way. Do you know what?" he exclaims, "take all my rubbish and welcome,
bills of exchange, deeds--everything for twenty-five per cent, only pay
me in cash. I will give up the usury, even the public house! Would to
God I could get away to Palestine--but give me the cash! Take the whole
concern and welcome! You imagine that we live on usury--it lives on us!
People don't pay in, the debt increases. The more it increases, the less
it's worth, and the poorer am I, upon my faith!"
Before going out to take further notes, I witness a little scene. While
I was taking up all my things, paper, pencil, cigarettes, Reb Bòruch was
buttering bread for the children to take with them to Cheder. They had
each two slices of bread and butter and a tiny onion as a relish.
"Now go!" he says; he does not want them in the public house. But the
little orphan is not satisfied. He hunches his shoulders and pulls a wry
face preparatory to crying. He feels a bit ashamed, however, to cry
before me, and waits till I shall have gone; but he cannot tarry so long
and gives vent to a wail:
"Another little onion," he wants. "Mother always gave _me_ two!"
The sister has come running into the tap-room, she has caught up another
onion and gives it to him. "Go!" says she also, but much more gently.
The mother's voice sounded in her words.
WHAT SHOULD A JEWESS NEED?
We go from house to house, from number to number. I can see for myself
which houses are inhabited by Jews and which by non-Jews; I have only to
look in the window. Dingy windows are a sure sign of "Thou hast chosen
us," still more so broken panes replaced by cushions and sacking. On the
other hand, flower-pots and curtains portray the presence of those who
have no such right to poverty as the others.
One meets with exceptions--here lives, _not_ a Jew, but a drunkard--and
here again--flowers and curtains, but they read _Hazefirah_.[63]
The worst impression I receive is that made upon me by a great, weird,
wooden house. It is larger, but blacker and dirtier than all the other
houses. The frontage leans heavily over and looks down upon its
likeness--also an old, blackened ruin--upon an old, dried up, bent and
tottering Jewess, who is haggling with her customer--a sallow, frowzy
maid-servant--over an addition to a pound of salt. The beadle points the
old woman out to me:
"That is the mistress of the house."
I was astonished: the Jewess is too poor for such a house.
"The house," explains the beadle, "is not exactly hers. She pays only
one-sixth of the rent--she is a widow--but the heirs, her children, do
not live here--so she is called the mistress."
"How much does the house bring in?"
"Nothing at all."
"And it's worth?"
"About fifteen hundred rubles."
"And nothing is made by it?"
"It stands empty. Who should live there?"
"How do you mean, who?"
"Well, just who? Nearly everybody here has his own house, and if any one
hires a lodging, he doesn't want to have to heat a special room. The
custom here is for a tenant to pay a few rubles a year for the heating
of a corner. Who wants such large rooms?"
"Why did they build such a house?"
"_Ba!_--once upon a time! It isn't wanted nowadays."
"Poor thing."
"Why 'poor thing?' She has a stall with salt, earns a few rubles a week.
Out of that she pays twenty-eight rubles a year house-tax and lives on
the rest--what should a Jewess need? What can she want more? She has her
winding-sheet."
I gave another look at the old woman, and really it seemed to me that
she was not in need of anything. Her wrinkled skin appeared to smile at
me: What should a Jewess need?
NO. 42
I went from house to house in their order of number, with a note-book in
my hand. But from No. 41 the beadle led me to 43.
"And 42?" I ask.
"There!" and he points to a ruin in a narrow space between 43 and 41.
"Fallen in?"
"Pulled down," answers the beadle.
"Why?"
"On account of a fire-wall."
I did not understand what he meant.
We were both tired with walking, and we sat down on a seat at the street
side.
The beadle explained:
"You see--according to law, if one house is not built far enough away
from another, the roofs must be separated by a fire-wall. What the
distance has to be, I don't know; _their_ laws are incomprehensible; I
should say, four ells or more.
"A fire-wall is with them a charm against fire. Well, this house was
built by a very poor man, Yeruchem Ivànovker, a teacher, and he couldn't
afford a fire-wall.
"Altogether, to tell the truth, he built without a foundation, and out
of that, as you will hear presently, there came a lawsuit, at which his
wife (peace be upon her) told the whole story, beginning after the
custom of women-folk with the sixth day of creation. This is how it
happened:
"Malkah had not spoken to her husband for about fifteen years. She was
naturally a sour-tempered woman,--God forgive me for talking against the
dead,--tall and thin, dark, with a pointed nose like a hook. She rarely
said a word not relating to Parnosseh--she was a huckstress--and nobody
wanted her to do so. Her look was enough to freeze you to the bone. All
the other huckstresses trembled before her--there was an expression in
her eye. So, you see, Yeruchem was quite content that she should be
silent--_he_ never said a word to _her_, either.
