An Obscure Apostle Part 18

"What profit can he draw from it?" thought Saul, and he met his grandson with angry looks.

Meir entered the parlour timidly. He already knew of the Rabbi's visit, and he guessed at the aim of it; he was afraid of his grandfather's anger and grief.

"Nu," said the old man, "come nearer. I am going to tell you beautiful things, at which you will rejoice greatly."

And when Meir had come to within a couple of steps from him, Saul looked at him sharply from beneath his bushy eyebrows, and said:

"I am going to betroth you, and in two months you must be married."

Meir grew pale, but was silent.

"I am going to betroth you to Jankiel Kamionker's daughter."

After these words there was quite a long silence, which Meir at last interrupted.

"Zeide," said he, in a low but determined voice, "I am not going to marry Kamionker's daughter."

"Why?" asked Saul, smothering his anger.

"Because, zeide," growing bolder and bolder, "Kamionker is a bad and unjust man, and I don't wish to have anything to do with him!"

Then Saul's anger burst out. He reproached his grandson for the audacity of this judgment, and praised Rob Jankiel's piety.

"Zeide," interrupted Meir, "he wrongs the poor!"

"Is that any of your business?" exclaimed the grandfather.

This time the young man's eyes shone warmly. "Zeide," he said, "he pockets a great deal of the money produced by the sweat and work of these miserable people who live at the other end of the town, and through him they are thieves. While their children are naked, Reb Jankiel builds new houses! In the dram-shops and distilleries which he rents from the n.o.bility be carries on evil acts. His dram-shop keepers make the peasants drunk, and cheat them, and his distilleries produce more vodka than is permitted by the Government. Zeide, you must not look at the way he prays, but the way he acts, for it is written: 'I do not need prayers, nor your sacrifices! The one who wrongs the poor man wrongs the Creator Himself!'"

Saul was very angry, but his grandson's quotation mollified him, for he very much desired to see him a scholar, and expert in the knowledge of the holy books.

"Well," muttered he angrily, but without vehemence, "it does not matter that Jankiel makes the peasants drunk, and that he produces more vodka than the law permits. You don't know yet that business is business! When you are married to Reb Jankiel's daughter, and go into partnership with him, you will do the same."

"Zeide," answered Meir quickly, "I shall neither produce nor sell vodka. I have no inclination for it."

"And what are you going to do--"

He did not finish, for Meir bent forward and seized his knees with his hands, and pressing his lips to them, he began to talk.

"Zeide, let me go hence! Let me go into the broad world! I will study! I wish to study, and here my eyes wander in darkness. Two years ago I made the same request, but you became angry, and ordered me to remain. I remained, zeide, because I respect you, and your commands are sacred to me. But now, zeide, let me go hence! If I go into the world with your permission and blessing, I shall become a learned man. I shall come back here and take my stand against the great Rabbi, and I shall know how to show him that he is a small man.

Now--"

Saul did not permit him to speak further.

"Sha-a-a!" he exclaimed.

He was seized with fear at the mere mention of a strife between his grandson and the great Rabbi.

But Meir drew himself up, and with fire in his face and tears on his eyelashes, he spoke again:

"Zeide, remember the history of Rabbi Eliezer. When he was young his father did not let him go into the world. He ploughed the field, and looked into the dark forest which hid him from the world, and curiosity and longing ate into his heart as now they are eating into mine. He could not stand that yearning, and he escaped. He went to Jerusalem, to a great, world-famed scholar, and said to him: 'Let me be your pupil, and you shall be my master!' And it was as he said.

And when, several years after, his father Hyrkanos came to Jerusalem, he saw there on the square a beautiful youth, who talked with the people, and the people listened to him, and their souls melted like wax before the great sweetness of his words, and all heads bent low before the youth and shouted: 'Behold our master!' Hyrkanos wondered much at the wise words of the man who stood on the heights, and at the great love which all the people bore him. And he asked of the man who stood beside him: 'What is the name of the youth who stands on the heights, and where does his father live? for I wish to bow before him, whose entrails have brought into the world such a son.' And the man whom he questioned made answer: 'That youth's name is Eliezer, a star over Israel's head, and his father's name is Hyrkanos.' When Hyrkanos heard this he shouted with a great voice, rushed toward the youth, and opened his arms. And then there was ecstatic joy in the hearts of both father and son, and the whole nation bowed before Hyrkanos, because his entrails brought into the world such a son."

Saul listened attentively to the story, half gloomy and half joyful.

