At last I have learned something of Simon Eichelkatz's life history. As
if utterly forgetful of himself, he ransacked the store-house of his
brain for recollections of the past, but since his own life was closely
bound up with that of the congregation, he came to speak of himself
involuntarily. I admit, that without wishing to be indiscreet I brought
him to do it. For greatly as the figures and events he describes
interest me, yet they belong in the past and have an historical
significance. But this old man rises out of the past, as a passive
observer, it is true, more than an active doer. Yet, a portion of his
being flourishes and develops on the soil of science, in the most
modern, most progressive province of spiritual endeavor. What an
evolution from Simon Eichelkatz to Friedrich Eichner! I hope to become
acquainted with this life which leads from the narrow confines of a
Jewish community out into the broad world.
Yesterday my old friend was very talkative. I felt it pleased him to
glance back at his own life; and _he_ probably felt that it was not
vulgar curiosity but true sympathy that led me to him. When I began my
diary, I thought it would record the deeds and events of the day
happening here, the most recent news; it has turned out to be a book of
the recollections of an old man. It's better so. Daily life here is dull
and monotonous. The people, as far as I know, seem to be conventional.
Those typical characteristics which Simon Eichelkatz reveals to me are
lacking in the present generation. The more the Jews are acclimatized,
the more they lose of their individuality; and if this is not to be
deplored in general, yet it is at the expense of much originality, in
both a good and a bad sense. Whatever originality has been saved for
present times has taken the form of individualism, which plays a large
and significant role in modern life; and I believe that if strong
individualities are found among Jews, they are traceable to the time
when the community at large was concerned with the preservation of
individuality and race characteristics. Nowadays the Jews strive for
exactly the opposite ideal. But I want to put the past on record. Simon
Eichelkatz draws some remarkable though not always agreeable pictures.
Yet if viewed in the softening perspective of time and distance, they
evoke a feeling of reconciliation and mild tolerance.
Was not an impress laid on the Jews by the narrowness of their life, its
one-sided interests, the lack of a wide outlook, and the failure to take
a broad view of the world based on fixed ethical principles? Were the
large mass of them not rendered doubly small and inferior because the
great men among them were entirely too great? Was it not a necessary
consequence that crudities and deformities should grow out of these
contrasts, which were all the worse because they arose under oppression,
in malicious, underhand ways? When I think of it all in the right
light, my sympathy overcomes my repugnance for those who in the old
communities crucified and burned at the stake the men who furthered the
idea of reform in Judaism. Remarkable saints! Meyer Nathanson, the
caretaker of the Khille; Saul Feuerstein, the professional bankrupt, and
their savory crew, and alongside of them Dr. Krakauer, Dr. Ehrlich, and
their colleagues. Alas for the miserable Khilles! Yet I am moved by the
recollections of the scenes enacted in the past on this ground where
fortune has cast me. Instead of the land of sun, in which the famous
ancestor of my great-grandmother in Brody, Dr. Abarbanell, served his
Master, the black coals of upper Silesia and the winds of the Beskides;
instead of converse with scholars and artists, intercourse with the rude
folk here; instead of stimulating activity, dissections and grubbing
into the mental state of murderers, perjurers, etc.--such is my life
and work; yet I have something to give me inner satisfaction--Simon
Eichelkatz.