"For all this silence, however, they were blessed with two boys and
three girls.
"But the desire to become householders made them conversational. The
conversation was on this wise:
"'Malke!' (No answer.)
"'Malke!' (No answer.)
"He Malke's and she doesn't stir.
"But Yeruchem stands up and gives a shout:
"'Malke, I am going to build a house!'
"Malke could resist no longer, she raised an eye, and opened her mouth.
"'I thought,' she said afterward, 'that he had gone mad.'
"And it _was_ a madness. He had inherited the narrow strip of land you
have seen from a great-grandfather, and not a farthing in money. The
wife's trash, which was afterwards sold for fifty-four gulden, used to
be in pawn the whole year round, except on Sabbaths and holidays, when
Yeruchem took them out on tick.
"When the desire calls the imagination to its help--who shall withstand?
"No sooner has he a house, than all good things will follow.
"People will place confidence in him, and he will borrow money to buy a
goat, and there will be plenty in the home. He will let out one room as
a drink-shop, and he, God helping, will keep it himself. Above all, the
children will be provided for. The little boys shall be sent one way or
the other to a rabbinical college, the girls shall be given a deed as
their dowry, promising them, after his death, half as much as the boys
will get, and the thing's done.
"'And how is the building to be paid for?'
"He had an answer ready:
"'I,' said he, 'am a teacher, and thou art a huckstress, so we have two
Parnossehs: let us live on one Parnosseh, and build on the other.'
"'Was there ever such an idiot! We can't make both ends meet as it is!'
"'God helps those who help themselves,' said he, 'here's a proof of it:
the teacher, Noah, our neighbor, has a sickly wife, who earns nothing,
and six little children, and it seems they are well and strong--and he
lives on nothing but his teaching,'
"'There you are again! He is a great teacher, his pupils are the
children of gentlefolk.'
"'And why do you think it is so? What is the reason? Can he "learn"
better than I do? Most certainly not. But God, blessed be His Name,
seeing that he has only one Parnosseh, increases it to him. And then,
another example: Look at Black Brocheh! A widow with five children and
nothing but a huckstress--'
"'Listen to him! _That_ one (would it might be said of me!) has a
fortune in the business, at least thirty rubles--'
"'That is not the thing,' he gives her to understand, 'the thing is that
the blessing can only reach her through the apples. The Creator governs
the world by the laws of nature.'
"And he manages also to persuade her that they can economize in many
ways--one can get along--
"And so it was decided: Yeruchem gave up taking snuff, and the entire
household, sour milk in particular and supper in general--and they began
to build.
"They built for years, but when it came to the fire-wall, Malkah had no
wares, Yeruchem had no strength left in him, the eldest son had gone
begging through the country, the youngest had died, and there was a
fortune wanting--forty rubles for a fire-wall.
"Well, what was to be done? A coin or two changed hands, and they moved
into the new house without building a fire-wall."
He took possession with rejoicing. He was a member of the Burial
Society, and the community gave him a house-warming. They drank, without
exaggeration, a whole barrel of beer, besides brandy and raisin-wine. It
was a regular flare-up, a glorification.
But the bliss was short-lived.
A certain householder quarrelled with a neighbor of Yeruchem, with Noah
the teacher. Now Noah the teacher had once been a distinguished
householder, a very rich man. Besides what he had inherited from his
father, he disposed of a few tidy hundreds. He had carried on a business
in honey. Afterwards, when there was the quarrel relating to the
Lithuanian rabbi, they got his son taken for a soldier (he is serving in
the regiment to this day, with a bad lung), and he himself got involved
in a lawsuit for having burnt out the rabbi.
Well, it was a great crime. One is used to denouncing, but to heap
sticks round a house on all sides and set fire to it, that's a wicked
thing.
Whether or not he had anything to do with it, the lawsuit and the son
together impoverished him completely, and he became a teacher. Being so
new to the work, he hadn't the knack of getting on with the parents, one
of them took offense at something, removed his child, and sent him to
Yeruchem instead.
Noah was deeply wounded, but he was a man of high courage; he hung day
and night about the office of the district commissioner, and used both
his tongue and his pen. Well, in due time, up came the matter of the
fire-wall, and down came the senior inspector.
