Meir was absent during the Rabbi's visit. He left the house early in
the morning and went in the direction of the poorest quarter of the
town. The houses there were very small and very low and exceedingly
dismal, none of them having more than two windows. In front of the
houses were evil-smelling sloughs. From the black chimneys of the
tenements arose thin streaks of smoke, indicating by their thinness
the scarcity of fuel, and the food cooked by it. Fences, rotten and
tumble-down, surrounded the small courtyards, which were covered with
sweepings. Here and there could be seen in the rear of the houses,
tiny tracts of land with meagre vegetables growing in them. At the
low doors, miserable looking women with dark sickly faces, wearing
blue caftans and carroty wigs, washed their gray, coarse linen in
buckets. The old and bent women sat on the benches, knitting blue or
black wool stockings, while young sunburned girls, in dirty dresses
and dishevelled hair, milked the goats.
It was the quarter of the town inhabited by the poorest population of
Szybow, the nursery of poverty--even of misery, dirt, and disease.
The houses of the Ezofowichs, Calmans, Witebskis and Kamionkers,
standing at the square, were luxurious palaces when compared with
those human dwellings, the mere exterior aspect of which made one
think of earthly purgatory. And no wonder. There, on the square,
lived merchants and learned men, the aristocracy of every Jewish
community; here lived the population of working men and
tradesmen--the plebeians earning their daily bread with their hands
and not with brains.
In spite of the fact that it was yet early morning, the daily work
had generally begun. From behind the dirty windows could be seen the
rising and falling arms of the tailors and cobblers. Through the thin
walls resounded the tools of tinsmiths and the hammers of
blacksmiths, and from the houses of the manufacturers of tallow
candles rose unbearable, greasy exhalations. Some of the inhabitants,
taking advantage of the sunrise, looked into the street, opened their
windows and a passer-by could see the interior of, the small rooms
with black walls, crowded with occupants which swarmed like ants.
Through the windows came the mixed noise of singing and praying in
male voices, the quarrelling of women and the screaming of children.
All the smaller children rent the sultry air of the black, crowded
rooms with their cries, while the older ones trooped out into the
street in great crowds, chasing each other noisily or rolling on the
ground. Growing boys, dressed not in sleeveless jackets like the
children, but in long, grey halats, stood on the thresholds of the
huts leaning against the walls, pale, thin, drowsy, with widely
opened mouths, as though they wished to breathe into their sickly,
cold breasts the warm rays of the sun and the fresh breeze of the
morning.
Meir approached one of these youths.
"Nu, Lejbele," said he, "I have come to see you. Are you always sick
and looking like an owl?"
It was evident that Lejbele was ill and moping, for, with hands
folded in the sleeves of his miserable halat, and pressed to his
chest, he was shivering with cold, although the morning was warm; he
did not answer Meir, but opened his mouth and great, dull, dark eyes
more widely, and looked idiotically at the young man.
Meir laid his band on the boy's head.
"Were you in the heder yesterday?" he asked. The boy began to tremble
still more, and answered in a hoarse voice:
"Aha."
This meant an affirmative.
"Were you beaten again?"
Tears filled the boy's dark eyes, which remained raised to the face
of the tall young man.
"They beat me," he said.
His breast began to heave with sobs under the sleeves of the halat,
which were still pressed by the boy's folded bands.
"Have you breakfasted?"
The boy shook his head in the negative.
Meir took from the nearest huckster's stand a big hala (loaf of
bread), for which he threw a copper coin to the old woman. He then
gave the bread to the child. Lejbele seized it in both bands, and
began to devour it rapaciously. At that moment a tall, thin, lithe
man rushed out from the cabin. He wore a black beard, and bad an old,
sorrowful face. He threw himself toward Meir. First be seized his
band and raised it to his lips, and then began to reproach him.
"Morejne!" he exclaimed, "why did you give him that hala? He is a
stupid, nasty child. He don't want to study, and brings shame upon
me. The melamed--may he live a hundred years--takes a great deal of
trouble to teach him; but he has a head which does not understand
anything. The melamed beats him, and I beat him, too, in order that
the learning shall enter his head, but it does not help at all. He is
an alejdyc gejer (lazy)--a donkey!"
Meir looked at the boy, who was still devouring the bread.
"Schmul," said he, "he is neither lazy nor a donkey, but he is sick."
Schmul waved his hand contemptuously.
"He is sick," shouted he. "He began to be sick when he was told to
study. Before that he was healthy, gay, and intelligent. Ah, what an
intelligent and pretty child he was! Could I expect such a
misfortune? What is he now?"
Meir continued to smooth the dishevelled hair of the pale child with
his hand. The tall, thin Schmul bent again and kissed his hand.
"Morejne," said he, "you are very good if you pity such a stupid
child."
"Schmul, why do you call me Morejne?" asked Meir.
Schmul interrupted him hastily.
"The fathers of your father were Morejnes; your zeide and your uncles
are Morejnes, and you, Meir, you will soon be Morejne also."
Meir shook his head with a peculiar smile.
"I shall never be a Morejne!" said he. "They will not confer such an
honour upon me, and I--don't wish for it!"
