Against the Current Part 3

"You are not, you cannot be! No Jew ever drinks _palenka_."

"Boy," he replied, pushing aside the empty bottle, "I am three-quarters of a man, but not even one-quarter a Jew. I have been to war, where I lost my arm and leg, and I have been in America, where I lost my Judaism." Then with an air of abandonment, he ordered a pork roast for his dinner.

I was grievously shocked, and to save even the remnant of a Jew in him, I suggested that he go home with me and eat a good, _kosher_ Sabbath dinner. Hospitality is a virtue of the Jewish home, and there was scarcely a Sabbath meal without some unfortunate at our table. I felt sure that mother would not object to this guest, especially if I made it clear to her that I had saved the man from eating pork roast.

I remember most vividly my going home with this Jewish soldier and the pride I felt in walking beside a man who had come from America. Doors and windows were opened, while black-eyed maidens and gray-haired matrons craned their necks to get a glimpse of the stranger. All that blessed Sabbath our house was the centre of attraction, and hundreds of inquiries had to be answered.

"Who was he?" An old townsman who, years ago, ran away from home, and after many adventures landed in America. He enlisted in the Federal army, was discharged, pensioned and had come home to die.

"Aye! Aye!" the townspeople said. "Who would have thought that one of us should come from America!"

That same day the bra.s.s-bound trunk was brought to our house, for mother took pity on the homeless man and told him to stay with us. She hoped to keep him from drinking _palenka_ and eating pork. The latter was not difficult, but the _palenka_--that was impossible.

"The bra.s.s-bound trunk no doubt holds his treasures," the neighbours said. Treasures indeed! His discharge from the army, which was framed and hung over his bed, a second suit of blue, a huge flag--the Stars and Stripes--a history of the Civil War in German, a book called "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and the picture of a sad-faced man.

Every day I heard about the land of freedom from one who had been there, the German book I soon knew by heart, the flag I learned to love, and Abraham Lincoln, the sad-faced man, took the place of our patriarch Abraham in my heart and imagination.

"How is it," I asked the old soldier, "that this man, who was a Christian, was called Abraham?"

"My boy," he said, "he was a Christian; but he was as good a Jew as the patriarch Abraham. The great lawgiver, Moses, led his own people out of bondage; this man led a strange, African race out of slavery." Then he read and translated to me "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and I have never forgotten a single incident in that vivid story. So thoroughly was I imbued by its spirit, that I gathered a group of boys to whom I preached my first revolutionary sermon. I pictured to them the sufferings of our poor and the harshness of our government as typified by the vicious judge and the cruel and venal police. I tried to exact an oath from the boys to help me free these peasant slaves and, if necessary, fight the judge and the police.

Fortunately for the government, my cla.s.smates would not enthuse; instead, they told the teacher, who tried to whip my revolutionary ideas out of me, and when I reached home almost too sore to walk, I found great comfort in looking into the sad face of Abraham Lincoln, my patron saint and the inspirer of my pa.s.sion for the common people.

"Uncle Joe," as the old soldier wished to be called, drank _palenka_ heavily and almost constantly; the three-quarters of a man wasted away until he was scarcely half a man, and we knew and he knew that the end was not far away. I was in his room one Sat.u.r.day afternoon; my mother sat beside him holding his thin, bony hand and he was quite sober, as I believe he had not often been since coming to us.

"You think I am a bad man," he said to my mother. "I drink, I smoke on the Sabbath, I do not lay the phylacteries. I am a bad man; but I have fought, I have suffered cold and hunger and I have fallen into bad habits.

"I think G.o.d will forgive me. I know He will if He is anything like Abraham Lincoln. He forgave me once. I was about to be shot," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "He forgave me, and when I come before Jehovah I shall call for Abraham Lincoln. He spoke a good word for me once--he will do it again."

The old soldier looked around the room and his glance rested appealingly on the face of the sad-eyed man who had borne the sufferings and agonies of many men.

"Give that picture to the boy who brought me to you--let him have the book also. The flag you must wrap me in; let it be my shroud. My discharge I want buried with me and let them fire a salute over my grave; for it will be a soldier's grave."

Coming home the next day at noon, I heard the pious men of our community repeating verses spoken at the bedside of the dying. It was a weird lamentation that went up from those hoa.r.s.e-throated men, and in the tumult of voices affirming faith in the G.o.d of Israel, "Uncle Joe's"

soul took its flight.

