time will come," I said, "when no one will keep the Sabbath and the
Passover, when we will not eat unleavened bread or believe in God." Just
then the teacher who gave us religious instruction came in. He had
evidently listened to what I said, and, taking me by my curly hair,
proceeded to drag me out of my seat and make a prophecy which is much
more likely to come true than my own. "When you are dead and gone," he
said, "and the worms shall have eaten your body, millions of people will
keep the Sabbath and the holy days; and the time will _never_ come when
men will not believe in God." Then he demanded that I recant my
unbelief, but being of fairly stern stuff, I refused. He then told me to
lie down on a chair, and drew forth a grape-vine switch, the customary
instrument of punishment. Again he commanded that I take back what I had
said and again I refused, and the switch descended upon me. This order
of exercises was repeated until I felt the trickling blood on my back,
but not until I rolled from the chair half lifeless, did he stop the
"torture of the heretic." I did not say anything to my mother about it,
but when I went to bed, she discovered my blood-stained clothing and
knew by the groans I could not suppress and by my fever, that I was in
great pain. The next day the doctor came and the news of my punishment
spread through the town. The candy-maker, the direct cause of my
suffering, called on me and after hearing my side of the story, left the
house in a boiling rage. He went directly to school and thrashed the
teacher so fiercely that he was in bed nearly as long as I was. Thus
justice seemed to be meted out.
Some time after this, the candy-maker became ill from a painful and
torturing disease. Death was coming in a very grim way to claim him. One
day he sent for me. I was shocked by his wasted frame, his face pale and
haggard, and his eyes looking into another world. He took both my hands
and drew me to him, half over the bed, so that my face touched his bushy
beard, and with trembling lips he began to make amends for the wrong he
had done me. Trying to lead my own wayward little soul back the same way
his was travelling, he said: "My boy, there is a God and I always knew
it; I denied Him with my lips, but in my heart I felt Him. I denied Him
and Heaven and Hell, because I had grievously sinned against Him years
ago, and I wanted to make myself believe that there was no God to
punish, and no Hell in which to suffer. Now I can see it all, as clear
as day." Then, embracing me with his trembling arms, he continued, "I
denied my Saviour, Jesus, and that's the greatest sin of all; for He
loves me, poor, wretched sinner, and I don't dare die without telling
you how grievously I offended Him."
A paroxysm of pain took hold of him and they sent for the priest, that
he might administer the last communion. I left the room, but lingered in
the workshop, among half-finished cakes and dried up candy papers. My
eyes wandered to the Bohemian newspapers, pamphlets and books, many of
which I had read, and whose half-truths and lies had so misled me. Then
came the solemn tinkling of bells, which announced the coming of the
priest and the acolytes. I can hear it now--a high note and a low-toned
bell, and the shuffling steps of those who came to minister in the name
of a forgiving God. An austere look this smoothly shaven priest wore; as
if he were a judge rather than an advocate. I followed him into the
sick-room but I do not recall a word he said; yet the solemn chanting
melody of those Latin phrases I have often in my ears. He left, and
again the high note and low-toned bell--dying away in the distance.
I stayed in that room until dusk; I think I waited more than two hours,
and all the time the sick man cried in varying tones of agony:
"_Yeshishe! Yeshishe! Boshe muy! Boshe muy!_" "Jesus, my Jesus!" "My
God! My God!"
Then there was silence and the watchers lighted the candles.
XIII
MY FIRST LIBRARY
In a country where brass buttons, gold braid and epaulets are of supreme
consequence, the man who bore all these insignia of office was an
important individual indeed. Of such a man our town boasted.
Sheriff--Justice of the Peace--Tax-gatherer, he felt the weight of his
onerous duties, or rather he let those feel it who did not pay proper
respect to his lordship--the "_Kisbir_"--as this manifold official was
called.
The sound of his drum woke the sleepy town, for it meant that such news
as it needed to hear would be announced. Much too long for the
news-hungry crowd did he continue the imperative beat upon his drum, and
it was at such a time, when I crowded too close to him, that he played
with his drumsticks on my head and did it hard enough to make a decided
impression.