Schmul thought for a while, and then said:
"I heard that you have quarrelled with the great Rabbi and the
members of the kahal."
Meir, without answering, looked at the horrible proofs of deep
destitution around him.
"How poor you are," said he, not answering Schmul directly.
These words touched the very sensitive string of Schmul's life. His
hands trembled, and his eyes glared.
"Aj, how poor we are," he moaned; "but the poorest of all living on
this street is the hajet (tailor) Schmul. He must support an old,
blind mother, and wife, and eight children. And how can I support
them? I have no means except these two hands, which sew day and night
if there is something to sew."
Speaking thus, he stretched toward Meir his two hands--true beggar's
hands, dark, dirty, pricked with the needle, covered with scars made
by scissors, and now trembling from grief.
"Morejne," he said more softly, bending toward the listener, "our
life is hard--very hard. Everything is very expensive for us, and we
have so much to pay. The Czar's officers take taxes, we must pay more
for our kosher meat, and for the candles for Sabbath, we must pay to
the funeral society, pay to the officers of the kahal, and for what
do we not pay? Aj, vaj! From these poor houses flow rivers of
money--and where does it come from? From the sweat of our brows, from
our blood and the entrails of our children who grow thin from hunger!
Not a long time ago you asked me, Morejne, why my room was dirty. And
how can we help it when eleven of us must live in one room, and in
the passages there are two goats, which nourish us with their milk.
Morejne, you asked me why my wife is so thin and old, although she
has not yet lived many years, and why my children are always sick!
Morejne, kosher meat costs us so much that we never eat it. We eat
bread with onion, and we drink goat's-milk. On Sabbath we have fish
only when you, Morejne, come to see us and leave us a silver coin.
All in this street are poor--very poor, but the poorest is hajet
Schmul, with his blind mother, thin wife and eight children."
He shook his head piteously and looked into Meir's face with his dark
eyes which expressed stupefied astonishment at his own misery. Meir,
with his hand still on the head of the sickly child, who was
finishing his bread, listened to the speech of the miserable fellow.
His mouth expressed pity, but the frowning brows and drooped eyelids
gave to his face the expression of angry reverie.
"Schmul," he said, "and why are you so often out of work?"
Schmul became plainly confused, and raised his hand to his head,
disarranging his skull cap which covered his long dishevelled hair.
"I will tell you," continued Meir; "they don't give you work because
from the stuff which they give you to make dresses you cut large
pieces and keep them."
Schmul seized his skull cap in both hands.
"My poor head," he groaned. "Morejne, what have you told me? Your
mouth said a very ugly thing against me."
He jumped, bent nearly to the ground, and then jumped again.
"Nu, it's true, Morejne, I will open my heart to you I used to cut
off and keep pieces of the stuff, and why did I do it? Because my
children were naked. I clothed them with it. And when my blind mother
was sick I sold it and bought a piece of meat for her. Morejne, your
eye must not look angrily on me! Were I as rich as Reb Jankiel and
Morejne Calman--had I as much money as they make from the work of our
hands and the sweat of our brows, I would not steal!"
"And for what are Reb Jankiel and Morejne Calman taking your money?"
began Meir thoughtfully, and he wished to continue, but Schmul
stretched himself and interrupted suddenly:
"Nu, they have a right to it. They are elders over us. What they do
is sacred. When one listens to them it is as if one listened to God
himself."
Meir smiled sadly and put his band into his pocket.
Schmul followed the movement with his eyes, which were animated with
cupidity.
Meir placed on the open window a few silver coins. Schmul seized his
hand and began to kiss it.
"Morejne, you are good. You always help poor people. You pity my
stupid child."
When the enthusiasm of his gratitude had cooled a little, he
stretched himself and began to whisper in Meir's ear.
"Morejne, you are good and generous and the grandson of a very rich
man, and I am a poor and stupid hajet, but you are as honey in my
mouth, and I must open my heart to you. You are wrong in quarrelling
with our great Rabbi and with the members of the kahal. Our Rabbi is
a great Rabbi and there is no other like him in the whole world. God
revealed to him great things. He alone understands the Kabala Mashjat
(the highest part of the Kabala, teaching how, by a combination of
letters and words, miracles are performed and the mysteries
penetrated). All the birds fly after him when he calls them. He knows
how to cure all human diseases and all human hearts open to him.
Every breath of his mouth is holy, and when he prays then his soul
kisses God himself. And you, Morejne, you have turned away your heart
from him."
Thus gravely spoke poor Schmul, raising in solemn gesture his black,
needle-pricked index finger.
"And the members of the kahal," continued he, "they are very pious
men and very rich. One should respect them and listen to them also,
and even close one's eyes if they do something wrong. They could
accuse one before God and the people. God will be angry if he hears
their complaint, and will punish you, and the people will say that
you are very bold, and will turn away their faces from you."
It would be difficult to guess the impression made on Meir by
Schmul's humble and at the same time grave, warning. He continually
kept his hand on little Lejbele's head, and looked into the beautiful
fine-featured face of the pale, sick, idiotic and trembling child,
where he saw the personification of that portion of Israel, which,
devoured by misery and disease, nevertheless believed blindly and
worshipped humbly, timidly, and everlastingly.