To induce the pious men, whose consent was necessary, to wrap his body in the Stars and Stripes, was difficult, but was finally accomplished through my mother's importunity. The firing of the salute was out of the question, for no Jew owned a gun, and it would be sacrilege to hire a Gentile to use one.

The solemn procession came to the cemetery with its burden and they buried him after the manner of the Jews. But hardly had the last man left the grave when three shots were fired, startling young and old alike.

Istvan, the Hungarian shepherd, once a soldier himself, had yielded to my entreaties and paid this last tribute to a warrior.

Istvan was fined and imprisoned for shooting within the limits of the cemetery; I too was punished, and the common suffering created fellowship between us. Over and over again, while he was watching his sheep, I told him the story of the life and death of Abraham Lincoln.

"Too bad," he would say, "that he had a Jewish name. Too bad that his name was Abraham."

VII

THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER

No man of another race than my own spoke kindly to me after I had developed some sense of race consciousness. "Little Jew" was the mildest term in which I was addressed, and it ranged to the cruel "Christ-Killer"--a rather questionable term to apply to a seven-year-old lad, who could not have looked very ferocious, with his blue eyes and his shock of curly blond hair. I knew I was guiltless of the last appellation, even if I understood its meaning, which I doubt; but I was quite sure I was a little Jew and every time I was called that, it hurt, as if I were smitten by a lash. I cannot help wincing yet when the word Jew is applied to me; I suppose it hurt because it was meant to. It is the mental att.i.tude of the other man which makes me sensitive, rather than the name itself, which was one to conjure with through many a Golden Age.

One man--the only man who took me for just the boy I was and treated me as such--was the miller; and because he treated me kindly, and heroically controlled the rush of the mill-race and the turning of the mighty water-wheels, I placed him in my mind next to Jehovah in power.

Whenever I try to visualize heaven, I invariably see the miller's bleached face (which looked like one of the rolls baked from his flour) smiling at me from amongst the crowd of saints and I seem to hear him saying, as he used to say: "h.e.l.lo, little fellow, come in and see my little girl and talk German to her." That is just how he greeted me one day when decorously lifting my cap and saying in good German, "Guten Morgen, Herr Muller," I pa.s.sed tremblingly over the bridge, underneath which the water rushed tumultuously, ready to do the miller's bidding in turning the huge wheels. What connection the wheels had with the endless clatter within I did not yet know; other mysteries were to disclose themselves first. There were the pigeons in their nests, and he lifted me high towards them and laughed when my outstretched hand was quickly withdrawn; for a mother bird did not like my intrusion. There was his hunting dog, which jumped at me and nearly frightened me out of my wits, but who merely wanted to tell me in his dog fashion that, as far as he was concerned, he had no race prejudices. And we were close friends--this dog and I--even related, later, for one of its young became my own--the only pet of my childhood.

I have some definite impressions of a peculiar, large living-room, which seemed rocked by the rattling mill. I can recall certain pictures on the wall, for the Jewish home was devoid of such ornaments and these were the first secular pictures I had seen. There were German battles and portraits of Bismarck and the Prussian king. Four or five lads, sons of the miller, stood about and seemed to delight in my presence. All of them looked bleached, like the miller, and Martha, the only daughter, was of the same type; but lovely to me as a fairy, with her long, flaxen hair which hung heavily below her waist. Her rather pale and delicate face and her large, blue eyes fascinated me.

That living-room became the birthplace of my Germanic ideals--there I first heard the name of Bismarck, for the miller was a German to the core, and from him I heard wonderful anecdotes about Frederick the Great. There also I read with Martha the love-songs of Heine, Schiller and Goethe, declaiming them to her, no doubt, in the most sentimental manner. Out of it all grew a love life, so mystic and beautiful that I think of it every time the spring comes and I smell the faint tree odours in the early April days. Martha was about five years older than I, but she was more than twice as old in her physical and mental maturity, and I watched her growth with ill-concealed jealousy. The rounding of her form into womanhood caused me excruciating suffering. In frightful rage I once tore from her one of Schiller's most sentimental ballads, which some young sprig had copied for her, and I forbade her to read it. I do not remember what she said or did but she was so gentle and sweet about it that I was heartily ashamed of myself.

