BOTH THEIR HOUSES
Among the mediæval customs which were preserved in the Pale when the
rest of the world had long forgotten them was the use of popular
sobriquets in place of surnames proper. Family names existed only in
official documents, such as passports. For the most part people were
known by nicknames, prosaic or picturesque, derived from their
occupations, their physical peculiarities, or distinctive
achievements. Among my neighbors in Polotzk were Yankel the Wig-maker,
Mulye the Blind, Moshe the Six-fingered; and members of their
respective families were referred to by these nicknames: as, for
example, "Mirele, niece of Moshe the Six-fingered."
Let me spread out my family tree, raise aloft my coat-of-arms, and see
what heroes have left a mark by which I may be distinguished. Let me
hunt for my name in the chronicles of the Pale.
In the village of Yuchovitch, about sixty versts above Polotzk, the
oldest inhabitant still remembered my father's great-grandfather when
my father was a boy. Lebe the Innkeeper he was called, and no reproach
was coupled with the name. His son Hayyim succeeded to the business,
but later he took up the glazier's trade, and developed a knack for
all sorts of tinkering, whereby he was able to increase his too scanty
earnings.
Hayyim the Glazier is reputed to have been a man of fine countenance,
wise in homely counsel, honest in all his dealings. Rachel Leah, his
wife, had a reputation for practical wisdom even greater than his. She
was the advice giver of the village in every perplexity of life. My
father remembers his grandmother as a tall, trim, handsome old woman,
active and independent. Satin headbands and lace-trimmed bonnets not
having been invented in her day, Rachel Leah wore the stately knupf or
turban on her shaven head. On Sabbaths and holidays she went to the
synagogue with a long, straight mantle hanging from neck to ankle; and
she wore it with an air, on one sleeve only, the other dangling empty
from her shoulder.
Hayyim begat Joseph, and Joseph begat Pinchus, my father. It behooves
me to consider the stuff I sprang from.
Joseph inherited the trade, good name, and meagre portion of his
father, and maintained the family tradition of honesty and poverty
unbroken to the day of his death. For that matter, Yuchovitch never
heard of any connection of the family, not even a doubtful cousin, who
was not steeped to the earlocks in poverty. But that was no
distinction in Yuchovitch; the whole village was poor almost to
beggary.
Joseph was an indifferent workman, an indifferent scholar, and an
indifferent hasid. At one thing only he was strikingly good, and that
was at grumbling. Although not unkind, he had a temper that boiled
over at small provocation, and even in his most placid mood he took
very little satisfaction in the world. He reversed the proverb,
looking for the sable lining of every silver cloud. In the conditions
of his life he found plenty of food for his pessimism, and merry
hearts were very rare among his neighbors. Still a certain amount of
gloom appears to have been inherent in the man. And as he distrusted
the whole world, so Joseph distrusted himself, which made him shy and
awkward in company. My mother tells how, at the wedding of his only
son, my father, Joseph sat the whole night through in a corner, never
as much as cracking a smile, while the wedding guests danced, laughed,
and rejoiced.
It may have been through distrust of the marital state that Joseph
remained single till the advanced age of twenty-five. Then he took
unto himself an orphan girl as poor as he, namely, Rachel, the
daughter of Israel Kimanyer of pious memory.
My grandmother was such a gentle, cheerful soul, when I knew her, that
I imagine she must have been a merry bride. I should think my
grandfather would have taken great satisfaction in her society, as her
attempts to show him the world through rose-hued spectacles would have
given him frequent opportunity to parade his grievances and recite his
wrongs. But from all reports it appears that he was never satisfied,
and if he did not make his wife unhappy it was because he was away
from home so much. He was absent the greater part of the time; for a
glazier, even if he were a better workman than my grandfather, could
not make a living in Yuchovitch. He became a country peddler, trading
between Polotzk and Yuchovitch, and taking in all the desolate little
hamlets scattered along that route. Fifteen rubles' worth of goods was
a big bill to carry out of Polotzk. The stock consisted of cheap
pottery, tobacco, matches, boot grease, and axle grease. These he
bartered for country produce, including grains in small quantity,
bristles, rags, and bones. Money was seldom handled in these
transactions.