There were usually three classes of news announced: First: news of the
state, which meant taxes; the date of prescription, or some new law to
be enforced. Second: news of the church, which related to feast or fast
days; local news which concerned lost dogs and their owners, cattle
which had been prematurely killed, whose meat was for sale at reduced
prices, and lastly, the sale of property left by those who had no
further use for their feather-beds, wash-tubs, sheepskin coats and
kindred mundane things.
On this particular day, the crier informed us that the state would send
its examining officers on the 26th of April and that all men of military
age must present themselves at the town hall (which made mothers and
sweethearts tremble and weep). He then announced that the late
candy-maker's estate would be brought under the hammer, and that all
those who cared to buy his furniture, tools of his trade or anything
pertaining thereto, were invited to be at the market-place in front of
the statue of St. Florian, at ten o'clock the next morning.
Of course, I felt myself personally concerned and while I should not
have hesitated to buy some of the remnants of the candy-maker's stock in
trade, what I really wanted, and wanted with all my heart, was his books
and papers, reposing in a case, which I also coveted. The man who
attended such auctions, as his business, was a Jew of unsavoury
reputation, who kept a pawnshop and had all the characteristics which
are supposed to go with that calling. He was there the next morning by
St. Florian and with unerring eye had picked out the things which were
worth buying. I was sure that among them was the attractive bookcase,
upon which my eyes lovingly rested. I had no money, beyond the few
pennies which mother gave me and which I always managed to spend; so I
appealed to my brother, to whom I painted in alluring colours the wealth
of literature contained in that library.
Feather-beds, tables and benches, cake pans and what not were scattered
among the Gentile buyers without serious competition, but the fate of
the bookcase, for which my brother began to bid, hung long in the
balance--because when the pawnbroker discovered that another Jew wanted
it, he scented big values. Not until the fabulous sum of twenty
_florins_ was reached did the drumstick fall, bringing the coveted
treasure into my possession.
And what a commotion those books caused in our immediate family. My
pious uncle was notified by the disappointed pawnbroker that a veritable
arsenal of infidelity had come into my possession, and way into the
small hours of that night the battle raged around it. The little
bookcase stood upon the parlour table, its sliding doors warped just
enough not to move without serious exertion on my part; but each book
was visible through the glass which had been washed and scrubbed for the
first time in many years. While mother herself had many misgivings about
the books, she resisted my guardian's attempt to destroy them, and that
very night, by the light from our new coal-oil lamp, I took an inventory
of my first library. A bound volume of the Gartenlaube, a German
illustrated weekly, in which I followed Marlitt's sentimental stories to
their happy endings; a set of the works of Zschoke, a half forgotten
Swiss author, whose stories and sketches teemed from the altruistic
motive; Don Quixote, whose satire and irony I did not then understand;
Auerbach's village stories, which not only disclosed to me
sympathetically the virtues of German peasant folk, but helped me to
follow their fortunes in America. This edition was illustrated, and on
the banks of the Ohio, where the hero of that story had settled, the
artist had drawn a tropic jungle of palms and bamboo, within which
crouched fierce lions and fiercer looking wild men. That, however, was
not the only time I found text and illustrations at logger-heads.
Of Schiller there was a broken set, "The Robbers," "The Maid of
Orleans," and his early poems; of Goethe only the first part of "Faust,"
which I learned by heart, and each word of it has remained in my memory
till now. The book which most impressed me and had the largest influence
upon my life was Lessing's "_Nathan der Weise._"
That drama of tolerance came to me with all its prophetic vigour; it
spoke to me as I felt I must some day speak, and the story of the three
rings, spoken by the Jew Nathan, has remained the pivotal point of my
philosophy of religion.
Unfortunately I fell heir in this collection to many books which were
coarse in their language and brutal in their attack upon religion and
certain phases of morality. They helped to confuse an already
overstrained mind and awakened the man in me long before nature intended
that I should cease to be a boy. Among the papers I found a number of
copy-books, written full and close. They were an attempt at a diary or
autobiography, written at odd times. Their frequent perusal made me so
moody and introspective that my mother hid them from me and gradually I
forgot all about them. Two years ago I visited my sister who has
inherited the homestead and who, with rare filial devotion, has
preserved the familiar objects of our childhood's life; although
civilization has brought to our town modern furniture, antique rugs and
even sectional bookcases, which have claimed much room for themselves.
