Ghetto Comedies Part 49

'It is the same thing. There is no other way. How different would it have been had there been any other woman here who wanted to die in Palestine! But the women nowadays have no fear of Heaven; they wear their hair unshorn--they----'

'Yes, yes. So you asked Yossel to marry you.'

'Asked? Prayed, as one prays upon Atonement Day. For two years I prayed to him, but he always refused.'

'Then why----?' began the artist.

'Yossel is so proud. It is his only sin.'

'Oh, Yenta!' protested Yossel flushing, 'I am a very sinful man.'

'Yes, but your sin is all in a lump,' the _Bube_ replied. 'Your iniquity is like your ugliness--some people have it scattered all over, but you have it all heaped up. And the heap is called pride.'

'Never mind his pride,' put in the artist impatiently. 'Why did he not go on refusing you?'

'I am coming to that. Only you were always so impatient, Vroomkely.

When I was cutting you a piece of _Kuchen_, you would s.n.a.t.c.h greedily at the crumbs as they fell. You see Yossel is not made of the same clay as you and I. By an oversight the Almighty sent an angel into the world instead of a man, but seeing His mistake at the last moment, the All-High broke his wings short and left him a hunchback. But when Yossel's father made a match for him with Leah, the rich corn-factor's daughter, the silly girl, when she was introduced to the bridegroom, could see only the hump, and scandalously refused to carry out the contract. And Yossel is so proud that ever since that day he curled himself up into his hump, and nursed a hatred for all women.'

'How can you say that, Yenta?' Yossel broke in again.

'Why else did you refuse my money?' the _Bube_ retorted. 'Twice, ten, twenty times I asked him to go to Palestine with me. But obstinate as a pig he keeps grunting "I can't--I've got no money." Sooner than I should pay his fare he'd have seen us both die here.'

The artist collapsed upon the bundle; astonishment, anger, and self-ridicule made an emotion too strong to stand under. So this was all his Machiavellian scheming had achieved--to bring about the very marriage it was meant to avert! He had dug a pit and fallen into it himself. All this would indeed amuse Rozenoffski and Leopold Barstein.

He laughed bitterly.

'Nay, it was no laughing matter,' said the _Bube_ indignantly. 'For I know well how Yossel longed to go with me to die in Jerusalem. And at last the All-High sent him the fare, and he was able to come to me and invite me to go with him.'

Here the artist became aware that Yossel's eyes and lips were signalling silence to him. As if, forsooth, one published one's good deeds! He had yet to learn on whose behalf the hunchback was signalling.

'So! You came into a fortune?' he asked Yossel gravely.

Yossel looked the picture of misery. The _Bube_ unconsciously cut through the situation. 'A wicked man gave it to him,' she explained, 'to pray away his sins in Jerusalem.'

'Indeed!' murmured the artist. 'Anyone you know?'

'Heaven has spared her the pain of knowing him,' ambiguously interpolated her anxious protector.

'I don't even know his name,' added the _Bube_. 'Yossel keeps it hidden.'

'One must not shame a fellow-man,' Yossel urged. 'The sin of that is equal to the sin of shedding blood.'

The grandmother nodded her head approvingly. 'It is enough that the All-High knows his name. But for such an Epicurean much praying will be necessary. It will be a long work. And your first prayer, Yossel, must be that you shall not die very soon, else the labourer will not be worthy of his hire.'

Yossel took her yellow withered hand as in a lover's clasp. 'Be at peace, Yenta! He will be redeemed if only by _your_ merits. Are we not one?'

ELIJAH'S GOBLET

ELIJAH'S GOBLET

I

Aaron Ben Amram removed from the great ritual dish the roasted shankbone of lamb (symbolic residuum of the Paschal Sacrifice) and the roasted egg (representative of the ancient festival-offering in the Temple), and while his wife and children held up the dish, which now contained only the bitter herbs and unleavened cakes, he recited the Chaldaic prelude to the _Seder_--the long domestic ceremonial of the Pa.s.sover Evening.

