"Well, if it is so," Bontzye smiles, "I would like to have every day,
for breakfast, a hot roll with fresh butter."
The Court and the angels looked down, a little ashamed; the prosecutor
laughed.
XII
THE DEAD TOWN
When travelling in the provinces after Jewish statistics, I one day met
with a Jew dragging himself step by step through the heavy sand. He
looks ill, can hardly walk, hardly put one foot before the other. I feel
sorry for him and take him into my conveyance. He gets in, gives me a
"peace be with you," and asks me every sort of question. I answer, and
end by inquiring:
"And you, friend, whence are you?"
"From the dead town," he answers calmly.
I thought he was joking.
"Where is it?" I ask. "Behind the hills of darkness?"
"Where?" he smiles. "It's just in Poland!"
"In our country, a town like that?"
"There it is!" he said; "there it is! Although the nations of the world
do not know of it, and have never given it a Gentile name, it is a
genuinely Jewish town."
"What do you mean?"
"What I say! You know geography, and you think everything is down in it;
not at all. We Jews live without geography. We are not 'down,' and yet
they come to us from far and near. What is the good of geography? Every
driver knows the way.
"You don't believe me?" he asks.
I am silent.
"And yet it's true; our rabbi corresponds with all the Geonim[49] in the
world. Questions and answers concerning the most important matters come
and go--everything is arranged somehow--it just depends. Not long ago,
for instance, an elderly grass-widow was released from the marriage-tie.
Well, of course, the main thing is not the grass-widow, but the
dialectics!"[50]
He goes on:
"All the Einiklich[51] know of our town. They come, praise God,
often--and, praise God, not in vain."
"It is the first time I ever heard of a dead town."
"That's rather strange! I suppose you keep yourself rather aloof.....
And yet it is a truly Jewish town, a real Jewish metropolis. It has
everything a town needs, even two or three lunatics! And it has a
reputation for commerce, too!"
"Is anything taken in or out?"
"What? What do you say?" asks the Jew, not quite clear as to my meaning.
"Are you speaking of articles of trade?"
I nod my head.
"Certainly!" he answers. "They take away prayer-scarfs and leather
belts, and bring in Corfu Esrogîm and earth of Palestine. But that isn't
the chief thing, the chief thing is the business done in the town
itself! Drink-shops, lodging homes for travellers, old clothes--according
to custom--"
"A poor town?"
"What do you mean by rich and poor? There is Parnosseh! The very poor go
about begging either in the place or in the neighborhood--mostly in the
place itself! Whoever holds out a hand is given something! Others try
for some easy work, they do broker-business, or pick up things in the
streets and earn an honest crust. The Almighty is faithful! The orphans
are given free meals by the householders and study in the Talmud Torah.
The orphan girls become maid-servants, cooks, or find a living
elsewhere. Widows, divorced women, and grass-widows (there have been a
lot of grass-widows lately[52]) sit over charcoal braziers, and when the
fumes go to their head, they dream that rolls hang on the trees ready
baked. Others live _quite_ decently!"
"On what?"
"On what? What do other people live on? A poor man hopes; a trader
swallows air, and the one who digs--graves, I mean--is never out of
employment--"
Is he joking, the dried-up, little, old Jew, the bag-of-bones with the
odd gleam in his deeply sunken eyes? On his bony face, covered with a
skin like yellow parchment, not the trace of a smile! Only his voice has
something odd about it.
"What sort of a town _is_ it, anyway?" I ask again.
"What do you mean? It's a town like any other! There's a Shool, and they
say that once there were all sorts of animals painted on the walls,
beasts and birds--out of Perek Shirah[53]--and on the ceiling all sorts
of musical instruments, such as were played upon by King David, on whom
be peace. I never saw it so, but the old men tell of it."
"And nowadays?"
"Nowadays? Dust and spider-webs. There's only a wooden chain, carved out
of one piece, that hangs from the beam, and falls very prettily to one
side of the Ark to the right of the curtain, which was itself the gift
of pious women. Nobody remembers who made the chain, but it was an
artist, there's no doubt! Such a chain!
"In the Shool," he continued, "you see only the common people, artisans,
except tailors, who form a congregation apart, and butchers and drivers,
who have hired a place of their own to pray in. The Shool can hardly
read Hebrew! The well-to-do householders--sons of the Law--assemble in
the house-of-study, a large one with piles of books! The Chassidîm,
again, pray in rooms apart!"
