Against the Current Part 9

Once we went to the village of Deephole. The wretched _isbas_ crowded about the village church. Pigs, babies and geese bathed indiscriminately in the muddy pond; wrinkled, toothless old women were breaking flax, while drunken peasants reeled out of the inn towards which we did not need to inquire our way.

Two rickety steps led up to the door, on which was a faded sign, stating that the government gave license for the sale of tobacco. A shrill bell announced our coming when we opened the door. The air was heavy from ill-smelling tobacco smoke, which helped to make the other stenches at least bearable. A wooden enclosure, reaching from the beaten earth floor almost to the ceiling, fenced in the bar, where a Gentile girl measured out _palenka_, for on the Sabbath a Jew may not engage in business; hence the proxy. Watching her, as an eagle watches her prey, was the Jewess, her smooth false front and clean dress being signs of the holy day.

When she recognized my mother she fell weeping upon her neck; mother wept too, although not knowing why and I began to whimper and cry in sympathy. The Gentile bar maid took an ancient looking stick of candy out of an open jar and, giving it to me, a.s.suaged my grief. The Jewess locked the bar, temporarily suspending business, and drew my mother into the adjoining living-room, a third of which was occupied by a bake-oven, which served as bed for a fair share of the large family. On top of the oven lay the husband--paralyzed. His black eyes seemed to be the only members of his body that he could move and they were pathetic in their mute helplessness and appeal for sympathy. I caught but s.n.a.t.c.hes of the story as it was told my mother. It was all about our "Sabbath boy." "He ran away from home--the father, G.o.d forgive him, was too hard on him."

Not a line came from him--not a sign of life. When the peasants came home from their annual pilgrimage to the Shrine at Maria's Bosom, they told how they had seen a freckled, hook-nosed acolyte there, who looked just like the little "_schid_" that ran away. The same evening his father started for the town, walking, without stopping and without eating. Day after day the mother waited but no word came from her husband. She closed her home and started after him, taking the children with her. When they came to the town and inquired for him, she was led to a hospital in which Sisters of Charity walked about noiselessly. "So kind they were to think of it," and they took her gently to a cot on which lay the motionless body of her husband. All he said, and that in a laboured, painful whisper, was: "Hashel has been baptized." There the story ended, and as various things needed to be done for the sick man, mother did them.

Then she took my hand and led me back. Not once did she permit me to pluck a flower, or chase a rabbit, and for a good many Sabbaths after that I did not go beyond the rabbinic limit.

XIX

A SECTARIAN CONTROVERSY

Eight o'clock on a winter's evening. Officially it was night and the silence was broken by the night watchman's horn--a long, tubular instrument, made from the bark of a tree. The official night lasted until four o'clock in the morning, and from 8 P. M. to 4 A. M. the hours were more or less regularly announced by these same doleful blasts. They were intended to serve various purposes. First, of course, to a.s.sure old and young that the arm of the law watched over them and that its eyes were open; which, however, was not always true. Secondly, to warn evil intentioned persons; which no doubt it accomplished, for the blasts could be heard miles away. Lastly, they were intended to indoctrinate all of us, religiously and patriotically; for after each hour's call, the watchman sang a song which varied much according to whether Roman Catholics or Lutherans were in power; whether Slav or Magyar held the reigns of local government.

The song as I first knew it was something like this, and was sung in Slavic.

"The day has gone, the night is here, The work is done, oh! do not fear.

Saint Florian your house will keep, Saint Johan he will guard your sleep, Saint Nep.o.r.nuk will watch the streams.

The saints, they all will pray for you, The Virgin intercede for you, Now go to sleep, the Lord's awake, And plan no sin, for Jesus' sake."

I am sure there were two closing lines which summed up the prevailing theology, but I do not remember them.

For many years, this orthodox song put us to sleep, and a similar one, just as piously solicitous, awakened us, and neither Lutheran nor Jew objected to its Roman Catholic phraseology. With the general nationalistic awakening, however, there was a closer drawing of religious and racial lines, and when the town elected a Lutheran Burgomaster, he appointed a night watchman who also was a Lutheran.

While there was no change in the blasts from the wooden horn our slumber song was robbed of its poetry. Into the night the watchman called a few cold verses in which neither Saint nor Virgin had a part. Hardly had he thus boldly shown his departure from the traditions of the past, when a well-aimed stone struck his lantern and another one his head. He was stripped of his halberd, the symbol of his office, and left unconscious through many an hour, while the town remained unguarded against its invisible foes.

