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THE JEWS OF BARNOW.
STORIES
KARL EMIL FRANZOS
_TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY_
M. W. MACDOWALL
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1, 3, and 5 BOND STREET
1883
"The scoff, the curse--his people's heritage--
Have left upon his shrunken face their sting;
His eyes gleam like those of some hunted thing,
Against whose life implacable war men wage.
We read the Jew's face as one reads a page
Of his own nation's history, for there cling
About its lines, deep-worn with suffering,
The traces still of Israel's lordly age."
F. F. M.
PREFACE
TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
Although the high literary art which Franzos possesses (the finer
quality of which has been preserved in this translation) is fully
admitted by intelligent Jews, the subject-matter of his book itself, its
_raison d'etre_, they have by no means relished. In a review of "The
Jews of Barnow," published some months ago in a leading New York
journal, it was asserted by the writer that, from internal evidence,
Franzos must be a Jew. This statement was directly controverted by a
Jewish weekly of the highest standing. Still, we must believe that the
acumen of the New York reviewer was not at fault, because in a late
number of "Blackwood's Magazine," which contained an interesting
criticism of Franzos and his book, it was asserted that the author is or
was a Jew. No man not born a Jew, perfectly familiar with all the phases
of Jewish life in Eastern Galicia, and in sympathy with them, could have
created this book. Franzos may have clothed Jews and Jewesses with
poetical raiment, given them melodramatic phrasings, but the gabardine,
caftan, love-locks, are visible--the whine, the nasal twang audible.
This denial that Franzos was a Jew, though apparently insignificant in
itself, and due, perhaps, to a want of acquaintance with the facts, is
still peculiarly indicative of a natural _travers_ of the Jewish mind.
Any description of the inner life of Jews, when written by a Jew, unless
it be laudatory, is particularly distasteful to Jews. No race cares to
have its failings exposed. From one of another creed such strictures may
be passed over with stolid indifference, but, from one of their own
blood, any censure, direct or applied, is considered by Jews in the
light of a sacrilege. With Jews it is ever a cry, "It is a dirty bird
that fouls its own nest." Such acridity as a Goldwin Smith distills,
Jews laugh at; but when one of their kinsmen, a Mr. Montefiore, finds
fault with them, bidding them look for grace in another direction, then
at once a holy horror pervades them.
What Franzos describes is Jewish life pent up within the narrow limits
of some Galician town. Religious dislikes, racial hatreds kindled a
thousand years ago, have never been quenched. Though to-day in that town
a Jew could not be murdered, because it would be against the law, the
inclination to kill him, because he is a Jew, still exists. The simple
fact, that every Jew had been taught to read and write, had quickened
his brains. Through heredity he became, intellectually, superior to the
illiterate peasant, or townsfolk, who hemmed him in. The mental
phenomenon the Jew would present, under such conditions, would not be,
after all, so peculiar. He had but two ends in life, to work and pray.
Even his toil was restricted, for he could only engage in certain
callings. His solace was his religion. He might pray to his Maker, but
only in such set phrases as had been chosen for him. His God was by far
too sublime for him, poor worm, to address in such homely words as might
well up spontaneously from his own heart. A slave to tradition, bound
down by rote, the Jew had been taught that the least divergence from a
cut-and-dried ritual was heresy. Mental and physical isolation brought
about arrested development. The only wonder about this all is, that the
Jew in Eastern Europe, seeing a better chance for life beyond the pale
of his religion, had not broken bounds, and, abjuring his creed, found
outside of it an easier existence. Brushing aside that sentimentalism
which so often obscures considerations of this character, the chances of
security for an apostate Jew were not very certain. Travestied in the
guise of a Christian, he never could have looked like one. Stamped on
his features were all the marked characteristics of his Orientalism.
Even his tongue would have played him false, for the rabbi had forbidden
him the use of that language common to the state in which he lived. By
some complications brought about by the Jews themselves in Eastern
Europe, they are not always subjected to the same regulations as
Christians. Religious laws made for their own government, which
underpinned their social life, were rarely meddled with. In a primitive
society, necessarily ignorant, any accredited head, according to the
laws of sociology, must be a despotic one. A rabbi, then, in these
unknown towns, wielded almost the power of life and death. That modern
infliction of Boycotting has been borrowed directly from the Jews. For a
trivial divergence from common custom the punishment was severe. In
these Polish or Russian districts, thirty years ago, a Jew did not dare
read a Christian book.
What Franzos shows markedly in his "Jews of Barnow" is that barrier
which Jews throw around their household. The seclusion of the family, so
purely Oriental in its character, is something which the Polish rabbi
takes particular pains to teach. This hiding, of what is the finest
trait the Jew possesses, that love and peace which dwell in his home,
that reverence which children have for their parents, that sacrifice of
everything to his affections, because it never is known, has tended more
than anything else to alienate the Jew from his neighbor. Among the
ultra-orthodox Jews, whether they live in Odessa, Cracow, Frankfort,
London, or New York, their doors are inhospitably closed to those of
another belief. Has there been transmitted some instinct engendered by
mistrust?
