Leiba Zibal, proprietor of the little rest-house by Podeni, is sitting
thoughtfully under the projecting roof in front of the wine shop waiting
for the stage which is already overdue an hour.
The life story of Zibal is long and it is not particularly merry. But
now, in his present condition when he is suffering so from fever, it is
a genuine amusement for him to parade before his mind its various
incidents.
Huckster, petty merchant, general go-between--sometimes even more
humble--dealer in rags and old clothes, once tailor and cleaner in a
sad, dirty little street in Jassy. He had had to try his hand at all
these things in the interval after losing his place as waiter in a large
wine house. Under his supervision two porters had carried a cask of wine
into the cellar. In the division of the labor they fell out. One seized
a stick of wood and dealt his partner a blow on the head so severe that
he dropped unconscious and blood spattered the walk.
Zibal shrieked with horror at the sight, but the porter was hastening to
get away, and lifting a threatening hand to Zibal, who fainted from
terror. As a result he was ill for several months, and when he came back
he found his old place had been filled.
Then began a fight for existence, which was made harder by his marriage
to Sura. But patience and endurance can overcome the most treacherous
fortune.
Sura’s brother--proprietor of the rest-house by Podeni--died, and the
little business was inherited by Zibal who carried it on on his own
account. Here he had lived for five years. He had managed to scrape
together a small competence in raw and well aged wine, which at any time
has an equivalent in gold. Zibal had freed himself from poverty, but now
they are all ill, he and his wife and the child--ill with the marsh
fever.
The people in Podeni are bad tempered and quarrelsome. Harsh words,
scorn, curses, constant complaints that they are being poisoned with
vitriol. But worst of all are the threats. A threat for a sensitive,
nervous nature, is worse than a blow. And now what makes Leiba Zibal
suffer more than the fever, is a threat.
“Ah!--dog of a Christian!” he thinks sadly. The one he refers to is
friend George. He wonders where he is hiding--this man with whom he had
had an unpleasant experience.
It was on a morning in fall. George stumbled into the rest-house weary,
saying he was just out of the hospital and must have work. Zibal hired
him. But George proved to be coarse and rough and bad tempered. He
cursed and grumbled. He was a lazy and unwilling servant, and he stole.
One day he threatened Zibal’s wife, who was soon to be confined, that he
would give her a blow in the abdomen, and another time he set the dogs
upon the baby. Leiba paid him and dismissed him. But George said at
first that he would not go away, that he had been hired for a year. The
proprietor retorted that he would go to the authorities and complain of
him, and ask for the law to free him from him.
Then George grabbed for something hidden within his clothes and
shrieked:--“Judas!” He started toward Leiba as if he were going to fall
upon him.
Fortunately, just at this moment, guests came to the hostelry, because
the stage had just driven up. George began to grin. “What? You weren’t
afraid, were you, Mr. Leiba? See--I’m going!”
Then he bent over the table toward Leiba making him shrink back as far
as possible, and whispered: “_You just wait till Easter night!_ We’ll
pick red eggs together! Then you’ll find I’ve reckoned up your account!”
The guests entered the rest-house.
“Goodbye till Easter, Mr. Leiba!” added George as he went out the door.
Leiba went to the authorities, put the case before them and asked for
protection. The sub-prefect--a merry young fellow--was the first one to
learn the modest request preferred by Leiba, and he began at once to
laugh and to make fun of the trembling Jew. Leiba tried to make him
comprehend the danger of the situation. He explained that the rest-house
was in a lonely place, far from a village--yes, even off the highway.
But the sub-prefect merely told him in a jocular manner to brace up and
try to be sensible. Moreover he didn’t wish to talk about such things
in a village where the people were so quarrelsome and poor, because it
might put notions of insubordination into their heads.
Some days later George was sought by mounted police at command of the
sub-prefect. A crime had been committed and suspicion pointed to him.
“How much better it would have been,” Leiba thought, “if he had put up
with him until the people came! Because now no one knew where he was.”
Although this had happened a long time ago, it all lived again tonight
in his memory, accelerated with fever and suffering. He saw him grab at
his clothes as if for a concealed weapon, he heard again the threat, and
he suffered again just as he did then at the import of the words. Why
did the memory happen to come back so vividly just now, he kept asking
himself.
