Asriel's first Sabbath in the native place he was revisiting was
destined to be a memorable day in the annals of that peaceful little
town.
At the synagogue, during the morning service, he was not the only
object of interest. So far as the furtive glances that came through
the peepholes of the women's compartment were concerned, a much
younger guest, from a hamlet near by, had even greater magnetism than
he. Reb Lippe, for forty years the "finest householder" of the
community, expected to marry his youngest daughter to an _Illoui_ (a
prodigy of Talmudic lore), and he now came to flaunt him, and the
five-thousand rouble dowry he represented, before the congregation.
Only nineteen and a poor orphan, the fame of the prospective
bridegroom, as a marvel of acumen and memory, reached far and wide.
Few of the subtlest rabbinical minds in the district were accounted
his match in debate, and he was said to have some two thousand
Talmudical folios literally at his finger's ends. This means that if
you had placed the tip of your finger on some word of a volume, he
could have told you the word which came under your pressure on any
other page you might name. As we shall have to cultivate the young
man's acquaintance, let it be added that he was quite boyish of
figure, and that had it not been for an excess of smiling frankness,
his pale, blue-eyed face would have formed the nearest Semitic
approach to the current portraits of Lord Byron. His admirers deplored
his lack of staidness. While visiting at Pravly, in a manner, as the
guest of the town, he was detected giving snuff to a pig, and then
participating with much younger boys in a race over the bridge.
His betrothment to Reb Lippe's daughter was still the subject of
negotiation, and there were said to be serious obstacles in the way.
The prodigy's relatives were pleased with Reb Lippe's pedigree and
social rank, but thought that the boy could marry into a wealthier
family and get a prettier girl into the bargain. Nevertheless Reb
Lippe's manner at the synagogue was as though the engagement were an
accomplished fact, and he kept the young man by his side, his own
seat being next the rabbi's, which was by the Holy Ark.
Asriel, as a newcomer, and out of respect for his fabulous wealth, was
also accorded a seat of honor on the other side of the Ark. Before he
had expatriated himself his place used to be near the door--a
circumstance which was fresh in the mind of Reb Lippe, who chafed to
see him divert attention from the prodigy and his purchaser. Now Reb
Lippe was a proud old gentleman, too jealous of the memory of his
rabbinical ancestry and of his own time-honored dignity to give way to
a mere boor of a heckler, no matter how much American gold he had to
atone for his antecedents. Accordingly, when his fellow trustee
suggested that the American ought to be summoned to the reading of the
Third Section in the week's portion of the Pentateuch,--the highest
honor connected with the reading of the Law, and one for which the
visiting nabob was sure to pay a liberal donation,--the venerable
countenance turned crimson.
"Let the sections be auctioned off!" he jerked out.
The proceeding was seldom practiced on an ordinary Sabbath; but Reb
Lippe's will was law, as peremptory and irresistible as the Law of
Moses, with which it was now concerned. And so the worshipers
presently found themselves converted into so many eye-witnesses of a
battle of purses.
"Five gildens for the Third!" called out the weazen-faced little
sexton from the reading-platform, in the traditional sing-song that
became his draggling black beard so well. As a bona-fide business
transaction is not allowed on the holy day, even though the house of
God be the sole gainer by it, the sexton's figures were fictitious--in
so far, at least, as they were understood to represent double the
actual amount to be paid to the synagogue by the purchaser of the good
deed.
"Six gildens for the Third!" he went on in interpretation of a
frowning nod from Reb Lippe.
A contemptuous toss of Asriel's head threw another gilden on top of
the sum. Two other members signaled to the auctioneer, and, warming up
to his task, he sang out with gusto, "Eight gildens for the Third!"
Then came in rapid succession: "Nine gildens for the Third! Ten
gildens for the Third! Eleven gildens, twelve, thirteen, fourteen
gildens for the Third!"
The other bidders, one by one, dropped out of the race, and when the
sum reached sixty gildens the field was left to Reb Lippe and Asriel.
The congregation was spellbound. Some with gaping mouths, others with
absorbed simpers on their faces, but all with sportsman-like fire in
their eyes, the worshipers craned their necks in the direction of the
two contestants alternately.
The prodigy had edged away from his seat to a coign of vantage. He was
repeatedly called back by winks from his uncle, but was too deeply
interested in the progress of the auction to heed them.
"Seventy gildens for the Third! Seventy-one, seventy-two, three, four,
five, seventy-six, seventy-seven, eight, nine, eighty gildens for the
Third!"
The skirmish waxed so hot, shots flew so thick and so fast, that the
perspiring sexton, and with him some of the spectators, was swiveling
his head from right to left and from left to right with the swift
regularity of gymnastic exercise.
It must be owned that so far as mute partisanship was concerned,
Asriel had the advantage of his adversary, for even some of Reb
Lippe's stanchest friends and admirers had a lurking relish for seeing
it brought home to their leading citizen that there were wealthier
people than he in the world.
The women, too, shared in the excitement of the morning. Their windows
were glistening with eyes, and the reports of their lucky occupants to
the anxious knots in the rear evoked hubbubs of conflicting
interjections which came near involving the matronly assemblage in
civil war.
The Third Section brought some twenty-eight rubles, net. Asriel was
certain that the last bid had been made by him, and that the honor and
the good deed were accordingly his. When it came to the reading,
however, and the Third Section was reached, the reader called out Reb
Lippe's name.
Asriel was stupefied.
"Hold on! That won't do!" he thundered, suddenly feeling himself an
American citizen. "I have bought it and I mean to have it." His face
was fire; his eyes looked havoc.
A wave of deprecation swept over the room. Dozens of reading-desks
were slapped for order. Reb Lippe strode up to the platform, pompous,
devout, resplendent in the gold lace of his praying-shawl and the
flowing silver of his beard, as though the outburst of indignation
against Asriel were only an ovation to himself. He had the cunning of
a fox, the vanity of a peacock, and the sentimentality of a woman
during the Ten Days of Penance. There were many skeptics as to the
fairness of the transaction, but these were too deeply impressed by
the grandeur of his triumphal march to whisper an opinion. The prodigy
alone spoke his mind.
"Why, I do think the other man was the last to nod--may I be ill if he
was not," the _enfant terrible_ said quite audibly, and was hushed by
his uncle.
"Is he really going to get it?" Asriel resumed, drowning all
opposition with his voice. "Milk a billy-goat! You can't play that
trick on me! Mine was the last bid. Twenty-eight scurvy rubles! Pshaw!
I am willing to pay a hundred, two hundred, five hundred. I can buy up
all Pravly, Reb Lippe, his gold lace and all, and sell him at a loss,
too!" He made a dash at the reading-platform, as if to take the Third
Section by force, but the bedlam which his sally called forth checked
him.
"Is this a market-place?" cried the second trustee, with conscious
indignation.
"Shut the mouth of that boor!" screamed a member, in sincere disgust.
"Put him out!" yelled another, with relish in the scene.
"If he can't behave in a holy place let him go back to his America!"
exclaimed a third, merely to be in the running. But his words had the
best effect: they reminded Asriel that he was a stranger and that the
noise might attract the police.
At the same moment he saw the peaked face of the aged rabbi by his
side. Taking him by the arm, the old man begged him not to disturb the
Sabbath.
Whether the mistake was on Asriel's side or on the sexton's, or
whether there was any foul play in the matter, is not known; but
Asriel relented and settled down at his desk to follow the remainder
of the reading in his Pentateuch, although the storm of revenge which
was raging in his breast soon carried off his attention, and he lost
track.
The easy success of his first exhortation brought the rabbi to
Asriel's side once again.
"I knew your father,--peace upon him! He was a righteous Jew," he
addressed him in a voice trembling and funereal with old age. "Obey
me, my son, ascend the platform, and offer the congregation a public
apology. The Holy One--blessed be He--will help you."
The rabbi's appeal moved Asriel to tears, and tingling with devout
humility he was presently on the platform, speaking in his blunt,
gruff way.
"Do not take it hard, my rabbis! I meant no offense to any one, though
there was a trick--as big as a fat bull. Still, I donate two hundred
rubles, and let the cantor recite 'God full of Mercy' for the souls of
my father and mother,--peace upon them."
It was quite a novel way of announcing one's contribution, and the
manner of his apology, too, had at once an amusing and a scandalizing
effect upon the worshipers, but the sum took their breath away and
silenced all hostile sentiment.
The reading over, and the scrolls restored, amid a tumultuous acclaim,
to the Holy Ark, the cantor resumed his place at the Omud, chanting a
hurried _Half-Kaddish_. "And say ye Amen!" he concluded abruptly, as
if startled, together with his listeners, into sudden silence.
Nodding or shaking their heads, or swaying their forms to and fro,
some, perhaps mechanically, others with composed reverence, still
others in a convulsion of religious fervor, the two or three hundred
men were joined in whispering chorus, offering the solemn prayer of
_Mussaff_. Here and there a sigh made itself heard amid the monotony
of speechless, gesticulating ardor; a pair of fingers snapped in an
outburst of ecstasy, a sob broke from some corner, or a lugubrious
murmur from the women's room. The prodigy, his eyes shut, and his
countenance stern with unfeigned rapture, was violently working his
lips as if to make up for the sounds of the words which they dared not
utter. Asriel was shaking and tossing about. His face was distorted
with the piteous, reproachful mien of a neglected child about to burst
into tears, his twin imperials dancing plaintively to his whispered
intonations. He knew not what his lips said, but he did know that his
soul was pouring itself forth before Heaven, and that his heart might
break unless he gave way to his restrained sobs.
At last the silent devotions were at an end. One after another the
worshipers retreated, each three paces from his post. Only three men
were still absorbed in the sanctity of the great prayer: the rabbi,
for whom the cantor was respectfully waiting with the next chant, Reb
Lippe, who would not "retreat" sooner than the rabbi, and Asriel, who,
in his frenzy of zeal, was repeating the same benediction for the
fifth time.
* * * * *
When Asriel issued forth from the synagogue he found Pravly completely
changed. It was as if, while he was praying and battling, the little
town had undergone a trivializing process. All the poetry of
thirty-five years' separation had fled from it, leaving a heap of
beggarly squalor. He felt as though he had never been away from the
place, and were tired to death of it, and at the same time his heart
was contracted with homesickness for America. The only interest the
town now had for him was that of a medium to be filled with the rays
of his financial triumph. "I'll show them who they are and who Asriel
is," he comforted himself.
The afternoon service was preceded by a sermon. The "town preacher"
took his text, as usual, from the passage in the "Five Books" which
had been read in the morning. But he contrived to make it the basis of
an allusion to the all-absorbing topic of gossip. Citing the Talmud
and the commentaries with ostentatious profuseness, he laid particular
stress on the good deed of procuring a scholar of sacred lore for
one's son-in-law.
"It is a well-known saying in tractate _Psohim_," he said, "that 'one
should be ready to sell his all in order to marry his daughter to a
scholar.' On the other hand, 'to give your daughter in marriage to a
boor is like giving her to a lion.' Again, in tractate _Berochath_ we
learn that 'to give shelter to a scholar bent upon sacred studies, and
to sustain him from your estates, is like offering sacrifices to God;'
and 'to give wine to such a student is,' according to a passage in
tractate _Sota_, 'tantamount to pouring it out on an altar.'"
Glances converged on Reb Lippe and the prodigy by his side.
Proceeding with his argument, the learned preacher, by an ingenious
chain of quotations and arithmetical operations upon the numerical
value of letters, arrived at the inference that compliance with the
above teachings was one of the necessary conditions of securing a
place in the Garden of Eden.
All of which filled Asriel's heart with a new dread of the world to
come and with a rankling grudge against Reb Lippe. He came away from
the synagogue utterly crushed, and when he reached his inn the prodigy
was the prevailing subject of his chat with the landlord.
V
In the evening of the same day, at the conclusion of the Sabbath, the
auction of another good deed took place, and once more the purses of
Reb Lippe and Asriel clashed in desperate combat.