Is Judaism, then, so sensitive a plant that it should wither by mere
contact? If, to live, it must have seclusion, it approaches closely to
the Eastern's idea of a woman's virtue, something wanting the protection
of high walls and difficult approaches. In our age, any religion which
requires exclusiveness so that it may exist is hardly worth the keeping.
Franzos's stories exhibit those barbarities even now practiced under the
sacred name of religion. There are Jews who are not merely galled by the
opprobrium which in some places is still attached to their race, but are
sincerely desirous of removing it. Franzos, because he describes what is
the iron law of Talmudical or rabbinical tradition, shows how
superstition degrades the man. It is difficult at this day, when
research and modern methods of criticism have thrown such a flood of
light on the past, to realize the mental condition of that vast body of
Jews at the time of the commencement of the Christian era and the
destruction of Jerusalem. The whole national and municipal
administration of the country was in the hands of the priesthood. Every
law, every ordinance, every police and sanitary regulation, became a
religious obligation. Every action in every man's family, whether social
or political, was regulated for him by rules handed down from former
generations, and these rules were barnacled by conventionalisms. For his
guidance in the most commonplace actions, a Jew had perforce recourse to
his rabbi. As must always be the case, when municipal administration
emanates from a church, religious observances override legal or social
obligations. With the crucifixion of Christ came that hatred of Jews,
the intensity of which can only now be measured by its continuance. The
exclusion of Jews from the society and communion of mankind petrified
into marble-like hardness all those existing traditions which guided the
Jew's methods of life. Forbidden by every conceivable form of oppression
and disability from accompanying the rest of mankind on their march
toward a higher civilization, every advance, mental or physical, denied
them, it was as if a hot iron had been seared over the bloody wound
which had lopped them off from the family of nations. It is a wonder
that all future growth was not arrested. As to the charge of tribalism
(the writer acknowledging that the vast majority of Jews believe in it),
and even according some unknown and undefined power as derivable from
tribalism, to make a charge of this is but to repeat the old fable of
the wolf and the lamb.
All that intelligent Jews are doing to-day is to take advantage of their
freedom. They are trying to rid themselves of that incubus which has
been weighing them down. That large and increasing number of Reformers
and Reform synagogues, springing up in the large cities of Western
Europe and the United States; the decadence, the difficulty of
maintaining synagogues of pure orthodox Jews; the complaints, the
lamentations which are constantly heard from the mouths of orthodox
ministers and their organs, over what they call "the neglect of
religious observance," show that the time of change has come. Even among
some of the orthodox, the gross superstitions accompanying the offerings
(auction-sales of God's blessings, knocked down to the highest bidder)
have been for the major part abolished. Efforts are continually made to
modify the ritual by denationalizing the older-fashioned form of prayer,
and giving it more of that spiritual life which Maimonides first
developed. Dietary and physical observances, which the Eastern Jew
borrowed or adopted from the nations which once surrounded him, are
being expunged.
What is the true reason for this change, a change which, born in America
and in England, is now commencing to exert some slight influence in
Germany? The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Every act
of wrong done to Jews rendered them the more rigid in their belief,
causing at the same time differentiation in their surroundings.
Whenever, through the operation of better, more humane laws, oppression
was removed, Jews became more like the men among whom they lived. Why
should M. Renan find fault with the French Jew, and take the Parisian
Israelite as the type of some Hebraic Athenian? Under normal conditions
men float in the general current, at about equal depths, for the social
law of specific gravity remains forever the same. Those sociologists
are ignorant of their calling who demand, then, of the Jew an
instantaneous reversal of an existence formed by his surroundings, and a
forgetting of the great belief which has been burned into his heart by
the fires of thousands of years.
To the American Jew, "The Jews of Barnow" shows very clearly a great
many things he may have been ignorant about. Jews who came to this
country fifty years since, who by thrift, honesty, and intelligence,
have secured an ample store of the world's goods, are prone to forget
their early surroundings, or hesitate to tell their American children of
that bigotry which existed in their European birth-places. They have
educated their children in their own creed; but American school-boys or
school-girls have had one inestimable blessing, the contact with an
outer world and the opportunity of thinking for themselves. Education
and superstition can never have a co-existence. These fathers would feel
ashamed, then, did they tell their children the absurdities which they
once were taught. That one story of Franzos's, "The Child of Atonement,"
is a revelation. As an American Jew reads it, he might be inclined to
deem the Rabbi of Sadagora a Torquemada, or that it was a clever
creation, having no existence save in the brain of the romance-writer.
But it is not a fancy-drawn picture, but had once actual being. Such
stories as "The Child of Atonement" and "The Nameless Graves" can not be
read by any intelligent Jew without the burning brand of shame rising
to his cheeks. As to the truthfulness of many portions of Franzos's
book, unfortunately there can be no possible doubt. There may not be
many Rabbis of Sadagora, but excommunication, the _cherem_, that social
inquisition, is as prevalent in Russia and Poland, in 1882, as it was a
thousand years ago. The Rabbi of Sadagora of Franzos's book is dead, but
his son actually lives, exercises perhaps not the same cruelties, but
attributes to himself the identical miraculous functions as did his
wicked father before him, and still this younger medicine-man has his
followers.