"And are there dissensions?"
"Many men, many minds! In the grave, on the other hand, there is peace;
one burial ground for all; and the men's bath--the women's bath--are
there for all alike."
"What else have you in your town?"
"What more would you have? There was a refuge for wayfarers, and it was
given up; wayfarers can sleep in the house-of-study--at night it's
empty--and we have a Hekdesh."
"A hospital, you mean?"
"Not a hospital at all, just a Hekdesh, two rooms. At one time they were
occupied by the bather, then it was arranged that the bather should
content himself with one room, and that the other should be used for the
Hekdesh; there are not more than three sick women in it altogether: one
poor thing, an old woman with paralyzed legs, who lies all of a heap; a
second with all her limbs paralyzed, and beside these, a crazy
grass-widow. Three corners are taken up with beds, in the fourth stands
a chimney-stove; in the middle there is a dead-house, in case of need!"
"You are laughing at me, friend," I break in, "that is Tziachnovke!
Tziachnovke itself with its commerce and charities and good works! Why
do you call it the dead town?"
"Because it is a dead town! I am speaking of a town which, from the day
it was built, hung by a hair, and now the hair has snapt, it hangs in
the air. It hangs by nothing at all. And because it hangs by nothing and
floats in mid-air, it is a dead town; if you like, I will tell you about
it."
"By all means--most interesting!"
Meanwhile night is falling, one half of the sky grows blood-red and
fiery, over there is the sunset. On our other hand, the moon is swimming
into view out of a light mist, like the face of a bride peeping out of
her white veil. The pale beams, as they spread over the earth, mix with
the quivering shadows of the sad, still night.
Uncanny!--
We drive into a wood. The moon-rays steal in after us between the
trembling leaves.
On the ground, among the fallen leaves and twigs, there dance little
circles of light, like silver coins. There is something magical in the
illumination, in the low breathing of the wood.
I glance at the wayfaring Jew, his appearance has changed. It is
melancholy and serious, and his expression is so simple and honest. Can
it all be true?
_Ha!_ I will listen to what he has to say.
"The town hung by a hair from the first," said the narrator, "because it
was started in a part where no Jewish town was allowed to be! It was not
till the first Minyan was complete that people held a meeting and
decided to reckon themselves as belonging to a town in the neighborhood.
On this pretense they built a bath, a Shool, and after that, a men's
bath, and bought a piece of land for a burial ground.
"And when all that was finished, they sent people of backstair influence
to have it all endorsed."
"Head downward?"
"Isn't that always the way with us? How should it be otherwise?"
"I don't know!"
"However, that's how it was! And the thing was not so underhand as you
suppose.
"There was a Jew who was very rich, and this rich Jew, as is usually
the case, was a little, not to say very much, in with the authorities,
and everything was in his name; it was _his_ Shool, _his_ bath, _his_
women's bath--even to _his_ burial ground--and nothing was said; as I
tell you, he was a person of influence!
"And when the paper came from high quarters, he was to transcribe it in
the name of the community and stop paying sop-money to the local
police."
"And then the rich man said: 'To my account'?"
"No, my dear sir, such rich people didn't exist in those days. 'To my
account' was a thing unknown; but hear what happened, what things may
come to pass!
"It was not the Gevir, but the envoy who caused the trouble. He made
off, half-way, with the money and the papers, and left the freshly-baked
community like a grass-widow with a family."
"Did they send another?"
"Not so soon as all that! Before it was known that the first had
absconded, or anything about it, the Gevir died and left, among other
things, an heir who was a minor; he couldn't sign a paper till he was
twenty-one!"
"So they hurried up?"
"Of course, as soon as he was twenty-one, they meant to send another
envoy, and perhaps two."
"And meanwhile it was entered in the communal records?"
"That's where it is! The records remembered and the people forgot! Some
say the record was burnt, that the trustee took the record, said
Havdoleh over it, set fire to a little brandy, and--good-bye!
"The community, meanwhile, was growing; Jews, praise God, soon
multiply. And they come in from other places; one person brings in a
son-in-law, another a daughter-in-law, in a word, it grew. And the
Gevir's heirs disappeared as though on purpose! The widow married again
and left, one son after another went to seek his fortune elsewhere, to
take a look 'round. The youngest remained. Kohol appointed him a
guardian and married him, and gave him an experienced partner."