The next day, the Burgomaster was besieged by requests from the priest and many important citizens of the town to reinstate the Catholic watchman; but this he refused to do. The same night the watchman was guarded by the _Kisbir_ until past midnight, and was unmolested as, protected, he blew the hours. He did not blow the waking hour, for after his guard left him his Catholic enemies fell upon him again and he was too badly beaten to rise from the ground. That day he resigned his office and the Catholic watchman patrolled the streets. It was a great relief, even to a non-partisan Jew, to hear the skillful blast and the good-night song with all its saintly flourishes. I went to sleep at nine, but no one heard the ten o'clock horn. The watchman was beaten insensible by the Lutherans, who were practicing the Mosaic law--"an eye for an eye." For many weeks the battle raged, until a compromise was made. The watchman was to sing his Catholic song only in front of the priest's house, that of the _Pany_ and a few other dignitaries. The Lutheran song was to be given before the Lutheran parsonage and such houses as he knew to be safely heretical. He was allowed full liberty in the Jewish part of the town. This worked fairly well the first and second nights, but the third night, many of the citizens met to celebrate the peace achieved, and the night watchman drank first with a Catholic and then with a Protestant and when he went out into the night he blew his blasts erratically; faintly at first, afterwards as if not quite sure of the number blown--then he began to sing--the full old version of his song--in front of the Lutheran pastor's house. Recovering himself, he sang it in its abbreviated and rationalistic form, on the market-place and in front of the _Pany's_ house.

At nine o'clock he was surrounded by a crowd of loafers, who led him up and down the town, blowing his nine blasts, and after each one giving full swing to the old time song which now had become a battle-cry. At ten a larger crowd rescued him from amidst his co-religionists, and after each blast made him sing the Lutheran version; at eleven o'clock they still held him. At twelve the Magyar youths took him in hand and compelled him to sing a Magyar song. They kept him until two, when the combined Lutheran forces took possession of him and at four he was permitted to waken the already sleepless town. The next night the watchers and defenders of the faith heard the eight too hoos, but no song. Nine o'clock and again the ominous silence; at ten an awful howl arose, which came from Catholics, Lutherans, Magyars and Slavs. A fearful thing had happened--the Burgomaster had appointed a Jewish night watchman and before morning every window in every Jewish home was broken--a pious and gentle protest against this insult to Christendom.

The Jew threw away his horn and halberd and another took his place, but he had solved the problem. Night was never again officially announced by a song; all one heard was the eight doleful blasts and then silence until it was time to blow the other hours. That was the first time in my life that I thought seriously about the problems of Christian unity.

XX

THE HOUSE OF THE POOR

The poor who lived in "The House" were few, for the Jewish home is rarely broken up, no matter how galling the poverty, and family ties bind and obligate its stronger members even through far removed cousinships. The permanent residents were:--Two old, scolding, toothless women, an epileptic boy--some one's illegitimate offspring, a burden to himself more than to any one else, and the caretaker, who was also grave-digger, his wife and children. The House of the Poor was open day and night to those who wander up and down the land; unfortunates, wanderers, beggars, paupers, who keep Jewish benevolence active, often straining it to the breaking point.

The _Schnorer_, as he is called, is a gentlemanly sort of beggar. He is rarely in rags, is tolerably clean, and every house in which a Jew lives is his; he enters it without knocking--never asks for alms, yet is always sure of a gift. He does not tell a hard luck story, but should he tell one, it would be an almost exact duplicate of that which another _Schnorer_ had told before him. It is a story which has as its key-note persecution; its minor details are: destruction of house by fire, blindness, consumption, and the begging of a dowry for a marriageable daughter. These are some of the ills of Judaism, which chronically afflicted those who pa.s.sed through the House of the Poor. I heard them tell of the fires of hate, which destroyed straw-thatched cottages, business, virtue, old age and youth. I heard racking coughs, felt the groping touch of the blind, and listened to wise men trying to balance this world upon the needle points of rabbinic exegesis. I do not recall that I ever saw a cheerful face nor heard laughter, nor do I remember that any one wept. After all, misfortune was to many a business a.s.set, even as pious learning was; and in this, the people in the House of the Poor proved that they were typical humans. I fear that I went there more than my mother wished me to go, and more perhaps than was good for me; but I went to listen to the _Schnorers'_ tales. They knew Europe, from Hamburg to Constantinople; knew each wealthy Jew, how much he gave, and they measured his chances of Heaven by his gifts to them. They also knew the good places to stop over the Sabbath, and what seat to take in the synagogue in order to catch the eye of those benevolent worshippers who invited _Schnorers_ to share the Sabbath goose.

These were not the worst things with which I became acquainted. The poor indulged in gambling, they drank _palenka_, and I saw and heard many things whose horror I felt but did not clearly understand. It was a great clinic in poverty, although doubtless I was too young to attend its cla.s.ses.

The epileptic boy was my special friend; he was much older than I, as in fact were all my friends. His malady took peculiar forms. Before each attack he would wander off, and when he pa.s.sed under the spell of the disease he had most wonderful hallucinations. He saw visions and declared them eloquently and poetically. Many a time I have seen him rise from the gutter and speak an hour to an ever-increasing crowd, which, although it did not understand him, was held by the spell of his eloquence.

One day a _Schnorer_ told about the city of Hamburg through which he had _schnorred_. He expatiated upon its rich and poor, its delicious fish, its _schnaps_, and the great ships he had seen, full of pa.s.sengers sailing for America. Then each of the _Schnorers_ told something of that far-away country, its fabled wealth and wonderful possibilities. Their stories fitted into my dissatisfied mood, and that evening, when the epileptic proposed our running away to America, I readily a.s.sented.