"The Jews of Barnow" should make the existence of a Rabbi of Sadagora an
impossibility. Jewish women who read "The Jews of Barnow" will be amazed
to learn how degraded is the condition of their sex in Eastern Europe.
That one horrible text in their prayer-book, said by the men, "Thank God
that thou hast not made me a woman," belongs to the period of the
coarsest barbarity. It is incorporated in innumerable volumes, now
perhaps being printed. Educated Jews who read this vicious paragraph,
who think of mother, wife, and daughter, feel the degradation of it, and
loathe its interpretation. We can not agree with Frances Power Cobbe in
the general application of this sentence of hers, that "something
appears to be lacking in Jewish feeling concerning women. Too much of
Oriental materialism still lingers. Too little of Occidental chivalry
and romance has yet arisen." This might be applicable for the East, even
in its most exaggerated sense, but is hardly just to the West. Still, as
Franzos tells us in his book, girls are sold to men, and become, it is
true, wives, but with as little ceremony as if they were Circassians.
The oldest source of any religion is not the purest, "If it be an
historical religion, fanaticism always assumes the form of a return to
the primitive type." The ultra-orthodox Jew is ruled by the Ashkenazim
of Jerusalem, the most superstitious, the most ignorant of men. This
sect still fights for power. Even the purity of the Ashkenazim's belief,
monotheism, the only thing left it, must be taken with suspicion,
because the sanity or sincerity of any Cabalist is to be doubted.
There are little, if any, differences existing in the social strata,
educated or uneducated, which uphold Christian beliefs. If Rome is the
fountain-head of Catholicity, Jerusalem ought to be the true source
whence Hebraism flows. The Holy City of the Jews does exert its
influence over millions of the ultra-orthodox, but for educated
Israelites has no more weight than have the decrees of any
miracle-working rabbi who holds forth in Cracow. If there be in Russia,
Finland, Scandinavia, Austria, Hungary, Roumania, Turkey, some five and
a half million Jews, and in England, France, and the United States, half
a million more, what a vast proportion are steeped in darkness!
What does as much as anything else to injure the Jew, and to make
mankind his enemy, is that belief he entertains that he is the race "God
cherishes most." This is, indeed, tribalism. Selected by the Creator as
his special favorites, pious Jews think that to them "all blessings
shall be given." Once it was believed that a Jew's brain was made of a
finer material, that he was less subject to dementia, than others. Some
very sad personal observations assure the writer that such is not the
case. If anything, in that struggle for wealth in which Jews engage in
the large cities of the United States, they have children more prone to
feeble-mindedness than Christians. The close-marriage system of the Jews
may in a certain measure induce degeneracy by exhaustion of the original
stock, for the laws of nature are inexorable, and act alike in Christian
or Mohammedan. That preservation of his race is something the Jew most
particularly prides himself about. The Parsee, who for so long a time
has had a religion apart, presents the precise condition of an isolated
existence which the Jew is so proud of. Morality, continence, the sacred
character of the marriage-ties, do in a certain measure preserve the
Jewish race, but the miraculous in such fractional existence has nothing
marvelous about it. This self-laudation of race, that "pride-belief," is
the most difficult to eradicate, for it has been the consolation of an
oppressed race.
What, then, is reform, this Jewish reform? It is pure, unadulterated
monotheism. It believes that men, though they may expound religion, can
not create it. It looks on the Talmud, as did Emanuel Deutsch, as the
most poetical, the most confusing of chronicles, but utterly worthless
for the guidance of any human being--a curiosity, patched over,
embroidered, by a thousand different hands, something to be placed in a
cabinet, to be gazed on, but as practically useless for human
instruction as would be the Arthurian romances. Yahya ibn Main was a
worshiper of the Prophet, and labored all his life to purify the text of
his Koran, and thus he is recorded to have said: "I wrote down numbers
of traditions under the dictation of liars, and made use of the paper
for heating my ovens. I thus obtained at least one advantage--my bread
was well baked." One saying in the Talmud is applicable to it: "They
dived into the ocean and brought up a potsherd." Oh, the _olla-podrida_
of nonsense in it! And still it shapes the lives of millions of Jews; it
warps their ways, for it is almost their only book.
