One glance at his wife’s tight-drawn mouth warned Reb Ravinsky of the
torrent of wrath about to burst over his head.
“Nu, my bread-giver? Did you bring me the rent?” she hurled at him
between clenched teeth.
Reb Ravinsky had promised to borrow money that morning to ward off
their impending eviction for unpaid rent, but no sooner had he
stepped out of his house than all thought of it fled from his mind.
Instinctively, he turned to the synagogue where he had remained all
day absorbed in the sacred script. It was easier to pray and soar the
heights with the prophets of his race than to wrestle with sordid,
earthly cares.
“Holy Jew! Why didn’t you stay away a little longer?” She tore at her
wig in her fury. “Are you a man like other men? Does your wife or your
child lay in your head at all? I got to worry for rent. I got to worry
for bread. If you got to eat you eat. If you ain’t got to eat you ain’t
hungry. You fill yourself only with high thoughts. You hold yourself
only with God. Your wife and your child can be thrown in the street to
shame and to laughter. But what do you care? You live only for the next
world. You got heaven in your head. The rest of your family can rot in
the streets.”
Reb Ravinsky stood mute and helpless under the lash of her tongue. But
when she had exhausted her store of abuse, he cast upon her a look of
scorn and condemnation.
“_Ishah Rah!_ Evil woman!” he turned upon her like an ancient prophet
denouncing ungodliness.
“_Ishah Rah!_” he repeated. His voice of icy passion sent shivers up
and down her spine.
“_Ishah Rah!_” came for the third time with the mystic solemnity that
subdued her instantly into worshipful subjection. “Tear away your man
from God! Tear him away from the holy Torah! Lose the one precious
thing in life, the one thing that makes a Jew stand out over all other
nations of the world, the one thing that the Tsar’s _pogroms_ and all
the sufferings and murders of the Jews could not kill in the Jew--the
hope for the next world!”
Like a towering spirit of righteousness afire with the Word of God he
loomed over her.
“I ask you by your conscience, should I give up the real life, the true
life, for good eating, good sleeping, for a life in the body like the
_Amoratzim_ here in America? Should I make from the Torah a pick with
which to dig for you the rent?”
Adjusting his velvet skull-cap, the last relic of his rabbinical days,
he caught the woman’s adoring look. Memories of his past splendour in
Russia surged over him. He saw his people coming to him from far and
near to learn wisdom from his lips. Drawing himself to his full height,
he strode across the room and faced her.
“Why didn’t you marry yourself to a tailor, a shoemaker, a thick-head,
a money-maker--to a man of the flesh--a rabbi who can sell his religion
over the counter as a butcher sells meat?”
Mrs. Ravinsky gazed with fear and contrition at her husband’s
God-kindled face. She loved him because he was _not_ a man of this
world. Her darkest moments were lit up with pride in him, with the hope
that in the next world the reflected glory of his piety might exalt her.
It wrung her heart to realize that against her will she was dragging
him down with her ceaseless demands for bread and rent. Ach! Why was
there such an evil thing as money in this world? Why did she have to
torture her husband with earthly needs when all she longed for was to
help him win a higher place in heaven?
Tears fell from her faded eyes. He could have wept with her--it hurt
him so to make her suffer. But once and for all he must put a stop to
her nagging. He must cast out the evil spirit of worry that possessed
her lest it turn and rend him.
“Why are you killing yourself so for this life? _Ut!_ See, death is
already standing over you. One foot is already in the grave. Do you
know what you’ll get for making nothing from the Torah? The fires of
hell are waiting for you! Wait--wait! I warn you!”
And as though to ward off the evil that threatened his house, he rushed
to his shrine of sacred books and pulled from its niche a volume of his
beloved Talmud. With reverence he caressed its worn and yellowed pages
as he drank in hungrily the inspired words. For a few blessed moments
he took refuge from all earthly storms.
* * * * *
In Schnipishock, Reb Ravinsky had been a _porush_, a pensioned scholar.
The Jews of the village so deeply appreciated his learning and piety
that they granted him an allowance, so as to free the man of God from
all earthly cares.