Upon the same table, I found the same bookcase and the same books--the
latter all intact; for the generation of youth which followed me has
become thoroughly Magyarized and is proud of the fact that it can't read
German.
Every page to which I turned spoke to me, recalling my bitter-sweet
boyhood, and I recognized that, after all, these books were the compass
which guided my early life, although so often it seemed without
guidance, and many a time was fast upon the rocks. There I also
discovered the long-lost copy-books. They were wrapped in a Bohemian
newspaper and tied by mother's fingers with a bit of broad, white tape.
I transcribe some parts of this autobiography; for the candy-maker, too,
struggled against the current and helped draw me into the stream. Much
of what he wrote is unprintable, for after all, he tried to write an
honest autobiography. What I translated I have left unaltered, for it
sounded so natural. He spoke as abruptly and to the point as he wrote.
XIV
THE CANDY-MAKER'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
"Man, Know Thyself.
"I am not writing this because I ever expect any man to read it; if I
were not so sure of that, I would not write so frankly as I do. Even as
it is, I am not sure that I am going to tell everything about myself,
for to be frank with one's self is very hard.
* * * * *
"I was born in a small village in Northern Bohemia. My father was a
shoemaker, who had travelled a great deal as a journeyman. He spoke a
broken German and, of course, the Czechish. He always smelled of
alcohol, tobacco and leather. When he was sober he was gloomy, and if
any one made a noise or displeased him in the least, he would grow angry
and throw a boot or a last at him. When he was drunk he was jovial, sang
lustily and was very affectionate. At such times my mother submitted to
his embraces, but as soon as I was strong enough to run away from him, I
ran; for his vile smell offended me. I think he loved me--in some such
fashion as a man loves a dog, and it offended him because I would not be
fondled by him.
"There is no such thing as natural affection; I certainly did not love
my father. My mother I pitied. She was always bearing children--children
she did not want--and not one of us ever thanked her for bringing him
into the world.
"What men call love is lust,--what women call love is the natural desire
for offspring.
* * * * *
"I was nine years of age when I got drunk. My father ordered me to drink
and I drank as much as he wanted me to. When I got sober I hated my
father for I knew he had wronged my nature; but I craved drink and I
pretended to love him. He taught me that the Germans were the enemies of
the Czechs, and that I must hate them. He gave me a glass of beer for
throwing a stone into a German house. He told me that the Jews killed
our God and that they were cursed by God for doing it. He gave me a
glass of beer for taking pig's blood and marking crosses on the doors of
the Jews.
"It is a poor God who lets Himself be crucified and a poorer God who
curses His children.
"At twelve I was apprenticed to a baker. For a whole year I carried the
baker's baby and did the drudgery of the household. The second year I
carried rolls and bread from house to house and to the inns. I cheated
the baker whenever I could. He gave me four _kreutzers_ on Sunday for
spending money. I needed more and got it. I was as honest as he.
"This is the refuge of criminals and while it is not a safe one as far
as the law is concerned, it is a good salve for one's conscience. At
sixteen I went on the road, ostensibly looking for work, but I was
looking at life. I discovered that the Germans, whom my father had told
me to hate, had been taught by their fathers to hate me. Patriotism is
an artificial virtue.
* * * * *
"At Bamberg I was thrown into jail, and a common woman was arrested with
me. When I came out of jail she was waiting for me. She gave me a
pocketbook with five marks in it. She had stolen it--for me. I did not
take it and I did not go with her. She wept and tore her hair; she said
she loved me.
"A harlot who sells herself for money to many men is no worse than the
woman who sells herself to one man.
"I did not go with her because I could not match her devotion. After
all, there is something in love; it sobered me.
* * * * *
"I went to work with a Jewish baker. He did not get drunk and he did not
beat his wife; when he looked at her his face beamed and he was kind to
her always. She was sick and he carried her to her bed as if she were a
baby--her body was shrivelled. It wasn't lust he felt, perhaps it was
pity. He told me she had been sick since their only child was born.