The Reformer is no iconoclast, he is educated enough not to wish to
destroy this relic of a past, but he is striving to expunge it, to
deprive the Talmud from exerting its baleful influence. The reformed Jew
believes in a God of mercy--one of love. He thinks that his Creator is
not a vengeful being. He does not believe that Christ was the Son of
God, doubts even a coming Messiah, but thinks that modern teachings have
done for man's immortal soul what the older lawgivers did for grosser
flesh and blood only. What the Reformer desires most especially is that
he shall have readers, clergymen (call them what you please), who shall
not only be familiar with the language they live in, but have the
highest, the very highest education, be in fact the equals of those who
preach to their Christian friends. These Reformers sicken over those
attempts of crass ignorance which, through the borrowed sanctity of a
salaried office, assume the direction of educated intelligence. The
majority of these Reformers are utterly indifferent to dietary
regulations. Can peace with God, a resurrection of the soul after the
death of the body, entrance to heaven, have anything to do with the
eating of a mollusk? Could the great Creator have made food for one man
which another dare not eat? Trivialities, mixed up in religion, debase
it, weaken it, sap it to its very vitals. A stronger, more hearty belief
must emancipate itself from puerilities. A reformed Jew can not be a
materialist, though he may strip religion of its symbolisms.
Millennium is far distant, and a Bishop of Sadagora and a Goldwin Smith
may never, perhaps, lie in the same bed, or sup at the same banquet, for
both of them represent that antagonism which inflamed England in King
John's time, or is rampant to-day with Pastor Stoecker in King William of
Prussia's reign. "Every country has the Jews it deserves," writes
Franzos, quoting the most direful of sayings. God help, in his infinite
mercy, American-born Jews if, in generations to come, this cruel speech
had ever an application! It might arise from their own errors, and the
faults of their surroundings. It would mean, however, nothing less than
the political degradation of that country in which Christian and Jew
live. Mr. Froude has been much blamed, little lauded, for what he wrote
in regard to an oppressed race. It was somewhat as follows: that those
who could not fight for their freedom did not deserve it.
It sometimes happens that fiction produces effects where facts fail. It
is believed, then, that Franzos's stories will not only be of interest
to numerous readers, but in the hands of the reformed Jew, by means of
the lessons it teaches, help him in his earnest efforts to save his race
from retrogression.
BARNET PHILLIPS.
PREFACE.
The following stories, the scene of which is laid in the Podolian
Ghetto, were my first literary attempt. They were for the most part
written while I was at the university, and were published in various
journals. Owing to circumstances, another and later book--"Aus
Halb-Asien"--was the first to come out; for this youthful work was not
published as a whole until 1876. I mention this, although it is visible
from internal evidence, to explain my choice of subjects. The preface to
that edition gives a further account of this, and from it I make the
following quotations:
"When I took up my pen four years ago, I strongly felt the necessity of
making my work as artistic as possible. I wished to write stories, and
strove to give them poetic value. For this very reason, it seemed
necessary that I should describe the kind of life with which I was best
acquainted. This was essentially the case with regard to that of the
Podolian Jews. I therefore became the historian of the Podolian Ghetto,
and it was my great desire to give these stories an artistic form; but
not at the cost of truth. I have never permitted my love of the
beautiful to lead me into the sin of falsifying the facts and conditions
of life, and am confident that I have described this strange and
outlandish mode of existence precisely as it appeared to me. If in my
first published volume my efforts to portray men and manners needed the
assistance of my powers as a novelist, so in this book my knowledge of
men and manners has to help me in my labors as a novelist. Sometimes the
one side of my character takes the upper hand, and sometimes the other;
but still they are at bottom inseparable, and it has always been my
endeavor to describe facts artistically. However the novelist may be
judged, the portrayer of men and manners demands that his words should
be believed.
"This request is not superfluous, for it is a very strange mode of life
to which I am about to introduce the reader. The influences and
counter-influences that affect it are only touched upon in this book.
Had I given a full account of them in an introduction, the introduction
would, in all likelihood have been longer than the book. I have
therefore refrained from doing it, and believe that I was right in
making this decision. For I have kept before my eyes, while penning
these stories, that I am writing for a Western reader. If he will only
trust to my love of truth, and regard the separate stories in
combination with each other, he will gain a clear idea of the kind of
life I describe without any further particulars. I would repeat one
sentence, the truth of which is shown in my first book: 'Every country
has the Jews that it deserves'--and it is not the fault of the Polish
Jews that they are less civilized than their brethren in the faith in
England, Germany, and France. At least, it is not entirely their fault.
"No one can do more than his nature permits. This book is to a certain
extent polemical, and the stories are written with an object. I do not
deny that this is the case, and do not think it requires any excuse.
Still I have never allowed myself to sin against truth in the pursuit of
this object. I do not make the Polish Jews out to be either better or
worse than they really are. These stories are not written for the
purpose of holding up the Eastern Jews to obloquy or admiration, but
with the object of throwing as much light as I could in dark places."
The second edition, published in 1877, only differed from the first in a
few alterations made in the language; but the third edition (from which
this translation is taken) is not only enlarged, but is also changed in
several important particulars. I examined each story carefully, and
strove to bring all into a distinct connection with each other, thus
giving a clear idea of Polish Judaism regarded as a whole. For this
reason new tales were introduced: they describe Jewish customs that had
been at first passed over in silence, but which were necessary for the
proper appreciation of the subject.
This work has been translated into all European languages, as well as
into Hebrew; and now I have the pleasure of being able to lay it before
the English public, by whom I hope it will receive as kind a reception
as it has been given elsewhere. I hope so less for my own sake than in
the interest of the unfortunate people whose life it describes.
