"Quicker, Busie, quicker!" I said to her the day before the
"_Shevuous_." I took her by the hand, and we went quickly up the hill.
"The day will not stand still, little fool. And we have to climb such a
high hill. After the hill we have another stream. Over the stream there
are some boards--a little bridge. The stream flows, the frogs croak, and
the boards shake and tremble. On the other side of the bridge, over
there is the real Garden of Eden--over there begins my real property."
"Your property?"
"I mean the Levada--a big field that stretches away and away, without a
beginning and without an end. It is covered with a green mantle,
sprinkled with yellow flowers, and nailed down with little red nails. It
gives out a delicious odour. The most fragrant spices in the world are
there. I have trees there beyond the counting, tall many-branched trees.
I have a little hill there that I sit on when I like. Or else, by
pronouncing the Holy Name, I can rise up and fly away like an eagle,
across the clouds, over fields and woods, over seas and deserts until I
come to the other side of the mountain of darkness."
"And from there," puts in Busie, "you walk seven miles until you come to
a little stream."
"No. To a thick wood. First I go in and out of the trees, and after that
I come to the little stream."
"You swim across the water, and count seven times seven."
"And there appears before me a little old man with a long beard."
"He asks you: 'What is your desire?'"
"I say to him: 'Bring me the Queen's daughter.'"
Busie takes her hand from mine, and runs down the hill. I run after her.
"Busie, why are you running off?"
Busie does not answer. She is vexed. She likes the story I told her
excepting the part about the Queen's daughter.
* * *
You have not forgotten who Busie is? I told you once. But if you have
forgotten, I will tell you again.
I had an older brother, Benny. He was drowned. He left after him a
water-mill, a young widow, two horses, and a little child. The mill was
neglected; the horses were sold; the widow married again, and went away,
somewhere far; and the child was brought to us. This child was Busie.
Ha! ha! ha! Everybody thinks that Busie and I are sister and brother.
She calls my mother "mother," and my father "father." And we two live
together like sister and brother, and love one another, like sister and
brother.
Like sister and brother? Then why is Busie ashamed before me?
It happened once that we two were left alone in the house--we two by
ourselves in the whole house. It was evening, towards nightfall. My
father had gone to the synagogue to recite the mourners' prayer after my
dead brother Benny, and my mother had gone out to buy matches. Busie and
I crept into a corner, and I told her stories. Busie likes me to tell
her stories--fine stories of "_Cheder_," or from the "Arabian Nights."
She crept close to me, and put her hand into mine.
"Tell me something, Shemak, tell me."
Softly fell the night around us. The shadows crept slowly up the walls,
paused on the floor, and stole all around. We could hardly, hardly see
one another's face. I felt her hand trembling. I heard her little heart
beating. I saw her eyes shining in the dark. Suddenly she drew her hand
from mine.
"What is it, Busie?"
"We must not."
"What must we not?"
"Hold each other's hands."
"Why not? Who told you that?"
"I know it myself."
"Are we strangers? Are we not sister and brother?"
"Oh, if we were sister and brother," cried Busie. And I imagined I heard
in her voice the words from the "Song of Songs," "O that thou wert as
my brother."
It is always so. When I speak of Busie, I always think of the "Song of
Songs."
* * *
Where was I? I was telling you of the eve of the "_Shevuous_." Well, we
ran down hill, Busie in front, I after her. She is angry with me because
of the Queen's daughter. She likes all my stories excepting the one
about the Queen's daughter. But Busie's anger need not worry one. It
does not last long, no longer than it takes to tell of it. She is again
looking up at me with her great, bright, thoughtful eyes. She tosses
back her hair and says to me:
"Shemak, oh, Shemak! Just look! What a sky! You do not see what is going
on all around us."
"I see, little fool. Why should I not see? I see a sky. I feel a warm
breeze blowing. I hear the birds piping and twittering as they fly over
our heads. It is our sky, and our breeze. The little birds are ours
too--everything is ours, ours, ours. Give me your hand, Busie."
No, she will not give me her hand. She is ashamed. Why is Busie ashamed
before me? Why does she grow red?
"There," says Busie to me--"over there, on the other side of the
bridge." And I imagine she is repeating the words of the Shulamite in
the "Song of Songs."
"Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the
villages.
"Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish,
whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth."
And we are at the little bridge.
* * *
The stream flows; the frogs croak; the boards of the little bridge are
shaking. Busie is afraid.
"Ah, Busie, you are a---- Why are you afraid, little fool? Hold on to
me. Or, let us take hold of one another, you of me, and I of you. See?
That's right--that's right."
No more little bridge.
We still cling to one another, as we walk along. We are alone in this
Garden of Eden. Busie holds me tightly, very tightly. She is silent, but
I imagine she is talking to me in the words from the "Song of Songs":
"My beloved is mine, and I am his."
The Levada is big. It stretches away without a beginning and without an
end. It is covered with a green mantle, sprinkled with yellow flowers,
and nailed down with red nails. It gives out a delicious odour--the most
fragrant spices in the world are there. We walked along, embraced--we
two alone in the Garden of Eden.
"Shemak," says Busie to me, looking straight into my eyes, and nestling
still closer to me, "when shall we start gathering the green boughs for
the '_Shevuous_'?"
"The day is long enough, little fool," I say to her. I am on fire. I do
not know where to look first, whether at the blue sky, or the green
fields, or over there, at the end of the world, where the sky has become
one with the earth. Or shall I look at Busie's shining face--into her
large beautiful eyes that are to me deep as the heavens and dreamy as
the night? Her eyes are always dreamy. A deep sorrow lies hidden within
them. They are veiled by a shade of melancholy. I know her sorrow. I am
acquainted with the cause of her melancholy. She has a great grief in
her heart. She is pained because her mother married a stranger, and went
away from her for ever and ever, as if she had been nothing to her. In
my home her mother's name must not be mentioned. It is as if Busie had
never had a mother. My mother is her mother, and my father is her
father. They love her as if she were their own child. They fret over
her, and give her everything that her heart desires. There is nothing
too dear for Busie. She wanted to go with me to gather green boughs for
the Festival decorations (I told her to ask it), and my father said to
my mother:
"What do you think?" He looked over his silver spectacles, and stroked
the silver white hair of his beard. And there went on an argument
between my father and mother about our going off outside the town to
gather green boughs for the "_Shevuous_."