Jewish Children Part 31

"Where could I be?" said I.

"How do I know?" said he. "You tell me. You know better than I."

"At the House of Learning," said I.

"What were you doing at the House of Learning?" said he.

"What should I be doing at the House of Learning?" said I.

"Do I know what you could be doing there?" said he.

"I was learning," said I.

"What were you learning?" said he.

"What should I learn?" said I.

"Do I know what you should learn?" said he.

"I was learning '_Gemarra_' were you learning?" said he.

"What '_Gemarra_' should I learn?" said I.

"Do I know what '_Gemarra_' you should learn?" said he.

"I learnt the '_Gemarra_', '_Shabos_'," said I.

At this Ephraim Log-of-wood burst out laughing in his rattling little laugh. And it seemed that my father could bear no more. He jumped up from his seat and delivered me two resounding fiery boxes on the ears.

Stars flew before my eyes. My mother heard my shouts from the other room. She flew into us with a scream.

"Nahum! The Lord be with you! What are you doing? A young man--a bridegroom-elect! Just before his wedding! Bethink yourself! If her father gets to know of this--G.o.d forbid!"

My mother was right. The girl's father got to know the whole story.

Ephraim Log-of-wood went off himself and told it to him. And in this way Ephraim had his revenge of Hershel the Tax-collector; for the two had always been at the point of sticking knives into one another.

Next day I got back the marriage-contract and the presents which had been given to the bride-elect. And I was no longer a bridegroom-elect.

This grieved my father so deeply that he fell into a very serious illness. He was bedridden for a long time. He would not let me come near him. He refused to look into my face. All my mother's tears and arguments and explanations and her defence of me were of no use at all.

"The disgrace," said my father, "the disgrace of it is worse than anything else."

"May it turn out to be a real, true sacrifice for us all," said my mother to him. "The Lord will have to send us another bride-elect. What can we do? Shall we take our own lives? Perhaps it is not his destiny to marry this girl."

Amongst those who came to visit my father in his illness was Tchitchick the bandmaster.

When my father saw him, he took off his little round cap, sat up in his bed, stretched out his hand to him, looked straight into his eyes and said:

"Oh, 'Mr. Sergeant!' 'Mr. Sergeant!'"

He could not utter another sound, because he was smothered by his tears and his cough....

This was the first time in my life that I saw my father crying. His tears gripped hold of my heart, and chilled me to the very soul.

I stood and looked out of the window, swallowing my tears in silence. At that moment, I was heartily sorry for all the mischief I had done. I cried within myself, from the very depths of my heart, beating my breast: "I have sinned." And within myself, I vowed solemnly to myself that I would never, never anger my father again, and never, never cause him any pain.

No more fiddle!

This Night

"TO MY DEAR SON,

"I send you--'_roubles_,' and beg of you, my dear son, to do me the favour, and come home for the Pa.s.sover Festival. It is a disgrace to me in my old age. We have one son, an only child, and we are not worthy to see him. Your mother also asks me to beg of you to be sure to come home for the Pa.s.sover. And you must know that Busie is to be congratulated. She is now betrothed. And if the Lord wills it, she is going to be married on the Sabbath after the Feast of Weeks.

"From me,

"YOUR FATHER."

This is the letter my father wrote to me. For the first time a sharp letter--for the first time in all those years since we had parted. And we had parted from one another, father and I, in silence, without quarrelling. I had acted in opposition to his wishes. I would not go his road, but my own road. I went abroad to study. At first my father was angry. He said he would never forgive me. Later, he began to send me money.

"I send you--'_roubles_,'" he used to write, "and your mother sends you her heartiest greetings."

Short, dry letters he wrote me. And my replies to him were also short and dry:

"I have received your letter with the--'_roubles_.' I thank you, and I send my mother my heartiest greetings."

Cold, terribly cold were our letters to one another. Who had time to realize where I found myself in the world of dreams in which I lived?

But now my father's letter woke me up. Not so much his complaint that it was a shame I should have left him alone in his old age--that it was a disgrace for him that his only son should be away from him. I will confess it that this did not move me so much. Neither did my mother's pleadings with me that I should have pity on her and come home for the Pa.s.sover Festival. Nothing took such a strong hold of me as the last few lines of my father's letter. "And you must know that Busie is to be congratulated."

Busie! The same Busie who has no equal anywhere on earth, excepting in the "Song of Songs"--the same Busie who is bound up with my life, whose childhood is interwoven closely with my childhood--the same Busie who always was to me the bewitched Queen's Daughter of all my wonderful fairy tales--the most wonderful princess of my golden dreams--this same Busie is now betrothed, is going to be married on the Sabbath after the Feast of Weeks? Is it true that she is going to be married, and not to me, but to some one else?

Who is Busie--what is she? Oh, do you not know who Busie is? Have you forgotten? Then I will tell you her biography all over again, briefly, and in the very same words I used when telling it you once on a time, years ago.

I had an older brother, Benny. He was drowned. He left after him a water-mill, a young widow, two horses, and one child. The mill was neglected; the horses were sold; the young widow married again and went away somewhere, far; and the child was brought home to our house.

That child was Busie.

And Busie was beautiful as the lovely Shulamite of the "Song of Songs."

Whenever I saw Busie I thought of the Shulamite of the "Song of Songs."

And whenever I read the "Song of Songs" Busie's image came up and stood before me.