KARL EMIL FRANZOS.
VIENNA.
CONTENTS.
THE SHYLOCK OF BARNOW
CHANE
TWO SAVIOURS OF THE PEOPLE
"THE CHILD OF ATONEMENT"
ESTERKA REGINA
"BARON SCHMULE"
THE PICTURE OF CHRIST
NAMELESS GRAVES
THE SHYLOCK OF BARNOW.
(1873.)
The Jew's great white house stands exactly opposite the old gray
monastery of the Dominicans, and close to the public road that leads
from Lemberg to Skala, passing through the gloomy little town of Barnow
on the way. The people born in the small dirty houses of the Ghetto grow
up with a feeling of the deepest respect and admiration for this house
and its owner, old Moses Freudenthal. Both house and man are the pride
of Barnow; and both in their own way justify this pride.
To describe the house in the first place. It really seems to be
conscious of its own grandeur as it stands there proud and stately in
all the dignity of white-washed cleanliness, the long windows of the
first floor bright and shining, and the painted shutters of the
shop-windows coming down to the very ground at either side of the great
folding-doors which stand invitingly open. For it is a house of
entertainment, and the nobles of the country-side know how to take
advantage of its superior attractions when they come to town on
magisterial business, or attend the weekly market. It is also patronized
by the cavalry officers who are stationed in the villages in the
neighborhood, whenever the boredom of country quarters drives them into
town. Besides this, the house is let in suites of apartments, and the
greatest of the magnates of Barnow, such as the district judge and the
doctor, live there. But it would be difficult to give a list of all the
house contains, the ground-floor is so crowded. In one room is a lottery
agency, then come the offices of a company for insuring cattle, men, and
corn; and again, a drapery establishment, a grocer's shop, a room in
which gentlemen may drink their wine, and another where the poor man can
enjoy his glass of brandy-and-water. But then, the lottery agent, the
agent of the insurance company, the draper, the grocer, and the
innkeeper are one and all--Moses Freudenthal.
But the tall stern-looking old man to whom the house belongs is even
more worthy of notice than it and all it contains. His family has been
the grandest in the town as long as people can remember, and to him
belongs of right the chief place in the synagogue. His father had been
appointed head of the session on the death of his grandfather, and when
his father died he was chosen as his successor without a dissentient
voice, and by the unsolicited vote of the whole congregation. He is
regarded as one of the most pious and honorable men in the Jewish
community. Added to this is his wealth--his enormous wealth!
His co-religionists regard him as a millionaire, and they are right. For
he not only possesses the big white house and all that is in it, but he
has every reason to look upon several of the estates in the neighborhood
as more really belonging to him than to the Polish nobles who live on
them. And then Komorowka is his also. This beautiful place fell into his
hands when little Count Smolski and his lovely wife Aurora lost it by
their extravagance after a very few years' possession. Komorowka is
indeed a lovely place. No wonder that when the time came for Count
Smolski to leave his old home, he was in such utter despair that he
sought to forget his woes in the worst fit of drunkenness of his whole
life.
Would you be much surprised if you were now told that Moses Freudenthal
was not only the richest and proudest, but also the most envied, man in
Barnow?
But this he is not. Ask the poorest man in the Jewish town--the teacher
of the law, who, with his six children, often suffers from the pangs of
hunger, or the water-carriers, who groan under the heavy pails they bear
from morning to night from the town-well--ask these men whether they
would exchange lots with Moses, and they will at once answer, "No." For
Freudenthal's sorrow is even greater than his wealth.
It is true that you can not read this in his face as he stands, tall and
stately, in the doorway of his house. His silver-gray hair falls down
below his black velvet skull-cap; the two long curls that hang, one at
each side of the face, as is the fashion of the Chassidim, are also
silver-gray and thin. But his figure is still strong and upright, and
the curiously cut Jewish coat that he wears, resembling a _talar_ in
shape, and made of black cloth, is by no means an unbecoming garment.
The old man stands almost motionless watching the painter who is busy
painting the doors of the spirit-shop a bright arsenic green, with
bottles, glasses, and _bretzeln_,[1] in yellow and white upon the green
background. He seldom turns to acknowledge the greeting of a passer-by,
for but few people are in the streets to-day. Now and then a group of
Ruthenian peasants may be seen reeling out of the town-gate, or a
nobleman drives past in his light britzska, or perhaps it is some poor
peddler, who has been wandering the whole week long from farm to farm in
the district, exchanging money and cloth for the sheepskins, laden with
which he is returning to town. His burden is heavy and his gain is but
small, yet his pale, worn, and, it may be, cunning face is not without
a gleam of joy and pride. A few hours later and the miserable ragged
Jewish peddler, on whom farmers and nobles had tried the weight of their
whips, and on whom they had made many a scurrilous jest, is transformed
into a proud prince awaiting the arrival of his lovely bride--the day of
rest, the Sabbath.
[Footnote 1: A kind of biscuit.]