A rough enough life my grandfather led, on the road at all seasons, in
all weathers, knocking about at smoky little inns, glad sometimes of
the hospitality of some peasant's hut, where the pigs slept with the
family. He was doing well if he got home for the holidays with a
little white flour for a cake, and money enough to take his best coat
out of pawn. The best coat, and the candlesticks, too, would be
repawned promptly on the first workday; for it was not for the like of
Joseph of Yuchovitch to live with idle riches around him.
For the credit of Yuchovitch it must be recorded that my grandfather
never had to stay away from the synagogue for want of his one decent
coat to wear. His neighbor Isaac, the village money lender, never
refused to give up the pledged articles on a Sabbath eve, even if the
money due was not forthcoming. Many Sabbath coats besides my
grandfather's, and many candlesticks besides my grandmother's, passed
most of their existence under Isaac's roof, waiting to be redeemed.
But on the eve of Sabbath or holiday Isaac delivered them to their
respective owners, came they empty-handed or otherwise; and at the
expiration of the festival the grateful owners brought them promptly
back, for another season of retirement.
While my grandfather was on the road, my grandmother conducted her
humble household in a capable, housewifely way. Of her six children,
three died young, leaving two daughters and an only son, my father. My
grandmother fed and dressed her children the best she could, and
taught them to thank God for what they had not as well as for what
they had. Piety was about the only positive doctrine she attempted to
drill them in, leaving the rest of their education to life and the
rebbe.
Promptly when custom prescribed, Pinchus, the petted only son, was
sent to heder. My grandfather being on the road at the time, my
grandmother herself carried the boy in her arms, as was usual on the
first day. My father distinctly remembers that she wept on the way to
the heder; partly, I suppose, from joy at starting her son on a holy
life, and partly from sadness at being too poor to set forth the wine
and honey-cake proper to the occasion. For Grandma Rachel, schooled
though she was to pious contentment, probably had her moments of human
pettiness like the rest of us.
My father distinguished himself for scholarship from the first. Five
years old when he entered heder, at eleven he was already a _yeshibah
bahur_--a student in the seminary. The rebbe never had occasion to use
the birch on him. On the contrary, he held him up as an example to the
dull or lazy pupils, praised him in the village, and carried his fame
to Polotzk.
My grandmother's cup of pious joy was overfilled. Everything her boy
did was pleasant in her sight, for Pinchus was going to be a scholar,
a godly man, a credit to the memory of his renowned grandfather,
Israel Kimanyer. She let nothing interfere with his schooling. When
times were bad, and her husband came home with his goods unsold, she
borrowed and begged, till the rebbe's fee was produced. If bad luck
continued, she pleaded with the rebbe for time. She pawned not only
the candlesticks, but her shawl and Sabbath cap as well, to secure the
scant rations that gave the young scholar strength to study. More than
once in the bitter winter, as my father remembers, she carried him to
heder on her back, because he had no shoes; she herself walking
almost barefoot in the cruel snow. No sacrifice was too great for her
in the pious cause of her boy's education. And when there was no rebbe
in Yuchovitch learned enough to guide him in the advanced studies, my
father was sent to Polotzk, where he lived with his poor relations,
who were not too poor to help support a future rebbe or rav. In
Polotzk he continued to distinguish himself for scholarship, till
people began to prophesy that he would live to be famous; and
everybody who remembered Israel Kimanyer regarded the promising
grandson with double respect.
At the age of fifteen my father was qualified to teach beginners in
Hebrew, and he was engaged as instructor in two families living six
versts apart in the country. The boy tutor had to make himself useful,
after lesson hours, by caring for the horse, hauling water from the
frozen pond, and lending a hand at everything. When the little sister
of one of his pupils died, in the middle of the winter, it fell to my
father's lot to take the body to the nearest Jewish cemetery, through
miles of desolate country, no living soul accompanying him.
After one term of this, he tried to go on with his own studies,
sometimes in Yuchovitch, sometimes in Polotzk, as opportunity
dictated. He made the journey to Polotzk beside his father, jogging
along in the springless wagon on the rutty roads. He took a boy's
pleasure in the gypsy life, the green wood, and the summer storm;
while his father sat moody beside him, seeing nothing but the spavins
on the horse's hocks, and the mud in the road ahead.
There is little else to tell of my father's boyhood, as most of his
time was spent in the schoolroom. Outside the schoolroom he was
conspicuous for high spirits in play, daring in mischief, and
independence in everything. But a boy's playtime was so short in
Yuchovitch, and his resources so limited, that even a lad of spirit
came to the edge of his premature manhood without a regret for his
nipped youth. So my father, at the age of sixteen and a half, lent a
willing ear to the cooing voice of the marriage broker.
Indeed, it was high time for him to marry. His parents had kept him so
far, but they had two daughters to marry off, and not a groschen laid
by for their dowries. The cost of my father's schooling, as he
advanced, had mounted to seventeen rubles a term, and the poor rebbe
was seldom paid in full. Of course my father's scholarship was his
fortune--in time it would be his support; but in the meanwhile the
burden of feeding and clothing him lay heavy on his parents'
shoulders. The time had come to find him a well-to-do father-in-law,
who should support him and his wife and children, while he continued
to study in the seminary.
After the usual conferences between parents and marriage brokers, my
father was betrothed to an undertaker's daughter in Polotzk. The girl
was too old,--every day of twenty years,--but three hundred rubles in
dowry, with board after marriage, not to mention handsome presents to
the bridegroom, easily offset the bride's age. My father's family, to
the humblest cousin, felt themselves set up by the match he had made;
and the boy was happy enough, displaying a watch and chain for the
first time in his life, and a good coat on week days. As for his
fiancée, he could have no objection to her, as he had seen her only at
a distance, and had never spoken to her.
When it was time for the wedding preparations to begin, news came to
Yuchovitch of the death of the bride-elect, and my father's prospects
seemed fallen to the ground. But the undertaker had another daughter,
girl of thirteen, and he pressed my father to take her in her sister's
place. At the same time the marriage broker proposed another match;
and my father's poor cousins bristled with importance once more.
Somehow or other my father succeeded in getting in a word at the
family councils that ensued; he even had the temerity to express a
strong preference. He did not want any more of the undertaker's
daughters; he wanted to consider the rival match. There were no
serious objections from the cousins, and my father became engaged to
my mother.
This second choice was Hannah Hayye, only daughter of Raphael, called
the Russian. She had had a very different bringing-up from Pinchus,
the grandson of Israel Kimanyer. She had never known a day of want;
had never gone barefoot from necessity. The family had a solid
position in Polotzk, her father being the owner of a comfortable home
and a good business.
Prosperity is prosaic, so I shall skip briefly over the history of my
mother's house.
My grandfather Raphael, early left an orphan, was brought up by an
elder brother, in a village at no great distance from Polotzk. The
brother dutifully sent him to heder, and at an early age betrothed him
to Deborah, daughter of one Solomon, a dealer in grain and cattle.
Deborah was not yet in her teens at the time of the betrothal, and so
foolish was she that she was afraid of her affianced husband. One day,
when she was coming from the store with a bottle of liquid yeast, she
suddenly came face to face with her betrothed, which gave her such a
fright that she dropped the bottle, spilling the yeast on her pretty
dress; and she ran home crying all the way. At thirteen she was
married, which had a good effect on her deportment. I hear no more of
her running away from her husband.
Among the interesting things belonging to my grandmother, besides her
dowry, at the time of the marriage, was her family. Her father was so
original that he kept a tutor for his daughters--sons he had none--and
allowed them to be instructed in the rudiments of three or four
languages and the elements of arithmetic. Even more unconventional was
her sister Hode. She had married a fiddler, who travelled constantly,
playing at hotels and inns, all through "far Russia." Having no
children, she ought to have spent her days in fasting and praying and
lamenting. Instead of this, she accompanied her husband on his
travels, and even had a heart to enjoy the excitement and variety of
their restless life. I should be the last to blame my great-aunt, for
the irregularity of her conduct afforded my grandfather the opening
for his career, the fruits of which made my childhood so pleasant. For
several years my grandfather travelled in Hode's train, in the
capacity of shohat providing kosher meat for the little troup in the
unholy wilds of "far Russia"; and the grateful couple rewarded him so
generously that he soon had a fortune of eighty rubles laid by.
My grandfather thought the time had now come to settle down, but he
did not know how to invest his wealth. To resolve his perplexity, he
made a pilgrimage to the Rebbe of Kopistch, who advised him to open a
store in Polotzk, and gave him a blessed groschen to keep in the money
drawer for good luck.
The blessing of the "good Jew" proved fruitful. My grandfather's
business prospered, and my grandmother bore him children, several sons
and one daughter. The sons were sent to heder, like all respectable
boys; and they were taught, in addition, writing and arithmetic,
enough for conducting a business. With this my grandfather was
content; more than this he considered incompatible with piety. He was
one of those who strenuously opposed the influence of the public
school, and bribed the government officials to keep their children's
names off the register of schoolboys, as we have already seen. When he
sent his sons to a private tutor, where they could study Russian with
their hats on, he felt, no doubt, that he was giving them all the
education necessary to a successful business career, without violating
piety too grossly.
If reading and writing were enough for the sons, even less would
suffice the daughter. A female teacher was engaged for my mother, at
three kopecks a week, to teach her the Hebrew prayers; and my
grandmother, herself a better scholar than the teacher, taught her
writing in addition. My mother was quick to learn, and expressed an
ambition to study Russian. She teased and coaxed, and her mother
pleaded for her, till my grandfather was persuaded to send her to a
tutor. But the fates were opposed to my mother's education. On the
first day at school, a sudden inflammation of the eyes blinded my
mother temporarily, and although the distemper vanished as suddenly as
it had appeared, it was taken as an omen, and my mother was not
allowed to return to her lessons.
Still she did not give up. She saved up every groschen that was given
her to buy sweets, and bribed her brother Solomon, who was proud of
his scholarship, to give her lessons in secret. The two strove
earnestly with book and quill, in their hiding-place under the
rafters, till my mother could read and write Russian, and translate a
simple passage of Hebrew.
My grandmother, although herself a good housewife, took no pains to
teach her only daughter the domestic arts. She only petted and coddled
her and sent her out to play. But my mother was as ambitious about
housework as about books. She coaxed the housemaid to let her mix the
bread. She learned knitting from watching her playmates. She was
healthy and active, quick at everything, and restless with unspent
energy. Therefore she was quite willing, at the age of ten, to go into
her father's business as his chief assistant.
As the years went by she developed a decided talent for business, so
that her father could safely leave all his affairs in her hands if he
had to go out of town. Her devotion, ability, and tireless energy made
her, in time, indispensable. My grandfather was obliged to admit that
the little learning she had stolen was turned to good account, when he
saw how well she could keep his books, and how smoothly she got along
with Russian and Polish customers. Perhaps that was the argument that
induced him, after obstinate years, to remove his veto from my
mother's petitions and let her take up lessons again. For while piety
was my grandfather's chief concern on the godly side, on the worldly
side he set success in business above everything.
My mother was fifteen years old when she entered on a career of higher
education. For two hours daily she was released from the store, and in
that interval she strove with might and main to conquer the world
of knowledge. Katrina Petrovna, her teacher, praised and encouraged
her; and there was no reason why the promising pupil should not have
developed into a young lady of culture, with Madame teaching Russian,
German, crocheting, and singing--yes, out of a book, to the
accompaniment of a clavier--all for a fee of seventy-five kopecks a
week.
[Illustration: THE WOOD MARKET, POLOTZK]
Did I say there was no reason? And what about the marriage broker?
Hannah Hayye, the only daughter of Raphael the Russian, going on
sixteen, buxom, bright, capable, and well educated, could not escape
the eye of the shadchan. A fine thing it would be to let such a likely
girl grow old over a book! To the canopy with her, while she could
fetch the highest price in the marriage market!
My mother was very unwilling to think of marriage at this time. She
had nothing to gain by marriage, for already she had everything that
she desired, especially since she was permitted to study. While her
father was rather stern, her mother spoiled and petted her; and she
was the idol of her aunt Hode, the fiddler's wife.