Arrived in the new world, he soon learned that there was no honoured
pension forthcoming to free him from the world of the flesh. For a time
he eked out a bare living by teaching Hebrew to private scholars. But
the opening of the Free Hebrew Schools resulted in the loss of most of
his pupils.
He had been chosen by God to spread the light of the Torah--and
a living must come to him, somehow, somewhere, if he only served
faithfully.
In the meantime, how glorious it was to suffer hunger and want, even
shame and derision, yet rise through it all as Job had risen and
proclaim to the world: “I know that my Redeemer liveth!”
Reb Ravinsky was roused from his ecstasy by his wife’s loud sobbing.
Thrust out from the haven of his Torah, he closed the book and began to
pace the floor.
“Can fire and water go together? Neither can godliness and an easy
life. If you have eyes of flesh and are blind, should I fall into your
blindness? You care only for what you can put in your mouth or wear on
your back; I struggle for the life that is together with God!”
“My rent--have you my rent? I warned you!” The landlord pushed through
the half-open door flaunting his final dispossess notice under Reb
Ravinsky’s nose. “I got orders to put you out,” he gloated, as he
motioned to his men to proceed with the eviction.
Reb Ravinsky gripped the back of a chair for support.
“Oi-i-i! Black is me! Bitter is me!” groaned his wife, leaning limply
against the wall.
For weeks she had been living in momentary dread of this catastrophe.
Now, when the burly moving men actually broke into her home, she
surrendered herself to the anguish of utter defeat. She watched
them disconnect the rusty stove and carry it into the street. They
took the bed, the Passover dishes prayerfully wrapped to avoid the
soil of leavened bread. They took the brass samovar and the Sabbath
candlesticks. And she stood mutely by--defenceless--impotent!
“What did I sin?” The cry broke from her. “God! God! Is there a God
over us and sees all this?”
The men and the things they touched were to Reb Ravinsky’s far-seeing
eyes as shadows of the substanceless dream of life in the flesh. With
vision focused on the next world, he saw in dim blurs the drama enacted
in this world.
Smash to the floor went the sacred Sabbath wineglass! Reb Ravinsky
turned sharply, in time to see a man tumble ruthlessly the sacred
Hebrew books to the floor.
A flame of holy wrath leaped from the old man’s eyes. His breath came
in convulsive gasps as he clutched with emaciated fingers at his heart.
The sacrilege of the ruffians! He rushed to pick up the books, kissing
each volume with pious reverence. As he gathered them in his trembling
arms, he looked about confusedly for a safe hiding-place. In his
anxiety for the safety of his holy treasure, he forgot the existence
of his wife and ran with his books to the synagogue as one runs from
a house on fire. So overwrought was he that he nearly fell over his
little daughter running up the stairs.
“Murderer!” screamed Mrs. Ravinsky, after him. “Run, run to the
synagogue! Holy Jew! See where your religion has brought us. Run--ask
God to pay your rent!”
She turned to her little Rachel who burst into the room terrified.
“See, my heart! See what they’ve done to us! And your father ran to
hide himself in the synagogue. You got no father--nobody to give you
bread. A lost orphan you are.”
“Will the charity lady have to bring us eating again?” asked Rachel,
her eyes dilated with dread. “Wait only till I get old enough to go
to the shop and earn money.” And she reached up little helpless arms
protectingly.
The child’s sympathy was as salt on the mother’s wounds.
“For what did we come to America?”
The four walls of her broken home stared back their answer.
Only the bundles of bedding remained, which Rachel guarded with fierce
defiance as though she would save it from the wreckage.
Pushing the child roughly aside, the man slung it over his shoulder.
Mrs. Ravinsky, with Rachel holding on to her skirts, felt her way after
him down the dark stairway.
“My life! My blood! My feather bed!” she cried, as he tossed the
family heirloom into the gutter. “Gevalt!” prostrate, she fell on it.
“How many winters it took my mother to pick together the feathers! My
mother’s wedding present....”
From the stoops, the alleys and the doorways the neighbours gathered.
Hanneh Breineh, followed by her clinging brood, pushed through the
throng, her red-lidded eyes big with compassion. “Come the while in by
me.”