Then he gave Schmul a slow and friendly nod, and went away. Schmul
followed him several steps.
"Morejne," he moaned, "don't be angry with me for having opened my
heart to you. Be wise. May the learned and rich not complain of you
to God, for the man who is under the ground is better off than he on
whom they shall turn their angry hands."
Then he returned to his hut, and did not notice that Lejbele was not
standing at the wall of the house. When Meir departed, the pale child
followed him. With hands still muffled in the sleeves of his ragged
gown, and with wide opened mouth, the child of Schmul the tailor
followed the tall, beautiful man. At the end of the street only, as a
being afraid to go further, the poor boy said, in a hoarse, guttural
voice:
"Morejne!"
Meir looked back. A friendly smile brightened his face when he saw
the boy. The dark, dull eyes of the child were raised to his face,
and from the gray sleeve a small, thin hand was stretched toward him.
"Hala," said Lejbele.
Meir looked around for a huckster's stand. Along the street stood
several miserable barrows, by which the women, their thin bodies
scantily clad in rags, were selling loaves of bread, hard as stone,
and some heads of onion, as well as a black, unappetising preparation
made of honey and poppy-seed.
From Meir's white hand to the dark, thin hand of the child again
passed a big hala. Lejbele raised it to his mouth with both hands,
and, turning, he walked slowly and gravely down the middle of the
street toward his home.
After a while Meir reached the square of the town. It seemed to him
that he came back to the light of day from a dark cavern. The
sunlight flooded everything around, dried the mud, and kindled golden
sparks in the windows of the houses. In the yard of the pious. Reb
Jankiel, some large, new structure was being erected. The red-haired
owner inspected the workmen personally, evidently satisfied with the
increase of his wealth. The noise of axes and the gnashing of the
saws filled the air, and in front of the low inn stood a couple of
carriages belonging to passing guests. Further along the street stood
Morejne Calman in the piazza of his house, shining in his satin
halat. With one hand he held to his smiling mouth a cigar, and with
the other he caressed the golden hair of a two-year-old child, who
sat on a bench holding a loaf of bread abundantly spread with honey,
which he had smeared all over his plump face, casting the while
admiring glances at his magnificent father.
In the court-yard of the Ezofowich mansion there was plenty of noise,
sunlight, and gaiety. In the centre two broad-shouldered workmen were
sawing wood for the winter, and in the soft sawdust several
cleanly-dressed children were playing. At the well a buxom and merry
servant girl was drawing water, joking with the workmen, and through
the open windows of the house could be seen Raphael's and Abraham's
grave heads--they were talking over business affairs with great
animation--and Sarah, standing by the fireplace, and pretty Lija, who
stood before a mirror smoothing her luxuriant tresses.
When Meir entered the gate, the workmen stopped sawing, and smiled
and nodded to him. They came from the same poor, dirty street he had
just left, and evidently knew him very well.
"Scholem Alejhem!" (peace to you) they exclaimed.
"Alejhem & Scholem!" answered Meir, merrily.
"Will you not help us to-day?" asked one of the workmen jokingly.
"Why not?" answered Meir, approaching them.
Meir was fond of physical work. He practised it very often, and his
grandfather's workmen were accustomed to it. One of them was about to
give him his place at the log of wood, but at that moment. Lija
appeared in the open window. She was just finishing braiding her
hair, and said.
"Meir! Meir! where have you been so long? Zeide wishes to see you."
Hardly a quarter of an hour had passed since the Rabbi's visit. Saul
still sat with his head between his hands, lost in half angry and
half sad musing. A few steps from him sat Freida, bathed in golden
sunlight and sparkling with diamonds. A very complicated process was
going on in Saul's old breast. He disliked Isaak Todros. Without
having deeply understood the real meaning of the action and position
of either his ancestor Michael, or his father Hersh, he knew that
they had great influence among their "own people," and enjoyed the
general esteem of the mighty, although 'stranger' people. Therefore
he was proud of these reminiscences of his family, and the knowledge
of the wrong done to these two stars of his family by ancestors of
Isaak Todros excited toward the latter a mute and not very
well-defined dislike. Besides this, being rich, and proud of so
being, he resented the misery and--as he said at the bottom of his
soul--the sluttishness of the Todros. But all this was as nothing
compared with the respect felt for the holy, wise, and deeply-learned
man, who was the representative of all that was holiest, wisest, and
most learned. Saul himself read with great zeal the holy books, but
he could not become familiar with them, because for a long time his
brain had been occupied with quite different matters. He read them,
but understood very little of their obscure and secret sense, and the
less he understood the more he respected them, and the deeper was
his humility and dread. And now that dread and humility stood
opposed to the true, tender love for his grandson, and he struggled
between them.
"What profit can he draw from it?" thought Saul, and he met his
grandson with angry looks.
Meir entered the parlour timidly. He already knew of the Rabbi's
visit, and he guessed at the aim of it; he was afraid of his
grandfather's anger and grief.
