Foolish Jona was as if made for the amusement of unrestrained youth. He
was about eighteen years old but he looked like a thirteen year old
child. When he came back from the huckster or the merchant where his
mother was in the habit of sending him on errands, the boys ran after
him and teased him:
“Jona! Foolish Jona!” they called. He kept on his way slowly, just as if
he saw and heard nothing putting forth all his strength to control
himself, and breathing heavily. Sometimes he was so frightened that he
trembled, and his thin legs were scarcely able to uphold his weak body.
When they barred his way and began to threaten him, he turned upon them
his expressionless, white, moon-face, that looked as if it were embossed
in wax, and a timid questioning peered out of his eyes. For a moment he
stood dumb and motionless, as if death were stretching hands toward
him, and then sought to escape one way or another.
“Jona! Jon-a-a!” they called after him in the street boy jargon, as soon
as they saw him begin to tremble. He never tried to defend himself. As
soon as he reached home he gave over his purchases and then sat down in
a corner by the oven.
“Come here, dear little brother! Take your stool and sit by me,” coaxed
his sister, who was only a year older. She was a pretty, slender, yellow
haired girl, and she put her sewing aside at once.
He dragged the stool slowly along to her feet. She took the poor
confused head to her breast. He sobbed as if his heart would break. She
petted and caressed him, restraining her own tears with difficulty.
“I’m not foolish, am I?” he at length managed to say. His weak voice
trembled.
“Of course you are not! You have sense, little brother. Let them talk!”
“And you like me, don’t you--and I am not foolish!”
And over the face of the idiot there spread something that resembled a
smile.
“Now get your violin--and play something!”
“I don’t want to hear any more of that noise of his now! He can play at
night all he wants to--up on the roof,” grumbled his mother. Jona sat
where he was and kept looking up at his sister. He watched her slightest
movement.
The mother and the brothers did not love him. He had only his sister,
and to her he clung with all the emotion of his weak mind. But in the
neighborhood it was said that he was inspired by the Holy Ghost. No one
taught him to play upon the violin. And no one could imitate him. He had
never had a teacher and he played only his own pieces. And they were
strange and sad and foolish, like himself.
Jona lived in the same house where I lived as a child. He knew me.
Whenever he met me he nodded his head and smiled. I can truthfully say,
that although I was a child myself, too, I never injured or annoyed him.
There was some thing about his wax-like face that was sacred for me. My
childish imagination saw in it a resemblance to the dead, waxen faces
which I had seen under glass behind the altars in the churches.
It was Saturday evening. The late summer twilight veiled everything in a
mystical veil. The sky was blue and at the same time dark, and here and
there trembled silver stars like the thoughts of the saints, and between
swam the great, yellow moon in all its splendor, throwing light upon
lowly huts, and proud, towering churches.
The unusual activity which is common in homes on Saturday night, had
gradually become quiet. The women, who had been so busy earlier and had
been talking loudly on the wooden balconies, the stairs, and in the
court yard, had gone to bed. Only on one balcony of the third story, a
girl and a young man were engaged in conversation. They were betrothed,
and the next day they were to be married. Pretty Mitzerl, Jona’s sister,
was to be the bride, and a diligent young workman in the factory, the
groom. He had just been offered a more lucrative position in the country
and because of this, the wedding was to be hastened.
They had sat here some time. While people were still up and about,
indoors, they talked in whispers, as if they feared the outside world.
But now that there was silence everywhere, their conversation could be
heard, as if they wished the calm and splendid night to bear witness to
their happiness, their pledge, their plans.
There was one person in their neighborhood who was speaking his feelings
just as plainly as they, but it did not disturb them. But the emotions
which he expressed were not so happy, so confident, and care free.
Foolish Jona was playing his strange, fantastic music on the roof.
People said that this speech of music could not have come from his own
head, which was confused and dim. When his white fingers swept the
vibrating strings, now loudly, now softly, when his bow described mighty
and majestic tones, the listening people said that it was the Holy Ghost
that spoke.
The conversation of the lovers accompanied without any interruption the
sad violin song upon the roof. They were too much interested in each
other, and too much accustomed to his music, to pay attention to it.
Jona himself did not see them because he was playing upon the roof above
their heads.
The house in which we were living was old fashioned. It had a saddle
roof which, toward the street and court, had two projections. In fine
weather Jona took his violin and hid himself in the depression between
the roofs. He was sitting concealed there when the young man came to see
his sister, and he was playing madly as if he would never weary. In fact
his improvisations were nothing short of works of art.
Tonight suddenly he stopped in the midst of an unfinished passage, just
as if the strings had refused to obey him. The hand that held the violin
dropped limply down, but his haggard face, which was turned toward the
moon, was as if hardened to stone. After a little time, he got up
slowly. Carefully he placed the violin and the bow upon the roof, and
then walked softly as if he were afraid of hearing the sound of his own
feet. He walked to the edge of the roof. Here he leaned against a spout
and looked down upon the pair of lovers. A cloud drifted across the
moon. They were talking about him now in lowered voices.
“I think your brother is unusually sad to-day! Is he going down hill, do
you think?” inquired the young man.
Jona nodded his head.
“He is always sad--poor fellow--and especially so the past few days,”
replied Mitzerl. “He keeps asking me if I am really going away from
him. You’ll let me take him with me, won’t you?”
“Not at first. Later, perhaps you can have him.” Mitzerl embraced him.
Jona drew slowly back from the edge of the roof and walked carefully
away to his place. Here he sat down again, rested his head on his hand
and looked up at the moon. Over his cheeks rolled tears but no sound of
sobbing was heard. His lips opened slowly and he said in despair: “_I
knew it! She doesn’t love me so well as she does him!_”
He sat there a long time, and tears rolled over his face. As if grief
were choking him, he took the neck cloth from his neck, and with it
dried his eyes. At length he got up quickly and disappeared. The violin
and bow he left upon the roof.
* * * * *
Jona had spent many nights upon the roof, so they did not look for him
until the next day when Mitzerl was putting on her wedding dress. Then
they found him. He had hanged himself with his neck cloth. It was some
months later when Mitzerl celebrated her wedding.