"Who led him about by the nose?"
"According to the law of Moses and of Israel!
"He had trouble with the partner and more still with the wife; and he
signed a forged check and took himself off, bankrupt; townspeople and
strangers collected and made a great noise, the case was heard in court,
down came an inspector, no money to be seen anywhere, the wife hid the
furniture, the inspector took possession of the Shool and the burial
ground!
"The little town was thunderstruck, it was a bolt from the blue with a
vengeance! Because, you see, the whole thing had been kept dark to the
last minute!
"And all of a sudden, the community was seen hanging, as it were, by a
hair!
"What was to be done? They drove to lawyers. What could they advise in a
case like that? The best thing would be to have an auction, the
inspector would sell the things and the community buy them at any cost.
The community was no community? The papers had been lost by the way?
They must find another Gevir, and buy in his name! The great thing was
not to wait till the Gevir should die or go away!
"The advice seemed good, Kohol was quite used to loss of money; but
there was not only _one_ Gevir, there were several! And heaps willing to
act as diplomatic envoys. Whose name should they use? Who should be
taken for an envoy? All were willing and might be offended. So they held
a meeting and talked it over. And they talked it over till the talk
became a dispute, and when _we_ have a dispute, it isn't settled in a
hurry. Now and again it looks like peace, the flame of discord burns
low, comes a peacemaker and pours oil on it, and it blazes up again
and--blazes on!"
The Jew wiped his pale forehead and continued:
"Meanwhile something happened, something not to be believed!
"Only," he added with a smile, "it is night and the creature who walks
the sky at night (he points at the moon) is called 'truth,' and at
night, specially in such a quiet one, everything is credible."
"Well, yes"--I allow unwillingly.
"The story is a dreadful one.
"The inspector put his foot on the 'holy ground,' the corpses heard and
must have grown angry--the tombstones move--the corpses rise up from
beneath them--you believe me?"
"I am no heretic," I replied, "heaven forbid! And I believe in the
immortality of the soul, only--"
"Only, friend, only?"
"I always thought, that only the soul remained--the soul that flies into
heaven; but the body that goes into the grave, the image that
decays--anyhow, it cannot move without the soul--cannot rise again."
"Well said!" he praises me. "May I ever hear the like!
"I am glad," he said, "that you are book-learned; but, my friend, you
have forgotten the world of illusion! You say the soul goes to heaven,
into the sky--very well--but to which part? One goes into Paradise, the
other into Gehenna. Paradise is for the souls of the righteous, Gehenna
for the souls of the wicked. The one, for his good deeds, receives a
share of Leviathan, of Behemoth, wine of the ages,--the other, for his
sins, boiling pitch; but that only means reward and punishment, and why
reward and punishment? Because so long as a man lives, he has a free
choice. If he wishes to do what is good, he does it, if to do evil, he
does evil, and as he makes his bed, _ha?_ so he lies.
"But what is the sentence passed when a man was no man, when his life
was no life, and he did nothing, neither good nor evil, because he could
not do anything? He had no choice, and he slept away his life and lived
in a dream. What is such a soul entitled to? Gehenna? What for? It never
so much as killed a fly. Paradise? For what? It never dipped a hand in
cold water to gain it."
"What _does_ become of such a soul?"
"Nothing! It goes on living in a world of illusion, it does not detach
itself from the body; but just as it dreamt before that it lived _on_
the earth, so it dreams now that it lives _in_ the earth!
"No one in our town ever really died, because no one ever really lived!
No one did either good or evil, there were no sinners and no
righteous--only sleepy-heads and souls in a world of illusion. When
such a sleepy-head is laid in the grave, it remains a sleepy-head--only
in another lodging--that's all.
"And so dying with us was a perfect comedy! Because if a feather was put
under the nose of a _live_ man, would he stir to brush it away? Not he!
And the same with a fly. They left off troubling about Parnosseh--they
simply left off troubling about anything at all!
"So it went on.... There are many towns like it, and when it happens, as
it has happened with us, that a corpse creeps out of its grave, it
doesn't begin to remember that it has made its last confession of sins
and drawn its last breath. No sooner have the potsherds fallen from its
eyes than it goes straight to the house-of-study, to the bath, or else
home to supper--it remembers nothing about having died!"