"Nu," said the old man, "come nearer. I am going to tell you
beautiful things, at which you will rejoice greatly."
And when Meir had come to within a couple of steps from him, Saul
looked at him sharply from beneath his bushy eyebrows, and said:
"I am going to betroth you, and in two months you must be married."
Meir grew pale, but was silent.
"I am going to betroth you to Jankiel Kamionker's daughter."
After these words there was quite a long silence, which Meir at last
interrupted.
"Zeide," said he, in a low but determined voice, "I am not going to
marry Kamionker's daughter."
"Why?" asked Saul, smothering his anger.
"Because, zeide," growing bolder and bolder, "Kamionker is a bad and
unjust man, and I don't wish to have anything to do with him!"
Then Saul's anger burst out. He reproached his grandson for the
audacity of this judgment, and praised Rob Jankiel's piety.
"Zeide," interrupted Meir, "he wrongs the poor!"
"Is that any of your business?" exclaimed the grandfather.
This time the young man's eyes shone warmly. "Zeide," he said, "he
pockets a great deal of the money produced by the sweat
and work of these miserable people who live at the other end of the
town, and through him they are thieves. While their children are
naked, Reb Jankiel builds new houses! In the dram-shops and
distilleries which he rents from the nobility be carries on evil
acts. His dram-shop keepers make the peasants drunk, and cheat them,
and his distilleries produce more vodka than is permitted by the
Government. Zeide, you must not look at the way he prays, but the way
he acts, for it is written: 'I do not need prayers, nor your
sacrifices! The one who wrongs the poor man wrongs the Creator
Himself!'"
Saul was very angry, but his grandson's quotation mollified him, for
he very much desired to see him a scholar, and expert in the
knowledge of the holy books.
"Well," muttered he angrily, but without vehemence, "it does not
matter that Jankiel makes the peasants drunk, and that he produces
more vodka than the law permits. You don't know yet that business is
business! When you are married to Reb Jankiel's daughter, and go into
partnership with him, you will do the same."
"Zeide," answered Meir quickly, "I shall neither produce nor sell
vodka. I have no inclination for it."
"And what are you going to do--"
He did not finish, for Meir bent forward and seized his knees with
his hands, and pressing his lips to them, he began to talk.
"Zeide, let me go hence! Let me go into the broad world! I will
study! I wish to study, and here my eyes wander in darkness. Two
years ago I made the same request, but you became angry, and ordered
me to remain. I remained, zeide, because I respect you, and your
commands are sacred to me. But now, zeide, let me go hence! If I go
into the world with your permission and blessing, I shall become a
learned man. I shall come back here and take my stand against the
great Rabbi, and I shall know how to show him that he is a small man.
Now--"
Saul did not permit him to speak further.
"Sha-a-a!" he exclaimed.
He was seized with fear at the mere mention of a strife between his
grandson and the great Rabbi.
But Meir drew himself up, and with fire in his face and tears on his
eyelashes, he spoke again:
"Zeide, remember the history of Rabbi Eliezer. When he was young his
father did not let him go into the world. He ploughed the field, and
looked into the dark forest which hid him from the world, and
curiosity and longing ate into his heart as now they are eating into
mine. He could not stand that yearning, and he escaped. He went to
Jerusalem, to a great, world-famed scholar, and said to him: 'Let me
be your pupil, and you shall be my master!' And it was as he said.
And when, several years after, his father Hyrkanos came to Jerusalem,
he saw there on the square a beautiful youth, who talked with the
people, and the people listened to him, and their souls melted like
wax before the great sweetness of his words, and all heads bent low
before the youth and shouted: 'Behold our master!' Hyrkanos wondered
much at the wise words of the man who stood on the heights, and at
the great love which all the people bore him. And he asked of the man
who stood beside him: 'What is the name of the youth who stands on
the heights, and where does his father live? for I wish to bow before
him, whose entrails have brought into the world such a son.' And the
man whom he questioned made answer: 'That youth's name is Eliezer, a
star over Israel's head, and his father's name is Hyrkanos.' When
Hyrkanos heard this he shouted with a great voice, rushed toward the
youth, and opened his arms. And then there was ecstatic joy in the
hearts of both father and son, and the whole nation bowed before
Hyrkanos, because his entrails brought into the world such a son."
Saul listened attentively to the story, half gloomy and half joyful.
He cherished the traditions of his nation, and was delighted to
listen to them, especially when they were spoken by the mouth of his
much-loved grandson. He did not hesitate, however, in his answer. He
half closed his eyes and began:
"If in Jerusalem there was to-day teaching such a famous learned man
of Israel, I would send you to him at once, but the avenging hand of
the Lord is laid on Jerusalem--she is no longer ours. When the day of
the great Messiah shall come, she will again be ours. It is pleasant
and sweet for a son of Israel to die there, but there is no one there
to teach him. And I shall not send you into a foreign world to learn
strange sciences. They are useless to an Israelite. From Edomit you
have already learned as much as it is necessary for you to transact
business in the foreign world, and even for that the great Rabbi has
reproached me. And his reproaches are a shame and a sorrow, for,
although the Rabbi is a wise man, my soul suffers when he comes to my
house to scold me like the melamed scolds the little children in the
heder."
