Simon Eichelkatz; The Patriarch Part 5

"'The dedication of the New Synagogue did not take place until to-day, praised be G.o.d, through the efforts of him who for ten years spent his whole strength for the success of the work.'

"She said this as she stood on the top of the steps leading down from the side portal to the street; and so loud that the 'caretaker of the Khille,' who was standing near the steps, could hear the words, probably was intended to hear them. By the afternoon he had already reported them to the president, and the result was that the deputy to the convention soon after held in Berlin was not the rabbi, but Herr Dr. Krakauer, saving your reverence, and two other ignorant _Amrazim_."

"That's what you call punishment for the sake of discipline," I interpolated laughingly.

"I don't know what you call it, but I know it's a shame that so large a congregation as ours should not have been represented at the convention by its rabbi, a fine Talmid Chochom, with a good name of the greatest Yichus, but by an _Amh.o.r.ez_ who did not know more of _Yiddishkeit_ than a coa.r.s.e dealer in hides and a Jewish cook could show him."

He came to a sudden stop.

"It sickens me and makes my gall rise to think of these things, Herr Kreisphysikus. And I had to look on and let it all happen, because I was weak and without influence. Nothing could be done."

A thoughtful, wearied look came into his eyes. I seized the moment to take leave, because, in spite of my interest in his narratives, I did not want him to exert himself any more for the present. Outside I advised Feiwel Silbermann to see to it that his master go to bed as soon as possible.

OCTOBER 18.

At last I have learned something of Simon Eichelkatz's life history. As if utterly forgetful of himself, he ransacked the store-house of his brain for recollections of the past, but since his own life was closely bound up with that of the congregation, he came to speak of himself involuntarily. I admit, that without wishing to be indiscreet I brought him to do it. For greatly as the figures and events he describes interest me, yet they belong in the past and have an historical significance. But this old man rises out of the past, as a pa.s.sive observer, it is true, more than an active doer. Yet, a portion of his being flourishes and develops on the soil of science, in the most modern, most progressive province of spiritual endeavor. What an evolution from Simon Eichelkatz to Friedrich Eichner! I hope to become acquainted with this life which leads from the narrow confines of a Jewish community out into the broad world.

Yesterday my old friend was very talkative. I felt it pleased him to glance back at his own life; and _he_ probably felt that it was not vulgar curiosity but true sympathy that led me to him. When I began my diary, I thought it would record the deeds and events of the day happening here, the most recent news; it has turned out to be a book of the recollections of an old man. It's better so. Daily life here is dull and monotonous. The people, as far as I know, seem to be conventional.

Those typical characteristics which Simon Eichelkatz reveals to me are lacking in the present generation. The more the Jews are acclimatized, the more they lose of their individuality; and if this is not to be deplored in general, yet it is at the expense of much originality, in both a good and a bad sense. Whatever originality has been saved for present times has taken the form of individualism, which plays a large and significant role in modern life; and I believe that if strong individualities are found among Jews, they are traceable to the time when the community at large was concerned with the preservation of individuality and race characteristics. Nowadays the Jews strive for exactly the opposite ideal. But I want to put the past on record. Simon Eichelkatz draws some remarkable though not always agreeable pictures.

Yet if viewed in the softening perspective of time and distance, they evoke a feeling of reconciliation and mild tolerance.

Was not an impress laid on the Jews by the narrowness of their life, its one-sided interests, the lack of a wide outlook, and the failure to take a broad view of the world based on fixed ethical principles? Were the large ma.s.s of them not rendered doubly small and inferior because the great men among them were entirely too great? Was it not a necessary consequence that crudities and deformities should grow out of these contrasts, which were all the worse because they arose under oppression, in malicious, underhand ways? When I think of it all in the right light, my sympathy overcomes my repugnance for those who in the old communities crucified and burned at the stake the men who furthered the idea of reform in Judaism. Remarkable saints! Meyer Nathanson, the caretaker of the Khille; Saul Feuerstein, the professional bankrupt, and their savory crew, and alongside of them Dr. Krakauer, Dr. Ehrlich, and their colleagues. Alas for the miserable Khilles! Yet I am moved by the recollections of the scenes enacted in the past on this ground where fortune has cast me. Instead of the land of sun, in which the famous ancestor of my great-grandmother in Brody, Dr. Abarbanell, served his Master, the black coals of upper Silesia and the winds of the Beskides; instead of converse with scholars and artists, intercourse with the rude folk here; instead of stimulating activity, dissections and grubbing into the mental state of murderers, perjurers, etc.--such is my life and work; yet I have something to give me inner satisfaction--Simon Eichelkatz.

