Stories and Pictures Part 61

Not being "pious," I thought only of the boy's good: "My five kopeks will only do him harm and make a hopeless beggar of him." And I gave them to him after all!

My hand forced its way out of my pocket, and this time I did not even try to hold it back. Something pained me in the region of my heart, and the tears were not far from my eyes. Once more the little boy ran joyfully out of the soup-kitchen, my heart grew light, and I felt a smile on my face. The third time it lasted longer--much longer.

I had calculated betimes that my means will _not_ allow of my giving every day in charity. Of course, it is a pleasure to see the poor little wretch jump for joy, to notice the gleam of light in his young eyes, to know that, thanks to your five kopeks, he will _not_ pa.s.s the night in the street, but in the "refuge," where he will be warm, and where, to-morrow morning, he will get a gla.s.s of tea and a roll. All that is a pleasure, certainly, but it is one that I, with my income, cannot allow myself--it is out of the question.

Of course, I did not say all that to the little boy, I merely gave him some good advice. I told him that if he begged he would come to a bad end--that every man (and he also must some day grow into a man) is in honor obliged to work--work is holy, and he who seeks work, finds, and such-like wise things out of books, that could not make up to the little boy for the night-refuge, that could not so much as screen him till daylight from the rain and the snow.

And all the while there he stood and kissed my sleeve, and lifted his eyes to mine, on the watch for some gleam of pity to prove that his words were not as peas thrown against a wall.

And I felt all the time that he was not watching in vain, that my cold reasonings were growing warmer, that his beseeching, dog-like eyes had a power I could not withstand, and that I must shortly surrender with my whole battery of reproofs and warnings.

So I resolved as follows: I will give him something, and then tell him once and for all that he is not to beg any more, tell him sharply and decidedly, so that he may remember.

I had not enough in coppers, so I changed a silver coin and gave him five kopeks.

"There--but you are not to come begging from me again, do you hear?"

Whence the "from me?"

As far as I knew, I had no such words in my mind, anyway I certainly did not intend to say them, and perhaps I would gladly have given a few kopeks not to have done so! I felt a sudden chill at my heart, as if I had torn away a bit of covering and left a part of it naked. But it was all over like a flash. My stern face, the hard metallic ring of my voice, my outstretched right hand and outward-pointing left foot had done their work.

I had a great attraction for that little boy! He stood there as if on hot coals, he wanted to run off so as to get earlier to the lodging house, and yet he stayed on and listened, growing paler and paler, while a tear trembled on his childish lashes.

"There! and now don't beg any more," I wound up, "do you hear? This is to be the very last time."

The little boy drew a deep breath and ran away.

To-day, to-day I have given him nothing--I will not break my word. I will know nothing of "evasions,"[136] a given word is precious. One must be firm, otherwise there would be an end to everything.

I think over again what I have just been saying, and feel quite pleased with myself. I _cannot_ afford to give five kopeks in charity every day, and yet that was not the reason. It was the boy's own good I was thinking of, indeed, the good of all! What is the use of unsystematic charity--and how can there be system without a strict rule?

With the little boy I had spoken simple Yiddish, with myself, somewhat more learnedly. As I left the soup-kitchen, I reflected: The worst microbe in the body of the community is begging. The man who will not work has no right to eat, and so on.

I had no sooner shut the door of the soup-kitchen behind me than my feet sank deep into the mud, I ran my head against a wall, and then plunged into the dark night. There was a dreadful wind blowing, the flames of the gas lamps trembled as with cold, and their flickering shine was reflected a thousandfold in the puddles in the street, so that the eyes were dazzled. It wails plaintively, as though a thousand souls were praying for Tikun,[137] or a thousand little boys for five kopeks for a night's shelter.... Bother that little boy!...

It would be a sin to drive a dog into the street on such a night, and yet the poor little boy will have to sleep out of doors.

But what can _I_ do?

I have given him something three times--does that go for nothing?

Let somebody else give him five kopeks for once!

I have done quite enough, coming out to the soup-kitchen in this weather, with my sick chest and a cough, and without a fur coat. Were I "pious," it would have been self-interest on my part. I should have done it with a view to acquiring merit, I should have hastened home, turned into bed, and gone to sleep, so that my soul might quickly fly to heaven and enter the good deed to her account.

The good deed is the "credit," and the "debit" a fat slice of Leviathan.

I, when I went to the soup-kitchen, had no reward in view, it was my kind nature that prompted me.