Speaking thus, the old man became morose, and looked gloomily on the
ground. Meir stood before him as though petrified, but in his eyes,
looking into space, there was reflected a bottomless precipice of sad
and rebellious sentiments.
"Zeide," he said finally, half in prayer and half abruptly, "then
permit me to be an artisan. I will live in the same street with the
poor. I will work with them and guard their souls from sin, And when
they ask me something I will always answer them 'Yes' or 'No' When
they lack bread I will divide with them all the bread I have in my
house!"
Again his face burned and the tears shone on his eyelids. But Saul
looked at him in the intensest amazement, and after a while he said:
"When you are two or three years older you will see how stupid you
are in telling me such things. There has been no artisan in the
Ezofowich family and, please God, there never shall be. We are
merchants, from father to son; we have enough money, and each
generation brings more. You shall be a merchant also, because every
Ezofowich must be one."
The last words he spoke in an imperative voice, but after a while he
continued a little more softly:
"I want to show you my favour. If you do not wish to marry Reb
Jankiel's daughter, I will permit you not to marry her. But I shall
betroth you to the daughter of Eli Witebski, the great merchant. You
are longing for learning--flu! I am going to give you a very well
educated wife. Her parents keep her in a boarding school at Wilno;
she speaks French and plays the piano. Nu! if you are so difficult to
please, that girl ought to suit you. She is sixteen years old. Her
father will give her a big dowry, and immediately after the wedding
will make you his partner."
From the expression of Meir's face it could be seen that his blood
was boiling.
"I don't know Witebski's daughter. I never saw her," said he
gloomily.
"Why do you need to know her?" exclaimed Saul; "I give her to you! In
a month she will be back from Wilno and in two months you will be
married! That is what I am telling you, and you, be silent and obey my
commands. Up to the present I have given you too much liberty, but
from now on it will be different. Isaak Todros told me to set my foot
on your neck."
A flush appeared on Meir's pale face and his eyes flashed.
"Rabbi Isaak may put his feet on the necks of those who, like dogs,
lick his feet!" he exclaimed. "I am an Israelite, as he is. I am no
one's slave, I."
The words died on his quivering lips, for old Saul stood before him,
drawn up to his full height, powerful, inflamed with anger, and
raised his hand to strike him. But at that moment between the old
man's thin hand and the burning face of the younger man, appeared a
small hand, dried, wrinkled, trembling with old age, separating them.
It was the hand of Freida, who was present during the whole
conversation between the grandfather and grandson, and had seemed to
doze in the sun and not hear anything. But when the room resounded
with Meir's passionate exclamation, and Saul had risen, angry and
threatening, she rose also, and silently advanced a few steps, until
with her poor old hand she shielded her great-grandson. Saul's hand
dropped. Having exclaimed to Meir in an already softened voice,
"Weg!" (Get out) he fell into a chair, panting deeply.
The great-grandmother again sat down by the window in the sunlight.
Meir left the room.
He went out with bent head and a gloomy expression on his face. At
that moment he felt all the impotency of youth against age,
influence, and authority. He felt that the fetters of the
patriarchial organisation of his family were growing heavy on him.
And the mere thought of that small, thin, trembling woman's hand,
which had shielded him from a rough act of force, caused a touching
smile of tenderness to appear on his lips. It was also a smile of
hope.
"If I could only get that writing," he said to himself, passing his
hand over his forehead.
He was thinking of the writing of Michael the Senior, of which the
old great-grandmother alone knew the whereabouts. He thought also
that if he could only find it he would know what to say and how to
act.
In the meantime Saul sat for a long time, breathing heavily from
weariness, and sighing from grief. He looked several times at his
mother and smiled. The intervention of this silent, continually
dozing, hundred-year-old-woman for her great-grandson, seemed strange
to him, and perhaps in the bottom of his heart he was grateful to her
for not permitting him to wrong his orphan grandson in a moment of
anger.
After a while he called: "Raphael."
The call was answered by a dignified dark-eyed man, already growing
gray--his oldest son. After Saul he was the oldest of the family. He
himself had grown-up grandchildren and was doing a very large
business. On hearing his father call him he left his office and came
to him immediately.
"Do you know if Eli Witebski is home?" asked Saul.
"Yes, he returned home yesterday," answered his son.
"Someone must go there at once and tell him that I wish to see him,
and talk with him about an important matter."
"I will go myself," said Raphael; "I know about what you are going to
talk with Witebski. You have an excellent idea, and it must be
executed immediately. Meir may go astray if he is not married soon."
Saul's eyes searched his son's face inquiringly. "Raphael, do you
think he will change when he is married?"
Raphael nodded his head affirmatively.
"Father," said he, "remember Ber. He was on the same road which Meir
is travelling, but then he married Sarah, and you, father, took him
into partnership and when the children began to come, one after
another, all these stupid ideas left his head."
"Go! Call Witebski to me," concluded Saul.