This time the good deed assumed the form of a prodigy of Talmudic
learning in the character of a prospective son-in-law.
The room (at the residence of one of the young man's uncles) was full
of bearded Jews, tobacco smoke, and noise. There were Shaya, the
prodigy himself, his two uncles, Reb Lippe, his eldest son, and two of
his lieutenants, Asriel, his landlord, and a matchmaker. A live
broad-shouldered samovar, its air-holes like so many glowing eyes,
stood in the centre of the table. Near it lay Flora's photograph,
representing her in all the splendor of Grand Street millinery.
The youthful hero of the day eyed the portrait with undisguised,
open-mouthed curiosity, till, looked out of countenance by the young
lady's doleful, penetrating eyes, he turned from it, but went on
viewing it with furtive interest.
His own formula of a bride was a hatless image. The notion, therefore,
of this princess becoming his wife both awed him and staggered his
sense of decorum. Then the smiling melancholy of the Semitic face
upset his image of himself in his mind and set it afloat in a haze of
phantasy. "I say you need not look at me like that," he seemed to say
to the picture. "Pshaw! you are a Jewish girl after all, and I am not
afraid of you a bit. But what makes you so sad? Can I do anything for
you? Why don't you answer? Do take off that hat, will you?"
Reb Lippe's daughter did not wear a hat, but she was not to his
liking, and he now became aware of it. On the other hand, the word
"America" had a fascinating ring, and the picture it conjured was a
blend of Talmudic and modern glory.
Reb Lippe's venerable beard was rippled with a nervous smile.
"Yes, I am only a boor!" roared Asriel, with a touch of Bounderby
ostentation. "But you know it is not myself I want the boy to marry.
Twenty thousand rubles, spot cash, then, and when the old boor takes
himself off, Shaya will inherit ten times as much. She is my only
child, and when I die--may I be choked if I take any of my houses into
the grave. Worms don't eat houses, you know."
The quality of his unhackneyed phrase vexed the sedate old talmudists,
and one of them remarked, as he pointed a sarcastic finger at the
photograph:--
"Your girl looks like the daughter of some titled Gentile. Shaya is a
Jewish boy."
"You don't like my girl, don't you?" Asriel darted back. "And why,
pray? Is it because she is not a lump of ugliness and wears a hat? The
grand rabbi of Wilna is as pious as any of you, isn't he? Well, when
I was there, on my way here, I saw his daughter, and she also wore a
hat and was also pretty. Twenty thousand rubles!"
By this time the prodigy was so absorbed in the proceedings that he
forgot the American photograph, as well as the bearing which the
auction in progress had upon himself. Leaning over the table as far as
the samovar would allow, and propping up his face with both arms, he
watched the scene with thrilling but absolutely disinterested relish.
After a great deal of whispering and suppressed excitement in the camp
of Asriel's foe, Reb Lippe's son announced:--
"Ten thousand rubles and five years' board." This, added to Reb
Lippe's advantages over his opponent by virtue of his birth, social
station, and learning, as well as of his residing in Russia, was
supposed to exceed the figure named by Asriel. In point of fact,
everybody in the room knew that the old talmudist's bid was much
beyond his depth; but the assemblage had no time to be surprised by
his sum, for no sooner had it been uttered than Asriel yelled out,
with impatient sarcasm:--
"Thirty thousand rubles, and life-long board, and lodging, and bath
money, and stocking darning, and cigarettes, and matches, and mustard,
and soap--and what else?"
The prodigy burst into a chuckle, and was forthwith pulled down to his
chair. He took a liking to the rough-and-ready straightforwardness of
the American.
There was a pause. Shaya and his uncles were obviously leaning toward
the "boor." Asriel was clearly the master of the situation.
At last Reb Lippe and his suite rose from their seats.
"You can keep the bargain!" he said to Asriel, with a sardonic smile.
"And be choked with it!" added his son.
"What is your hurry, Reb Lippe?" said one of the uncles, rushing to
the old man's side with obsequious solicitude. "Why, the thing is not
settled yet. We don't know whether"--
"_You_ don't, but I do. I won't take that boy if _he_ brings twenty
thousand roubles to _his_ marriage portion. Good-night!"
"Good-night and good-year!" Asriel returned. "Why does the cat hate
the cream? Because it is locked up."
An hour afterward the remainder of the gathering were touching
glasses and interchanging _mazol-tovs_ (congratulations) upon the
engagement of Flora Stroon to Shaya Golub.
"And now receive my _mazol-tov_!" said Asriel, pouncing upon the
prodigy and nearly crushing him in his mighty embrace. "_Mazol-tov_ to
you, Flora's bridegroom! _Mazol-tov_ to you, Flora's predestinated
one! My child's dear little bridegroom!" he went on, hiding his face
on the young man's shoulder. "I am only a boor, but you shall be my
son-in-law. I'll dine you and wine you, as the preacher commanded,
pearls will I strew on your righteous path, a crown will I place on
your head--I am only a boor!"
Sobs rang in the old man's voice. The bystanders looked on in smiling,
pathetic silence.
"A boor, but an honest man," some one whispered to the uncles.
"A heart of gold!" put in the innkeeper.
"And what will Flora say?" something whispered to Asriel, from a
corner of his overflowing heart. "Do you mean to tell me that the
American young lady will marry this old-fashioned, pious fellow?"
"Hold your tongue, fool you!" Asriel snarled inwardly. "She will have
to marry him, and that settles it, and don't you disturb my joy. It's
for her good as well as for mine."
With a sudden movement he disengaged his arms, and, taking off his
enormous gold watch and chain, he put it on Shaya, saying:--
"Wear it in good health, my child. This is your first present from
your sweetheart. But wait till we come to America!"
* * * * *
The next morning Asriel visited the cemetery, and was overawed by its
size. While living Pravly had increased by scarcely a dozen houses,
the number of dwellings in silent Pravly had nearly doubled.
The headstones, mostly of humble size and weatherworn, were a solemn
minority in a forest of plain wooden monuments, from which hung, for
identification, all sorts of unceremonious tokens, such as old tin
cans, bottomless pots, cast-off hats, shoes, and what not. But all
this, far from marring the impressiveness of the place, accentuated
and heightened the inarticulate tragedy of its aspect. The discarded
utensils or wearing apparel seemed to be brooding upon the days of
their own prime, when they had participated in the activities of the
living town yonder. They had an effect of mysterious muteness, as of
erstwhile animated beings,--comrades of the inmates of the overgrown
little mounds underneath, come to join them in the eternal rest of the
city of death.
"Father! Father!" Asriel began, in a loud synagogue intonation, as he
prostrated himself upon an old grave, immediately after the cantor had
concluded his prayer and withdrawn from his side. "It is I, Asriel,
your son--do you remember? I have come all the way from America to ask
you to pray for me and my child. She is a good girl, father, and I am
trying to lead her on the path of righteousness. She is about to marry
the greatest scholar of God's Law hereabouts. Do pray that the boy may
find favor in her eyes, father! You know, father dear, that I am only
a boor, and woe is me! I am stuffed full of sins. But now I am trying
to make up and to be a good Jew. Will you pray the Uppermost to accept
my penance?" he besought, with growing pathos in his voice. "You are
near Him, father, so do take pity upon your son and see to it that his
sins are forgiven. Will you pray for me? Will you? But, anyhow, I
care more for Flora--Bloome, her Yiddish name is. What am I? A rusty
lump of nothing. But Flora--she is a flower. Do stand forth before the
High Tribunal and pray that no ill wind blow her away from me, that no
evil eye injure my treasure. She lost her mother when she was a baby,
poor child, and she is the only consolation I have in the world. But
you are her grandfather--do pray for her!"
Asriel's face shone, his heavy voice rang in a dismal, rapturous,
devotional sing-song. His eyes were dry, but his soul was full of
tears and poetry, and he poured it forth in passionate, heart-breaking
cadences.
"What is the difference between this grass blade and myself?" he
asked, a little after. "Why should you give yourself airs, Asriel?
Don't kick, be good, be pious, carry God in your heart, and make no
fuss! Be as quiet as this grass, for hark! the hearse is coming after
you, the contribution boxes are jingling, the Angel of Death stands
ready with his knife--Oh, do pray for your son, father!" he shrieked,
in terror.
He paused. A bee, droning near by, seemed to be praying like himself,
and its company stirred Asriel's heart.
"Oh, father! I have not seen you for thirty-five years. Thirty-five
years!" he repeated in deliberate tones and listening to his own
voice.
"We are the thirty-five!" some distant tombstones responded, and
Asriel could not help pausing to look about, and then he again
repeated, "Thirty-five years! Can I never see you again, father? Can't
I see your dear face and talk to you, as of old, and throw myself into
fire or water for you? Can't I? Can't I? Do you remember how you used
to keep me on your knees or say prayers with me at the synagogue, and
box my ears so that the black year took me when you caught me skipping
in the prayer-book? Has it all flown away? Has it really?"
He paused as though for an answer, and then resumed, with a bitter,
malicious laugh at his own expense: "Your father is silent, Asriel!
Not a word, even if you tear yourself to pieces. All is gone,
Asrielke! All, all, all is lost forever!"
His harsh voice collapsed. His speech died away in a convulsion of
subdued sobbing. His soul went on beseeching his father to admit him
to the restful sanctity of his company.
When Asriel rose to his feet and his eye fell upon a tombstone
precisely like his father's, he frowned upon it, with a sense of
jealousy. On his way to his mother's grave, in the older part of the
cemetery, he ever and anon turned to look back. His father's tombstone
was rapidly becoming merged in a forest of other monuments. His dead
father, his poor father, was losing his individuality, till he was a
mere speck in this piebald medley of mounds, stones, boards, and all
sorts of waste. Asriel felt deeply hurt. He retraced his steps till
his father's resting-place once more became the centre of the world.
Then he went to pay his respects and tears to the graves of his
mother, sisters, brothers, uncles. At last, completely exhausted, he
took to walking among the other headstones. As he stopped to make out
their Hebrew inscriptions, he would now hang his head, in
heart-wringing reminiscence, now heave a sigh, or clap his hands, in
grievous surprise.
The tombstones and tomb-boards were bathed in the reddish gold of the
late afternoon sun. Asriel had not yet broken his fast, but although
shattered in body and spirit he felt no hunger and was reluctant to
leave the graveyard. He found here more of his contemporaries that he
well remembered, more of the Pravly of his time, than in the town a
verst or two away. The place asserted a stronger claim upon him and
held him by the force of its unearthly fascination.
When he reached town at last, he felt new-born. Pravly was again dear
to his heart, although Flora and America drew him to them with more
magnetism than ever. He strove to speak in soft accents, and went
about the houses of his relatives and the poor of the town,
distributing various sums and begging the recipients of his gifts "to
have pity and not to thank him," lest it should detract from the value
of his good deed.
Then he went to make peace with Reb Lippe.
"You are going to stay here, so you can get another prodigy," he
pleaded humbly. "But one cannot get such goods in America. Besides,
you can read Talmud yourself, while I am only a boor, and what have I
done to make sure of my share in the world to come? Here are three
hundred rubles for charity. Do forgive me, Reb Lippe, will you? What
will you lose by it?"
There were others in the room, and the unique pathos of the plea
touched and amused them at once. Reb Lippe was moved to the point of
tears. Moreover, the present situation took the venom out of his
defeat.
"I forgive you with all my heart," he said impulsively, patting "the
boor" as he would a child. "Be seated. May the Uppermost bring you
home in peace and bless the union. There is another young man who is
worthy of my daughter; and Shaya--may the Holy One--blessed be
He--grant him the will and the power to spread His Law in America. The
Jews there want a young man like him, and I am glad he is going with
you. You are taking a precious stone with you, Reb Asriel. Hold it
dear."
"You bet I will," Asriel replied gleefully.