The more I forgot, the more I was inclined to be quit of my torments and
trials--to make an end of them by agreeing to a Christian name, but
whenever the bad thought came into my head, he appeared before me, the
same Shochet, and I heard his voice say to me, "Keep your name, remain a
Jew!"
And I knew for certain that it was no empty dream, because every time I
saw him _older_ and _older_, his beard and earlocks greyer, his face
paler. Only his eyes remained the same kind eyes, and his voice, which
sounded like a violin, never altered.
Once they flogged me, and he stood by and wiped the cold sweat off my
forehead, and stroked my face, and said softly: "Don't cry out! We ought
to suffer! Remain a Jew," and I bore it without a cry, without a moan,
as though they had been flogging _not_-me.
* * * * *
Once, during the last year, I had to go as a sentry to a public house
behind the town. It was evening, and there was a snow-storm. The wind
lifted patches of snow, and ground them to needles, rubbed them to dust,
and this snow-dust and these snow-needles were whirled through the air,
flew into one's face and pricked--you couldn't keep an eye open, you
couldn't draw your breath! Suddenly I saw some people walking past me,
not far away, and one of them said in Yiddish, "This is the first night
of Passover." Whether it was a voice from God, or whether some people
really passed me, to this day I don't know, but the words fell upon my
heart like lead, and I had hardly reached the tavern and begun to walk
up and down, when a longing came over me, a sort of heartache, that is
not to be described. I wanted to recite the Haggadah, and not a word of
it could I recall! Not even the Four Questions I used to ask my father.
I felt it all lay somewhere deep down in my heart. I used to know so
much of it, when I was only six years old. I felt, if only I could have
recalled one simple word, the rest would have followed and risen out of
my memory one after the other, like sleepy birds from beneath the snow.
But that one first word is just what I cannot remember! Lord of the
Universe, I cried fervently, one word, only one word! As it seems, I
made my prayer in a happy hour, for "we were slaves" came into my head
just as if it had been thrown down from Heaven. I was overjoyed! I was
so full of joy that I felt it brimming over. And then the rest all came
back to me, and as I paced up and down on my watch, with my musket on my
shoulder, I recited and sang the Haggadah to the snowy world around. I
drew it out of me, word after word, like a chain of golden links, like
a string of pearls. O, but you won't understand, you couldn't
understand, unless you had been taken away there, too!
The wind, meanwhile, had fallen, the snow-storm had come to an end, and
there appeared a clear, twinkling sky, and a shining world of diamonds.
It was silent all round, and ever so wide, and ever so white, with a
sweet, peaceful, endless whiteness. And over this calm, wide, whiteness,
there suddenly appeared something still whiter, and lighter, and
brighter, wrapped in a robe and a prayer-scarf, the prayer-scarf over
its shoulders, and over the prayer-scarf, in front, a silvery white
beard; and above the beard, two shining eyes, and above them, a
sparkling crown, a cap with gold and silver ornaments. And it came
nearer and nearer, and went past me, but as it passed me it said:
"It is well!"
It sounded like a violin, and then the figure vanished.
But it was the same eyes, the same voice.
I took Schpol on my way home, and went to see the Old Man, for the Rebbe
of Schpol was called by the people Der Alter, the "Schpol Grandfather."
And I recognized him again, and he recognized me!