I do not know if it is the moon's fault, or whether I am not quite
myself, but I hear, believe, and even ask:
"Did all the corpses rise? All?"
"Who can tell? Do they keep a register? There may have been a few
heretics who thought it was the final resurrection and lay low; but
there rose a whole community; they rose and fled before the inspector
into the nearest wood!"
"Why into a wood?"
"They couldn't go into the town, because it was daylight, and it is not
the thing to appear in winding-sheets by daylight--they might have
frightened the young mothers."
"True. And the inspector?"
"You ask about a Gentile? He saw nothing. Perhaps he was
tipsy--nothing--he did his work, made his inventory."
"And sold the things?"
"Nothing, there was as yet no one to buy."
"And the corpses?"
"Ah--the corpses!"
* * * * *
He rests for a moment and then goes on:
"Hardly had night fallen, when the corpses came back into the town; each
one went to his home, stole in at the door, the window, or down the
chimney--went hastily to the wardrobe, took out some clothes, dressed
himself, yawned, and lay down somewhere to sleep.
"Next morning there was a whole townfull of corpses."
"And the living said nothing?"
"They never remarked; they were taken up with the dispute; their heads
were full of it, they were all at sixes and sevens! And really, when you
come to think of it, how much difference is there between a dead-alive
person and a walking corpse in winding-sheets? When a son saw his
father, he spat out three times, indignant with himself: 'To think of
the dream I had--I dreamt I said Kaddish for my father and inherited
him! May such dreams plague my enemies.'
"A widow saw her husband, and gave him a hearty slap. He had deceived
her, the wretch! made game of her! and she, foolish woman that she was,
had made him new winding-sheets!"
"And supposing she had married again?"
"How should she have? In the course of the dispute some one set fire to
the Shool and to the house-of-study and to the wedding canopy;
everything, you may say, was burnt. They accused pretty well everybody
in turn--"
"And after that?"
"Nothing; the corpses had come to life and the living began to die out,
for want of room, for want of air--but specially of hunger--"
"Was there a famine?"
"No more than anywhere else! But there _was_ one for all that. The
corpses took their place at the prayer-meetings and at the table at home
as well. People didn't know why, but there were suddenly not enough
spoons. All ate out of one dish, and there were not enough spoons. Every
house-mistress knows that she has as many spoons as there are people in
the house, so she thinks there has been a robbery! The pious say:
Witchcraft! But as they came to see the spoons were missing everywhere,
and there was not food to go round, then they said: A famine! and they
hungered, and they are hungering still."
* * * * *
"And in a short time the corpses outnumbered the living; now they are
the community and the leaders of the community! They do not beget
children and increase naturally--not that, but when anyone dies, they
steal him away off his bed, out of the grave--and there is a fresh
corpse going about the town.
"And what is lacking to them? They have no cares, no fear of
death--they eat for the purpose of saying grace--they don't want the
food, they have no craving for it--let alone drink and lodging; a
hundred corpses can sleep in one room--they don't require air!
"And they have no worries, because whence do worries spring? From
knowing! 'The more knowledge, the more sorrow, but the dead man does not
trouble.' It's not his affair! He doesn't wish to know and he _needn't_
know--he wanders in a world of illusion.
"He keeps away from living concerns; he has no questions, no anxieties,
no heart-ache, no one is conscious of his liver!
"Who do you think is our rabbi? Once it was a live man and a man of
action; now he, too, is a corpse; he wanders in a world of illusion, and
goes on giving decisions by rote as in a dream.
"Who are his assistants? People like him--half-decayed corpses.
"And they solve ritual questions for the living and the dead, they know
everything and do everything; they say blessings, unite in wedlock. Who
is it stands at the platform? A corpse! He has the face of a corpse, the
voice of a corpse; if it happen that a cock crows suddenly, he runs
away.
"And the Gevirîm, the almsgivers, the agitators, the providers, the
whole lot--what are they? Dead men, long dead and long buried!"
* * * * *
"And you, friend? What are you?"
"I? I am half-dead," answers the Jew. He jumps down from the conveyance
and disappears among the trees.
XIII
THE DAYS OF THE MESSIAH
As in all the Jewish towns in Galicia, big and little, so in the one
where my parents lived, there was a lunatic.