She helped the grief-stricken woman to her feet. “We’re packed like
herrings in a barrel, but there’s always room for a push-in of a few
more.”
Lifting the feather bed under her arm she led the way to her house.
“In a few more years your Rachel will be old enough to get her working
papers and all your worries for bread will be over,” she encouraged, as
she opened the door of her stuffy little rooms.
The commotion on the street corner broke in upon the babble of
gossiping women in the butcher shop. Mr. Sopkin paused in cutting the
meat.
“Who did they make to move?” he asked, joining the gesticulating mob at
the doorway.
“_Oi weh!_ Reb Ravinsky?”
“God from the sky! Such a good Jew! Such a light for the world!”
“Home, in Russia, they kissed the ground on which he walked, and in
America they throw him in the street!”
“Who cares in America for religion? In America everybody has his head
in his belly.”
“Poor little Rachel! Such a smart child! Writes letters for everybody
on the block.”
“Such a lazy do-nothing! All day in the synagogue!” flung the
pawnbroker’s wife, a big-bosomed woman, her thick fingers covered with
diamonds. “Why don’t he go to work in a shop?”
A neighbour turned upon her. “Hear! Hear her only! Such a pig-eater!
Such a fat-head! She dares take Reb Ravinsky’s name in her mouth.”
“Who was she from home? A water-carrier’s wife, a cook! And in America
she makes herself for a person--shines up the street with her diamonds.”
“Then leave somebody let know the charities.” With a gesture of
self-defence, the pawnbroker’s wife fingered her gold beads. “I’m a
lady-member from the charities.”
“The charities? A black year on them!” came a chorus of angry voices.
“All my enemies should have to go to the charities for help.”
“Woe to anyone who falls into the charities’ hands!”
“One poor man with a heart can help more than the charities with all
their money.”
Mr. Sopkin hammered on his chopping-block, his face purple with
excitement. “_Weiber!_ with talk alone you can’t fill up the pot.”
“_Takeh! Takeh!_” Eager faces strained forward. “Let’s put ourselves
together for a collection.”
“I’m not yet making Rockefeller’s millions from the butcher business,
but still, here’s my beginning for good luck.” And Mr. Sopkin tossed a
dollar bill into the basket on the counter.
A woman, a ragged shawl over her head, clutched a quarter in her gaunt
hand. “God is my witness! To tear out this from my pocket is like
tearing off my right hand. I need every cent to keep the breath in the
bodies of my _kinder_, but how can we let such a holy Jew fall in the
street?”
“My enemies should have to slave with such bitter sweat for every penny
as me.” Hannah Hayyeh flung out her arms still wet with soapsuds and
kissed the ten-cent piece she dropped into the collection.
Mr. Sopkin walked to the sidewalk and shook the basket in front of the
passers-by. “Take your hand out from your pocket! Take your bite away
from your mouth! Who will help the poor if not the poor?”
A shower of coins came pouring in. It seemed not money--but the flesh
and blood of the people--each coin a part of a living heart.
The pawnbroker’s wife, shamed by the surging generosity of the crowd,
grudgingly peeled a dollar from the roll of bills in her stocking and
started to put it into the collection.
A dozen hands lifted in protest.
“No--no! Your money and our money can’t mix together!”
“Our money is us--our bodies! Yours is the profits from the pawnshop!
Hold your _trefah_ dollar for the charities!”
* * * * *
Only when the Shammes, the caretaker of the synagogue, rattling his
keys, shook Reb Ravinsky gently and reminded him that it was past
closing time did he remember that somewhere waiting for him--perhaps
still in the street--were his wife and child.
The happening of the day had only deepened the intensity with which he
clung to God and His Torah. His lips still moved in habitual prayer as
with the guidance of neighbours he sought the new flat which had been
rented for a month with the collection money.
Bread, butter, milk and eggs greeted his gaze as he opened the door.
“_Nu_, my wife? Is there a God over us?” His face kindled with
guileless faith. “The God that feeds the little fishes in the sea and
the birds in the air, has He not fed us? You see, the Highest One
takes care of our earthly needs. Our only business here is to pray for
holiness to see His light!”