He has not long to wait now, the Friday afternoon is drawing to a close,
and the sun will soon set. Preparations for the day of rest are being
made in every house; the sunlit street is almost totally deserted. Herr
Lozinski, the district judge, a tall, thin, yellow-faced man, is coming
down the street accompanied by a young stranger. He stands at the door
for a few minutes talking to Moses before going up-stairs to his rooms.
They discuss the badness of the times, the low price of silver, and the
promising April weather; for it is a real spring day, more like May than
anything else. The streets are very dry, except for a few puddles in the
market-place; the air is deliciously soft and warm, and yonder in the
monk's garden the fruit-trees and elder bushes are covered with blossom.
The Christian children coming home from school are shouting, "Spring!
spring is coming!" "Yes, spring is coming," says the district judge,
taking off his hat and leading his guest up-stairs. "Spring is coming,"
repeats old Moses, passing his hand across his forehead as if awakening
from a dream.... "Spring is coming!"
"Old Moses is a very remarkable man," says the district judge to the new
registrar. "I scarcely know whether to call him eccentric or not. You
won't believe it, but he knows as much law as the best barrister in the
land. And besides that, he's the richest man in the country-side. He is
said to be worth millions! And yet he slaves week-in, week-out, as
though he hadn't the wherewithal to buy his Sabbath dinner."
"A niggardly money-grubber like all the Jews," says the registrar,
making the smoke of his cigar curl slowly in the air.
"H'm! By no means. He is generous. I must confess that he is very
generous. But his generosity gives him no more pleasure than his wealth.
Yet he goes on speculating as before. And for whom, if you please--for
whom?"
"Has he no children?" inquires the other.
"Yes. That's to say, he has and he hasn't. Ask him, and he will tell you
that he has none. But you don't know his story, do you?... Every one
here knows it--but then, you see, you come from Lemberg. I suppose that
you never heard any one speak of the old man's daughter, beautiful Esther
Freudenthal, when you were there? The whole affair is very romantic; I
must tell it you...."
The old man, whose story every one knows, is still leaning against the
doorway of his house, watching the flower-laden branches of the
fruit-trees in the cloister garden as they sway in the breeze. What is
he thinking of? It can not be of his business; for his eyes are wet with
unshed tears, and his lips tremble for a moment as though with stifled
grief. He shades his eyes with his hand, as if the sunlight were
blinding him. Then he draws himself up, and shakes his head, as though
trying to rid himself of the sad thoughts that oppress him.
"Make haste, the Sabbath is drawing nigh," he says to the painter as he
approaches to examine his work more closely.
The little humpback, who wears a shabby frogged coat of a fashion only
known in Poland, has just finished the folding-doors, and now limps away
to the window-shutters, paint-pot in hand. These shutters had formerly
been colored a bright crimson, and their faded surface still bears the
almost illegible inscription in white letters: "For ready money
to-day--to-morrow gratis." Their glory has long since departed, and the
little man, quickly filling his brush with the vivid green, begins to
paint over them, saying as he works, "Do you remember, Pani Moschko,
that I painted this too?" and with that he points to the dirty brown-red
of the first coloring.
But Moses is thinking of other things, and scarcely heeding him, answers
with an indifferent, "Really."
"Of course I did," continues the little man eagerly. "Don't you
remember? I painted it fifteen years ago on just such another beautiful
day as this is. The house was quite new, and I was a young fellow then.
When I had finished my work, you looked at it, and said, 'I am pleased
with you, Janko.' You were standing in front of the door, just where you
are now, I verily believe, and your little Esterka was beside you. Holy
Virgin! how lovely the child was! And how pleasant it was to hear her
laugh when she saw the white letters appearing one after the other on
the red ground! She asked what they meant, the darling! You gave me
three Theresien _zwanzigers_[2] for my work. I remember it as distinctly
as if it were yesterday. I thought then that it was my last job in
Barnow; for old Herr von Polanski wanted to send me to the school of
design at Cracow. But soon afterward he lost every farthing he
possessed, and was even obliged to sell his daughter Jadwiga in order to
get food to eat, and so I remained a house-painter. Ah yes! man proposes
and.... Deuce take it! The old man's gone, and here I am gossiping away
to the empty air. I suppose that the Jew is counting his money as
usual...."
[Footnote 2: About 1s. 8d. English.]
But Janko is mistaken. Moses Freudenthal is not counting his treasures
at this moment. Indeed he would probably give up all that he possesses
without a sigh could he thereby rid his life of what has made him
poorer and more wretched than the beggar at his gates. He has taken
refuge in the large dusky sitting-room, into which no ray of sunlight,
and no sound of the human voice, can penetrate. He can now throw himself
into his arm-chair, and sob from the bottom of his heart without any one
asking him what is the matter; he can let his head fall upon his breast,
tear his hair, or cover his face with his hands.... He does not weep, or
pray, nor yet does he curse; he moans out in pain, the words echoing in
the quiet room, "How pleasant it was to hear the child's laugh!..." Thus
he sits alone in the twilight. At last he gets up and raises his eyes as
if in prayer--nay, rather as a man who demands a right. "O God!" he
cries, "I do not ask that she may come back to me, for I made my
servants drive her from my door; I do not ask that she may be happy, for
she has sinned grievously in the sight of God and man; I do not ask that
she may be unhappy, for she is my own flesh and blood; I only ask that
she may die, so that I may not have to curse my only child. Let her die,
O God, let her die, or let me!..."