Yesterday, he said to me: "What the Herr Rabbiner did for the congregation as a whole when he came to this 'black' Khille cannot compare with what he gave to each person separately. He came here in 1849, soon after the great revolution. Shortly before, in the company of a deputation from Posen--he had been rabbi in Unruhstadt--he had stood before the king, in order to give expression to the 'most humble' thanks of the Jews for the rights granted them. You can imagine, Herr Kreisphysikus, how that impressed the people here--a Rav who had stood before the King, a Rav who spoke High German and was a doctor. I tell _you_ there was a to-do when they went to receive him and his Rebbetzin; they rode as far as Kandrzin and met him there. Herr Dr. Krakauer, saving your reverence, had then been president for two years, and, to give the devil his due, it was Dr. Krakauer who brought a new Rav here and insisted on his being a man with an academic education. But when he saw that the Rav was independent, and wasn't willing to dance to the tune of his fiddle, he became the Herr Rabbiner's worst enemy. But on the rabbi's arrival Dr. Krakauer delivered the address of welcome in Kandrzin, and rode here in the same carriage with the rabbi and the Rebbetzin. The fourth person in the carriage was the goldsmith Mana.s.se, who was then vice-president, a decent sort of a man. That's the way they entered town; the whole Khille had a.s.sembled before the rabbi's house, in the old school building next to the _Mikveh_. Well, and then they went up into his apartments, which had been entirely refurnished by Joseph, the cabinet-maker, and Mana.s.se attempted to deliver a speech there. He was no orator, and embarra.s.sment robbed him of his words. It is reported he stammered so that he couldn't get past the first words, and Dr. Merzbach said: 'Respected friends, I do not need words to be convinced of your sentiment and your kindly feelings for me. I feel that I belong to you, and I came gladly. I hope that in this congregation my activity will find a large field, which perhaps has. .h.i.therto been lying fallow, but on which the seeds of fine, n.o.ble thoughts, ethical principles, and the idea of forming a worthy communal life, will sprout and bear rich, glorious fruit. I know what you wanted to say to me, respected Herr Vorsteher, even if the emotion of the occasion overpowered you. Whoever looks into your true, good eyes feels that he is facing a kindly man; and so we all have the desire to cling to one another faithfully, and not in words but in deeds work for the weal of this precious congregation.'

"Mana.s.se repeated this speech to me a hundred times. When the reception committee came down to the rest of the people at the end of half an hour, Dr. Krakauer looked so exasperated that Marek, the Shabbes Goy, immediately remarked: 'Something has gotten onto his nerves.' But Saul Feuerstein, professional bankrupt, and later leader of the 'Saints,' did not see why the formation of a 'worthy communal life' was necessary, since they had been _davvening_ so long, and everything had been all right. Did he think they had been waiting for him to shape communal life? As for what he said about 'ethical principles,' you'd have to look it up in an encyclopedia before you could understand it. Besides it was a _Chutzpeh_ in him to speak of a fallow field. The Khille had managed to exist without a sign of a Dr. Merzbach. Under such auspices the new rabbi a.s.sumed office--among Amrazim and coa.r.s.e fellows, all of them, the well-educated Herr Dr. Krakauer, saving your reverence, and Dr. Ehrlich with his fine ways on top. Only two men understood the rabbi better, Karfunkelstein, the book-dealer, whose father had been rabbi, and Schlesinger, the old iron monger. And then there was another who might have if he had wanted to; a sensible, amiable, good, intelligent, and witty man. He joked about the entire congregation and had a great deal of influence, because they were afraid of his keen judgment. He was the new _Chazen_, the cantor Elias, who had been appointed a short time after the rabbi.

"Now, isn't it so, Herr Kreisphysikus, isn't it more of a misfortune than a shame if one hasn't had the opportunity to learn? But it is a shame if one hasn't respect for the knowledge of others, and if one hurts the feelings of those to whom one should look up with respect.

Cantor Elias once said to Dr. Merzbach: 'If you want to remain friends with the Parchonim here, my dear Herr Doktor, you must learn Klabberjas, and Franzefuss, and Sixty-six. Here cards are more important than the pages of the _Gemoreh_.'