It was the night before Easter.
In the little village, some two kilometers away upon the hills, between
the big ponds--he could hear the church bells ringing. And they sound so
strangely when they echo through a brain made sensitive with fever.
Sometimes the bells are very loud and sometimes they scarcely whisper.
Easter eve was at hand. This was the time set by George for fulfillment
of his threat.
“Now, of course, he is safely in prison somewhere,” said Leiba,
reassuringly.
However, it may be, Zibal will have to remain in Podeni until the next
quarter is over. Then with his money he will move to Jassy and open a
nice little business, on the Market square--then Leiba will have good
health again and not shake with fever. He will be right beside police
headquarters. He will give tips liberally to all the policemen--to the
inspector of police--Who pays well, is safe.
On a great market square like the one in Jassy, night is noisy, and just
as light as day. No darkness there--no silence either. Never such deep
silence as in this lonely valley of Podeni, between the black hills and
the great speechless water. In Jassy there is a rest-house--right in an
angular building on the corner--which is the finest place in the world
for a rest-house. There, all night long girls dance and sing in a _Café
chantant_. What noise they make! What merry life! There any hour of the
day or night you can look out your windows and see the gentlemen who
enforce the law amusing themselves with other gentlemen of the law--in
coquetting with the girls.
Why should he make himself miserable by staying here any longer, when
the business grows worse daily, especially now since the railroad was
built, which has to make a detour of miles because of the swamps?
“Leiba,” calls Sura. “The stage is coming. I can hear the bells.”
The valley of Podeni is just like the bottom of a kettle--all surrounded
by hills. Down in the southern part, the springs that come from the
mountains, spread out into lakes, where grouped water grasses grow like
bushes. Between the swamps and the high hills in the middle of the
valley stands Leiba’s lonely rest-house as brave as a fortification.
Despite the wet land the walls are dry as powder.
At sound of Sura’s voice he gets up painfully and stretches his legs
cramped with fever. He looks long toward the East. There is no sign of
the stage.
“It isn’t coming. You just thought so,” he replied to the woman and sank
down again.
Exhausted, he crosses his arms upon the table, and his head drops down
upon them. Relaxation steals over his weary nerves, and his mind wanders
in the strange visions of illness.
George--Easter eve--criminals--Jassy--a little safe rest-house in the
Market square--a thriving business--health. He falls asleep.
Sura and the child are no longer in the house. Leiba walks to the door
of his hotel and surveys the street along which they must come. Life is
busy in that great street, along which the carriage wheels spin,
accompanied by the rhythmic tread of horses’ feet upon shining asphalt.
Suddenly the traffic is held up and from Copou--a suburb of Jassy--a
crowd of foot people approach, all gesticulating and hollering. They
seem to accompany some one: soldiers, watchmen, spectators. In all the
windows and doors are crowds of greedy observers.
“Ah, ha,” thinks Leiba. “Now they have caught a robber!”
The crowd comes nearer. Sura slips out of the crowd and comes up to
where Leiba is standing on the rest-house steps.
“What’s up, Sura?”
“A madman from Golia[2]--_escaped_.”
“Let’s close up so he can’t attack us.”
“Oh, they’ve bound him. But before they did it, he beat the soldiers.
The bad tempered Christians shoved a Jew out of the crowd, and the
madman bit him on the cheek.”
From the front steps Leiba has a fine vantage point from which to see.
On the step below Sura stands holding the baby.
There he goes--the madman whom two soldiers are trying to hold. His arms
are bound by strong ropes. The man has the body of a giant. His head is
just like a bull’s; black, thick-curled. Hair covers his face--dark, in
disorder. What a mass of hair covers his head! He is bare-footed; he
keeps spitting blood and the hair he bit from the cheek of the Jew. Now
the crowd pauses. What is the trouble?
The soldiers free the madman. The people step aside and make an open
space about him. The madman pauses and sweeps the circle with his eyes,
which at length pause by Zibal’s door. He gnashes his teeth, then darts
for the steps. In the space of a second he seizes the head of the baby
with his right hand and the head of Sura with his left, dashes them
together and they split open like egg shells.
When the two heads smash together there is a noise like the thunder.