There is, I suppose, a natural restlessness which every lad feels at a certain age; it is the flitting instinct, the desire to leave the nest and try one's own wings; to me that feeling came often, and this time with irresistible force.

We made no elaborate plans--youth is so optimistic. My companion was a wanderer upon the face of the earth, and when he promised to see me safe and sound in America, I was as sure of it as if America had been the next village, a mile away.

Early in the morning I left my home and was joined on the highway by the epileptic. Before sunrise we were on the outskirts of the town. A hackman, driving to the nearest railroad station with an empty coach, took us as pa.s.sengers, and I paid him all the ready cash in my possession, trusting that once at the station, Hamburg and America would be within easy reach.

I had some rolls in my pockets which made our dinner, and when night came we had reached the railroad and heard the buzzing telegraph wires and the puffing of a far-away engine. The third cla.s.s waiting-room was full of its queer and crude mixture of humanity.

Hard-faced and hard-fisted men, going to the city to work and seek their fortune; women, bent nearly double by the loads upon their backs, linen and embroideries for sale among the city folk; insolent young men surrounding young girls who bravely resisted the a.s.saults upon their purity.

I have often seen that picture since and breathed the same foul atmosphere; but never again has it been as terrible as it was that night. The mixed train for Vienna came, and when we tried to board it without tickets we were arrested as vagrants, and thrown into the town jail.

A jail at best is no place for a child, and this jail was never fit for any human beings. There were at least thirty people in a comparatively small room, and in that miscellaneous crowd there were half a dozen women. When we entered, the inmates had just begun to make ready for the night and were fighting among themselves for places nearest the stove, as it was a cool autumn evening. Animals are never fiercer than these men were. Oaths in a dozen languages and dialects filled the putrid air; races and cla.s.ses united against each other; the Slavs cursed the Magyars, and they together beat the Jews and drove the Gypsies into a corner by themselves.

The women fought like tigers; they had to, for the men were a.s.saulting them and there was no protection but their inborn sense of virtue, which is a mighty force in women, even in the lowest. One girl, who had the hardest fight, was a young Gypsy. She beat, scratched, kicked and drove off more than a score of men, who were awed as much by her indomitable courage as by her brute strength.

We came into the jail crying; at least, I remember that I cried, and both of us were shaking from the cold and sick from hunger. We remained unnoticed in the melee, but when our cries grew louder, an old hag, a bony, rough-looking creature, heard us. "_Boshe muy!_" she cried when she saw us. Then, realizing our condition, she fed us cold cabbage out of a black, earthen pot. The women quarrelled as to who should care for us during the night. I went to sleep with my head upon the old hag's lap; she did not have room enough to lie down full length. I closed my eyes amid the subdued struggle and my unsubdued grief.

Early in the morning, before dawn, I was awakened by a tumult of voices.

My epileptic companion was standing on top of the cold stove, speaking and wildly gesticulating. The men and women listened in amazement as his confused speech rose to a pitch of eloquence. I wish I could remember just what he said, but I know that I, in fact every one, felt as if the jail had grown larger and the air purer. We actually saw the pictures he drew.

One of them was a fire--yes, the _Pany's_ house was burning--the _Kisaszonka_, his beautiful daughter, was behind the barred windows and the epileptic would save her. He strained his muscles and the veins of his thin arms swelled as the surging blood filled them.

"Here she was, in her raiment of white, like a twig of rosemary, fragrant and pure--he had rescued her, and who had a right to marry her but he, her saviour?"

Then he drew for us a battle-field; bullets flew, the air was thick from powder smoke, the enemy was advancing, the general, a prince, was on his white charger leading his army to kill and drive back the invaders.

"Behold! A swift riding Kozak. He rises in his stirrups and draws his sword. It hangs over the head of my beloved prince--it is ready to fall!

I must save my prince! Ride on horse! On and on!"

He drew his imaginary sword, and swung it with all his might. "Ha! the Kozak sinks, cloven in twain!"

There stood the epileptic before us, more than half the watchers not understanding what he said; yet all hanging upon his words. Then, like a wounded soldier he sank upon a bench, and slipped to the floor. His pale face was covered by perspiration, he foamed at the mouth, he ground his teeth, and every muscle of his body seemed to be straining and struggling against its encircling tension.

It was now daylight, and the jailor called our names. I responded to both, and pushing through the crowd, saw my brother, who had come after me. Before he bought me my breakfast he gave me the severe beating which I so richly deserved.

The next night I was safe in my own quiet, clean, white bed, and mother was talking to me. She told me again the story of my birth and my babyhood, the pain I had caused, the little pleasure I had brought, and now she was going to send me away to school. Although I was desperately tired, I did not go to sleep, for it was the closing chapter of my boyhood's life.

Years later, a great, gruff, German teacher, after telling us of the pains of motherhood, looked at us fiercely and cried: "You're not worth it! Not a mother's son of you!" And I felt sure that I was not.

XXI

OUT OF THE OMNIBUS