"He was right, Herr Kreisphysikus, and the worse he thought and spoke of the people, and the more disrespectfully he treated them, the better they were to him. He could always carry his point. Every year an increase in salary. And they let him do what he wanted. When he stood before the _Omed_ on Shabbes and _Yontef_ and began to sing, they were all in transports. He sang! Such a voice, such a way of singing! I don't know if there is anything like it now. He touched people to the very marrow of their bones. Perhaps sounds are more affecting than words.

What do you think, Herr Kreisphysikus? At any rate he had more influence and power over the Khille than the rabbi. If the rabbi told them something, they had to think about it first; but they only had to hear what the cantor sang to them. Then, after Shul, he went with them to drink a gla.s.s of wine at Heimann's, or lunch with them at Schafer's. Reb Shafer would stand at the door and declare, when the Herr Kantor came, his heart laughed in his body. When the cantor was present, there was always fun and merriment. He was the most popular man. He would play a little game with the people, he lunched with them, and did not despise Heimann's Hungarian wine. He told the men rugged truths, and he teased the women. No one suspected how genuinely he despised them all, how high he was raised above them. In a few clever words he himself told what he thought about everything.

"'Do you know what our Rav is?' Once when I was present he asked the question of some Baale-Batim with whom he was playing Klabber. 'A pearl cast before swine.'

"'And the Rebbetzin?' some one asked in the midst of their laughter.

"At this he suddenly became quite serious, and said: 'She is a pearl picked from the coronet of a princely family. But you don't understand; why should you? You know _Malkeh_ and _Melech_ only on cards.' Then he threw down the ace and said: 'I'll take the king and queen with the diamond; they're in better hands than with you.'

"Often he used to say to me: 'You're right, Eichelkatz, for sticking to the rabbi. If anyone can help you, he's the man, for he knows, yes, he knows what is going on in the souls of men--and--the Rebbetzin!'

"And I, I really did need someone who understood what was going on in my soul. I myself hardly understood."

He paused and looked into s.p.a.ce, engrossed in thought. I regarded him in silence; then he began with a voice that sounded like an echo from a great distance:

"Do you know what an unhappy marriage is, Herr Kreisphysikus? But how should you? You're a bachelor. You've seen and heard of the thing, but that's nothing. One must live through it oneself, one must experience it in one's own person; then only can you realize that it's the saddest, most fearful thing that can happen to a human being. Both parties are to blame; it's always the fault of both. For neither has the courage to admit the truth, to confess, We've made a mistake; we don't suit each other. They drag through their entire lives in sorrow and deception; and again and again the heart is bruised, and one's own life and the life of others is embittered. And when you finally see into it all, it's too late. When your understanding comes, you're too old. And then you think, it doesn't pay to begin anew for the few years that are left. But the few years are long. Each year has twelve months; each month, thirty days, and some have even thirty-one; each day, twenty-four hours; each hour, sixty minutes; each minute, sixty seconds; and in each second you grieve and fret and live your whole trouble again."

His face took on a thoughtful expression.

"Do you know, Herr Kreisphysikus, they say man's life is short; and what are seventy, or, at the extreme, eighty years in the infinity of time? As a moment. But I tell you, every man who reaches his maturity lives a thousand years, because an entire life is condensed in every moment in which he has an experience. I don't know if you understand me, Herr Doktor. I do not mean those experiences that make up our ordinary life, our habits, and our needs. I mean the things our souls live through. And every sensation of the soul is a whole world in itself, a whole life; everything in us awakens at one blow, and leaps into life, and experiences the entire thing with us. We feel it with all our parts.

And now imagine, Herr Kreisphysikus, how many moments each man lives through, how many thousands of lives. This is the standard we should use for measuring our age. And if a man reaches the end of the seventies, like myself, Herr Doktor, and has gone through so many things, his life has not been short, but a thousand years long and more."

Again I stood before the riddle: how did this plain old man arrive at philosophic deductions covering every field of thought, and with singular strength of reasoning lightly solve the most difficult problems, unconsciously, led only by intuition, which clearly and firmly guided him along a path where others groped for the way of truth? Did he not instinctively arrive at the correct thing, when he measured the extent of life by intensity, and not by number of years?

What _had_ Simon Eichelkatz lived through?