Raphael left the room, and was soon walking in the direction of the
house which stood at the corner of the two largest streets. On the
piazza sat a plump woman in a silk gown, and a mantilla buckled with
a gold brooch. On her ears were long earrings, and a carefully-combed
wig was on her head. She was about forty, and looked fresh and
healthy. Her mouth wore a smile of satisfaction and pride, and in her
hands she held some fancy embroidery. When Raphael ascended the
stairs she rose, and with the most exquisite bow ever made in Szybow,
she extended her hand in welcome to the guest. Except Pani (Mrs.)
Hannah Witebska, there was not another woman in Szybow who shook
hands with a man. The English hand-shake, popular in the whole
civilised world, evidently did not meet with the approval of the
dignified Raphael, for he touched the plump Pani Hannah's hand a
little reluctantly, and after a short greeting he asked for her
husband.
"He is home," answered the woman, smiling continually, with
chronic satisfaction and equally chronic pride; "he came back
yesterday, and is now taking a rest."
"I came to talk with him," said Raphael
"Come in! come in!" exclaimed the woman, opening with hasty
amiability the door leading into the house. "My husband will be much
pleased to receive such a guest."
Raphael answered Pani Hannah's fashionable civilities by a swift nod
of the head, and entered the house. Pani Hannah again sat down on the
bench, and half closed her eyes disdainfully, whispering to herself:
"Nu! what people there are in this Szybow! They don't want to talk
with women. They are like wild bears."
She sighed, moved her head several times, and added:
"Am I accustomed to such people? In our city of Wilno the people are
civil and educated, not savages as here. Pfe!"
She sighed once more, continued her work mechanically, looking on the
town and swarming people with the same smile of satisfaction and
pride. Soon two men appeared in the door of the house. They were in
conversation, and passed swiftly by the piazza and without looking at
Pani Hannah they went in the direction of the Ezofowich house. Eli
Witebski, walking with Raphael across the square, did not at all
resemble his companion. Although a merchant, he represented quite a
different type of the Hebrew trader. He was evidently fashionable and
a dandy. His coat, although not entirely short, was a great deal
shorter than the halat which Raphael wore, and it was cut quite
differently. Across his silk waistcoat shone a thick gold chain, and
he wore a big diamond ring on his finger. His face was serene, his
eyes keen and penetrating. He had a small, yellowish beard to which
he often raised his diamond-ornamented hand by a slow and deliberate
movement.
He walked beside Raphael rapidly and with evident pleasure. At any
rate, there was not a merchant in all Szybow who would not make equal
haste if he were called by Saul Ezofowich. For ten years Saul had
retired from business, and, except to go to the synagogue, he never
left his house. But everyone who wished to draw from the treasures of
his great experience and equal keenness in business transactions came
to see him. Saul never refused advice, and even help, as far as he
was able to give it, without wronging his children And when he wished
to speak to some dignitary of the community, he called them to him
through his sons or grandsons and they hastened to him willingly.
Therefore, on being called by the old patriarch, Eli Witebski
hastened naturally. Smiling and radiant he entered the parlour, and
greeted the host:
"Scholem Alejhem!" (Peace to you). He did not greet anyone outside of
Szybow in such an old-fashioned way. On the contrary, he could say
very correctly, Gut morgen (Good morning), but his unshaken rule was
to accommodate himself to those with whom he had to deal.
Raphael wished to leave them, but Saul signed him to remain. They
carefully closed all the doors, and spoke together for quite a while.
But no matter how low they spoke, the frolicsome Lija, Raphael's
daughter, put her little nose to the closed door, and her dark eye to
the keyhole, and often heard repeated the names of Meir and Mera,
Witebski's daughter first, and then her own name and that of a
certain Leopold, Pani Hannah's cousin. She sprang from the door
covered with blushes, half-confused, and half-seized with a secret
joy, and then she constantly looked through the window to see as soon
as possible when her cousin returned.
The sun had begun to set when Witebski left the Ezofowich's house,
beaming, smiling, and evidently very much pleased with the
transaction, or, perhaps, two transactions closed at the same time.
Almost at the same moment Meir returned home. Lija rushed to meet
him, and, in the gate of the court-yard, placing her arm about his
neck, she whispered in his ear:
"Do you know, Meir, a great thing has happened to-day in our house.
Our zeide and my father spoke a long time with Eli Witebski, and they
came to an agreement about us. Witebski has promised his daughter to
you, and my father has promised me to Paul Hannah's nephew, who is
very well educated."
She whispered all this, blushing, and too confused to dare to raise
her eyes to her cousin's face. At once she felt that, by a sudden
movement, he slipped from her embrace, and, when she raised her eyes,
she saw Meir again leaving the gate of the house.
"Meir!" exclaimed the girl, in surprise, "where are you going? Are
you not going to have supper with us?"
The departing young man did not answer the girl's voice calling him
to the family table. A deep wrinkle angrily cut his forehead. Now he
understood the nothingness of his exclamation in the presence of his
grandfather: "I am no one's slave!" They disposed, without the
slightest regard for his will, of his future, of his family, and he
knew that the commands of the elders must be obeyed.