Hode had bought a fine estate in Polotzk, after my grandfather settled
there, and made it her home whenever she became tired of travelling.
She lived in state, with many servants and dependents, wearing silk
dresses on week days, and setting silver plate before the meanest
guest. The women of Polotzk were breathless over her wardrobe,
counting up how many pairs of embroidered boots she had, at fifteen
rubles a pair. And Hode's manners were as much a subject of gossip as
her clothes, for she had picked up strange ways in her travels
Although she was so pious that she was never tempted to eat trefah, no
matter if she had to go hungry, her conduct in other respects was not
strictly orthodox. For one thing, she was in the habit of shaking
hands with men, looking them straight in the face. She spoke Russian
like a Gentile, she kept a poodle, and she had no children.
Nobody meant to blame the rich woman for being childless, because it
was well known in Polotzk that Hode the Russian, as she was called,
would have given all her wealth for one scrawny baby. But she was to
blame for voluntarily exiling herself from Jewish society for years at
a time, to live among pork-eaters, and copy the bold ways of Gentile
women. And so while they pitied her childlessness, the women of
Polotzk regarded her misfortune as perhaps no more than a due
punishment.
Hode, poor woman, felt a hungry heart beneath her satin robes. She
wanted to adopt one of my grandmother's children, but my grandmother
would not hear of it. Hode was particularly taken with my mother, and
my grandmother, in compassion, loaned her the child for days at a
time; and those were happy days for both aunt and niece. Hode would
treat my mother to every delicacy in her sumptuous pantry, tell her
wonderful tales of life in distant parts, show her all her beautiful
dresses and jewels, and load her with presents.
As my mother developed into girlhood, her aunt grew more and more
covetous of her. Following a secret plan, she adopted a boy from the
poorhouse, and brought him up with every advantage that money could
buy. My mother, on her visits, was thrown a great deal into this boy's
society, but she liked him less than the poodle. This grieved her
aunt, who cherished in her heart the hope that my mother would marry
her adopted son, and so become her daughter after all. And in order
to accustom her to think well of the match, Hode dinned the boy's name
in my mother's ears day and night, praising him and showing him off.
She would open her jewel boxes and take out the flashing diamonds,
heavy chains, and tinkling bracelets, dress my mother in them in front
of the mirror, telling her that they would all be hers--all her
own--when she became the bride of Mulke.
My mother still describes the necklace of pearls and diamonds which
her aunt used to clasp around her plump throat, with a light in her
eyes that is reminiscent of girlish pleasure. But to all her aunt's
teasing references to the future, my mother answered with a giggle and
a shake of her black curls, and went on enjoying herself, thinking
that the day of judgment was very, very far away. But it swooped down
on her sooner than she expected--the momentous hour when she must
choose between the pearl necklace with Mulke and a penniless stranger
from Yuchovitch who was reputed to be a fine scholar.
Mulke she would not have even if all the pearls in the ocean came with
him. The boy was stupid and unteachable, and of unspeakable origin.
Picked up from the dirty floor of the poorhouse, his father was
identified as the lazy porter who sometimes chopped a cord of wood for
my grandmother; and his sisters were slovenly housemaids scattered
through Polotzk. No, Mulke was not to be considered. But why consider
anybody? Why think of a _hossen_ at all, when she was so content? My
mother ran away every time the shadchan came, and she begged to be
left as she was, and cried, and invoked her mother's support. But her
mother, for the first time in her history, refused to take the
daughter's part. She joined the enemy--the family and the
shadchan--and my mother saw that she was doomed.
Of course she submitted. What else could a dutiful daughter do, in
Polotzk? She submitted to being weighed, measured, and appraised
before her face, and resigned herself to what was to come.
When that which was to come did come, she did not recognize it. She
was all alone in the store one day, when a beardless young man, in top
boots that wanted grease, and a coat too thin for the weather, came in
for a package of cigarettes. My mother climbed up on the counter, with
one foot on a shelf, to reach down the cigarettes. The customer gave
her the right change, and went out. And my mother never suspected that
that was the proposed hossen, who came to look her over and see if she
was likely to last. For my father considered himself a man of
experience now, this being his second match, and he was determined to
have a hand in this affair himself.
No sooner was the hossen out of the store than his mother, also
unknown to the innocent storekeeper, came in for a pound of tallow
candles. She offered a torn bill in payment, and my mother accepted it
and gave change; showing that she was wise enough in money matters to
know that a torn bill was good currency.
After the woman there shuffled in a poor man evidently from the
country, who, in a shy and yet challenging manner, asked for a package
of cheap tobacco. My mother produced the goods with her usual
dispatch, gave the correct change, and stood at attention for more
trade.
Parents and son held a council around the corner, the object of their
espionage never dreaming that she had been put to a triple test and
not found wanting. But in the evening of the same day she was
enlightened. She was summoned to her elder brother's house, for a
conference on the subject of the proposed match, and there she found
the young man who had bought the cigarettes. For my mother's family,
if they forced her to marry, were willing to make her path easier by
letting her meet the hossen, convinced that she must be won over by
his good looks and learned conversation.
It does not really matter how my mother felt, as she sat, with a
protecting niece in her lap, at one end of a long table, with the
hossen fidgeting at the other end. The marriage contract would be
written anyway, no matter what she thought of the hossen. And the
contract was duly written, in the presence of the assembled families
of both parties, after plenty of open discussion, in which everybody
except the prospective bride and groom had a voice.
One voice in particular broke repeatedly into the consultations of the
parents and the shadchan, and that was the voice of Henne Rösel, one
of my father's numerous poor cousins. Henne Rösel was not unknown to
my mother. She often came to the store, to beg, under pretence of
borrowing, a little flour or sugar or a stick of cinnamon. On the
occasion of the betrothal she had arrived late, dressed in
indescribable odds and ends, with an artificial red flower stuck into
her frowzy wig. She pushed and elbowed her way to the middle of the
table, where the shadchan sat ready with paper and ink to take down
the articles of the contract. On every point she had some comment to
make, till a dispute arose over a note which my grandfather offered as
part of the dowry, the hossen's people insisting on cash. No one
insisted so loudly as the cousin with the red flower in her wig; and
when the other cousins seemed about to weaken and accept the note,
Red-Flower stood up and exhorted them to be firm, lest their flesh and
blood be cheated under their noses. The meddlesome cousin was silenced
at last, the contract was signed, the happiness of the engaged couple
was pledged in wine, the guests dispersed. And all this while my
mother had not opened her mouth, and my father had scarcely been
heard.
That is the way my fate was sealed. It gives me a shudder of wonder to
think what a narrow escape I had; I came so near not being born at
all. If the beggarly cousin with the frowzy wig had prevailed upon her
family and broken off the match, then my mother would not have married
my father, and I should at this moment be an unborn possibility in a
philosopher's brain. It is right that I should pick my words most
carefully, and meditate over every comma, because I am describing
miracles too great for careless utterance. If I had died after my
first breath, my history would still be worth recording. For before I
could lie on my mother's breast, the earth had to be prepared, and the
stars had to take their places; a million races had to die, testing
the laws of life; and a boy and girl had to be bound for life to watch
together for my coming. I was millions of years on the way, and I came
through the seas of chance, over the fiery mountain of law, by the
zigzag path of human possibility. Multitudes were pushed back into the
abyss of non-existence, that I should have way to creep into being.
And at the last, when I stood at the gate of life, a weazen-faced
fishwife, who had not wit enough to support herself, came near
shutting me out.
Such creatures of accident are we, liable to a thousand deaths before
we are born. But once we are here, we may create our own world, if we
choose. Since I have stood on my own feet, I have never met my master.
For every time I choose a friend I determine my fate anew. I can think
of no cataclysm that could have the force to move me from my path.
Fire or flood or the envy of men may tear the roof off my house, but
my soul would still be at home under the lofty mountain pines that dip
their heads in star dust. Even life, that was so difficult to attain,
may serve me merely as a wayside inn, if I choose to go on eternally.
However I came here, it is mine to be.