With agony of soul, like a man plunged from a high cliff, Leiba calls:
“A world stands by and looks on calmly while we are made the sacrifice
of a madman!”
But somehow he cannot say the words; they stick to his lips.
“_Up_--Jew!” a voice calls, and a great whip strikes upon the table.
“That’s a stupid joke!” remarks Sura from the door-step of the
rest-house. “The idea of startling a man out of sleep like that:
miserable peasant-dog!”
Leiba jumped up.
“You’re afraid, are you, Jew?” a scornful jester asks.
“Sleeping in broad daylight?--Get up--guests are coming. The stage is
here.”
And after the old custom--which sets the Jews in agony--he put his arms
around him and began to tickle him.
“Let me alone,” he cried, trying to wiggle away. “Don’t you see I’m
sick? Let me alone!”
At length the stage comes, after almost three hours delay. There are two
travelers who sit down together at one table. From the conversation of
the travelers he learns the following facts. At the last post station,
there was a murder committed the night before in a rest-house run by a
Jew. The post horses were always changed here. But the robbers stole the
horses and escaped to another village, and until other horses could be
procured, the travelers were forced to observe the scene of the crime.
If the house had not been robbed one would have thought it an act of
revenge or religious fanaticism. In stories told about certain religious
sects, there were just such crimes. Even in the fever that was consuming
him, Leiba began to shiver.
Then followed something that evidently filled the conductor of the stage
with deep respect.
The passengers were two students--one of philosophy and one of medicine.
Between the students now arose a debate. Atavism--alcoholism and its
pathological results. Theories of heredity--mistakes of training and
education--neurosis! All the discoveries of modern science. But
first--reversion to type--Darwin--Haeckel--Lombroso--Between Darwin and
Lombroso the enthusiastic guests had found time to sip a little of
Schopenhauer, too,--“_toward Heaven and toward the light_!”
Zibal was a long way from comprehending these enlightened theories.
Perhaps for the first time exalted words like these vibrated upon the
feverish swamp-air of Podeni.
But one thing Leiba had understood better than all the rest, and that
was “reversion to type”--that was an exact description of George. This
picture, which he had only visioned dimly, now blazed out in his mind
with the vividness of reality. He saw it in its most unessential
details.
The stage was far away now. Leiba watched it out of sight until it
turned around a corner of the mountains. The sun had just dipped behind
one of the black peaks and evening began to veil with its shadows the
lonely valley of Podeni. Restless and unhappy he drops down upon the
chair again and turns over in his mind all that he has heard.
In the lonely night, in the darkness, a man, two women and two children
were snatched from sleep and murdered. The shrieks of the children which
brutal blows silence, when they slit their bellies open--and then the
last one to die, who had to sit in a corner and watch all that
happened--_until his own turn came_. It was worse than an execution, and
there is no hope for a Jew when he falls into the hands of the
Christians.
The feverish lips of Leiba follow all these thoughts mechanically.
Shivers run down his back; with trembling step he walks along the
passageway in the rest-house.
“Without doubt,” thinks Sura--“Leiba is bad. He’s ill. He has _queer_
thoughts in his head.”
How else could she explain the peculiarities of the past few days?
He closed the rest-house and lighted the candles just as Shabbes was
drawing to a close. Three times guests knocked on the doors and friendly
voices asked admittance. At every knock he jumped up and kept his wife
from opening the door, while he whispered, his eyes rolling with terror:
“Don’t move--I won’t let a Christian in tonight.”
Then he went into the passageway and began to sharpen the ax on the
threshold. He trembled so he could with difficulty keep to his feet. He
answered his wife harshly and at length sent her to bed, with command to
put out the light. At first she refused but he repeated the command so
strangely that she did not dare disobey, but she made up her mind that
later she would find out the cause.
Sura had put out the lamp and now she was sleeping beside Strul.
Sura was right; Leiba is seriously ill.
It is night now--black night. Leiba sits beside the step that leads to
the passageway and listens--What is he listening to?
Far, far in the distance there is an indistinguishable sound like
horses’ feet--a dull mysterious murmur as of conversation. When night
makes the eye useless then the ear takes upon itself increased
distinguishing power.