Miriam was sixteen years of age and pity does not last sixteen years. It
must have been something better than pity.
"Miriam was growing into womanhood. It seemed that every day I saw her
she grew lovelier. Yet I never thought about her body; it was her mind.
She taught me how to read German--she opened the doors of a new world to
me. We read many good books together. She told me to go to the theatre.
I saw Romeo and Juliet.
* * * * *
"It was not Miriam's mind after all--it was something else. I know it
was not her body--I desired something more. I loved her.
"I spoke to her father--he told me that I could not marry her for I was
a Christian. I went to the rabbi. I wanted to be a Jew so I could marry
her.
"It is hard to get into Judaism. I wonder whether it is hard to get out?
"A little drop of water makes a man a Christian no matter what he was.
The Jews want blood.
"I was willing to give it but the baker journeymen heard about it and I
was called before the guild. They drowned my love with beer. They
awakened the beast within me. I became like my father--'_Bestia Sum._'
"In the year 1865 war broke out and I, as an Austrian subject, was sent
across the border. I was drafted into the army and taught how to kill
the Prussians. That was all I seemed good for, and I did it as fast as
the Prussians would let me. They had better guns and were sober; they
had generals, we had the Hapsburghs.
"The Hapsburghs said, 'Let them come in,' and the generals came. Then
the Hapsburghs said: 'We'll drive them out,' but they didn't. This was
our last stand and we capitulated. I have stayed here ever since.
"I have capitulated to the Germans, to force and to reason. I shall
never capitulate to the priest and to the church."
But he did.
XV
THE AMERICANS
The town was looking up indeed; progress, that ceaseless traveller, who
seems to skip continents and countries while appearing in remote towns
or villages, came to us out of the same land from which had come
coal-oil lamps, sewing-machines and the three-quarters of a man.
One day there alighted from the omnibus a man and his family, consisting
of his wife, two sons and one daughter. When the man had shaken his
cramped body into shape, he began to abuse the driver of the omnibus,
the town and the country; while with a mighty oath composed of the
hottest words taken from various tongues, he declared that he would send
the omnibus to the scrap heap, the owner of that wretched vehicle to the
poorhouse, and the driver to jail. Thinking over it now in my maturer
years, I realize that they richly deserved his anathemas, although at
that time, in common with our townsfolk, I thought the man presumptuous
in criticizing this ark of ours, with its leather-covered body and the
mud-bespattered lettering which declared in three languages that it was
an omnibus and that it connected our town with the far-away railroad,
which it reached in time to catch the mixed train for Vienna. It did not
set forth that it rarely arrived at Hodowin in time, which meant a
wearisome wait of many hours in an ill-smelling waiting-room; nor did it
tell of the terrors of the journey, of the driver who made it
uncomfortable for the passengers by asking them to alight and push,
unless he got a generous "_Trinkgeld_," and it certainly never told or
could tell of the rapacious owner, who exercised all his powers as a
monopolist over a defenseless public.
The strangers were expensively attired. From the man's shirt bosom
flashed the first diamond I ever remembered seeing, and the woman had
similar glittering stones in her ears. I was at once attracted by the
boys, who, contrary to custom, jumped through the window of the omnibus
to the ground without the aid of the foot-rest. This seemed to me a
dangerous performance; but when the girl followed her brothers in the
same fashion, all the onlookers including myself were shocked. My hungry
brain or soul or whatever a boy may call the self, scented in these
newcomers unusual mortals, and I was not disappointed.
The family came from an American city not many hundreds of miles from
where I am now writing. The father had left there, ostensibly on
account of the rigours of the climate, but when visiting the town myself
in later years, I found that his leaving was not a matter of climate but
of police record. The family planned to remain until the father's health
was restored; which meant until a new and less rigorous administration
should come into power where his misdeeds had been perpetrated.
Originally he had been in the whiskey distilling business, which in
Hungary, by its nature, encouraged roving and lawlessness. Both these
qualities carried him to the United States, where evidently he had
prospered but not reformed, and he was now back from where he started.
The children had English names: Henry, Arthur and Maud. The girl's name
sounded very strange when pronounced by those of us who did not know
anything of the mysteries of the English language.
