Ghetto Tragedies Part 54

"Thou wilt not refuse the _Get_, when it comes?" he replied apprehensively.

"Is it not a wife's duty to submit?" she asked with grim irony. "Nay, have no fear. Thou shalt have no difficulty in serving the _Get_ upon me. I will not throw it in the messenger's face.... And thou wilt marry her?"

"a.s.suredly. People will no longer talk. And she must needs bide with me. It is my one desire."

"It is mine likewise. Thou must atone and save thy soul."

He lingered uncertainly.

"And thy dowry?" he said at last. "Thou wilt not make claim for compensation?"

"Be easy--I scarce know where my _Cesubah_ (marriage certificate) is.

What need have I of money? As thou sayest, I have all I want. I do not even desire to purchase a grave--lying already so long in a charity-grave. The bitterness is over."

He shivered. "Thou art very good to me," he said. "Good-bye."

He stooped down--she drew the bedclothes frenziedly over her face.

"Kiss me not!"

"Good-bye, then," he stammered. "G.o.d be good to thee!" He moved away.

"Herzel!" She had uncovered her face with a despairing cry. He slouched back toward her, perturbed, dreading she would retract.

"Do not send it--bring it thyself. Let me take it from thy hand."

A lump rose in his throat. "I will bring it," he said brokenly.

The long days of pain grew longer--the summer was coming, harbingered by sunny days that flooded the wards with golden mockery. The evening Herzel brought the _Get_, Sarah could have read every word on the parchment plainly, if her eyes had not been blinded by tears.

She put out her hand toward her husband, groping for the doc.u.ment he bore. He placed it in her burning palm. The fingers closed automatically upon it, then relaxed, and the paper fluttered to the floor. But Sarah was no longer a wife.

Herzel was glad to hide his burning face by stooping for the fallen bill of divorcement. He was long picking it up. When his eyes met hers again, she had propped herself up in her bed. Two big round tears trickled down her cheeks, but she received the parchment calmly and thrust it into her bosom.

"Let it lie there," she said stonily, "there where thy head hath lain.

Blessed be the true Judge."

"Thou art not angry with me, Sarah?"

"Why should I be angry? She was right--I am but a dead woman. Only no one may say _Kaddish_ for me, no one may pray for the repose of my soul. I am not angry, Herzel. A wife should light the Sabbath candles, and throw in the fire the morsel of dough. But thy home was desolate, there was none to do these things. Here I have all I need. Now thou wilt be happy, too."

"Thou hast been a good wife, Sarah," he murmured, touched.

"Recall not the past; we are strangers now," she said, with recurrent harshness.

"But I may come and see thee--sometimes." He had stirrings of remorse as the moment of final parting came.

"Wouldst thou reopen my wounds?"

"Farewell, then."

He put out his hand timidly; she seized it and held it pa.s.sionately.

"Yes, yes, Herzel! Do not leave me! Come and see me here--as a friend, an acquaintance, a man I used to know. The others are thoughtless--they forget me--I shall lie here--perhaps the Angel of Death will forget me, too." Her grasp tightened till it hurt him acutely.

"Yes, I will come--I will come often," he said, with a sob of physical pain.

Her clasp loosened, she dropped his hand.

"But not till thou art married," she said.

"Be it so."

"Of course thou must have a 'still wedding.' The English synagogue will not marry thee."

"The Maggid will marry me."

"Thou wilt show me her _Cesubah_ when thou comest next?"

"Yes--I will contrive to get it from her."

A week pa.s.sed--he brought the marriage certificate.

Outwardly she was calm. She glanced through it. "G.o.d be thanked," she said, and handed it back. They chatted of indifferent things, of the doings of the neighbours. When he was going, she said, "Thou wilt come again?"

"Yes, I will come again."

"Thou art so good to spend thy time on me thus. But thy wife--will she not be jealous?"

He stared, bewildered by her strange, eerie moments.

"Jealous of thee?" he murmured.

She took it in its contemptuous sense and her white lips twitched. But she only said, "Is she aware thou hast come here?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Do I know? I have not told her."

"Tell her."

"As thou wishest."

There was a pause. Presently the woman spoke.

"Wilt thou not bring her to see me? Then she will know that thou hast no love left for me--"

He flinched as at a stab. After a painful moment he said: "Art thou in earnest?"

"I am no marriage-jester. Bring her to me--will she not come to see an invalid? It is a _mitzvah_ (good deed) to visit the sick. It will wipe out her trespa.s.s."