There’s no mistake about it now. Upon the road that leads from the
highway here is heard the beat of horses’ hoofs. Zibal gets up and
tiptoes to the great door of the passageway. It is well protected by a
bar shoved into the masonry on both sides. At the first step sand
creaks under his shoes. He takes off his shoes and walks in his
stockings. He reaches the door just at the moment the horsemen go by.
They are talking. He catches the following words:
“He got up early.”
“But what if he had gone away?”
“Then his turn will come another time. I could have wished--”
He hears no more. The men are too far away now. Of whom were they
talking? Who had gone to bed or ridden away? Whose turn will come
another time? Who was it who wished it had been different? And what were
they after on this lonely side-road, which was used only by people who
come to the rest-house?
An oppressive weight burdened his head.
Could it be George?
Leiba felt his strength giving way and dropped down on the threshold. In
the confusion of his head he could not hit upon a clear thought. Without
knowing what he did he turned back and lighted a little lamp.
It was only a ghost of light, the wick was so nearly burned. It gave off
very dim, vertical rays that were scarcely visible. But it was
sufficient for him to observe the well known corners and see what was
there. Ah! there was much less difference between the sun and this
pitiful little lamp, than between this and pitch darkness.
The clock ticked loudly. The sound hurt Zibal. He seized the pendulum
and stopped it.
His mouth was dry. He suffered from thirst. He washed a glass in the
wooden trough by the serving counter and tried to pour out some brandy.
But the bottle clinked against the glass. These sounds hurt his head so
he had to give it up.
He let the glass sink softly in the trough of water and tried to drink
from the bottle. Then he put the bottle in its place with a noise that
jarred him. He became breathless with terror. He picked up the lamp and
placed it upon the projection of a window edge in the passageway; upon
the door, the ceiling, and the opposite wall, it threw feeble, vertical
lines scarcely bright enough to be seen.
Again Zibal sat down upon the threshold and listened.
Easter bells were pealing from the church upon the heights. It was the
signal of the resurrection of the Christ. Midnight then was long past.
Day was not so far away. Oh, if the remainder of this night of horror
would only slip away.
A crunching of sand under feet! He is in his stockings and has not
moved. The sound is repeated,--again--again. Someone is outside--_near_.
He stands up, grabs his chest convulsively. He tries to swallow the
bunch in his throat. Men are outside.--_George!_
Yes, it is he. The bells have rung out the hour of the resurrection!
They are talking softly--the men.
“_But I tell you that he is asleep!_ I saw him put the light out!”
“All the better--we’ll clean the place out then.”
“I can open the door. I know just how it works. We’ll break one of the
little windows in. The bolt is near it--”
Then one heard fingers groping in the darkness--and making measurements.
An auger is thrust into the dry oak of the old door and begins to turn.
Zibal has to lean against the wall for support; with the left hand he
supports himself upon the door, while the right covers his eyes.
Then because of the peculiar working of the brain the ear of Zibal heard
distinctly these words: “Leiba, the stage is coming!”
It was Sura’s voice. A beam of hope touched him--a moment of happiness.
Leiba draws his left hand back. The point of the auger has come through,
it has pierced his hand.
Could he save himself--? Ridiculous thought! In his burning brain that
whirling auger he was watching took on startling dimensions. It whirled
around and around, and the opening was growing larger and larger. What
passed through that brain then transcends the power of human expression.
Life had leaped to heights of exaltation from whose vantage point of
vision, chaotic complications were displayed.
Outside the work went on methodically. Leiba had watched the auger
penetrate in four different places.
“Now hand me the saw,” commanded George.
A slender saw was slipped through the opening and began swiftly to unite
the four symmetrical holes made by the auger. Now their plan was clear.
Four holes; four corners--to be united by four lines. When this was
done the square of wood would fall out, and an opening be made. Through
this opening a hand would enter, reach for the bolt and unbar the
door--_and the Christians would enter Leiba’s house_.
Then Zibal and all his family would be martyrs. Two of the vagabonds
would hold upon the floor their bodies, while George would put his foot
upon their bellies, and then turn that auger around and around in their
breasts.
The sweat of death bathed the body of Zibal; his limbs gave way and he
drops upon the floor.
With wide foolish eyes he stares at that timid light by the window. Then
he laughed and said with a look that resembled that of a beast: “Soon
the saw will hit the other hole!”