As though he read the question on my face he continued:

"And now see, Herr Doktor, do you know an unhappy marriage is an eternity of heartache? And whoever has lived through one is so old--so old--Methuselah is a mere boy compared with him. Nowadays you hear of divorces. In my days they were considered a shame. A divorced woman was regarded as something low, an outcast; and people didn't think very highly either of a man who gave a _Get_. A divorce always had a disgusting flavor. And here in the Khille, once you were mated, there was no way out. Always dragging the yoke, always dragging it along! So believe me G.o.d, I really don't want to say anything against Madame Eichelkatz--I am sure she suffered as much from it as I did--but there was no getting away from it, we just didn't suit each other. My simple nature, my straightforwardness, and my lack of education were certainly as obnoxious to her as her culture, her fine manners, and her aristocratic desires were to me. She didn't like my having to stand behind a counter, and I didn't like her speaking French with the Herr Oberstleutnant Von Boddin. Now tell me, Herr Kreisphysikus, do you think it is proper for a _bekovet_ Jewish woman to drop curtseys, to laugh loud, and amuse herself with the officers in front of her husband's store when they pa.s.s by toward evening? It was 'gnadige Frau' and 'Madame Eichelkatz' and a chattering and laughing and always that 'Madame Eichelkatz.' She refused to see that they were having fun at her expense and made mock of the name Eichelkatz, my good, honest name, Herr Kreisphysikus."

Poor Simon Eichelkatz! So jealousy was his life's woe.

As if endowed with clairvoyance and the ability to read my thoughts, he looked at me sharply and said:

"You must not think that I was jealous, not what one understands by that word. Upon my honor, I was not. When I married my wife, Friederike, _nee_ Bohm, there was no talk of love between us. We married as all people married then. I had entered Joseph Bohm's business as clerk, and later I married into it, because Bohm could not continue to carry it on alone. He himself came to me and said: 'Simon, if you want to marry my daughter Friederike, we needn't pay a Shadchen, you needn't and I needn't. You know the business. It's gone backward within the last year; but if you look after it, you will advance it again. You know it once was a good business, and I can no longer keep up against the compet.i.tion of others; but you can.'

"It flattered my ambition that Herr Joseph Bohm, one of the chief wholesale dealers in Silesia, should offer his daughter to me himself, to me, who only three years before had entered his business as a poor, unknown clerk. Simon Eichelkatz, who was Simon Eichelkatz? Born in Tarnow, of poor, decent folk, I came to Reissnitz and made my fortune there. Just think! The son-in-law of Joseph Bohm! Such a thing had never been! But to become a son-in-law you must have a wife; and I took Friederike Bohm, who was aristocratically brought up, and could speak French."

To-day it particularly struck me what it was that so peculiarly characterized his manner of narrating. As soon as he spoke about personal matters or told stories of the Khille, he fell into the jargon and the intonation of the Jews of former times.[*] But when he dealt with generalities and gave expression to ideas and speculations, his speech acquired a swing, his expressions became almost choice, and the form scarcely ever detracted from the matter. He grew, as it were, beyond his own bounds; and I thought I saw before me not a simple old Jew, but a sage.

[*] The translator has found it impossible to convey this subtle distinction in English. It shows itself in the German by slightly misp.r.o.nouncing words, for instance, _Leit_ instead of _Leute_; using _a_ instead of the article _ein_ (an), and very slightly changing the correct order of the words.

"What did they know at that time of such notions? They harnessed two human beings together and said, Now see how you get along with each other." A shadow flitted over his countenance, usually so mild.

"And yet," I interposed, "Jewish marriages as a whole were seldom unfortunate."

"That was because husband and wife were confined to their own homes, their children, and at most to their Mishpocheh. Nothing strange, from the outside, came to disturb them. Life pa.s.sed in the closest relation of two human beings. Nowadays it's different. But if it happened to be different in my time, it was a calamity--and it was a calamity that Frau Friederike Eichelkatz, _nee_ Bohm, had learned to speak French. During the first year things went pretty well. To be sure, even then she spoke scornfully of having married an uneducated man, who knew nothing but whether cloths were bad or good, who could tell at the first glance whether a piece of cloth came from Cottbus or from Brunn, whether it was manufactured in Germany or in England, whether the woof was wool or thread, and whether the wool was pure or mixed. All this was of value in business, but not in marriage. Marriage requires other knowledge to create happiness. And when my wife would ask me so mockingly: 'Do you suppose anyone in Tarnow knows French?' I had enough for a whole week.