Yesterday, he said to me: "What the Herr Rabbiner did for the
congregation as a whole when he came to this 'black' Khille cannot
compare with what he gave to each person separately. He came here in
1849, soon after the great revolution. Shortly before, in the company of
a deputation from Posen--he had been rabbi in Unruhstadt--he had stood
before the king, in order to give expression to the 'most humble' thanks
of the Jews for the rights granted them. You can imagine, Herr
Kreisphysikus, how that impressed the people here--a Rav who had stood
before the King, a Rav who spoke High German and was a doctor. I tell
_you_ there was a to-do when they went to receive him and his Rebbetzin;
they rode as far as Kandrzin and met him there. Herr Dr. Krakauer,
saving your reverence, had then been president for two years, and, to
give the devil his due, it was Dr. Krakauer who brought a new Rav here
and insisted on his being a man with an academic education. But when he
saw that the Rav was independent, and wasn't willing to dance to the
tune of his fiddle, he became the Herr Rabbiner's worst enemy. But on
the rabbi's arrival Dr. Krakauer delivered the address of welcome in
Kandrzin, and rode here in the same carriage with the rabbi and the
Rebbetzin. The fourth person in the carriage was the goldsmith Manasse,
who was then vice-president, a decent sort of a man. That's the way they
entered town; the whole Khille had assembled before the rabbi's house,
in the old school building next to the _Mikveh_. Well, and then they
went up into his apartments, which had been entirely refurnished by
Joseph, the cabinet-maker, and Manasse attempted to deliver a speech
there. He was no orator, and embarrassment robbed him of his words. It
is reported he stammered so that he couldn't get past the first words,
and Dr. Merzbach said: 'Respected friends, I do not need words to be
convinced of your sentiment and your kindly feelings for me. I feel that
I belong to you, and I came gladly. I hope that in this congregation my
activity will find a large field, which perhaps has hitherto been lying
fallow, but on which the seeds of fine, noble thoughts, ethical
principles, and the idea of forming a worthy communal life, will sprout
and bear rich, glorious fruit. I know what you wanted to say to me,
respected Herr Vorsteher, even if the emotion of the occasion
overpowered you. Whoever looks into your true, good eyes feels that he
is facing a kindly man; and so we all have the desire to cling to one
another faithfully, and not in words but in deeds work for the weal of
this precious congregation.'
"Manasse repeated this speech to me a hundred times. When the reception
committee came down to the rest of the people at the end of half an
hour, Dr. Krakauer looked so exasperated that Marek, the Shabbes Goy,
immediately remarked: 'Something has gotten onto his nerves.' But Saul
Feuerstein, professional bankrupt, and later leader of the 'Saints,' did
not see why the formation of a 'worthy communal life' was necessary,
since they had been _davvening_ so long, and everything had been all
right. Did he think they had been waiting for him to shape communal
life? As for what he said about 'ethical principles,' you'd have to look
it up in an encyclopedia before you could understand it. Besides it was
a _Chutzpeh_ in him to speak of a fallow field. The Khille had managed
to exist without a sign of a Dr. Merzbach. Under such auspices the new
rabbi assumed office--among Amrazim and coarse fellows, all of them, the
well-educated Herr Dr. Krakauer, saving your reverence, and Dr. Ehrlich
with his fine ways on top. Only two men understood the rabbi better,
Karfunkelstein, the book-dealer, whose father had been rabbi, and
Schlesinger, the old iron monger. And then there was another who might
have if he had wanted to; a sensible, amiable, good, intelligent, and
witty man. He joked about the entire congregation and had a great deal
of influence, because they were afraid of his keen judgment. He was the
new _Chazen_, the cantor Elias, who had been appointed a short time
after the rabbi.
"Now, isn't it so, Herr Kreisphysikus, isn't it more of a misfortune
than a shame if one hasn't had the opportunity to learn? But it is a
shame if one hasn't respect for the knowledge of others, and if one
hurts the feelings of those to whom one should look up with respect.
Cantor Elias once said to Dr. Merzbach: 'If you want to remain friends
with the Parchonim here, my dear Herr Doktor, you must learn Klabberjas,
and Franzefuss, and Sixty-six. Here cards are more important than the
pages of the _Gemoreh_.'
"He was right, Herr Kreisphysikus, and the worse he thought and spoke of
the people, and the more disrespectfully he treated them, the better
they were to him. He could always carry his point. Every year an
increase in salary. And they let him do what he wanted. When he stood
before the _Omed_ on Shabbes and _Yontef_ and began to sing, they were
all in transports. He sang! Such a voice, such a way of singing! I don't
know if there is anything like it now. He touched people to the very
marrow of their bones. Perhaps sounds are more affecting than words.