Then something astonishing happened. A change took place. The shaking of
his body stopped. The weakness vanished. Something that resembled
merriment slipped across his face.
He got up with the swiftness and security of health. He moved like a man
going toward an assured act.
The line between the two highest points of the auger holes was all but
sawn. Leiba approached cautiously. Now his laughter was undissembled. He
nodded his head.
“I have time!”
The saw snapped off the last wood of the upper line. Now it began its
work on the next line.
“There are still three,” thought Leiba, and groped his way carefully to
the tavern room. He groped in a drawer, found what he wanted, and hiding
it with care, tiptoed back to watch the boring auger. But the work
outside had ceased.
“What is the cause? Have they gone?” the questions flashed like
lightning through his brain.
“_Ha--ha--ha!_” What a mistake! The work begins anew and he watches it
now with pleasure and interest. He was filled with impatience. He wished
them to finish it as speedily as possible.
“Quicker!” prayed Leiba. “Quicker!”
Again the Easter bells rang out, high above, in that church on the hill.
“Quicker,” ordered a voice outside. “Day will overtake us.”
At last!
The borer carefully removed the square piece of wood. A huge, sinewy
hand is thrust through. Before the hand can shove the bolt, a noose of
rope encircles the wrist, is drawn tight, and then fastened to a block
of wood near the door.
In a trice the operation was over. Two shrieks accompany it, one of pain
and one of triumph. The hand was just as if it had been cut off.
Steps hastily running away are heard. The accomplices of George were
deserting him.
The Jew went again to the tavern room, took up the lamp, cut off the
burned wick, turned it up high and refreshed it. Now it gave forth light
merrily and victoriously, and all objects in the room could be seen
plainly.
Zibal bore the lamp to the passageway. The vagabond was suffering. It
was evident that he had given up resistance. The hand was swelling and
the fingers were cramped. The Jew came nearer with the lamp. Fear
assailed him; the fever came back. Trembling he brought the lamp so near
the hand that he burned it, the fingers shook, there was a howl of
pain--
At sight of the swollen hand, Zibal jumped; a wild, eccentric light
shone from his eyes. He began to laugh aloud, so that the hollow
passageway resounded.
Day was coming.
Sura awoke. She had dreamed she heard a cry. Leiba was not in the room.
The events of the day before passed through her mind. Something had
happened. She jumped up and made a light. Leiba’s bed had not been slept
on. He had not even lain down.
Where was he? She looked though the window. Far away upon the hills, she
saw the bright twinkling of little lights moving on and on. Here they
disappeared; then they came back again. People were coming from the
celebration of the resurrection of Christ. Sura opened the window a
little; she heard a sound of groaning. Frightened, she slipped softly
down the little stairs. There was light everywhere. When she reached the
threshold the sight amazed her.
Upon a high stool, his elbows upon his knees, his chin in his hands, sat
Zibal. The eyes of Zibal were riveted upon a black and shapeless object,
beneath which a light burned brightly.
Without a quiver of an eyelid, he watched the destruction of the
hand--the hand which would not have spared him.
He did not even hear the howls of the sufferer outside. What he looked
at was so horrible he could hear nothing. He had watched with unblinking
eyes, every quiver, every cramped contraction until the power of motion
within it had ceased.
It was over now.
Sura shrieked.
“Leiba!”
Zibal made a sign that she was not to disturb him.
The smell of burning flesh was spreading through the corridor.
“_Leiba!_--what is it?”
Day had come. Sura shoved the bolt. The door freed from its holding,
slid against the body of George, who hung there with one arm. Village
people, with burning Easter candles in their hands rushed in.
“What is it? What is it?”
Then they understood what had happened.
Zibal, who had not moved before, got down from his high stool heavily.
He shoved the people aside and walked toward the door.
“What’s up, Jew?” some one questioned.
“Leiba Zibal” declared the innkeeper solemnly, and with a lofty gesture,
“_Leiba Zibal_ is going to Jassy to tell the Rabbi that he is no longer
a Jew--_Leiba Zibal_ is a Christian--because, in honor of the Christ,
Leiba Zibal burned candles--_at the Easter_!” And he walked away
meditatively toward the hills--toward the East. He walked slowly like an
experienced wanderer who knows that one must not begin a long journey
with hasty steps.