he walked away.
A little time passed, and they had got into the habit, when they met, of
walking a few steps together; Savitzki continued to question and to
receive the same reply: "Nothing, sir, nothing," and still he consoled
himself and Yössil with: "It will come!"
"It must come!" he declared with assurance, and Yössil translated it
into Hebrew: "And although it tarry, I expect it,"[46] and his heart
expanded.
He wished the town no harm. Savitzki might wish for a great outbreak of
the pestilence, he only desired a little one, a little tiny one. No one
was to die, heaven forbid! A few householders should fall ill--nothing
more would be necessary. That is all he asks. He does not wish that his
greatest enemy should die.
This lasted a month. Savitzki even began to lose patience, and made
Yössil a proposal. He felt sure something must be happening, only that
people kept it hid. They were afraid of making it known--Jews are so
nervous. So he proposed that Yössil should pry, find out, and tell him
of only one hidden case, tell him of anything. He would be grateful to
him.
* * * * *
Savitzki talked too quick for Yössil and too "high Polish," but he
understood that Savitzki wished to make a spy of him and have him betray
the Jewish sick.
"No," he thought, "no, Yössil is not going to turn informer!" He is
resolved not to let out a word to Savitzki, and yet, in spite of
himself, and for politeness' sake, he nodded in affirmation, and
Savitzki walked away.
Yössil's determination not to tell tales strengthened, but there was no
reason why he should not find out for himself if they were not
concealing something, and he began to go in and out among the people
assembled for daily prayer, to see if no one were missing; if he
remarked any one's absence, he tried to discover the reason, but it came
to nothing. It always turned out to be that the person had risked his
life going out into a village to buy stores; or else he had quarrelled
with his wife, and was ashamed to come to the house-of-study with a
swollen cheek, or he had been to the Röfeh to have a tooth out and they
couldn't stop the bleeding; and other such trifles that had no
connection with the object of his interest. And every day he was able to
report honestly to Savitzki: "Nothing, honored sir, nothing!"
Every day now they waited one for the other, and every day they talked
longer together.
Yössil endeavored with all his might to make himself intelligible to
Savitzki; he worked his hands and his feet, and Savitzki, who had learnt
to understand the gestures, had often to save himself from Yössil's too
energetic demonstrations.
Savitzki could not make out what Yössil was after, why he kept at a
distance from Kohol, and why, as was clearly to be seen, he also wished
for the pestilence--but he had no time to busy himself with the
problem--to fathom the mind of a Jew. It was probably a matter of
business--perhaps he dealt in linen for winding-sheets. Perhaps he made
coffins. But when he remarked that Yössil was growing depressed, that he
was less sure than Savitzki that it must come to-morrow, he talked to
him freely, gave him courage, and made him confident once more that the
community would not escape.
To Savitzki it was clear as daylight that it would come. It was getting
nearer and nearer--was it not in all the papers?
Six weeks passed. The sharp frosts, for which the community was hoping,
had not been, but the pestilence desired by Savitzki and Yössil delayed
equally. Even Savitzki began to have his doubts, but encouraging Yössil,
he encouraged himself in the matter. It was simply impossible that it
should not come. Was there a less clean town anywhere? Where else did
people eat so many gherkins, so much raw fruit, and as many onions?
Where were they less well provided with cold water? There were perhaps
two or three well-to-do people in the place with metal samovars; three
to four houses where they made tea; in the rest they drank pear-drink
after the Sholent[47] and old, putrid fish was sold galore.
It must come!
There were towns over which the pestilence had no power: Aix,
Birmingham, and others whose names Yössil could not catch; but there
people ate no Sholent, and tea was made with distilled water--that was
different.
Meantime another week passed and nothing happened. On the contrary, it
was reported that in Apte it had decreased considerably; Racheff was
open again; in Tzoismir they had even closed the tea-house for poor
people, which had been started to please the governor. Yössil began to
think his sorry luck would make all his plans evaporate into thin air,
that his town was also a kind of Birmingham, over which the pestilence
had no power. He began to have his old bad nights and felt restless even
in the day-time. The brides seemed further off than ever, and, except
during the half-hour spent with Savitzki, he had no rest.
He saw the townsfolk growing unmistakably calmer; then it was said that
the villages round about had returned to their normal state. The whole
town revived; the women ceased to wail in the synagogue; the younger
ones gave up coming to prayers at all, except now and again on Sabbath
as before; the Röfeh's wife began to think of putting on her wig again.
The bather's maid-servant was in people's mouths, and they had even
reported her to the rabbi. The Maskil recommenced to write in Hebrew;
dealers in produce, to drive out into the country; brokers, to make
money; the Sunday market was crowded with peasants, the public-houses
filled; salt, naphthaline, and other household wares began to sell. The
town assumed its old aspect, window blinds disappeared; Savitzki's
street came to life again.
Yössil's condition grew daily worse. His former melancholy had returned
in part. Instead of brides, he had the rope in the loft continually
before his eyes. It beckons him and calls to him: Come, come! rid
yourself of Kohol, rid yourself of this wretched life. But he resisted:
Savitzki is a doctor, he must know. And Savitzki holds to his opinion.
One day Yössil did not meet Savitzki outside the town, and just the day
he wanted him most.
Hardly had Yössil awoke, early that morning--it was still dark--when the
beadle burst joyfully into the house-of-study, with "Do you hear,
Yössil? The doctor and the student have left Raeheff! And last night,
just at new moon, there was a hard frost, an iron frost. No fear of the
pestilence now!" he cried out and ran to call people to prayers with the
good news.
Yössil dressed quickly, that is, he threw round him the cloak he had
been using as a covering, and began to move jerkily to and fro across
the house-of-study, every now and then running to the window to see if
it were daylight, if it were time to hasten out after Savitzki. Hardly
had the day fairly broken, when he recited the morning prayers and ran,
without having breakfasted, outside the town. He felt that without
comfort from Savitzki his heart would burst.
He waited about, hungry, till midday; Savitzki did not come, he must
wait--it had happened before that Savitzki did not appear till the
afternoon.
He is hungry, very hungry, but it never occurs to him to go and buy
food; he must wait for Savitzki. Without having seen him and received
comfort from him, he could not swallow one bite. He will have another
bad night; he will be drawn to the rope. No, let him fast for once!
Another hour has passed, it begins to grow dark, the pallid spot of
winter sun behind the clouds sinks lower and lower, and will shortly
vanish behind Vassil's mill. He shivers with cold; he runs to warm
himself, claps his hands together, and Savitzki does not come. He has
never been so late before.
He began to think there must have been an accident; Savitzki must have
been taken ill, or else (Yössil grows angry) he is playing cards, the
Gentile! And the pale ball of sun sinks lower and lower, and in the
other, clearer half of the sky appears a second pale misty spot like a
sickle. That is the young moon, it is time for evening prayer.
Yössil loses all hope: Savitzki will not come now. The tears choke him.
He hurries back to the house-of-study, to be at least in time for
prayers.
He met scarcely anyone in the street, the men had all gone to pray, only
here and there a woman's voice sounded cheerfully through the doors of
the little shops and followed him to the steps of the house-of-study.
His limbs shook beneath him from exhaustion; there must be some very
good news to make the women laugh so loud.
He could hardly climb the stairs. Outside the door he stopped; he had
not the courage to turn the handle; the people were not praying, but
they were talking cheerily and all at once; heaven knows what the
householders were all so happy about.
Suddenly he grew angry and flung open the door.
"And Savitzki," were the first words he heard, "has also, thank heaven,
taken himself off."
"Really and truly?" someone asked.
"Saw it myself," said the other, "with my own eyes."
Yössil heard no more; his limbs gave way and his whole body was seized
with trembling; he just dragged himself to a bench and sat there like
one turned to stone, with great, staring eyes.
6
THE END
The happy assembly did not notice it. After Minchah and Maariv (some few
only after a page of Gemoreh, or a chapter of Mishnayes), they went away
and left Yössil alone as usual. Even the householder in whose house
Yössil should have eaten that day's meals never thought of going up to
him and asking why he had not been to breakfast, and why he was not
coming back with him to supper; he just hurried home along with the
rest, to tell his wife and children the good news, that Savitzki had
gone, that they were rid of _that_ treasure. It was not till the next
day that Yössil was missed; then they said, bother would _not_ have
taken him, and the beadle lighted the stove himself. The oven smoked and
Yössil was talked about the whole day; he was the only one who could
manage the stove. They began to wonder if he had gone to Palestine, or
else to Argentina? It was true, he had nothing with which to pay his
travelling expenses, but then he could always resort to begging.
