"TO MY DEAR SON,
"I send you--'_roubles_,' and beg of you, my dear son, to do me the
favour, and come home for the Passover Festival. It is a disgrace
to me in my old age. We have one son, an only child, and we are not
worthy to see him. Your mother also asks me to beg of you to be
sure to come home for the Passover. And you must know that Busie is
to be congratulated. She is now betrothed. And if the Lord wills
it, she is going to be married on the Sabbath after the Feast of
Weeks.
"From me,
"YOUR FATHER."
This is the letter my father wrote to me. For the first time a sharp
letter--for the first time in all those years since we had parted. And
we had parted from one another, father and I, in silence, without
quarrelling. I had acted in opposition to his wishes. I would not go his
road, but my own road. I went abroad to study. At first my father was
angry. He said he would never forgive me. Later, he began to send me
money.
"I send you--'_roubles_,'" he used to write, "and your mother sends you
her heartiest greetings."
Short, dry letters he wrote me. And my replies to him were also short
and dry:
"I have received your letter with the--'_roubles_.' I thank you, and I
send my mother my heartiest greetings."
Cold, terribly cold were our letters to one another. Who had time to
realize where I found myself in the world of dreams in which I lived?
But now my father's letter woke me up. Not so much his complaint that it
was a shame I should have left him alone in his old age--that it was a
disgrace for him that his only son should be away from him. I will
confess it that this did not move me so much. Neither did my mother's
pleadings with me that I should have pity on her and come home for the
Passover Festival. Nothing took such a strong hold of me as the last few
lines of my father's letter. "And you must know that Busie is to be
congratulated."
Busie! The same Busie who has no equal anywhere on earth, excepting in
the "Song of Songs"--the same Busie who is bound up with my life, whose
childhood is interwoven closely with my childhood--the same Busie who
always was to me the bewitched Queen's Daughter of all my wonderful
fairy tales--the most wonderful princess of my golden dreams--this same
Busie is now betrothed, is going to be married on the Sabbath after the
Feast of Weeks? Is it true that she is going to be married, and not to
me, but to some one else?
* * *
Who is Busie--what is she? Oh, do you not know who Busie is? Have you
forgotten? Then I will tell you her biography all over again, briefly,
and in the very same words I used when telling it you once on a time,
years ago.
I had an older brother, Benny. He was drowned. He left after him a
water-mill, a young widow, two horses, and one child. The mill was
neglected; the horses were sold; the young widow married again and went
away somewhere, far; and the child was brought home to our house.
That child was Busie.
And Busie was beautiful as the lovely Shulamite of the "Song of Songs."
Whenever I saw Busie I thought of the Shulamite of the "Song of Songs."
And whenever I read the "Song of Songs" Busie's image came up and stood
before me.
Her name is the short for Esther-Liba: Libusa: Busie. She grew up
together with me. She called my father "father," and my mother "mother."
Everybody thought that we were sister and brother. And we grew up
together as if we were sister and brother. And we loved one another as
if we were sister and brother.
Like a sister and a brother we played together, and we hid in a
corner--we two; and I used to tell her the fairy tales I learnt at
school--the tales which were told me by my comrade Sheika, who knew
everything, even "_Kaballa_." I told her that by means of "_Kaballa_," I
could do wonderful tricks--draw wine from a stone, and gold from a wall.
By means of "_Kaballa_," I told her, I could manage that we two should
rise up into the clouds, and even higher than the clouds. Oh, how she
loved to hear me tell my stories! There was only one story which Busie
did not like me to tell--the story of the Queen's Daughter, the princess
who had been bewitched, carried off from under the wedding canopy, and
put into a palace of crystal for seven years. And I said that I was
flying off to set her free.... Busie loved to hear every tale excepting
that one about the bewitched Queen's Daughter whom I was flying off to
set free.
"You need not fly so far. Take my advice, you need not."
This is what Busie said to me, fixing on my face her beautiful blue
"Song of Songs" eyes.
That is who and what Busie is.
And now my father writes me that I must congratulate Busie. She is
betrothed, and will be married on the Sabbath after the Feast of Weeks.
She is some one's bride--some one else's, not mine!