No! He shuddered to think that it must be so. Why? He did not know
the young girl Mera, who, somewhere in the world, was studying the
same things which he himself desired so much. But, walking through
the town and the empty fields separating it from the Karaim's Hill,
walking slowly, with hands behind him, and bent head, he thought
obstinately, almost mechanically, and incessantly, "I am no one's
slave!" Pride and the desire for freedom boiled in his heart, aroused
by some unknown source, probably those secret breaths of nature sown
in the fields by noble and strong spirits thirsting for liberty,
righteousness, and knowledge.
At the foot of the Karaim's Hill, in the hut which clung closely to
its sandy side, there burned a small, yellow light. Over it, through
the forked branches of the willow tree, shone many small stars, and
further on, over the great fields, lay the gray shadows of the dusk.
In the interior of the hut, against the low wall, was seated an old
man, working with the flexible willow branches. His figure was gray
in the dusk of the hut, and the features of the bent face could not
be seen. The tall, straight figure of a girl, with a thin face, sat
in a wooden chair near the flame of the candle. In one dropped hand
a spindle was softly twirling, and over her head was a board with a
big bunch of wool fastened to it. From the wall, where the old man
sat, came a hoarse, trembling voice:
"In the midst of the desert, so large that one could not see its end,
rose two mountains so high that their summits were hidden in the
clouds. The names of these mountains were Horeb and Sinai."
The voice became silent, and the girl, who listened gravely while she
spun, said:
"Zeide, speak further."
But at that moment a manly voice was heard at the open window.
"Golda!"
The spinner was neither frightened nor surprised at this sudden
pronunciation of her name by a strange voice. It might almost be said
that at any moment she expected to hear that voice, so gravely, and
with so little emotion did she rise and go to the window. Only her
eyes shone warmly under: the dark lashes, and her voice was
inexpressibly sweet when, standing at the lattice, she said softly:
"Meir! I knew that you would keep your promise and come."
"Golda," said the muffled voice from behind the window, "I came to
see you because to-day there is a great darkness before my eyes, and
I wished to look at you, that the world might become brighter to me."
"And why is it so dark to-day before your eyes?" asked the girl.
"A great sorrow has befallen me. Rabbi Todros has accused me of
wrongdoing before my zeide, and my zeide wishes to marry me."
He became silent and dropped his eyes. The girl did not move. Not the
slightest movement of her face or figure betrayed emotion--only her
swarthy and sun-burned face grew white.
"To whom does your zeide wish to marry you?" she asked, and her voice
had a gloomy sound.
"To Mera, the daughter of the merchant Witebski."
She shook her head.
"I don't know her."
Then she asked suddenly:
"Meir, are you going to marry her?"
The young man did not answer. Golda, however, did not ask him again.
Her swarthy forehead was bathed in a blush and an expression of great
bliss filled her eyes, for Meir's sweet, deep and at the same time
fiery look, rested on her face.
Both were silent, and amidst the tranquillity, interrupted only by
the rustling of the branches overhanging the roof, there was heard
again the hoarse and trembling voice of the old man sitting by the
wall.
"When Moses descended Mount Sinai, the thunders were silenced, the
lightning was quenched, the wind lay down, and all Israel rose as one
man and exclaimed with a great voice: 'Moses, repeat to us the words
of the Eternal!'"
Meir listened attentively to the old voice relating the history of
Israel. Golda looked at her grandfather.
"He always tells the different stories," she said. "I spin or lie at
his feet and listen."
"Meir," she added, with gravity in her look and her voice, "enter our
house and greet my grandfather."
In a few moments the door of the small hall creaked. Old Abel raised
his head from the willow branches, which his trembling but active
hand continually plaited, and seeing in the dark, the handsome figure
of the young man, he said:
"Who is there?"
"Zeide," said Golda, "Meir Ezofowich, son of the rich Saul, has come
to our house to greet you."
At the sound of that name pronounced by Golda, he shrunk against the
wall, suddenly raised himself and leaning with both hands on the
straw sheaf on which he sat, he stretched forward his yellow neck,
swathed in rags. This brought near the flame a head covered with
long, abundant white hair, and a small shrivelled face which was
almost hidden by an enormous beard. Golda spoke the truth when she
stated that her grandfather's hair had become white as snow from old
age, and coral-like red were his eyes from weeping. Now, from beneath
these swollen eyelids, the quenched pupils looked with an amazement
of fear at first, and then with a sudden lighting of indignation or
hatred.
"Ezofowich!" he exclaimed in a voice which was neither so hoarse nor
so trembling as before, "why have you come here and passed the
threshold of my house? You are a Rabbinit--foe--persecutor. Your
great-grandfather cast an anathema at my ancestors and turned their
temple into dust. Go from here. My old eyes shall not be poisoned by
looking at you."
While speaking the last words he stretched his trembling hand toward
the door through which the young man had entered.
But Meir stepped forward slowly, and bending his head before the
angry old man said:
"Peace to you!"
Under the influence of those sweet words, pronounced with sonority
and expressing a prayer for a blessing and concord, the old man
became silent, fell back on his seat, and only after a long while did
he begin to speak in a plaintive, pitiful voice:
"Why did you come here? You are a Rabbinit, and the great-grandson of
the powerful Senior. Your people will curse you if they see you pass
my threshold, for I am the last Karaite who remained here to watch
the ruins of our temple and the ashes of our ancestors. I am a
beggar! I am cursed by your people! I am the last of the Karaites!"