The boys were soon the terror of the town and the surrounding villages.
They belied their Jewish ancestry both in their looks and their
behaviour and broke through all barriers of race and class, proving a
leavening influence for good or ill, according to the views held, to the
boyhood of their generation.
To run races or to play ball were unknown pleasures, especially to the
sedate Jewish lads. To play Indian, plan semi-serious hold-ups, to go
about with bows and arrows and a self-conscious swagger--these were
virtues or vices so new that the whole region seemed to be turned
topsyturvy, and everybody but myself heaved a sigh of relief when the
strangers were gone. From these boys I learned a few English phrases,
the first being contained in the classic lines of "Yankee Doodle." Many
a puzzling thought I gave to those euphonious words "doodle" and
"macaroni," whose meaning could not be translated to me, even by the
boys, who could repeat the whole song forward and backward. Above all I
bless their memory for having brought into my life Cooper's
"Leatherstocking Tales," which they owned in a large, illustrated,
German edition. That ozone from free airs stirred my whole system and
seemed to purify me of all inborn fears and littleness. I felt the glow
of camp-fires, the joy of the chase, the hardships of adventure, the
fierceness of battles and battle-cries. I cast off, as if by magic, the
burdens imposed upon me by race and faith, and became a pioneer in an
untracked wilderness; I drew the first plow-share over my prairie farm
and defended my blockhouse against the redskins; yes, even the fear of
guns was taken from me, for I went with those American boys (carrying a
borrowed gun, which was against the law) and killed a cat. With steady
hand, I pulled the trigger while one of the lads held the ancient
weapon. Then we proceeded to scalp the animal and did it, I suppose,
Indian fashion. The height of surprises to our Jewish community came,
when the younger of the boys climbed a May-pole without apparent effort,
after the Gentile lads had failed. How I trembled and triumphed for him,
as the tree swayed with him at its graceful top; how proud I felt as he
waved the ribbon he had taken from the goal, and when he reached earth
again he seemed to have redeemed me from the reproach against my race;
for the peasants said: "See what this Jewish boy did!" "How skillful he
is and how brave!" I basked for a long time in the radiance of his
triumph.
The father's influence on the adult male population was not quite as
revolutionary or as wholesome. He had many tales to tell of far-away
America, and in increasing numbers the younger men would gather with him
at the inn, listening to his stories while he drew them into a friendly
game of cards. To this day, in a small and reckless circle, the game of
poker survives, although I suppose it is changed by its environment. By
his convivial ways he also attracted the sporting element among the
young Magyars who, like most mortals, lose their race prejudice in
social excesses. If there was anything in the calendar of vices which
was new and promised new sensations, the American visitor taught it to
them, and they were apt pupils. No doubt it was this good fellowship
which introduced him into our national politics. As he made his début in
the first election for Parliament which I witnessed, and no doubt the
first in which American methods played an important part, it is worth
describing.
At that time there were two parties in Hungary; the Government party and
the Opposition. It was a foregone conclusion that the Government
candidate would be elected: First, because the Government wanted him
elected; second, because it completely controlled the machinery of the
election. I doubt that any of the voters knew the difference between
their parties, or if they cared to know. The Government prepared for a
peaceful election. Tri-coloured flags, which pledged the peasants who
had a right to franchise, were fastened to the straw-thatched roofs of
the whole district and apparently nothing remained but the formality of
counting the votes on election day. Suddenly there appeared, in
ever-increasing numbers, the flags of the Opposition. Young stump
speakers climbed upon fences sheltering images of the saints, or even
upon their shoulders, and harangued the crowd. The inns were full of
voters who drank palenka, which flowed as freely as water. Torchlight
processions were formed and I owe my first sight of fireworks to this
same exciting season, the stirring events of which linger so plainly in
my memory. At last the Government party awoke to the fact that it would
not have the usual "walk-away," and when election day came, soldiers,
both cavalry and infantry, marched into town. It was a fairly safe
assurance that the _election_ would go the right way, no matter which
way the _votes_ went. The town square was divided into halves by the
infantry, and the whole surrounded by Hungarian Hussars whose gay
uniforms dazzled the eyes.