"But I always answered back; and that's what made the trouble. I didn't have peace and quiet until I realized that it's best not to say a word, not one word. By the time I found this out it was too late. I believe, Herr Doktor, one always is too old by the time one learns sense. It doesn't do yourself any good any more, and the young folk want to get their own foolish experiences. And so it's really no use to get sensible."

"How can you say anything like that, Herr Eichelkatz? Haven't I the pleasure of listening to so many experiences of yours which interest me and give me food for thought? Don't your stories of the congregation give me a picture which is significant to everyone who loves his people, loves them faithfully and with sorrow at the heart? Besides, wasn't it through the events and incidents of your life that you arrived, whether early or late, at that state of peace and calm which beautifies your old age?"

He listened to me attentively, and a melancholy smile played about his mouth.

"Peace and calm, Herr Kreisphysikus, are to be found only after pain has been gotten rid of in life. But to get rid of pain you must _have_ it first. I have had much pain, much pain, and great Tzores; and now when sitting here so quietly, you know--believe me--Herr Kreisphysikus, you by and by become accustomed to that other peace, without end, and you think of it without dread or horror. Sometimes you even--well, we won't speak of it, Herr Doktor. Praised be G.o.d for having bestowed such a long life on me. My wife has been dead twenty years and--"

I waited in a state of tense expectation that he would say something about his son; but he hesitated for only an instant and continued:

"We lived together thirty-three years. Do you know what that means, Herr Kreisphysikus, if she looked down on and despised her husband in the very first year of her marriage? Because he wasn't so fine as she, merely an immigrant from Galicia? Because his Mishpocheh were poor people, and his father wasn't a wholesale dealer, but merely a peddler, and because he didn't know French? Even though I showed them later that I knew something and was something, and even though all the others appreciated me, in the eyes of Madame Eichelkatz I always remained a creature of a lower order, an intruder, an upstart. And she never forgave her father for having made me his son-in-law. The better I succeeded in business, and the wealthier we grew, the prouder and more arrogant she became. I was good enough to earn a living, and she had no fault to find with my business career; but as to the trouble I took to cultivate my mind, she paid no attention to that. For her I always remained Simon Eichelkatz from Tarnow, an employee in her father's business, a person with an absurd name and no manners, whom she had married at her father's wish and command. 'How did you happen to marry such a husband?' the Oberstleutnant Von Boddin once asked her, while standing in front of the shop door. 'It's a genuine _mesalliance_.' I was standing behind the counter, and I felt that what the Oberstleutnant was saying was a great insult to me, even though I didn't know the meaning of the word. But I couldn't go and knock him down. Now could I, Herr Kreisphysikus? I, a Jew, and he an Oberstleutnant? But I made a mental note of the word, and I kept repeating it to myself: _mesalliance_, _mesalliance_. Then, the next Shabbes, after _Mairev_, I went to the Herr Rabbiner and asked him what it meant. When he explained it to me, I all of a sudden became real quiet and thought to myself, why the Herr Oberstleutnant after all is perfectly right. It _was_ a _mesalliance_. A failure of a marriage, I tell you, Herr Doktor, and it didn't get any better through the birth of our son in the second year.

As long as her father, Joseph Bohm, was alive, she had a little consideration; but after his death that stopped. She sought company of her own. She a.s.sociated with the Goyim, with the Frau Rechnungsrat and the Frau Kanzleirat, and more such aristocratic _Shnorrers_, who accepted many a little favor here and there from their well-to-do friend. Then came the misfortune with the Oberstleutnant and the officers, who had their sport with the handsome Jewess. She became more and more conceited and foolish; she was ashamed of her husband; and one day she had visiting cards engraved with 'Madame Eichelkatz, _nee_ Bohm.' The name stuck to her in the Khille. They began to despise her and to pity me."

It had gotten late. I had another professional visit to pay, and I took leave of my old friend. I am looking forward eagerly to his future revelations. As I crossed the Ring past the shops, I suddenly saw, in my mind's eye, an industrious man, humbled by his lot, standing behind the counter, and before the door a handsome woman. And I murmured to myself: "Madame Eichelkatz, _nee_ Bohm."

OCTOBER 23.

Late this afternoon I hunted up my old friend in the expectation that he would continue the story of his life. Mention had been made of his son, though only _en pa.s.sant_, and I cherished the secret hope that Simon Eichelkatz would return to him now that he had once begun to pour out his heart to me. But to-day he didn't say anything bearing on what had gone before. When I entered, I found him in a gay mood; and before I crossed the threshold he called out to me: