Stories and Pictures Part 36

It was no easy matter to divert the rabbi's thoughts from his own grievances, but on the Maskil's promising to do his utmost to induce the community to raise his salary, he begged us to be seated, and listened to our tale.

"Nonsense!" he said, "I know you! Tell the fools I know you."

"They run away from me!"

"_Ett!_[72] They run away! Why should they run away? Who runs away?

After what? Well, as you say they run away, I will go out with you myself."

"In what will you go?" calls out a woman's voice from behind the stove.

"Give me my cloak," answers the rabbi.

"Give you your cloak! I've this minute taken it apart."

"Well," says the rabbi, "the misfortune is happily not great. We will go to-morrow."

I give him to understand that it is only noon, that I should be sorry to waste the day.

"_Nu_, what shall I do?" answers the rabbi, and folds his hands. "The rebbitzin has just started mending my cloak."

"Call them in here!"

"Call them? It's easy enough to call them, but who will come? Are they likely to listen to me? Perhaps I had better go in my dressing-gown?"

"It wouldn't do, rabbi!" exclaimed the Maskil, 'the inspector is going about in the Ga.s.s.

"For my part," said the rabbi, "I would have gone, but if you say no--no!"

It is settled that we shall all three call the people together from the window. But opening the window is no such easy matter. It hasn't been opened for about fifteen years. The panes are cracked with the sun, the putty dried up, the window shakes at every step on the floor. The frame is worm-eaten, and only rust keeps it fastened to the wall. It is just a chance if there are hinges.

And yet we succeeded. We opened first one side and then the other without doing any damage.

The rabbi stood in the centre, I and the Maskil on either side of him, and we all three began to call out.

The market was full of people.

In a few minutes there was a crowd inside the room.

"Gentlemen," began the rabbi, "I know this person."

"There will be no writing people down!" called out several voices together.

The rabbi soon loses heart.

"No use, no use," he murmurs, but the Maskil has got on to the table and calls out:

"Donkeys! They _must_ be written down! The good of the Jews at large demands it!"

"The good of the Jews at large," he says, and he goes on to tell them that he has gone through the whole chapter with me, that there is no question of a joke, that I have shown him letters from the Chief Rabbis.

"From which Chief Rabbis?" is the cry.

"From the Chief Rabbi in Paris," bellows the Maskil, "from the Chief Rabbi in Paris (no other will do for him), from the Chief Rabbi in London--"

"Jews, let us go home!" interrupted someone, "_nisht unsere Leut!_"[73]

And the crowd dispersed as quickly as it had come together. We three remained--and the beadle, who came close to me:

"Give me something," he said, "for the day's work."

I gave him a few ten-kopek pieces, he slipped them into his pocket without counting them, and was off without saying good-bye.

"What do _you_ say, Rabbi?" I asked.

"I don't know what to say, how should I? I am only dreadfully afraid--lest it should do me harm--"

"_You?_"

"Whom else? _You?_ If you don't get any statistics, it will be of no great consequence, for 'He that keepeth Israel will neither slumber nor sleep!' I mean the two extra gulden a week."

The rebbitzin with the large spectacles has come out from behind the stove.

"I told you long ago," she says, "not to interfere in the affairs of the community, but when did you ever listen to me? What has a rabbi to do with _that_ sort of thing? Kohol's business!"

"_Nu_, hush, Rebbitzin, hush!" he answers gently; "you know what I am, I have a soft heart, it touched me, but it's a pity about the two gulden a week."

TALES THAT ARE TOLD

Sad and perplexed in spirit, I came down from the rabbi, with the Maskil, and into the street. There we came across the beadle, who a.s.sured us that, in his opinion, we should be able to go on with the work to-morrow.

The whole Tararam[74] had been stirred up by two impoverished householders, who were now in great misery; one, a public-house keeper, and the other, a horse-dealer.

The Maskil, for his part, promises to talk the matter over with the townspeople between Minchah and Maariv, and if he doesn't turn the place upside down, then his name is not Shmeril (such a name has a Maskil in Tishewitz!). They may stand on their heads, he said, but the notes must be taken. "The very authorities that forbade will permit."

Well done! It is evident that the Maskil had studied in a Cheder, in the great world one meets with other Maskilim.

I go back to the inn; the beadle comes, too. At my host's they still have services, the mourning for his wife not being ended. Between Minchah and Maariv, we get on to politics; after Maariv, on to the Jews.

The greater part are dreadfully optimistic. In the first place, it's not a question of _them_, secondly, plans will not prosper against "Yainkil,"[75] he has brains of his own; thirdly, it's like a see-saw, now it goes up and now it goes down;[76] fourthly, G.o.d will help; fifthly, "good Jews" will not allow it to happen.

The old song!

"Believe me," exclaims one, with small, restless eyes under a low forehead, "believe me, if there were unity among all 'good Jews,' if they would hold together, as one man, and stop repeating Tachanun,[77]

Messiah would _have_ to come!"

"But the Kozenitz Rebbe, may his memory be blessed, _did_ stop,"

suggested another.

"'One swallow,' replied the young man, 'does not make a summer.' Who talks of their imposing a prohibition on All-Israel?"