Stories and Pictures Part 16

"If only it does not tear, it is an excellent one." He smiles to himself. "No new-fangled spider-web for you. All good, old-fashioned sateen--it will outlast me yet. And it has no slit--that's a great point. It doesn't blow out like the cloaks they make nowadays, and it folds over ever so far in front.

"Of course," he thinks on, "a fur coat is better; it's warm--beautifully warm. But spectacles come first. A fur is only good for winter, and spectacles are wanted all the year round, because in summer, when there's a wind and it blows the dust into your eyes, it's worse than in winter."

And so it was settled; first spectacles and then a fur coat. Please G.o.d, he would help to carry corn--that would mean four gulden.

And he tramped on, and the wet snow was blown into his face, the wind grew stronger, and his side pained him more than ever.

"If only the wind would change! And yet perhaps it's better so, because coming back I shall feel more tired, and I shall have the wind in my back. Then it will be quite different. Everything will be done; I shall have nothing on my mind."

He was obliged to stop a minute and draw breath; this rather frightened him.

"What is the matter with me? A Cantonist[23] ought to know something of the cold," he thought sadly.

And he recalls his time of service under Nicholas, twenty-five years'

active service with the musket, beside his childhood as a Cantonist. He has walked enough in his life, marching over hill and dale, in snow and frost and every sort of wind. And what snows, what frosts! The trees would split, the little birds fall dead to the ground, and the Russian soldier marched briskly forward, and even sang a song, a _trepak_, a _komarinski_, and beat time with his feet.

The thought of having endured those thirty-five years of service, of having lived through all those hardships, all those snows, all those winds, all the mud, hunger, thirst, and privation, and having come home in health--the thought fills him with pride. He holds up his head and feels his strength renewed.

"Ha, ha, what is a bit of a frost like this to me? In Russia, well, yes, there it was something like."

He walks on, the wind has lessened a little, it grows darker, night is falling.

"Call that a day," he said to himself. "Well, I never," and he began to hurry, not to be overtaken by the night. Not in vain has he been so regularly to study in the Shool of a Sabbath afternoon--he knows that one should go out and come home again before the sun goes down.

He feels rather hungry. He has this peculiarity--that being hungry makes him cheerful. He knows appet.i.te is a good sign; "his" traders, the ones who send him on errands, are continually lamenting their lack of it. He, blessed be His Name, has a good appet.i.te; except when he is not up to the mark, as yesterday, when the bread tasted sour to him.

Why should it have been sour? Soldiers' bread? Once, perhaps, yes; but now? Phonye[24] bakes bread that any Jewish baker might be proud of, and he had bought a new loaf which it was a pleasure to cut; but he was not up to the mark, a chill was going through his bones.

But, praised be He whose Name he is not worthy to mention, that happens to him but seldom.

Now he is hungry, and not only that, but he has in his pocket a piece of bread and cheese; the cheese was given him by the trader's wife, may she live and be well. She is a charitable woman--she has a Jewish heart.

If only she would not scold so, he thinks, she would be really nice. He recalls to mind his dead wife.

"There was my Shprintze Niepritshkes; she also had a good heart and was given to scolding. Every time I sent one of the children out into the world she wept like a beaver, although at home she left them no peace with her scolding tongue. And when a death happened in the family!" he went on remembering. "Why, she used to throw herself about on the floor whole days like a snake and bang her head with her fists."

"One day she wanted to throw a stone at heaven.

"We see," he thought, "how little notice G.o.d takes of a woman's foolishness. But with her there was no taking away the bier and the corpse. She slapped the women and tore the beards of the men.

"She was a fine woman, was Shprintze. Looked like a fly, and was strong, so strong. Yet she was a good woman--she didn't dislike _me_ even, although she never gave me a kind word.

"She wanted a divorce--a divorce. Otherwise she would run away. Only, when was that?"

He remembers and smiles.

It was a long, long time ago; at that time the excise regulations were still in force, and he was a night watchman, and went about all night with an iron staff, so that no brandy should be smuggled into the town.

He knew what service was! To serve with Phonye was good discipline; he had had good teachers. It was a winter's morning before daybreak, he went to have his watch relieved by Cham Yoneh--he is in the world of truth now--and then went home, half-frozen and stiff. He knocked at the door and Shprintze called out from her bed:

"Into the ground with you! I thought your dead body would come home some time!"

Oho! she is angry still, because of yesterday. He cannot remember what happened, but so it must be.

"Shut your mouth and open the door!" he shouts.

"I'll open your head for you!" is the swift reply.

"Let me in!"

"Go into the ground, I tell you!"

And he turned away and went into the house-of-study, where he lay down to sleep under the stove. As ill-luck would have it, it was a charcoal stove, and he was suffocated and brought home like a dead man.

Then Shprintze was in a way! He could hear, after a while, how she was carrying on.

They told her it was nothing--only the charcoal.

No! she must have a doctor. She threatened to faint, to throw herself into the water, and went on screaming:

"My husband! My treasure!"

He pulled himself together, sat up, and asked quietly:

"Shprintze, do you want a divorce?"

"May you be--" she never finished the curse, and burst into tears.

"Shemaiah, do you think G.o.d will punish me for my cursing and my bad temper?"

But no sooner was he well again, there was the old Shprintze back. A mouth on wheels, a tongue on screws, and strong as iron--she scratched like a cat--ha, ha! A pity she died; and she did not even live to have pleasure in her children.

"They must be doing well in the world--all artisans--a trade won't let a man die of hunger. All healthy--they took after me. They don't write, but what of that? They can't do it themselves, and just _you_ go and ask someone to do it for you! Besides, what's the good of a letter of that kind? It's like watered soup. And then young boys, in a long time they forget. They _must_ be doing well.

"But Shprintze is dead and buried. Poor Shprintze!

"Soon after the excise offices were abolished, she died. That was before I had got used to going errands and saying to the gentle folk 'your lordship,' instead of 'your high n.o.bility';[25] before they trusted me with contracts and money--and we used to want for bread.

"I, of course, a man and an ex-Cantonist, could easily go a day without food, but for her, as I said, it was a matter of life and death. A foolish woman soon loses her strength; she couldn't even scold any more; all the monkey was out of her; she did nothing but cry.

"I lost all pleasure in life--she grew somehow afraid to eat, lest I shouldn't have enough.

"Seeing she was afraid, I grew bold, _I_ screamed, _I_ scolded. For instance: 'Why don't you go and eat?' Now and then I went into a fury and nearly hit her, but how are you to hit a woman who sits crying with her hands folded and doesn't stir? I run at her with a clenched fist and spit at it, and she only says: 'You go and eat first--and then _I_ will,' and I had to eat some of the bread first and leave her the rest.

"Once she fooled me out into the street: 'I _will_ eat, only _you_ go into the street--perhaps you will earn something,' and she smiled and patted me.

"I go and I come again, and find the loaf much as I left it. She told me she couldn't eat dry bread--she must have porridge."

He lets his head drop as though beneath a heavy weight, and the sad thoughts chase one another:

"And what a wailing she set up when I wanted to p.a.w.n my Sabbath cloak--the one I'm wearing now. She moved heaven and earth, and went and p.a.w.ned the metal candle-sticks, and said the blessing over candles stuck into potatoes to the day of her death. Before dying she confessed to me that she had never really wanted a divorce; it was only her evil tongue.