What do you think, Herr Kreisphysikus? At any rate he had more influence
and power over the Khille than the rabbi. If the rabbi told them
something, they had to think about it first; but they only had to hear
what the cantor sang to them. Then, after Shul, he went with them to
drink a glass of wine at Heimann's, or lunch with them at Schaefer's. Reb
Shaefer would stand at the door and declare, when the Herr Kantor came,
his heart laughed in his body. When the cantor was present, there was
always fun and merriment. He was the most popular man. He would play a
little game with the people, he lunched with them, and did not despise
Heimann's Hungarian wine. He told the men rugged truths, and he teased
the women. No one suspected how genuinely he despised them all, how high
he was raised above them. In a few clever words he himself told what he
thought about everything.
"'Do you know what our Rav is?' Once when I was present he asked the
question of some Baale-Batim with whom he was playing Klabber. 'A pearl
cast before swine.'
"'And the Rebbetzin?' some one asked in the midst of their laughter.
"At this he suddenly became quite serious, and said: 'She is a pearl
picked from the coronet of a princely family. But you don't understand;
why should you? You know _Malkeh_ and _Melech_ only on cards.' Then he
threw down the ace and said: 'I'll take the king and queen with the
diamond; they're in better hands than with you.'
"Often he used to say to me: 'You're right, Eichelkatz, for sticking to
the rabbi. If anyone can help you, he's the man, for he knows, yes, he
knows what is going on in the souls of men--and--the Rebbetzin!'
"And I, I really did need someone who understood what was going on in my
soul. I myself hardly understood."
He paused and looked into space, engrossed in thought. I regarded him in
silence; then he began with a voice that sounded like an echo from a
great distance:
"Do you know what an unhappy marriage is, Herr Kreisphysikus? But how
should you? You're a bachelor. You've seen and heard of the thing, but
that's nothing. One must live through it oneself, one must experience it
in one's own person; then only can you realize that it's the saddest,
most fearful thing that can happen to a human being. Both parties are
to blame; it's always the fault of both. For neither has the courage to
admit the truth, to confess, We've made a mistake; we don't suit each
other. They drag through their entire lives in sorrow and deception; and
again and again the heart is bruised, and one's own life and the life of
others is embittered. And when you finally see into it all, it's too
late. When your understanding comes, you're too old. And then you think,
it doesn't pay to begin anew for the few years that are left. But the
few years are long. Each year has twelve months; each month, thirty
days, and some have even thirty-one; each day, twenty-four hours; each
hour, sixty minutes; each minute, sixty seconds; and in each second you
grieve and fret and live your whole trouble again."
His face took on a thoughtful expression.
"Do you know, Herr Kreisphysikus, they say man's life is short; and
what are seventy, or, at the extreme, eighty years in the infinity of
time? As a moment. But I tell you, every man who reaches his maturity
lives a thousand years, because an entire life is condensed in every
moment in which he has an experience. I don't know if you understand me,
Herr Doktor. I do not mean those experiences that make up our ordinary
life, our habits, and our needs. I mean the things our souls live
through. And every sensation of the soul is a whole world in itself, a
whole life; everything in us awakens at one blow, and leaps into life,
and experiences the entire thing with us. We feel it with all our parts.
And now imagine, Herr Kreisphysikus, how many moments each man lives
through, how many thousands of lives. This is the standard we should use
for measuring our age. And if a man reaches the end of the seventies,
like myself, Herr Doktor, and has gone through so many things, his life
has not been short, but a thousand years long and more."
Again I stood before the riddle: how did this plain old man arrive at
philosophic deductions covering every field of thought, and with
singular strength of reasoning lightly solve the most difficult
problems, unconsciously, led only by intuition, which clearly and firmly
guided him along a path where others groped for the way of truth? Did he
not instinctively arrive at the correct thing, when he measured the
extent of life by intensity, and not by number of years?
What _had_ Simon Eichelkatz lived through?