Noah meantime had been seized with remorse. He did all he could to
prevent the affair from being carried on. A coin or two changed hands,
and the affair was hushed up.
All might yet have been well, but for a fresh dispute about "blue."
Yeruchem was a Radziner,[64] and wore blue "fringes,"[65] and Noah, a
rabid Belzer,[66] called down vengeance.
The dispute grew hotter, up crops the fire-wall, and the law was called
in a second time.
There was a judgment given in default, and the court decided that
Yeruchem should erect a fire-wall within a month's time, otherwise--the
house was to be taken to pieces.
There wasn't a dreier. This time Noah had no remorse; on the contrary,
the quarrel was at its height, and there was nothing to be done with
him. Yeruchem sent to call him before the rabbi, and he sent the beadle
flying out of the house.
When Malkah saw that there was no redress to be had, she seized Noah by
the collar in the street, and dragged him to the rabbi like a murderer.
There was a marketful of Belzers about, but who is going to fight a
woman? "He who is murdered by women," says the Talmud, "has no judge and
no avenger." Noah's wife followed cursing, but was afraid to interfere.
At the rabbi's, Malkah told the whole story from beginning to end, and
demanded either that Noah should build the fire-wall, or else that the
matter should be dropped again.
Our rabbi knew very well that whichever party he declared to be right,
the Chassidîm on the _other_ side would be at him forthwith, and he
wormed himself out of the difficulty like the learned Jew that he was.
_He_ couldn't decide--it was a question of the impulse to do
harm--_bê-mê_. There was no decision possible--the case must be laid
before the Rebbes.[67]
Noah naturally preferred the Belzer Rebbe, Yeruchem had no choice, and
to Belz they went.
Yeruchem, before he left, made his brother-in-law his representative,
and trusted him with a few rubles which he had borrowed (people lent
them out of pity).
But it all turned out badly.
The brother-in-law spent the money on himself, or (as he averred) lost
it--Malkah fell ill of worry.
Yeruchem, it is true, gained his fire-wall with "costs," before the
Rebbe, but he and Noah were both caught on the frontier,[68] and brought
home with the _étape_.[69]
When Yeruchem arrived, Malkah was dead, and the little house pulled
down.
THE MASKIL
And don't imagine Tishewitz to be the world's end. It has a Maskil, too,
and a real Maskil, one of the old style, of middle age, uneducated and
unread, without books, without even a newspaper, in a word a mere
pretense at a Maskil.
He lets his beard grow. To be a Maskil in Tishewitz it is enough only to
trim it, but they say "he attends to his hair during the ten Days of
Penitence!"
He is not dressed German fashion, and no more is the Feldscher, also a
Jew in a long coat and ear-locks.
Our Maskil stops at blacking his boots and wearing a black ribbon round
his neck. He has only sorry remnants of ear-locks, but he wears a peaked
cap.
People simply say: "Yeshurun waxed fat and kicked."
He does well, runs a thriving trade, has, altogether, three
children--what more can he want? Being free of all care, he becomes a
Maskil.
On the strength of what he is a Maskil, it is hard to tell--enough that
people should consider him one!
The whole place knows it, and he confesses to it himself. He is chiefly
celebrated for his "Wörtlech," is prepared to criticise anything in
heaven or on earth.
As I heard later, the Maskil took me for another Maskil, and was sure
that I should lodge with him, or, at any rate, that he would be my first
entry.
"For work of that kind," he said to the others, "you want people with
brains. What do you suppose he could do with the like of _you_?"
And as the mountain did not go to Mohammed, because he had never heard
of him, Mohammed went to the mountain.
He found me in the house of a widow. He came in with the question of
the wicked child in the Haggadah: "What business is this of yours?"
"_Mòi Pànyiye!_[70] what are you doing here?"
"How here?" I ask.
"Very likely you think I come from under the stove? That because a
person lives in Tishewitz, he isn't civilized, and doesn't know what is
doing in the world? You remember: 'I have sojourned with Laban?'[71] I
do live here, but when there's a rat about, I soon smell him."
"If you can smell a rat, and know all that is going on, why do you want
to ask questions?"
The beadle pricked up his ears, and so did the half-dozen loungers who
had followed me step by step.
There was a fierce delight in their faces, and on their foreheads was
written the verse: "Let the young men arise"--let us see two Maskilîm
having it out between them!
"What is the good of all this joking?" said the Maskil, irritated. "My
tongue is not a shoe-sole! And for whose benefit am I to speak? That of
the Tishewitz donkeys? Look at the miserable creatures!"
I feel a certain embarrassment. I cannot well take up the defense of
Tishewitz, because the Tishewitz worthies in the window and the door-way
are smiling quite pleasantly.
"Come, tell me, what does it all mean, taking notes?"
"Statistics!"
"_Statistic-shmistik!_ We've heard that before. What's the use of it?"
I explained--not exactly to _him_, but to the community, so that they
should all have an idea of what statistics meant.
"Ha-ha-ha!" laughs the Maskil loudly and thickly, "you can get the
Tishewitz donkeys to believe that, but you won't get me! Why do you want
to put down how a person lives, with a floor, without a floor! What does
it matter to you if a person lives in a room without a floor? _Ha?_"
It matters, I tell him, because people want to show how poor the Jews
are; they think--
"They think nothing of the kind," he interrupted, "but let that pass!
Why should they want to know exactly how many boys and how many girls a
man has? and what their ages are, and all the rest of the bother?"
"They suspect us of shirking military duty. The books, as of course you
know, are not correct, and we want to prove--"
"Well, that may be so, for one thing--I'll allow that--but--about
licenses! Why do you note down who has them--and what they are worth?"
"In order to prove that the Jews--"
But the Maskil does not allow me to finish my sentence.
"A likely story! Meantime, people will know that this one and the other
pays less than he ought to for his license, and he'll never hear the
last of it."
Scarcely had he said so, when the heads in the window disappeared; the
beadle in the door-way took himself off, and the Maskil, who had really
meant well all along, stood like one turned to stone.
The population had taken fright, and in another hour or two the town was
full of me.
I was suspected of being commissioned by the excise. And why not,
indeed? The excise knew very well that a Jew would have less difficulty
in getting behind other people's secrets.
I was left to pace the market-square alone. The town held aloof. It is
true that the Maskil dogged my footsteps, but he had become antipathetic
to me, and I couldn't look at him.
The faces in the Gass became graver and darker, and I began to think of
escaping. There are too many side-glances to please me--there is too
much whispering.
It occurred to me to make a last effort. I remembered that the rabbi of
Tishewitz had once been our Dayan, and would remember me, or at least
witness to the fact that I was not what they took me for.
"Where does the rabbi live?" I inquire of the Maskil.
He is pleased and says: "Come, I will show you!"
THE RABBI OF TISHEWITZ
No one who has not seen the rabbi of Tishewitz's dressing-gown would
ever know the reason why the rebbitzin, his third wife, though hardly
middle-aged, already wears a large pair of spectacles on her nose. The
dressing-gown looks as if it were simply _made_ of patches.
"If only," complains the rabbi, "the town would give me another two
gulden a week, I could get along. _Asö is gor bitter!_ But I shall get
my way. Their law-suits they can decide without me; when it is a
question of pots and pans, any school-teacher will do; questions
regarding women, of course, cannot be put off; and yet I shall get my
way, I'm only waiting for the election of the elders; they can't have an
election without a rabbi. Imagine a town--no evil eye!--a metropolis in
Israel, without elders! And if that won't do it, I shall refuse to try
the slaughtering-knives--I've got them fast enough!"
It was no easy matter to divert the rabbi's thoughts from his own
grievances, but on the Maskil's promising to do his utmost to induce the
community to raise his salary, he begged us to be seated, and listened
to our tale.
"Nonsense!" he said, "I know you! Tell the fools I know you."
"They run away from me!"
"_Ett!_[72] They run away! Why should they run away? Who runs away?
After what? Well, as you say they run away, I will go out with you
myself."
"In what will you go?" calls out a woman's voice from behind the stove.
"Give me my cloak," answers the rabbi.
"Give you your cloak! I've this minute taken it apart."
"Well," says the rabbi, "the misfortune is happily not great. We will go
to-morrow."
I give him to understand that it is only noon, that I should be sorry to
waste the day.
"_Nu_, what shall I do?" answers the rabbi, and folds his hands. "The
rebbitzin has just started mending my cloak."
"Call them in here!"
"Call them? It's easy enough to call them, but who will come? Are they
likely to listen to me? Perhaps I had better go in my dressing-gown?"
"It wouldn't do, rabbi!" exclaimed the Maskil, 'the inspector is going
about in the Gass.
"For my part," said the rabbi, "I would have gone, but if you say
no--no!"
It is settled that we shall all three call the people together from the
window. But opening the window is no such easy matter. It hasn't been
opened for about fifteen years. The panes are cracked with the sun, the
putty dried up, the window shakes at every step on the floor. The frame
is worm-eaten, and only rust keeps it fastened to the wall. It is just a
chance if there are hinges.