I felt her slipping away from me and almost gone, when one night she went to a ball at the "Aristocratic Club." Through one of the windows to which I had climbed I watched her dancing, and was twice thrown down by some Gentile lads, who expressed themselves quite freely as to the business a little Jew had looking in at Gentile folks' b.a.l.l.s. I had a deep impression that dancing as I saw it was not right. I cannot explain what I felt. I certainly was too young to see any immorality in it; but my intuitions were so strong that afterwards I felt as if Martha had either done a great wrong or that she had been grievously wronged. I think I must have inherited deep puritanic tendencies; for the orthodox Jew is puritanical, and although my mother allowed my sisters to dance, I know that she did not give her permission until after a great struggle. Once, I scarcely know how old I was, certainly not more than five, my sister was going to a ball in a rather decollete gown, and her bare neck and arms so offended me that I forbade her going. When she dragged me away from the door to which I barred her way, I scratched her arm so badly that she had to remain at home. I have good reason to remember that event, for my older brother beat me so badly for the cowardly act that I did not sleep all night and had opportunity to repent. I did not embrace the opportunity for I felt that I had suffered in a good cause.

The miller's daughter was lost to me in more than one way. Young sn.o.bs hung about when I came to call and "snubbed" me until I had no more courage to return. I suppose a year or more had pa.s.sed since I had called on her, when I heard a rumour that she was ill. She had caught cold at a dance, I overheard the women say, and they were feeding her on raw eggs and a certain drink called chocolate, and that was a sign of wasting disease. One day her younger brother, a boy of about my own age, called for me. He said that his sister was dying and wished to see me.

My beloved mother, who had smiled many a time over my devotion to the miller's daughter, and had never opposed my visiting her but rather encouraged it on account of the German I spoke there, knew the solemnity of the occasion and saw to it that I was properly attired on this my last visit. The mill wheels were silent, the only time that I ever knew them so. The pigeons and rabbits were there, more numerous than ever, and the miller's hunting dog, dear old friend that he was, greeted me fondly. The miller for once was not dusty from flour and his face did not resemble a penny roll. He looked like a crushed man and when he saw me, his huge breast laboured as if the pent-up pain were ready to burst it. He made some inarticulate sounds as if he were trying to weep and could not. It was the first time I had seen a man suffer great heart agonies, and it tortured me. They led me into Martha's bedroom. How wasted she was! Her blue eyes seemed strangely aglow, her nose so much larger than I had ever thought it, and her poor emaciated fingers picked at the bedclothing which covered her. I do not remember what she said, whether she spoke of living or dying. I just felt the pressure of the pain, and before they led me away I threw myself by her bed crying, and then a strange thing happened; her burning lips were upon my hot forehead, and her poor, thin fingers moved through my hair. I felt as if it were spring time again, as if we were looking for the fragrant violets which grew by the mill-race; and the sweet odour of trees seemed to fill the air.

I left the room bathed in hot tears, those very hot, scalding tears, which come from the very depths of one's being, and as I went crying through the streets, a hoyden, a woman of ill repute--the lowest of the low--caught me and asked: "Little boy, why are you crying?" Then she too kissed me on the forehead. Truly, the very good and the very bad have no race prejudice.

VIII

THE FALL OF THE GOOSE GIRL

Back of our house was a long row of tenements, inhabited by the poorer cla.s.s of Gentiles. These peasants were at the verge of starvation, although usually in the summer and autumn they lived rather comfortably, indulging in such luxuries as _palenka_, salt pickles and smoked bacon, heavily covered by paprika. If in the winter they had cabbage soup and a scanty potful of beans they were fortunate; while only an occasional midnight incursion into some more fortunate neighbour's kitchen brought a hasty mouthful of meat. My mother owned the tenements and as a result there was a certain deference paid me by these peasants, especially in the winter time, when I did not treat my mother's well-stocked larder too honestly, answering their appeal for food.