As though he read the question on my face he continued:
"And now see, Herr Doktor, do you know an unhappy marriage is an
eternity of heartache? And whoever has lived through one is so old--so
old--Methuselah is a mere boy compared with him. Nowadays you hear of
divorces. In my days they were considered a shame. A divorced woman was
regarded as something low, an outcast; and people didn't think very
highly either of a man who gave a _Get_. A divorce always had a
disgusting flavor. And here in the Khille, once you were mated, there
was no way out. Always dragging the yoke, always dragging it along! So
believe me God, I really don't want to say anything against Madame
Eichelkatz--I am sure she suffered as much from it as I did--but there
was no getting away from it, we just didn't suit each other. My simple
nature, my straightforwardness, and my lack of education were certainly
as obnoxious to her as her culture, her fine manners, and her
aristocratic desires were to me. She didn't like my having to stand
behind a counter, and I didn't like her speaking French with the Herr
Oberstleutnant Von Boddin. Now tell me, Herr Kreisphysikus, do you think
it is proper for a _bekovet_ Jewish woman to drop curtseys, to laugh
loud, and amuse herself with the officers in front of her husband's
store when they pass by toward evening? It was 'gnaedige Frau' and
'Madame Eichelkatz' and a chattering and laughing and always that
'Madame Eichelkatz.' She refused to see that they were having fun at her
expense and made mock of the name Eichelkatz, my good, honest name, Herr
Kreisphysikus."
Poor Simon Eichelkatz! So jealousy was his life's woe.
As if endowed with clairvoyance and the ability to read my thoughts, he
looked at me sharply and said:
"You must not think that I was jealous, not what one understands by that
word. Upon my honor, I was not. When I married my wife, Friederike,
_nee_ Boehm, there was no talk of love between us. We married as all
people married then. I had entered Joseph Boehm's business as clerk, and
later I married into it, because Boehm could not continue to carry it on
alone. He himself came to me and said: 'Simon, if you want to marry my
daughter Friederike, we needn't pay a Shadchen, you needn't and I
needn't. You know the business. It's gone backward within the last year;
but if you look after it, you will advance it again. You know it once
was a good business, and I can no longer keep up against the competition
of others; but you can.'
"It flattered my ambition that Herr Joseph Boehm, one of the chief
wholesale dealers in Silesia, should offer his daughter to me himself,
to me, who only three years before had entered his business as a poor,
unknown clerk. Simon Eichelkatz, who was Simon Eichelkatz? Born in
Tarnow, of poor, decent folk, I came to Reissnitz and made my fortune
there. Just think! The son-in-law of Joseph Boehm! Such a thing had never
been! But to become a son-in-law you must have a wife; and I took
Friederike Boehm, who was aristocratically brought up, and could speak
French."
To-day it particularly struck me what it was that so peculiarly
characterized his manner of narrating. As soon as he spoke about
personal matters or told stories of the Khille, he fell into the jargon
and the intonation of the Jews of former times.[*] But when he dealt
with generalities and gave expression to ideas and speculations, his
speech acquired a swing, his expressions became almost choice, and the
form scarcely ever detracted from the matter. He grew, as it were,
beyond his own bounds; and I thought I saw before me not a simple old
Jew, but a sage.
[*] The translator has found it impossible to convey this subtle
distinction in English. It shows itself in the German by slightly
mispronouncing words, for instance, _Leit_ instead of _Leute_;
using _ae_ instead of the article _ein_ (an), and very slightly
changing the correct order of the words.
"What did they know at that time of such notions? They harnessed two
human beings together and said, Now see how you get along with each
other." A shadow flitted over his countenance, usually so mild.
"And yet," I interposed, "Jewish marriages as a whole were seldom
unfortunate."
"That was because husband and wife were confined to their own homes,
their children, and at most to their Mishpocheh. Nothing strange, from
the outside, came to disturb them. Life passed in the closest relation
of two human beings. Nowadays it's different. But if it happened to be
different in my time, it was a calamity--and it was a calamity that Frau
Friederike Eichelkatz, _nee_ Boehm, had learned to speak French. During
the first year things went pretty well. To be sure, even then she spoke
scornfully of having married an uneducated man, who knew nothing but
whether cloths were bad or good, who could tell at the first glance
whether a piece of cloth came from Cottbus or from Bruenn, whether it was
manufactured in Germany or in England, whether the woof was wool or
thread, and whether the wool was pure or mixed. All this was of value in
business, but not in marriage. Marriage requires other knowledge to
create happiness. And when my wife would ask me so mockingly: 'Do you
suppose anyone in Tarnow knows French?' I had enough for a whole week.
"But I always answered back; and that's what made the trouble. I didn't
have peace and quiet until I realized that it's best not to say a word,
not one word. By the time I found this out it was too late. I believe,
Herr Doktor, one always is too old by the time one learns sense. It
doesn't do yourself any good any more, and the young folk want to get
their own foolish experiences. And so it's really no use to get
sensible."
"How can you say anything like that, Herr Eichelkatz? Haven't I the
pleasure of listening to so many experiences of yours which interest me
and give me food for thought? Don't your stories of the congregation
give me a picture which is significant to everyone who loves his people,
loves them faithfully and with sorrow at the heart? Besides, wasn't it
through the events and incidents of your life that you arrived, whether
early or late, at that state of peace and calm which beautifies your old
age?"
He listened to me attentively, and a melancholy smile played about his
mouth.
"Peace and calm, Herr Kreisphysikus, are to be found only after pain has
been gotten rid of in life. But to get rid of pain you must _have_ it
first. I have had much pain, much pain, and great Tzores; and now when
sitting here so quietly, you know--believe me--Herr Kreisphysikus, you
by and by become accustomed to that other peace, without end, and you
think of it without dread or horror. Sometimes you even--well, we won't
speak of it, Herr Doktor. Praised be God for having bestowed such a long
life on me. My wife has been dead twenty years and--"
I waited in a state of tense expectation that he would say something
about his son; but he hesitated for only an instant and continued:
"We lived together thirty-three years. Do you know what that means, Herr
Kreisphysikus, if she looked down on and despised her husband in the
very first year of her marriage? Because he wasn't so fine as she,
merely an immigrant from Galicia? Because his Mishpocheh were poor
people, and his father wasn't a wholesale dealer, but merely a peddler,
and because he didn't know French? Even though I showed them later that
I knew something and was something, and even though all the others
appreciated me, in the eyes of Madame Eichelkatz I always remained a
creature of a lower order, an intruder, an upstart. And she never
forgave her father for having made me his son-in-law. The better I
succeeded in business, and the wealthier we grew, the prouder and more
arrogant she became. I was good enough to earn a living, and she had no
fault to find with my business career; but as to the trouble I took to
cultivate my mind, she paid no attention to that. For her I always
remained Simon Eichelkatz from Tarnow, an employee in her father's
business, a person with an absurd name and no manners, whom she had
married at her father's wish and command. 'How did you happen to marry
such a husband?' the Oberstleutnant Von Boddin once asked her, while
standing in front of the shop door. 'It's a genuine _mesalliance_.' I
was standing behind the counter, and I felt that what the Oberstleutnant
was saying was a great insult to me, even though I didn't know the
meaning of the word. But I couldn't go and knock him down. Now could I,
Herr Kreisphysikus? I, a Jew, and he an Oberstleutnant? But I made a
mental note of the word, and I kept repeating it to myself:
_mesalliance_, _mesalliance_. Then, the next Shabbes, after _Mairev_, I
went to the Herr Rabbiner and asked him what it meant. When he explained
it to me, I all of a sudden became real quiet and thought to myself, why
the Herr Oberstleutnant after all is perfectly right. It _was_ a
_mesalliance_. A failure of a marriage, I tell you, Herr Doktor, and it
didn't get any better through the birth of our son in the second year.
As long as her father, Joseph Boehm, was alive, she had a little
consideration; but after his death that stopped. She sought company of
her own. She associated with the Goyim, with the Frau Rechnungsrat and
the Frau Kanzleirat, and more such aristocratic _Shnorrers_, who
accepted many a little favor here and there from their well-to-do
friend. Then came the misfortune with the Oberstleutnant and the
officers, who had their sport with the handsome Jewess. She became more
and more conceited and foolish; she was ashamed of her husband; and one
day she had visiting cards engraved with 'Madame Eichelkatz, _nee_
Boehm.' The name stuck to her in the Khille. They began to despise her
and to pity me."
It had gotten late. I had another professional visit to pay, and I took
leave of my old friend. I am looking forward eagerly to his future
revelations. As I crossed the Ring past the shops, I suddenly saw, in my
mind's eye, an industrious man, humbled by his lot, standing behind the
counter, and before the door a handsome woman. And I murmured to myself:
"Madame Eichelkatz, _nee_ Boehm."