And yet we succeeded. We opened first one side and then the other
without doing any damage.
The rabbi stood in the centre, I and the Maskil on either side of him,
and we all three began to call out.
The market was full of people.
In a few minutes there was a crowd inside the room.
"Gentlemen," began the rabbi, "I know this person."
"There will be no writing people down!" called out several voices
together.
The rabbi soon loses heart.
"No use, no use," he murmurs, but the Maskil has got on to the table and
calls out:
"Donkeys! They _must_ be written down! The good of the Jews at large
demands it!"
"The good of the Jews at large," he says, and he goes on to tell them
that he has gone through the whole chapter with me, that there is no
question of a joke, that I have shown him letters from the Chief Rabbis.
"From which Chief Rabbis?" is the cry.
"From the Chief Rabbi in Paris," bellows the Maskil, "from the Chief
Rabbi in Paris (no other will do for him), from the Chief Rabbi in
London--"
"Jews, let us go home!" interrupted someone, "_nisht unsere Leut!_"[73]
And the crowd dispersed as quickly as it had come together. We three
remained--and the beadle, who came close to me:
"Give me something," he said, "for the day's work."
I gave him a few ten-kopek pieces, he slipped them into his pocket
without counting them, and was off without saying good-bye.
"What do _you_ say, Rabbi?" I asked.
"I don't know what to say, how should I? I am only dreadfully
afraid--lest it should do me harm--"
"_You?_"
"Whom else? _You?_ If you don't get any statistics, it will be of no
great consequence, for 'He that keepeth Israel will neither slumber nor
sleep!' I mean the two extra gulden a week."
The rebbitzin with the large spectacles has come out from behind the
stove.
"I told you long ago," she says, "not to interfere in the affairs of the
community, but when did you ever listen to me? What has a rabbi to do
with _that_ sort of thing? Kohol's business!"
"_Nu_, hush, Rebbitzin, hush!" he answers gently; "you know what I am, I
have a soft heart, it touched me, but it's a pity about the two gulden a
week."
TALES THAT ARE TOLD
Sad and perplexed in spirit, I came down from the rabbi, with the
Maskil, and into the street. There we came across the beadle, who
assured us that, in his opinion, we should be able to go on with the
work to-morrow.
The whole Tararam[74] had been stirred up by two impoverished
householders, who were now in great misery; one, a public-house keeper,
and the other, a horse-dealer.
The Maskil, for his part, promises to talk the matter over with the
townspeople between Minchah and Maariv, and if he doesn't turn the place
upside down, then his name is not Shmeril (such a name has a Maskil in
Tishewitz!). They may stand on their heads, he said, but the notes must
be taken. "The very authorities that forbade will permit."
Well done! It is evident that the Maskil had studied in a Cheder, in the
great world one meets with other Maskilîm.
I go back to the inn; the beadle comes, too. At my host's they still
have services, the mourning for his wife not being ended. Between
Minchah and Maariv, we get on to politics; after Maariv, on to the Jews.
The greater part are dreadfully optimistic. In the first place, it's not
a question of _them_, secondly, plans will not prosper against
"Yainkil,"[75] he has brains of his own; thirdly, it's like a see-saw,
now it goes up and now it goes down;[76] fourthly, God will help;
fifthly, "good Jews" will not allow it to happen.
The old song!
"Believe me," exclaims one, with small, restless eyes under a low
forehead, "believe me, if there were unity among all 'good Jews,' if
they would hold together, as one man, and stop repeating Tachanun,[77]
Messiah would _have_ to come!"
"But the Kozenitz Rebbe, may his memory be blessed, _did_ stop,"
suggested another.
"'One swallow,' replied the young man, 'does not make a summer.' Who
talks of their imposing a prohibition on All-Israel?"
There are times when one must set one's self against things--defend
one's self.
"If they were to issue a prohibition," says someone, ironically, and
with a side-glance at me, "the heretics would take to praying, if only
for the sake of saying Tachanun, so that Messiah should _not_ come."
The company smile.
"But where is the harm," asks someone else, "if the great people don't
agree among themselves?"
The company gave a groan. Doubtless each remembered how many times he
had suffered unjustly on account of the want of unity, and the surest
proof of Tishewitz having greatly suffered by reason of dissensions is,
that no clear explanation was given as to who was at fault that the
great were not at one, so fearful were they of provoking a fresh
disagreement.