'This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come in and eat; let all who require come in and celebrate the Pa.s.sover. This year here, next year in the land of Israel! This year slaves, next year sons of freedom!'

But the Polish physician showed nothing of the slave. White-bearded, clad in a long white robe and a white skullcap, and throned on white pillows, he made rather a royal figure, indeed for this night of nights conceived of himself as 'King' and his wife as 'Queen.'

But 'Queen' Golda, despite her silk gown and flowery cap, did not share her consort's majestic mood, still less the rosy happiness of the children who sat round this fascinating board. Her heart was full of a whispering fear that not all the brave melodies of the father nor all the quaint family choruses could drown. All very well for the little ones to be unconscious of the hovering shadow, but how could her husband have forgotten the horrors of the Blood Accusation in the very year he had led her under the Canopy?

And surely he knew as well as she that the dreadful legend was gathering again, that the slowly-growing Jew-hatred had reached a point at which it must find expression, that the _Pritzim_ (n.o.bles) in their great houses, and the peasants behind their high palings, alike sulked under the burden of debts. Indeed, had not the Pa.s.sover Market hummed with the old, old story of a lost Christian child? Not murdered yet, thank G.o.d, nor even a corpse. But still, if a boy _should_ be found with signs of violence upon him at this season of the Paschal Sacrifice, when the Greek Church brooded on the Crucifixion! O G.o.d of Abraham, guard us from these fiends unchained!

But the first part of the elaborate ritual, pleasantly punctuated with cups of raisin wine, pa.s.sed peacefully by, and the evening meal, mercifully set in the middle, was reached, to the children's vast content. They made wry, humorous mouths, each jest endeared by annual repet.i.tion, over the horseradish that typified the bitterness of the Egyptian bondage, and ecstatic grimaces over the soft, sweet mixture of almonds, raisins, apples, and cinnamon, vaguely suggestive of the bondsmen's mortar; they relished the eggs sliced into salt water, and then--the symbols all duly swallowed--settled down with more prosaic satisfaction to the merely edible meats and fishes, though even to these the special Pa.s.sover plates and dishes and the purified knives and forks lent a new relish.

By this time Golda was sufficiently cheered up to meditate her annual theft of the _Afk.u.man_, that segment of Pa.s.sover cake under Aaron's pillow, morsels of which, distributed to each as the final food to be tasted that night, replaced the final mouthful of the Paschal Lamb in the ancient Palestinian meal.

II

But Elijah's goblet stood in the centre of the table untasted. Every time the ritual cup-drinking came round, the children had glanced at the great silver goblet placed for the Prophet of Redemption. Alas!

the br.i.m.m.i.n.g raisin wine remained ever at the same level.

They found consolation in the thought that the great moment was still to come--the moment of the third cup, when, mother throwing open the door, father would rise, holding the goblet on high, and sonorously salute an unseen visitor.

True, in other years, though they had almost heard the rush of wings, the great shining cup had remained full, and when it was replaced on the white cloth, a vague resentment as at a spurned hospitality had stirred in each youthful breast. But many reasons could be found to exculpate Elijah--not omitting their own sins--and now, when Ben Amram nodded to his wife to open the door, expectation stood on tip-toe, credulous as ever, and the young hearts beat tattoo.

But the mother's heart was palpitating with another emotion. A faint clamour in the Polish quarter at the back, as she replaced the samovar in the kitchen, had recalled all her alarms, and she merely threw open the door of the room. But Ben Amram was not absent-minded enough to be beguiled by her air of obedient alacrity. Besides, he could see the shut street-door through the strip of pa.s.sage. He gestured towards it.

Now she feigned laziness. 'Oh, never mind.'

'David, open the street-door.'

The eldest boy sprang up joyously. It would have been too bad of mother to keep Elijah on the doorstep.

'No, no, David!' Golda stopped him. 'It is too heavy; he could not undo the bolts and bars.'

'You have barred it?' Ben Amram asked.

'And why not? In this season you know how the heathen go mad like street-dogs.'

'Pooh! They will not bite us.'

'But, Aaron! You heard about the lost Christian child!'