He cherished the traditions of his nation, and was delighted to listen to them, especially when they were spoken by the mouth of his much-loved grandson. He did not hesitate, however, in his answer. He half closed his eyes and began:

"If in Jerusalem there was to-day teaching such a famous learned man of Israel, I would send you to him at once, but the avenging hand of the Lord is laid on Jerusalem--she is no longer ours. When the day of the great Messiah shall come, she will again be ours. It is pleasant and sweet for a son of Israel to die there, but there is no one there to teach him. And I shall not send you into a foreign world to learn strange sciences. They are useless to an Israelite. From Edomit you have already learned as much as it is necessary for you to transact business in the foreign world, and even for that the great Rabbi has reproached me. And his reproaches are a shame and a sorrow, for, although the Rabbi is a wise man, my soul suffers when he comes to my house to scold me like the melamed scolds the little children in the heder."

Speaking thus, the old man became morose, and looked gloomily on the ground. Meir stood before him as though petrified, but in his eyes, looking into s.p.a.ce, there was reflected a bottomless precipice of sad and rebellious sentiments.

"Zeide," he said finally, half in prayer and half abruptly, "then permit me to be an artisan. I will live in the same street with the poor. I will work with them and guard their souls from sin, And when they ask me something I will always answer them 'Yes' or 'No' When they lack bread I will divide with them all the bread I have in my house!"

Again his face burned and the tears shone on his eyelids. But Saul looked at him in the intensest amazement, and after a while he said:

"When you are two or three years older you will see how stupid you are in telling me such things. There has been no artisan in the Ezofowich family and, please G.o.d, there never shall be. We are merchants, from father to son; we have enough money, and each generation brings more. You shall be a merchant also, because every Ezofowich must be one."

The last words he spoke in an imperative voice, but after a while he continued a little more softly:

"I want to show you my favour. If you do not wish to marry Reb Jankiel's daughter, I will permit you not to marry her. But I shall betroth you to the daughter of Eli Witebski, the great merchant. You are longing for learning--flu! I am going to give you a very well educated wife. Her parents keep her in a boarding school at Wilno; she speaks French and plays the piano. Nu! if you are so difficult to please, that girl ought to suit you. She is sixteen years old. Her father will give her a big dowry, and immediately after the wedding will make you his partner."

From the expression of Meir's face it could be seen that his blood was boiling.

"I don't know Witebski's daughter. I never saw her," said he gloomily.

"Why do you need to know her?" exclaimed Saul; "I give her to you! In a month she will be back from Wilno and in two months you will be married! That is what I am telling you, and you, be silent and obey my commands. Up to the present I have given you too much liberty, but from now on it will be different. Isaak Todros told me to set my foot on your neck."

A flush appeared on Meir's pale face and his eyes flashed.

"Rabbi Isaak may put his feet on the necks of those who, like dogs, lick his feet!" he exclaimed. "I am an Israelite, as he is. I am no one's slave, I."

The words died on his quivering lips, for old Saul stood before him, drawn up to his full height, powerful, inflamed with anger, and raised his hand to strike him. But at that moment between the old man's thin hand and the burning face of the younger man, appeared a small hand, dried, wrinkled, trembling with old age, separating them.

It was the hand of Freida, who was present during the whole conversation between the grandfather and grandson, and had seemed to doze in the sun and not hear anything. But when the room resounded with Meir's pa.s.sionate exclamation, and Saul had risen, angry and threatening, she rose also, and silently advanced a few steps, until with her poor old hand she shielded her great-grandson. Saul's hand dropped. Having exclaimed to Meir in an already softened voice, "Weg!" (Get out) he fell into a chair, panting deeply.

The great-grandmother again sat down by the window in the sunlight.

Meir left the room.

He went out with bent head and a gloomy expression on his face. At that moment he felt all the impotency of youth against age, influence, and authority. He felt that the fetters of the patriarchial organisation of his family were growing heavy on him.

And the mere thought of that small, thin, trembling woman's hand, which had shielded him from a rough act of force, caused a touching smile of tenderness to appear on his lips. It was also a smile of hope.

"If I could only get that writing," he said to himself, pa.s.sing his hand over his forehead.

He was thinking of the writing of Michael the Senior, of which the old great-grandmother alone knew the whereabouts. He thought also that if he could only find it he would know what to say and how to act.

In the meantime Saul sat for a long time, breathing heavily from weariness, and sighing from grief. He looked several times at his mother and smiled. The intervention of this silent, continually dozing, hundred-year-old-woman for her great-grandson, seemed strange to him, and perhaps in the bottom of his heart he was grateful to her for not permitting him to wrong his orphan grandson in a moment of anger.

After a while he called: "Raphael."

The call was answered by a dignified dark-eyed man, already growing gray--his oldest son. After Saul he was the oldest of the family. He himself had grown-up grandchildren and was doing a very large business. On hearing his father call him he left his office and came to him immediately.