A cloud of gloom stared up at him out of his wife’s darkening eyes.
“Why are you still so black with worry?” he admonished. “If you would
only trust yourself on God, all good would come to us yet.”
“On my enemies should fall the good that has come to us,” groaned Mrs.
Ravinsky. “Better already death than to be helped again by the pity
from kind people.”
“What difference how the help comes, so long we can keep up our souls
to praise God for His mercy on us?”
Despair was in the look she fixed upon her husband’s lofty brow--a brow
untouched by time or care, smooth, calm and seamless as a child’s.
“No wonder people think that I’m your mother. The years make you
younger. You got no blood in your body--no feelings in your heart. I
got to close my eyes with shame to pass in the street the people what
helped me, while you--you--shame cannot shame you--poverty cannot crush
you----”
“Poverty? It stands in the Talmud that poverty is an ornament on a Jew
like a red ribbon on a white horse. Those whom God chooses for His next
world can’t have it good here.”
“Stop feeding me with the next world!” she flung at him in her
exasperation. “Give me something on this world.”
“Wait only till our American daughter will grow up. That child has my
head on her,” he boasted with a father’s pride. “Wait only, you’ll see
the world will ring from her yet. With the Hebrew learning I gave her,
she’ll shine out from all other American children.”
“But how will she be able to lift up her head with other people alike
if you depend yourself on the charities?”
“Woman! Worry yourself not for our Rachel! It stands in the Holy Book,
the world is a wheel, always turning. Those who are rich get poor; if
not they, then their children or children’s children. And those who
are poor like us, go up higher and higher. Our daughter will yet be so
rich, she’ll give away money to the charities that helped us. Isaiah
said----”
“Enough--enough!” broke in Mrs. Ravinsky, thrilled in spite of herself
by the prophecies of her holy man. “I know already all your smartness.
Go, go, sit yourself down and eat something. You fasted all day.”
* * * * *
Mrs. Ravinsky hoarded for her husband and child the groceries the
neighbours had donated. For herself she allowed only the left-overs,
the crumbs and crusts.
The following noon, after finishing her meagre meal, she still felt the
habitual gnawing of her under-nourished body, so she took a sour pickle
and cut off another slice of bread from the dwindling loaf. But this
morsel only sharpened her craving for more food.
The lingering savour of the butter and eggs which she had saved for her
family tantalized her starved nerves. Faint and weak from the struggle
to repress her hunger, she grew reckless and for once in her life
abandoned herself to the gluttonous indulgence of the best in her scant
larder.
With shaking hand she stealthily opened the cupboard, pilfered a
knife-load of butter and spread it thickly on a second slice of bread.
Cramming the whole into her mouth, she snatched two eggs and broke them
into the frying-pan. The smell of the sizzling eggs filled the air with
the sweet fragrance of the Sabbath. “Ach! How the sun would shine in my
heart if I could only allow myself the bite in my mouth!”
Memories of _gefüllte_ fish and the odour of freshly-baked apple
strudel dilated her nostrils. She saw herself back in Russia setting
the Sabbath table when she was the honoured wife of Reb Ravinsky.
The sudden holiday feeling that thrilled her senses smote her
conscience. “Oi weh! Sinner that I am! Why should it will itself in me
to eat like a person when my man don’t earn enough for dry bread? What
will we do when this is used up? Suppose the charities should catch me
feasting myself with such a full hand?”
Bent ravenously over the eggs--one eye on the door--she lifted the
first spoonful to her watering mouth as Rachel flew in, eyes wide with
excitement.
“Mamma! The charity lady is coming! She’s asking the fish-pedlar on
the stoop where we live now.”
“Quick! Hide the frying-pan in the oven! Woe is me! The house not
swept--dishes not washed--everything thrown around! Rachel! Quick
only--sweep together the dirt in a corner. Throw those rags under the
bed! _Oi weh_--quick--hide all those dirty things behind the trunk!”
In her haste to tidy up, she remembered the food in the cupboard. She
stuffed it--broken eggshells and all--into the bureau drawer. “Oi
weh! The charity lady should only not catch us with all these holiday
eatings....”
Footsteps in the hallway and Miss Naughton’s cheery voice: “Here I am,
Mrs. Ravinsky! What can I do to help now?”
With the trained eye of the investigator, she took in the wretched
furniture, scant bedding, the under-nourished mother and child.
“What seems to be wrong?” Miss Naughton drew up a three-legged stool.
“Won’t you tell me, so we can get at the root of the trouble?” She put
her hand on the woman’s apron with a friendly little gesture.
Mrs. Ravinsky bit her lips to force back the choking pressure of tears.
The life, the buoyancy, the very kindness of the “charity lady”
stabbed deeper the barb of her wretchedness.
“Woe is me! On all my enemies my black heart! So many babies and young
people die every day, but no death comes to hide me from my shame.”
“Don’t give way like that,” pleaded Miss Naughton, pained by the
bitterness that she tried in vain to understand. “If you will only tell
me a few things so I may the better know how to help you.”
“Again tear me in pieces with questions?” Mrs. Ravinsky pulled at the
shrunken skin of her neck.
“I don’t like to pry into your personal affairs, but if you only knew
how often we’re imposed upon. Last week we had a case of a woman who
asked us to pay her rent. When I called to investigate, I found her
cooking chicken for dinner!”
The cot on which Mrs. Ravinsky sat creaked under her swaying body.
“You see, we have only a small amount of money,” went on the
unconscious inquisitor, “and it is but fair it should go to the most
deserving cases.”
Entering a few preliminary notes, Miss Naughton looked up inquiringly.
“Where is Mr. Ravinsky?”
“In the synagogue.”
“Has he no work?”
“He can’t do no work. His head is on the next world.”
Miss Naughton frowned. She was accustomed to this kind of excuse.
“People who are not lazy can always find employment.”
Seeing Mrs. Ravinsky’s sudden pallor, she added kindly: “You have not
eaten to-day. Is there no food in the house?”
Mrs. Ravinsky staggered blindly to her feet. “No--nothing--I didn’t yet
eat nothing.”
The brooding grey of Rachel’s eyes darkened with shame as she clutched
protectingly at her mother’s apron. The uncanny, old look of the
solemn little face seemed to brush against Miss Naughton’s very
heartstrings--to reproach the rich vigour of her own glowing youth.
“Have you had any lunch, dear?” The “charity lady’s” hand rested softly
on the tangled mat of hair.
“N-nothing--nothing,” the child echoed her mother’s words.
Miss Naughton rose abruptly. She dared not let her feelings get the
better of her. “I am going to get some groceries.” She sought for an
excuse to get away for a moment from the misery that overwhelmed her.
“I’ll be back soon.”
“Bitter is me!” wailed Mrs. Ravinsky, as the “charity lady” left the
room. “I can never lift up my head with other people alike. I feel
myself lower than a thief, just because I got a husband who holds
himself with God all day.”
She cracked the knuckles of her bony fingers. “_Gottuniu!_ Listen
better to my prayer! Send on him only a quick death. Maybe if I was a
widow, people would take pity on me and save me from this gehenna of
charity.”
* * * * *
Ten minutes later Miss Naughton returned with a bag of supplies. “I am
going to fix some lunch for you.” She measured cocoa into a battered
saucepan. “And soon the boy will come with enough groceries for the
whole week.”
“Please, please,” begged Mrs. Ravinsky. “I can’t eat now--I can’t.”
“But the child? She needs nutritious food at once.”
Rachel’s sunken little chest rose and fell with her frightened
heartbeat as she hid her face in her mother’s lap.
“Small as she is, she already feels how it hurts to swallow charity
eating,” defended Mrs. Ravinsky.
Miss Naughton could understand the woman’s dislike of accepting
charity. She had coped with this pride of the poor before. But she
had no sympathy with this mother who fostered resentment in her
child towards the help that was so urgently needed. Miss Naughton’s
long-suffering patience broke. She turned from the stove and resolutely
continued her questioning.
“Has your husband tried our employment bureau?”
“No.”
“Then send him to our office to-morrow at nine. He can be a janitor--or
a porter----”
“My man? My man a janitor or a porter?” Her eyes flamed. “Do you know
who was my man in Russia? The fat of the land they brought him just for
the pleasure to listen to his learning. Barrels full of meat, pots full
of chicken fat stood packed in my cellar. I used to make boilers of
jelly at a time. The _gefüllte_ fish only I gave away is more than the
charities give out to the poor in a month.”
Miss Naughton could not suppress a smile. “Why did you leave it, then,
if it was all so perfect?”
“My _gefüllte_ fish! Oi-i-i! Oi-i!! My apple strudel!” she kept
repeating, unable to tear herself away from the dream of the past.
“Can you live on the apple strudel you had in Russia? In America a man
must work to support his family----”
“All thick-heads support their families,” defended Reb Ravinsky’s wife.
“Any fat-belly can make money. My man is a light for the world. He
works for God who feeds even the worms under the stone.”
“You send your husband to my office. I want to have a talk with him.”
“To your office? _Gottuniu!_ He won’t go. In Schnipishock they came to
him from the four ends of the world. The whole town blessed itself with
his religiousness.”
“The first principle of religion is for a man to provide for his
family. You must do exactly as we say--or we cannot help you.”
“Please, please!” Mrs. Ravinsky entreated, cringing and begging. “We
got no help from nobody now but you. I’ll bring him to your office
to-morrow.”
The investigator now proceeded with the irk-some duty of her more
formal questions. “How much rent do you pay? Do you keep any boarders?
Does your husband belong to any society or lodge? Have you relatives
who are able to help you?”
“Oi-i-i! What more do you want from me?” shrieked the distracted woman.
Having completed her questions, Miss Naughton looked about the room. “I
am sorry to speak of it, but why is your flat in such disorder?”
“I only moved in yesterday. I didn’t get yet time to fix it up.”
“But it was just as bad in the last place. If you want our help you
must do your part. Soap and water are cheap. Anyone can be clean.”
The woman’s knees gave way under her, as Miss Naughton lifted the lids
from the pots on the stove.
And then--_gevalt_! It grew black before Mrs. Ravinsky’s eyes. She
collapsed into a pathetic heap to the floor. The “charity lady” opened
the oven door and exposed the tell-tale frying-pan and the two eggs!
Eyes of silent condemnation scorched through the terror-stricken
creature whose teeth chattered in a vain struggle to defend herself.
But no voice came from her tortured throat. She could only clutch at
her child in a panic of helplessness.
Without a word, the investigator began to search through every nook
and corner and at last she came to the bureau drawer and found butter,
eggs, cheese, bread and even a jar of jelly.
“For shame!” broke from the wounded heart of the betrayed Miss
Naughton. “You--you ask for charity!”
* * * * *
In the hall below Reb Ravinsky, returning from the synagogue,
encountered a delivery boy.
“Where live the Ravinskys?” the lad questioned.
“I’m Reb Ravinsky,” he said, leading the way, as he saw the box of
groceries.
Followed by the boy, Reb Ravinsky flung open the door and strode
joyfully into the room. “Look only! How the manna is falling from the
sky!”
Ignoring Reb Ravinsky, Miss Naughton motioned to the box. “Take those
things right back,” she commanded the boy.
“How you took me in with your hungry look!” There was more of sorrow
than scorn in her voice. “Even teaching your child to lie--and your
husband a rabbi!--a religious man--too holy to work! What would be left
for deserving cases if we allowed such as you to defraud legitimate
charity?”
With bowed head, Reb Ravinsky closed the door after the departing
visitor. The upbraidings of the woman were like a whip-lash on his
naked flesh. His heart ached for his helpless family. Darkness
suffocated him.
“My hungry little lamb,” wailed his wife, clinging to Rachel. “Where
now can we turn for bread?”
Compassionate hands reached out in prayer over the grief-stricken
mother and child. Reb Ravinsky stood again as he did before his flight
to America, facing his sorrowing people. His wife’s wailing for their
lost store of bread brought back to him the bereaved survivors of the
_pogrom_--the _pogrom_ that snatched away their sons and daughters.
Afire with the faith of his race, he chanted the age-old consolation:
“The Lord giveth; the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the
Lord.”