Meir listened to the old man's words in respectful silence.
"Reb," said he after a while, "I bend my head low before you because
it is necessary that justice be done in the world, and that the
great-grandson of the one who cursed should bow before the
great-grandson of the accursed."
Abel Karait listened attentively to these words. Then he was silent
for a while, as though he was pondering in his tired mind, over the
meaning of them. Finally he understood them entirely, and whispered:
"Peace be to you!"
Golda stood with her arms crossed on her bosom, looking on Meir as
pious people look on a holy image. Having heard the words of peace
from her grandfather's lips, she pushed toward Meir one of two
chairs, took as mall, shining pitcher and went into the hall.
Meir sat near the old man who was again busy with his work and
whispered something. After a while this whispering became louder
until it changed into a hoarse and trembling narrative. It seemed
that was his habit. He had plenty of stories in his head and heart,
and with them he brightened his miserable life.
Meir could not hear the first whispers, and only understood their
meaning when the old man began to speak louder:
"On the shores of Babylon they sat weeping, and the wind moaned in
their lutes, brought by them from their country, and in sadness they
hung them on the trees."
"And their masters came to them, and said: 'Take to your hands your
harps; play, and sing!' And they answered: 'How can we play and sing
in the land of exile, when our tongues are dried with great
bitterness and our hearts only know how to cry! Palestine!
Palestine!' But unto them their masters said: 'Take from the trees
your harps. Play and sing!'"
"Then Israel's prophets looked at one another and said: 'Who of us is
sure? Who will stand torture that we may not be made to play and sing
in the land of exile!'"
"And when their masters came to them the next day and said: 'Take
from the trees your harps; play and sing!' the prophets of Israel
raised their bloody hands and exclaimed: 'How can we take them, when
our hands are cut in two, and we have no fingers!'"
"The rivers of Babylon rustled aloud with great amazement and the
wind cried in the harps hanging on the trees, because the prophets of
Israel had cut their hands in two rather than be forced to sing in
the land of exile."
When Abel finished the last words of the old legend, Golda entered
the room. In one hand she held a tray made of straw, on which there
were two earthen cups. In the other hand she held a shining pitcher
filled with milk. In the door, which remained open behind her,
appeared the goat, whose whiteness stood out against the blackness of
the hall. The girl was dressed in a faded skirt, and her long black
tresses were thrown over the shoulders of the gray shirt which she
wore. She poured the milk into the cups and handed it to the guest
and her grandfather. She walked into the room quietly and lightly,
with a smile on her lips. Then she sat down and began to spin. The
room was in complete silence, and old Abel began to whisper some old
story. But soon his mouth closed, his hands dropped on the sheaf of
willow branches and his head rested motionlessly against the wall.
The goat disappeared from the threshold and for a while could be
heard her tramping in the little hall. Then everything became quiet.
The young people remained alone in the presence of the slumbering old
man and the stars which looked in through the low window, The girl
was spinning, gazing into the face of the young man who sat opposite
to her. He, with dropped, eyelids was thinking.
"Golda," said he, after a long while, "the prophets of Israel, who
cut their hands in two rather than be forced to play and be the
slaves of their masters, were great men."
"They did not wish to act against their hearts," answered the girl
gravely.
They were silent again. The spindle still turned in Golda's hand, but
less and less swiftly and more quietly. Gusts of wind blew through
the chinks in the wall and caused the yellow flame of the candle to
flicker.
"Golda," said Meir, "is it not frightful for you in this solitary
cabin, when the long fall and winter drop black darkness over the
earth, and great winds enter through the walls and moan about the
house?"
"No," answered the girl, "it is not frightful for me, because the
Eternal watches the poor huts standing in the darkness, and when the
winds enter here and moan, I listen to the stories zeide tells me,
and I do not hear their moaning."
Meir gazed pityingly into the face of the grave child. Golda looked
at him with motionless eyes, which shone like black, fiery stars.
"Golda," said Meir again, "do you remember the story of Rabbi Akiba?"
"I shall never forget it to the end of my life," she answered.
"Golda, could you wait fourteen years, like the beautiful Rachel?"
"I could wait until the end of my life."
She said this quietly and gravely, but the spindle slipped from her
hand and dropped.
"Meir," said she, so softly that the whispering of the wind almost
deafened her words, "you must promise me one thing. When you have a
sorrow in your heart, then come to our house. Let me know your every
grief, let zeide console you with his beautiful stories."
"Golda," said Meir, in a strong voice, "I would rather cut my hand in
two, as did the prophets of Israel, than act against my heart."
Having said this he rose and nodded to the girl.
"Peace to you!" he said.
"Peace to you," she answered softly, nodding to him slowly.
He went out, and after a while the girl rose, blew out the yellow
flame of the burned-out candle, and having wrapped herself in some
gray cloth, she lay down on the straw beside the sleeping old man.
She lay down, but for a long time she watched the shining stars.