It was only on the sixth day, when the town was looking for the arrival
of an inspector of licenses, that the first shop-keeper who climbed up
into the loft to hide a piece of imported velvet found Yössil hanging
and already stark.
XI
BONTZYE SHWEIG[48]
Down here, in _this_ world, Bontzye Shweig's death made no impression at
all. Ask anyone you like who Bontzye was, _how_ he lived, and what he
died of; whether of heart failure, or whether his strength gave out, or
whether his back broke under a heavy load, and they won't know. Perhaps,
after all, he died of hunger.
If a tram-car horse had fallen dead, there would have been more
excitement. It would have been mentioned in the papers, and hundreds of
people would have crowded round to look at the dead animal--even the
spot where the accident took place.
But the tramway horse would receive less attention if there were as many
horses as men--a thousand million.
Bontzye lived quietly and died quietly. He passed through _our_ world
like a shadow.
No wine was drunk at Bontzye's circumcision, no healths were proposed,
and he made no beautiful speech when he was confirmed. He lived like a
little dun-colored grain of sand on the sea-shore, among millions of his
kind; and when the wind lifted him and blew him over to the other side
of the sea, nobody noticed it.
When he was alive, the mud in the street preserved no impression of his
feet; after his death, the wind overturned the little board on his
grave. The grave-digger's wife found it a long way off from the spot,
and boiled a potful of potatoes over it. Three days after that, the
grave-digger had forgotten where he had laid him.
If Bontzye had been given a tombstone, then, in a hundred years or so,
an antiquarian might have found it, and the name "Bontzye Shweig" would
have echoed once again in _our_ air.
A shadow! His likeness remained photographed in nobody's brain, in
nobody's heart; not a trace of him remained.
"No kith, no kin!" He lived and died alone!
Had it not been for the human commotion, some one might have heard
Bontzye's spine snap under its load; had the world been less busy, some
one might have remarked that Bontzye (also a human being) went about
with two extinguished eyes and fearfully hollow cheeks; that even when
he had no load on his shoulders, his head drooped earthward as though,
while yet alive, he were looking for his grave. Were there as few men as
tramway horses, some one might perhaps have asked: What has happened to
Bontzye?
When they carried Bontzye into the hospital, his corner in the
underground lodging was soon filled--there were ten of his like waiting
for it, and they put it up to auction among themselves. When they
carried him from the hospital bed to the dead-house, there were twenty
poor sick persons waiting for the bed. When he had been taken out of the
dead-house, they brought in twenty bodies from under a building that had
fallen in. Who knows how long he will rest in his grave? Who knows how
many are waiting for the little plot of ground?
A quiet birth, a quiet life, a quiet death, and a quieter burial.
But it was not so in the _other_ world. _There_ Bontzye's death made a
great impression.
The blast of the great Messianic Shofar sounded through all the seven
heavens: Bontzye Shweig has left the earth! The largest angels with the
broadest wings flew about and told one another: Bontzye Shweig is to
take his seat in the Heavenly Academy! In Paradise there was a noise and
a joyful tumult: Bontzye Shweig! Just fancy! Bontzye Shweig!
Little child-angels with sparkling eyes, gold thread-work wings, and
silver slippers, ran delightedly to meet him. The rustle of the wings,
the tap-tap of the little slippers, and the merry laughter of the fresh,
rosy mouths, filled all the heavens and reached to the Throne of Glory,
and God Himself knew that Bontzye Shweig was coming.
Abraham, our father, stood in the gate, his right hand stretched out
with a hearty greeting, and a sweet smile lit up his old face.
What are they wheeling through heaven?
Two angels are pushing a golden arm-chair into Paradise for Bontzye
Shweig.
What flashed so brightly?
They were carrying past a gold crown set with precious stones--all for
Bontzye Shweig.
"Before the decision of the Heavenly Court has been given?" ask the
saints, not quite without jealousy.
"O," reply the angels, "that will be a mere formality. Even the
prosecutor won't say a word against Bontzye Shweig. The case will not
last five minutes."
Just consider: Bontzye Shweig!
* * * * *
When the little angels had met Bontzye in mid-air and played him a tune;
when Abraham, our father, had shaken him by the hand like an old
comrade; when he heard that a chair stood waiting for him in Paradise,
that a crown lay ready for his head; and that not a word would be lost
over his case before the Heavenly Court--Bontzye, just as in the other
world, was too frightened to speak. His heart sank with terror. He is
sure it is all a dream, or else simply a mistake.
He is used to both. He often dreamt, in the other world, that he was
picking up money off the floor--there were whole heaps of it--and then
he woke to find himself as poor as ever; and more than once people had
smiled at him and given him a friendly word and then turned away and
spit out.
"It is my luck," he used to think. And now he dared not raise his eyes,
lest the dream should vanish, lest he should wake up in some cave full
of snakes and lizards. He was afraid to speak, afraid to move, lest he
should be recognized and flung into the pit.
He trembles and does not hear the angels' compliments, does not see how
they dance round him, makes no answer to the greeting of Abraham, our
father, and--when he is led into the presence of the Heavenly Court, he
does not even wish it "good morning!"
He is beside himself with terror, and his fright increases when he
happens to notice the floor of the Heavenly Courthouse; it is all
alabaster set with diamonds. "And my feet standing on it!" He is
paralyzed. "Who knows what rich man, what rabbi, what saint they take me
for--he will come--and that will be the end of me!"
His terror is such, he never even hears the president call out: "The
case of Bontzye Shweig!" adding, as he hands the deeds to the advocate,
"Read, but make haste!"
The whole hall goes round and round in Bontzye's eyes, there is a
rushing in his ears. And through the rushing he hears more and more
clearly the voice of the advocate, speaking sweetly as a violin.
"His name," he hears, "fitted him like the dress made for a slender
figure by the hand of an artist-tailor."
"What is he talking about?" wondered Bontzye, and he heard an impatient
voice break in with:
"No similes, please!"
"He never," continued the advocate, "was heard to complain of either God
or man; there was never a flash of hatred in his eye; he never lifted it
with a claim on heaven."
Still Bontzye does not understand, and once again the hard voice
interrupts: "No rhetoric, please!"
"Job gave way--this one was more unfortunate--"
"Facts, dry facts!"
"When he was a week old, he was circumcised...."
"We want no realism!"
"The Mohel who circumcised him did not know his work--"
"Come, come!"
"And he kept silent," the advocate went on, "even when his mother died,
and he was given a step-mother at thirteen years old--a serpent, a
vixen."
"Can they mean me after all?" thought Bontzye.
"No insinuations against a third party!" said the president, angrily.
"She grudged him every mouthful--stale, mouldy bread, tendons instead of
meat--and _she_ drank coffee with cream."
"Keep to the subject," ordered the president.
"She grudged him everything but her finger nails, and his black-and-blue
body showed through the holes in his torn and fusty clothes. Winter
time, in the hardest frost, he had to chop wood for her, barefoot, in
the yard, and his hands were too young and too weak, the logs too thick,
the hatchet too blunt. More than once he nearly dislocated his wrist;
more than once his feet were nearly frost-bitten, but he kept silent,
even to his father."
"To that drunkard?" laughs the accuser, and Bontzye feels cold in every
limb.
"He never even complained to his father," finished up the advocate.
"And always alone," he continued, "no playmates, no school, nor teaching
of any kind--never a whole garment--never a free moment."
"Facts, please!" reminded the president.
"He kept silent even later, when his father seized him by the hair in a
fit of drunkenness, and flung him out into the street on a snowy
winter's night. He quietly picked himself up out of the snow and ran
whither his feet carried him.
"He kept silent all the way--however hungry he might be, he only begged
with his eyes.
"It was a wild, wet night in spring time, when he reached the great
town; he fell like a drop into the ocean, and yet he passed that same
night under arrest. He kept silent and never asked why, for what. He was
let out, and looked about for the hardest work. And he kept silent.
Harder than the work itself was the finding of it--and he kept silent.
"Bathed in a cold sweat, crushed together under heavy loads, his empty
stomach convulsed with hunger--he kept silent.
"Bespattered with mud, spat at, driven with his load off the pavement
and into the street among the cabs, carts, and tramways, looking death
in the eyes every moment--he kept silent.
"He never calculated how many pounds' burden go to a groschen, how many
times he fell on an errand worth a dreier; how many times he nearly
panted out his soul going after his pay; he never calculated the
difference between other people's lot and his--he kept silent.
"And he never insisted loudly on his pay; he stood in the door-way like
a beggar, with a dog-like pleading in his eyes--Come again later! and he
went like a shadow to come again later, and beg for his wage more humbly
than before.
"He kept silent even when they cheated him of part, or threw in a false
coin.
"He took everything in silence."
"They mean me after all," thought Bontzye.
* * * * *
"Once," continued the advocate, after a sip of water, "a change came
into his life: there came flying along a carriage on rubber tires drawn
by two runaway horses. The driver already lay some distance off on the
pavement with a cracked skull. The terrified horses foamed at the mouth,
sparks shot from their hoofs, their eyes shone like fiery lamps on a
winter's night--and in the carriage, more dead than alive, sat a man.
"And Bontzye stopped the horses. And the man he had saved was a
charitable Jew, who was not ungrateful.
"He put the dead man's whip into Bontzye's hands, and Bontzye became a
coachman. More than that--he was provided with a wife, and more
still--with a child.
"And Bontzye kept silent!"
"Me, they mean me!" Bontzye assured himself again, and yet had not the
courage to give a glance at the Heavenly Court.
He listens to the advocate further:
"He kept silent also when his protector became bankrupt and did not pay
him his wages.
"He kept silent when his wife ran away from him, leaving him a child at
the breast.
"He was silent also fifteen years later, when the child had grown up and
was strong enough to throw him out of the house."
"Me, they mean me!" Now he is sure of it.
* * * * *
"He kept silent even," began the angelic advocate once more in a still
softer and sadder voice, "when the same philanthropist paid all his
creditors their due but him--and even when (riding once again in a
carriage with rubber tires and fiery horses) he knocked Bontzye down and
drove over him.
"He kept silent. He did not even tell the police who had done for him."
* * * * *
"He kept silent even in the hospital, where one may cry out.
"He kept silent when the doctor would not come to his bedside without
being paid fifteen kopeks, and when the attendant demanded another
five--for changing his linen.
"He kept silent in the death-struggle--silent in death.
"Not a word against God; not a word against men!
"_Dixi!_"
* * * * *
Once more Bontzye trembled all over, he knew that after the advocate
comes the prosecutor. Who knows what _he_ will say?
Bontzye himself had remembered nothing of his life.
Even in the other world he forgot every moment what had happened in the
one before. The advocate had recalled everything to his mind. Who knows
what the prosecutor will not remind him of?
"Gentlemen," begins the prosecutor, in a voice biting and acid as
vinegar--but he breaks off.
"Gentlemen," he begins again, but his voice is milder, and a second time
he breaks off.
Then, from out the same throat, comes in a voice that is almost gentle:
"Gentlemen! _He_ was silent! I will be silent, too!"
There is a hush--and there sounds in front a new, soft, trembling voice:
"Bontzye, my child," it speaks like a harp, "my dear child Bontzye!"
And Bontzye's heart melts within him. Now he would lift up his eyes, but
they are blinded with tears; he never felt such sweet emotion before.
"My child!" "My Bontzye!"--no one, since his mother died, had spoken to
him with such words in such a voice.
"My child," continued the presiding judge, "you have suffered and kept
silent; there is no whole limb, no whole bone in your body, without a
scar, without a wound, not a fibre of your soul that has not bled--and
you kept silent.
"There they did not understand. Perhaps you yourself did not know that
you might have cried out, and that at your cry the walls of Jericho
would have shaken and fallen. You yourself knew nothing of your hidden
power.
"In the other world your silence was not understood, but _that_ is the
world of delusion; in the world of truth you will receive your reward.
"The Heavenly Court will not judge you; the Heavenly Court will not pass
sentence on you; they will not apportion you a reward. Take what you
will! Everything is yours!"
Bontzye looks up for the first time. He is dazzled; everything shines
and flashes and streams with light.
"_Taki?_" he asks shyly.
"Yes, really!" answers the presiding judge with decision; "really, I
tell you, everything is yours; everything in heaven belongs to you.
Because all that shines and sparkles is only the reflection of your
hidden goodness, a reflection of your soul. You only take of what is
yours."
"_Taki?_" asks Bontzye again, this time in a firmer voice.