Stories and Pictures Part 38

"When I got home (_how_ I got there, I don't know), she was lying on the floor--either she fell out of bed dying, or I pulled her out tearing away my hands."

The listeners were silent, a stone weighed on our hearts.

The Maskil soon recovered himself.

"Well," he said, "blessed be the righteous Judge! Where are the riches?"

The narrator wiped his eyes with his sleeve, gave a sad smile and continued:

"Yes, I only wanted to show you what one means when one says, it was not to be. There came trouble after trouble--my wife died--the stall went to the bad because it was kept by a man--I was left alone with the children, and there wasn't a crust--I married again--I took an elderly woman on purpose, because I thought she would do for the stall, but I was taken in. There was a baby a year. Meanwhile our fairs fell off, and for a whole twelvemonth the stall wasn't worth a pinch of powder.

"I determined to make an end of it--to give up the match-making, grow rich, and sit and study. _A_--how does one grow rich? I wrote to the brother-in-law of my first wife, to the treasurer, and asked him for G.o.d's sake to tell me when next there was a circ.u.mcision.

"I got a message before the month was out, and hastened to Vorke. I stop nowhere, but go straight to the Rebbe."

"And--a larger manure heap?" laughs the Maskil. The narrator gives him a vicious look.

"The Vorke Tsaddik," he said, "went in for ritual cleanliness, his whole religion was ritual cleanliness."

"Only see," remarked the Maskil, "how he looks at me! Rascal! When you came here first, who helped you? A Vorke Chossid? or perhaps your cousin the Tsaddik? or was it I? _ha!_ You would have died of hunger long ago if it hadn't been for me!"

And he turns to me:

"And what do you suppose he is now? He teaches my children, and if I were to take them away from him, he would have no Parnosseh left!... not a crust of bread...."

The other stands silent with downcast eyes.

The Maskil disgusts me more and more, although he made a sign to me with his eyes a little while ago, to the effect that he had exerted himself on my behalf, and with his hands, that to-morrow there will be taking of notes.

I turn to the other:

"Well, my friend?"

"See for yourself," says he to the Maskil, "our note-taker is more of a Maskil than you, on the face of him, and _he_ doesn't make game of things ... one might say, on the contrary. Rambam[80] (lehavdil) did not believe in magic ... but at any rate, he answers seriously ... a Jew should have manners ... to make fun of things is not fair ... man, it cuts to the heart!"

"Well, well," says the Maskil, more gently, "let us have the rest!"

"I will make it short," says the poor Jew. "I come in without a ticket of admission, nothing to speak for me, without even a money-offering, but that would have been no help at such a time, only his face was terrible! My feet shook under me! I stood there without opening my mouth. He, may his merits protect us, took great strides up and down.

"Suddenly he saw me and gave a roar like a lion.

"'What do you want?'

"I was more terrified than ever and scarcely answered:

"'Riches!'

"It seemed as though the Rebbe had not quite understood.

"'Riches?' he asked, and his voice was like thunder.

"'If only ... Parnosseh!' I answer in a lower tone.

"'What, Parnosseh!' he cried as before.

"'Only not to die of hunger!'

"The Rebbe hurried up and down, stopped suddenly and asked:

"'What else?'

"I thought I should drop dead! It seemed to me (I don't know, but it seemed to me) as if someone else, and not I, had control of my tongue, and it replied:

"'I want Ysef to be a learned man!'

"'What besides?' I hardly escaped alive, and he, may his merits protect us, died the following week.

"Well? What lay between me and the riches? A hair's breadth! it was my own fault. If I had stood up to him and kept to it! Well!"

"At least," I inquire, "is your son learned?"

"He _would_ have been," he replies in a broken voice, "only he won't learn ... even a Rebbe can't help that ... he _won't_ learn--what can one do?"

"And the moral," interposes the Maskil, "is that one shouldn't keep rubbish heaps under the window, that you can do nothing without money, and, above all, that one shouldn't be frightened of any Rebbe!"

In one second the livid-faced Jew had flushed scarlet, his eyes shot fire, his person lengthened, and the room resounded with two slaps received by the Maskil.

I fear that his first request will equally go unfulfilled: he will yet die of hunger.

A LITTLE BOY

The innkeeper's pretty little boy, with his shrugs and pouts, and his curls full of feathers, haunts me.

Now he stands before me with a small onion in his hand, and he cries--he wants two; or I hear him at evening prayer, repeating the Kaddish in his plaintive child-voice, so tearfully earnest that it goes to my very heart. When the Chossid slapped the Maskil, the child turned pale and green with fright, so that I took him by the hand and led him out of the room.

"Come for a walk."

"A walk?" he stammers.

The pale face flushes.

"Do you never go out for a walk?"

"Not now. When my mother, peace be upon her, was alive, she used to take me out walking Sabbaths and holidays. My father, long life to him, says it's better to sit at one's book."

We were already in the long entrance pa.s.sage. A "Shield of David" shone redly from a lamp some way off. I could not see his face, but the thin little hand trembled as it lay in mine.