Three races were represented by these tenants of ours; Slovaks, Magyars and Gypsies. The last named were the musicians of the town and had given up their nomadic habits, while the first two were almost literally "the hewers of wood and drawers of water." I was on the best terms with the Gypsies, especially with one who played the cornet and played it with all the fervour of his Gypsy nature. Whatever musical education I have, I purchased its beginning from him, paying in b.u.t.tered rolls and Sabbath cakes for Schubert's Serenade and the Swan Song from Lohengrin--two of my favourite songs even yet. The goose girl's parents were our tenants during this period. Her father was a pseudo Magyar: that is, a Slav who had changed his name and swore in the Magyar language while he continued to drink _palenka_ like the Slovak he was, and beat or otherwise abused his family like the brute who is pretty much alike among all the fallen children of men. The goose girl had long ago stopped herding geese. She had been a nurse-maid and later a very indifferent house servant, accused by her many mistresses of theft, lying and excessive vanity. To the last named quality of her nature I could have borne abundant evidence, for she persuaded me on a moonlight night to bring her one of my younger sister's ball dresses, which she put on in the shadow of a pear tree standing far back in our garden. As she emerged into the moonlight, looking to me like a fairy princess, she demanded my obeisance, and made me call her "Kis Aszonka," which is the Hungarian term for a young lady of the upper cla.s.s and is never applied to a peasant girl. As a peac.o.c.k spreads his feathers, so the goose girl spread the train of my sister's gown, dragging it over the dewy gra.s.s, much to my dismay then and more to my sorrow the next day, when my sister discovered the green spots upon her best gown.

Not long after this, I heard that my childhood's friend had run away from home. Her father cursed more than usual, her mother cried and the neighbours said: "I told you so." When later I asked her father what had become of his daughter he replied: "I suppose she has gone to the devil."

I do not know how long a time had pa.s.sed since her disappearance, when a certain spring came with unusual rapture, swept across the meadows, drove the ice out of the river in a night and climbed the foothills of the Carpathians, leaving the big mountains still covered by snow. It was a Sunday and May-day, the Gypsies had gone to the houses of the n.o.bility and also to the lesser folk, in whose pockets they suspected small change which they would lure out by their stirring music. The peasant lads had gathered at the inn and were boasting of their prowess in climbing May-poles and of their eagerness to climb an unusually tall and smooth one, at whose top tempting prizes of coloured neckerchiefs and bottles of _palenka_ awaited the man who could make his boast true. The room in which the peasants gathered was a bare one, although a few coloured prints of anaemic-looking saints hung upon the once whitewashed wall. In one corner on the beaten earth floor was a bundle of straw which served as beds for poorer wayfarers, while the better furnished adjoining room was reserved for the higher cla.s.s of guests, none of whom had yet arrived, as it was still early. Even when a boy I had a curious interest in people and always disregarded cla.s.s distinctions. I wanted to see that May-day celebration as the peasants saw it. I wasn't merely curious; I know that I celebrated with them. I felt sorry if the rain spoiled their holidays and that day was unusually happy because the weather was fine. A square-jawed, heavy-faced lad, whom my mother had hired to work in the field, was my sponsor and guide. He wore his very best and most gorgeous garments and from his rakish hat hung rather defiantly the feather of a c.o.c.k with whose erstwhile owner, this youth, whose name was Shimek, shared his predilection for a fight. "First music, then a fight and after the fight, a girl to love." This was Shimek's Sunday program, although to do him justice, he went to church in the morning. One must not believe, though, that he was seriously concerned about his soul; for the plan of salvation, if he ever thought of it, was expressed by him in the song, sung by just such youths through many generations:

"He who can dance well And payeth the fiddler Angels will lift him Up into heaven."

While they had no fiddler to make merry for them, they had the goose girl's father--who could evoke music out of a threshing flail. This he did by rubbing the flail over one of his fingers which he held on the table. The result was a rumbling sound, not unlike the monotonous notes of a ba.s.s viol. In a quavering voice he began singing to his accompaniment a familiar song, the swinging melody of which was s.n.a.t.c.hed from his lips by the ever ready Shimek, who knew every song born in the merry heart of the Slovak and who taught me many of them, none of which I have forgotten. This is the song he sang:

"On the white mountain The peasant ploweth, Has a fine daughter, Grant her me, Heaven!"

All the half-drunk guests sang the chorus:

"Hey, zuppy, zuppy, zupp, Grant her me, Heaven!

Hey, zuppy, zuppy, zupp."

Above the noisy chorus came the rumbling of Matushek's improvised instrument which he rubbed over his fingers until the blood came spurting out. Even then he would not stop, until every verse was sung: