, ziùch_--and so it drips, indeed,
off his sateen cloak. Yoneh walks round and hums in his beard; it is a
habit of his to sing after evening prayer, because then he is hungry and
says frequently: "Well, Mir'l!"
But Mir'l never hurries--"more haste, worse speed."
"Am I asleep and is it a dream?" He is seized with joyful surprise. He
thinks he sees the door open and let in his eldest son. Chonoh, Chonoh!
Oh, he knows him well enough. What is he doing here? But Chonoh does not
recognize _him_, and Shemaiah keeps quiet. Ha, ha, ha; he is telling
Yoneh that he is on his way to see his father; he inquires after him; he
has not forgotten; and Yoneh, sly dog, never tells him that his father
is sitting there on the sleeping-bench. Mir'l is busy; she is taken up
with the potatoes; she won't stop in her work; she only smiles and
mashes the potatoes with the great wooden spoon--and smiles.
_Ach!_ Chonoh must be rich, very rich! Everything he has on is whole,
and he wears a chain--perhaps it is pinchbeck? No, it is real gold!
Chonoh wouldn't wear a pinchbeck chain. Ha, ha, ha! he glances at the
stove.[29] Ha, ha, ha! he nearly splits with laughter. Yainkil, Beril,
Zecharyah--all three--ha, ha, ha! they were hidden on the stove. The
thieves! What a pity Shprintze is not there! What a pity! She would have
been so pleased. Meantime Chonoh is ordering two geese. "Chonoh! Chonoh!
don't you know me? I am he!" And he fancies they embrace him.
"Look you, Chonoh; what a pity your mother cannot see you! Yainkil,
Beril, Zecharyah, come down from the stove! I knew you at once! Make
haste! I knew you would come! Look, I have brought you some cheese, real
sheep's milk cheese. Don't you like soldier's bread? What? Perhaps not?
Yes, it is a pity about the mother."
And he fancies that all the four children have put their arms round him
and hold him and kiss and press him to them.
"Gently, children, gently; don't squeeze me too hard! I am no young
man--I am eighty years old! Gently, you are suffocating me; gently,
children! Old bones! Gently, there is money in the bag. Praise God, they
trust me with money! Enough, children, enough!"
And it was enough. He sat there suffocated, with his hand pressed to the
bag in his bosom.
IX
WHAT IS THE SOUL?
1
I remember, as in a dream, that there used to be about the house a
little, thin Jew, with a pointed beard, who often put his arms round me
and kissed me.
Then I remember how the same man lay ill in bed; he groaned a great
deal, and my mother stood and beat her head with her hands.
One night I woke up and saw the room full of people. Outside there was a
grievous noise; I was very frightened, and I began to scream.
One of the people came up to me, dressed me, and led me away to sleep at
a neighbor's.
When I saw our room next morning, I did not know it again. Straw lay
scattered on the floor, the glass on the wall was covered over, the
hanging-lamp wrapped in a table cover, and my mother sat on a low stool
in her socks.
She began to weep loudly at sight of me and cried: "The orphan! the
orphan!"
An oil-lamp burned in the window; beside it were a glass of water and a
piece of linen.
They told me that my father had died, that his soul washed itself in the
glass and dried itself with the linen; that when once I began to say the
Kaddish it would fly straight up into heaven.
And I fancied the soul was a bird.
2
One evening the "helper" was leading me home from Cheder. A few birds
flew past me, quite low.
"Neshome'lech fliehen, neshome'lech fliehen!"[30] I sang to myself. The
"helper" turned round upon me:
"You silly!" he said, "those are birds, ordinary birds."
Afterwards I asked my mother how one could tell the difference between
an ordinary bird and a soul.
3
At fourteen years old, I was studying Gemoreh with the commentaries,
and, as luck would have it, under Zerach Kneip.
To this day I don't know if that was his real name, or whether the boys
gave it him because he used to pinch (_kneipen_) without mercy.
And he did not wait till one had deserved a pinch; he gave it in
advance. "Remind me," he would say, "and by and by we shall settle up
our accounts."
He was a Mohel, and had one pointed, uncut finger nail, and every pinch
went to the heart.
And he used to say: "Don't cry; don't cry about nothing! I only pinch
your body! What is it to you if the worms have less to eat when you are
in your grave?"
"The body," said Zerach Kneip, "is dust. Rub one palm against the other,
and you will see."
And we tried, and saw for ourselves that the body is dust and ashes.
"And what is the soul?" I asked.
"A spirit," answered the rabbi.
4
Zerach Kneip hated his wife like poison; but his daughter Shprintze was
the apple of his eye.
_We_ hated Shprintze, because she told on us, and--we loved the
rebbitzin, who sold us beans and peas on credit, and saved us more than
once from the rabbi's hands. I was her special favorite. I was given the
largest portions, and when the rabbi had hold of me, she would cry:
"Murderer! what are you after, treating an orphan like that? His
father's soul will be revenged on you!"
The rabbi would let go of me, and the rebbitzin got what was left.
I remember that one winter's evening I came home from Cheder so pinched
by the rabbi and so penetrated by the frost that my skin was quite
parched.
And I lifted my eyes to heaven and cried piteously and prayed: "Tatishe,
do be revenged on Zerach Kneip! Lord of the world, what does he want of
my soul?"
I forgot that he only pinched the body. But a man is to be excused for
what he says in his distress.
5
On a school holiday, when Zerach Kneip shut the Gemoreh and began to
tell stories, he was a different person.
He took off his cap and sat in his bushy locks (the skull-cap was hidden
by them); he unbuttoned his kaftan, smoothed out his forehead. His lips
smiled, and even his voice was different.
He taught us in the hard, gruff, angry voice in which he spoke to the
rebbitzin; he told us stories in the gentle, small, kind voice in which
he addressed Shprintze, his dear soul.
And we used to implore him as though he were a brigand to tell us a
story. We were unaware of the fact that Zerach Kneip knew only one
chapter of the Talmud, with which his course for little boys began and
ended, and that he _had_ to fill up the time with stories, specially in
winter when there are no religious holidays. We little fools used to buy
stories of him with peas and beans, and once even we saved up to buy
Shprintze a red flannel spencer.
For the said spencer, Reb Zerach told us how the Almighty takes a soul
out of his treasure-house and blows it into a body.
And I pictured to myself the souls laid out in the Almighty's store-room
like the goods in my mother's shop, in boxes, red, green, white, yellow,
and blue, and tied with string.
6
"When God," said the rabbi, "has chosen a soul and decided that it is to
go down into the sinful world, it trembles and cries.
"In the nine months before birth an angel teaches it the whole Torah;
then he gives it a fillip under the nose, and the soul forgets
everything it has learned.
"That," added the rabbi, "is why all Jewish children have cloven upper
lips."
That same evening I was skating on the ice outside the town, and I
observed that the Gentile boys, Yantek, Voitek, and Yashek, had cloven
upper lips just like ours.
"Yashek," I risked my life and asked, "_ti tàkshé màyesh dùshé_?"[31]
"What does it matter to you, soul of a dog?" was the distinct reply.
7
Beside going to the rabbi, I had a teacher for writing. This teacher was
supposed by the town to be a great heretic, and the neighbors wouldn't
borrow his dishes.[32]
He was a widower, and people never believed that Gütele, his daughter, a
girl about my age, knew how to make meat kosher.
But he was exceedingly accomplished, and my mother was determined that
her only son should learn to write.
"I beg of you, Reb teacher," she said to him, "not to teach him anything
heretical, nothing out of the Bible, but teach him how to write a Jewish
letter, just a 'greeting to any friend' letter."
But I don't know if he kept his word. When I gave him the poser about
the cleft lips, he went into a fury; he jumped up from his chair,
overturned it with his foot, and began to caper about the room, crying
out:
"Blockheads! murderers! bats!" By degrees he grew calm, sat down again,
wiped his spectacles, and drew me to him:
"My child," he said, "never believe such rubbish. You took a good look
at the Gentile boys who were skating? What are their names?"
I told him.
"Well," he continued, "had any one of them a different kind of eye from
yours; different hands or feet or limbs? Don't they laugh just as you
do? And if they cry, do they shed another sort of tears? Why should they
not have a real soul as well as we? All men are alike, children of one
family, one God is their Father, one earth their home. It is true that
at present the nations hate each other, and each one persuades itself
that _it_ is the crown of creation, and occupies all God's thoughts; but
_we_ hope for a better day, better and brighter, when humanity will
acknowledge one God and one law, when the words of our holy prophets
will come true, when there shall be an end to all wars and jealousy and
hatred; when all will serve one Creator, and it will be as the verse
says: 'For out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the word of the Lord
from Jerusalem.'"
I knew that verse from the paragraph, "And it came to pass, when the Ark
set forward," in the prayer-book.[33]
The teacher went on talking for some time, but I understood little of
what he said; I could not believe that "a Gentile has brains, too," that
all men were equal. I knew that the teacher held heretical opinions; he
did not even believe in the transmigration of souls, as I saw for myself
after the death of Fradel Mifkeres (the heretic), when a black dog
appeared on the roof of the house where she had lived.
Then he pared his nails in order, and never cut a "witness"[34] to throw
out of the window.
I should very soon have run away from him; I should have told my mother
of the way he talked, only--
I am sure you guess what and whom I mean.
8
This alone remained fixed in my head, that there would be a time when
the other nations would come to us to learn Torah, and that it might be
to-morrow.
Times with us just then were quite Messianic; strong hints of it were
discovered in the Book of Daniel, and the word that stood for the
current year indicated it; besides, there was a passage in the Zohar,
and in the Midrash ha-Néelom, and it was whispered from ear to ear that
the Rebbe of Kozenitz had stopped reciting the Supplications; and there
was reliable news from Palestine that no fox had been seen near the
"western wall" all that year.
And people looked every day for Messiah the son of Joseph; Kohol gave
bribes to escape paying taxes; when Messiah came, who would trouble
about little things like that?
The women came off worst. A few years previously the steps of their bath
had fallen in. Goodness knows, it took asking enough before the money
was granted for new ones. And now the wood was there, ready and waiting,
only it seemed a pity, all the same, to hire a workman and spend those
few rubles. And I firmly believed that in a short time Yashek, who
pushed me when I was skating, just as I was doing a "cobbler," so that,
thanks to him, I all but broke my neck; that Voitek, who always made a
pig's ear at me, and Yantek, who counted us--_raz, dva, tshi_--that all
three, I say, would come and humbly ask me to explain a ritual question,
for instance, concerning things improper for the touch, as a stone on
Sabbath.
And I, "merciful and a son of the Merciful," would not remember against
them what they had done to me, but would tell them. I would be a friend
to them and explain to them the mystery of the iron and the paper
bridge; tell them not to venture on to the iron bridge--indeed, that it
would be best to keep away altogether, if they wished to save their
souls.
9
On the eve of New Year I completed the course with Zerach Kneip, and
felt as it were the relief of the exodus out of Egypt.
I had been told that my new teacher, Reb Yozel, never pinched; never
even hit you for nothing. I had been used to see Reb Yozel at prayers.
He was a tall Jew, with huge eyebrows, so that his eyes were quite
hidden. He wore his kaftan open, and the "little prayer-scarf" appeared
on each side of his long, pointed beard. He walked softly and talked
softly, as though of secrets. And while he talked, he nodded his head
slowly, lifted his brows, drew his forehead together, thrust out his
lips and whiskers, and slid both hands into his girdle; it seemed as
though every word he spoke were of the greatest importance.
Reb Yozel had been "messenger" for a time to one of the great
wonder-workers, and he had even now a certain amount of oils, coins,
amulets, salves, etc.,[35] to sell on commission; he was reckoned the
first exorcist in the town, and if the rabbi were poorly, he would
preach instead of him on the Great Sabbath and the New Year, and deliver
memorial addresses. The rabbi was a weak old man, and Reb Yozel looked
to filling his place when he had accomplished his one hundred and twenty
years.
Beside this, Reb Yozel was a celebrated blower of the Shofar, and when
he repeated the blessing before blowing--how goes the saying?--fish
trembled in the water.
And I was filled with pride at the thought of being his pupil.