Meanwhile the district judge is concluding his story in the room above.
"No one knows what has become of the pretty little girl. She is
forgotten; her father even doesn't seem to remember her existence.
They're a heartless race these Jews; they're all alike...."
It has grown dusk in the town, but there is no gloom in the hearts of
its Jewish inhabitants. The dismal irregularly built houses of the
Ghetto are now enlivened by thousands of candles, and thousands of happy
faces. The Sabbath has begun in the hearts of these people and in their
rooms, a common and usual occurrence, and yet a mysterious and blessed
influence that drives away all that is poor and mean in everyday life.
To-day, every hovel is lighted up, and every heart made glad with
sufficiency of food. The teacher of the law has forgotten his hunger,
the water-carrier his hard work, the peddler the blows and derision that
continually fall to his lot, and the rich usurer his gain. To-day all
are equal; all are the happy trustful sons of the same Almighty Father.
The feeble light of the tallow-candle in its rude candlestick, and the
soft light of the wax-candle in the silver candelabra, illumine the same
picture. The daughters of the house and the little boys sit silently
watching their mother, as she, in obedience to the beautiful old custom
handed down from generation to generation, blesses the candles. The
father then takes the large prayer-book down from the book-shelf and
gives it to his eldest son to carry to the synagogue for him. After that
they all go out into the street, the men and women keeping apart, as the
strict law commands. Their words are few, and those they utter are grave
and quiet. To-day neither grief nor joy finds vent in speech, for all
hearts are full of the divine peace of the Sabbath....
The large white house opposite the Dominican monastery is also
illuminated. But the candles were lighted by a stranger, for there is no
mistress there to speak the customary blessing. The finest linen covers
the tables in the best parlor, which is handsomely furnished, but no
child's merry laugh, and no loving word is heard there. The melancholy
sound of the sputtering candles alone disturbs the stillness.
But the old man who now enters the room in his Sabbath suit has been
accustomed to this state of things for years--for five long years. At
first he used involuntarily to turn and listen for the sound of the
voice he loved so well; for it was on an evening such as this that his
child had left him. But this evening he crosses the room quickly, and
taking the heavy leather-bound prayer-book from the shelf, leaves the
room at once. Does he fear that to-day of all days the ghosts of the
past will come forth to meet him from every corner of the well-lighted
room?
If that be the case, it is foolish to fly from them, Moses Freudenthal!
See, they dog your footsteps wherever you go through the narrow gloomy
little streets. They whisper in your ear, even though you strive to
drown their voices by entering into conversation with the passers-by.
They appear before your very eyes in spite of your fixing them upon the
votive tablets fastened to the pillars in the house of God! And when
you pass through the congregation and take your seat in your accustomed
place, they flutter around your head, look at you out of the very
letters of your prayer-book, and speak to you in the voice of the
officiating minister!...
"Praise ye the Lord. Break out into joy, gladness, and song. For He
judgeth the world with righteousness and the people with His truth."
"And the solitary," cries a secret voice in the heart of the unhappy
man, "shall He break in pieces!" His eyes are fixed upon his book, his
lips whisper the words of prayer; but he does not pray, he can not! The
whole of his past life rises ghost-like before his mental vision, and in
such vivid detail as to cause him intense agony....
"He who can no longer pray," his old father had often told him, and now
the words involuntarily recur to him,--"He who can no longer pray shall
be cast out from before the face of the Eternal." He distinctly
remembers the day on which he had first heard those words. He was then a
boy of thirteen, and had been allowed to put on the phylacteries for the
first time, the sign that he had reached man's estate. The life that
opened out before him on that day was not easy and pleasant like that of
the fortunate of the earth, but hard and narrow as that endured by his
race. In common with every one around him, he had early learned to
dedicate his life to two objects, and these were--prayer and
money-making. When he was seventeen years of age his father had called
him into his room, and had then told him, in a calm matter-of-fact tone,
that he was to marry Chaim Gruenstein's daughter Rosele in three months'
time. He did not know the girl. He had seen her, it is true, but he had
never really looked at her. His father had, however, chosen her to be
his wife, and he was satisfied that it was well. Three months later he
married Rosele....
Hark! the Chazzan is beginning the ancient Sabbath hymn, whose words,
expressive of joy and longing, go straight to the heart--"Lecho daudi
likras kalle." And immediately the choir takes up the strain
triumphantly, "Lecho daudi likras kalle"--"Come, O friend, let us go
forth to meet the Bride, let us receive the Sabbath with joy!"
Strange emotion to stir the spirit of a people to its very depths!
Strange that all the passion and sensuousness of which its heart and
mind are capable are expended on the adoration of the Divinity, and on
that alone. The same race whose genius gave birth to the Song of
Songs--the eternal hymn of love,--and to whom the world owes the story
of Ruth, the most beautiful idyl of womanhood ever known--has now, after
a thousand years of the night of oppression and wandering, learned to
look upon marriage as a mere matter of business, by which to secure some
pecuniary advantage, and as a means of preventing the chosen of the
Lord from dying off the face of the earth. These men know not what they
do--they have no suspicion of the sin of which they are guilty in thus
acting.
Nor did Moses Freudenthal know it. He honored his wife as long as she
lived, and found in her a faithful helpmeet in joy and sorrow. A
blessing seemed to rest upon everything he did, for whatever he
undertook prospered. He studied the language of the Christians around
him with an eager determination to learn, and then began the arduous
task of learning German law: the man of thirty studied as hard as if he
had been a schoolboy. He was not actuated by the desire of gain alone,
but also by a love of honor and knowledge. And this knowledge bore
fruit; he became rich--very rich. The nobles and officers of the
neighborhood came to his house and bowed themselves down before the
majesty of his wealth; but before he had done with them, they were
forced to hold him in as much respect as his gold. In those days every
one envied him, and people used to whisper as he passed--"That is the
happiest man in the whole district."
But was he really happy? If he were so, why did he often look gloomy,
and why did Rosele weep as if her heart would break, when she was sure
that no one could see her? A dark shadow rested on the married life of
this couple, who, in their daily intercourse, had gradually learned to
esteem each other. Their marriage was childless. As they had been
brought together by strangers, and were not even yet united in heart and
soul, they could not live down their sorrow, or find comfort in each
other's love. The proud man bore his grief in silence, and, unmoved,
watched his wife fading away before his very eyes. When his friends
spoke of a divorce, he shook his head, but no word of love for the
unhappy woman to whom he was bound ever crossed his lips. Years passed
away; but at last one evening--it was in winter--when he entered the
sitting-room, and wished his wife "good evening" as usual, instead of
answering softly, and glancing at him shyly and sadly, she hastened to
meet him, and clung to him as though she felt for the first time that
she had a right to his love. He gazed at her blushing excited face, his
surprise giving way to joyful anticipation; then taking her hand, he
drew her down to the seat beside him, and made her lay her head upon his
breast. Their lips trembled, but neither of them could find words to
express their joy--none seemed adequate!...
"Praise ye the Lord!" These words of the minister roused Moses from his
dream of the past, and he hears the congregation reply, "Praised be the
Lord our God, who createth the day and createth the night, who
separateth the light from the darkness, and the darkness from the light:
praised be the Lord, the Almighty, the Eternal, the God of battles!..."
"Praised be God!..." With what mixed feelings had Moses Freudenthal
joined in this cry of thanksgiving on that Sabbath evening twenty-two
years ago when he first entered the house of God a father! His heart
bled and rejoiced at the same moment; he wept with mingled joy and
sorrow, for a little daughter had indeed been born to him: but his
wife's strength had been unable to withstand her sufferings, and she had
died. She had borne her terrible agony with unmurmuring resignation; and
even when dying a happy smile passed over her pale face whenever she
heard the voice of her child. In those sad hours before the end the
hearts of the husband and wife, that had remained strangers to each
other during the long years of their married life, at length found each
other out. He alone understood why his wife said, "Now I can die in
peace;" she alone understood why he bent over her hand again and again,
sobbing, "Forgive me, Rosele; forgive me!" "The child," she said; "take
care of the child!" then she shivered and died. Next morning they
carried her out to the "good place." And he rent his garments, took the
shoes from off his feet, and sat on the floor of the chamber of death
for seven days and seven nights, thus fulfilling the days of mourning
after the manner of the children of Israel. He did not weep, but fixed
his sad tearless eyes on the flame of the funeral light which has to
burn for a whole week in order that the homeless spirit may have a
resting-place on earth until God shows it where it is henceforth to
dwell.
"He is talking to the dead," whispered his relations in awe-struck
tones, when they saw his lips move, as he murmured, "All might have been
well now, and you are dead!"
His sorrow found relief in tears when they brought him the child, and
asked what it should be called. "Esther," he answered--"Esther, like my
mother." He held his little daughter long in his arms, and his tears
fell on her face. Then he gave the child back to her nurse, and from
that moment became calm and composed.
When the days of mourning were over he returned to his business, and
worked harder than ever before. A new spirit seemed to possess him, and
every day he embarked in new and daring undertakings. He ventured to do
what no one else would attempt, and fortune remained true to him. He now
carried out the wish he had long nourished--bought the piece of land
opposite the Dominican monastery, and began to build a large house
there. He passed his days in unceasing labor; but in the evening he
would sit for hours at a time by his child's cradle, gazing at the soft
baby face. And in the first months after his bereavement, the nurse was
often startled by seeing him come noiselessly into the nursery in the
middle of the night, and watch and listen long to see if all were well
with the child.