And as in most cases, so in this one, the lunatic was afraid of nobody,
neither of Kohol, nor of the rabbi or his assistants, not even of the
bather or the grave-digger, who are treated with respect by the richest
men. On the other hand, the whole of the little town, Kohol with all the
Jewish authorities and the bather and the grave-digger, trembled before
the lunatic, closed door and window at his approach. And although the
poor lunatic had never said an abusive word, never touched any one with
his little finger, everybody called him names, many people hit him, and
the street boys threw mud and stones at him.
I always felt sorry for the lunatic. He attracted me, somehow, I wanted
to talk to him, to console him, to give him a friendly pat; but it was
impossible to approach him; I should have received part of the stones
and mud with which he was bombarded by the others. I was quite a little
boy, and I wore a nice suit from Lemberg or Cracow, and I wished to
preserve my shoulders from stones and my suit from mud; so I remained at
a distance.
The little town in which my parents lived and where I spent my
childhood, dressed in clothes made by the tailors of Lemberg and Cracow,
was a fortress, surrounded by moats, water, earthworks, and high walls.
On the walls were batteries, and these were protected by soldiers with
muskets, who marched up and down, serious and silent. Hardly had
darkness fallen, when the iron drawbridge was raised from over the moat,
all the gates were closed, and the little town was cut off from the rest
of the world till early next morning. At every gate stood a watchman,
fully armed.
A short while ago, in the day-time, we were all free, we could go in and
out without applying for leave to the major in command; one might bathe
in the river outside the town, and even lie stretched out on the green
bank and gaze into the sky or out into the wide world, as one chose. No
one made any objection, and even if one did not return, no questions
were asked. But at night all was to be quiet in the town, no one was to
go out or to come in. "Lucky," I used to think to myself, "that they let
in the moon."
And as long as I may live, I shall never forget the twilights there, the
fall of night. As the shades deepened, a shudder went through the whole
town, men and houses seemed suddenly to grow smaller and cower together.
The bridge was raised, the iron chains grated against the huge blocks;
and the rasp of the iron, the harsh, broken sounds, went through one's
very bones. Then gate on gate fell to. Every evening it was the same
thing, and yet every evening people's limbs trembled, a dull apathy
overspread their faces, and their eyes were as the eyes of the dead.
Eye-lids fell heavy as lead; the heart seemed to stop beating, one
scarcely breathed. Then a patrol would march down the streets, with a
clatter of trailing swords and great water-boots; the bayonets
glistened, and the patrol shouted: "_Wer da?_" To which one had to
reply: "A citizen, an inhabitant," otherwise there was no saying what
might not happen. Many preferred to remain behind lock and key--they
were afraid of being seen in the street.
* * * * *
One day I had the following adventure: I had been bathing in the river,
and either I lost myself in thought, or in staring about, or I simply
forgot that after day comes night. Suddenly I see them raise the bridge;
there is a grating in the ears, the gates swing to, and my heart goes by
leaps and bounds. No help for it! I must pass the night outside the
walls--and strange to say, night after night, as I lay in my warm bed at
home, I had dreamt of the free world outside the fortress; and now that
my dreams had come true, I was frightened. There ensued the usual
dispute between head and heart. The head cried: Steady! Now, for once,
you may enjoy the free air and the starry sky to the full! And the
heart, all the while, struggled and fluttered like a caged bird. Then
from heart to head rose as it were a vapor, a mist, and the clear
reasoning became obscured, and was swallowed up in the cloud.
There was a rushing noise in my ears, a flickering before my eyes. Every
sound, however light, every motion of a twig or a blade of grass made me
shudder, and threw me on to the ground with fright.
I hid my face in the sand. Whether or not I slept, and how long I lay
there, I cannot tell! But I suddenly heard someone breathing close to
me; I spring up and--I am not alone! Two well-known, deep, black eyes
are gazing at me in all candor and gentleness.
It is the lunatic.
"What are you doing here?" I ask in smothered tones.
"I never sleep in the town!" he answers sadly, and his glance is so
gentle, the voice so brotherly, that I recover myself completely and
lose all fear.
"Once upon a time," I reflected, "lunatics were believed to be
prophets--it is still so in the East--and I wonder, perhaps he is one,
too! Is he not persecuted like a prophet? Don't they throw stones at him
as at a prophet? Don't his eyes shine like stars? Doesn't his voice
sound like the sweetest harp? Does he not bear the sorrows of all, and
suffer for a whole generation? Perhaps he also knows what shall be
hereafter!"