As I walked and praised myself thus, my heart felt warm again. If other people had been praising me, I must needs have been ashamed, and motioned them away with my hand, but I can listen to myself without blushing, and I should perhaps have gone on praising myself and have discovered other amiable traits in my character, had I not stepped with my half-soles--heaven knows, I had worn away the other half on the road to the soup-kitchen--stepped with my half-soles right into the mud.

"Those who are engaged in a religious mission come to no hurt!..." but that is probably on the way out. On the way home, when the newly-created angel is hastening heavenward, one may break one's neck.

My feet are wet, and I feel chilled all through. I know to a certainty that I shall catch cold, that I have caught cold already. Presently I shall be coughing my heart out, and I feel a sting in my chest. A terror comes over me. It is not long since I spent four weeks in bed.

"It's not a thing to do," I say to myself by way of reproach; "no, certainly not! It's all very well as far as _you_ are concerned, but what about your wife and child? What right have you to imperil their support?"

If the phrase had been a printed one, and I the reader of it with my pencil in my hand, I should have known what to do--but the phrase was my own.

I feel more and more chilled, and home is distant, and my goloshes are full of water, cold and heavy. The windows of a confectioner gleam brightly in front of me--it is the worst in all Warsaw--their tea is shocking--but since there is no choice!

I rush across the street and plunge into a warm mist. I order a gla.s.s of tea and take up a comic paper.

The first ill.u.s.trated joke that caught my eye was like a reflection of the state of things outside. The joke was called: "Which has too much?"

The weather in the picture is the weather out of doors.

Two persons are advancing toward each other on the pavement. From one side comes a stout, middle-aged woman, well-nourished, in a silk dress, a satin cloak, and a white hat with feathers. She must have started on her walk, or to make a visit, in fine weather, and now she has been caught by the rain. Her face is one of dismay. She dreads the rain and the wind, if not for herself, at least for her hat. She hastens--drops of perspiration appear on her white forehead--she hastens, but her steps are unsteady: both her hands are taken up. In the left she holds the end of her silken train, already spattered with mud, and in the right, a tiny silk parasol that scarcely covers the feathered hat on her head.

She _only_ requires a larger umbrella. To make up for that she has enough and to spare of everything else, her face is free from care, it tells only of an abundance of all good things.

Coming to meet her is a little girl, all skin and bone. She has perhaps long and beautiful hair, but no time to attend to it. It is matted and ruffled, and the wind tears round and round and seizes whole locks with which he whips her narrow shoulders. She wears a thin, tattered frock, and the wind clings round her, seeking a hole through which to steal into her puny body.

On her feet she wears a pair of top boots--of mud. She also walks unsteadily, first, because she is meeting the wind, and, secondly, because _her_ hands, too, are taken up.

In her left one she carries a pair of big boots, a man's boots (her father's most likely), taking them to be mended. I need not suppose that they are going to the inn to be p.a.w.ned for a bottle of brandy, because of the split soles.

Her father has probably come home tired out with his work, her mother is cooking the supper, and she, the eldest daughter, has been sent out with the boots. They must be ready by to-morrow morning early--she hurries along--she knows that if her father does not get his boots by to-morrow, there will be no fire in the oven all day. She pants--the great boots are too heavy for such a little child. But the weight in her right hand is heavier, for she carries an immense journeyman's umbrella--and she carries it proudly--her father has trusted her with it!

The child needs a lot of things: in winter, warmth--winter and summer, clothing, and all the year round, enough to eat. By way of compensation, there is excess in the size of her umbrella. I am sure that at this moment the rich lady with the parasol envies her.

The little half-starved girl with the merry, roguish eyes, although the wind threatens to upset her every minute, smiles at me from out the picture:

There, you see, we have our pleasures, too!

As to that lady, I am laughing at her!

On paying for my unfinished gla.s.s of tea, however, I am again reminded of my little beggar boy.

He has no umbrella at all, no home awaits him, not even one with dry potatoes without b.u.t.ter, no little bit of a bed at the foot of father's or mother's.

Even the unhappy lady would not find anything to envy him for.

What made me think of him again? Aha, I remember! It flashed across me that for the ten kopeks which I paid for the scarcely-tasted tea, the poor little boy would have had a half-portion of soup or a piece of bread and a corner to sleep in. Why did I order the tea? At home the samovar is steaming, somebody sits waiting for me with a "ready" smile, on the table there is something to eat.

I was ashamed not to order tea. Well, there is something in that, I say to console myself.

There is an even stronger wind blowing outside than before. It tears at the roofs as if it were an anti-Semite, and the roofs, Jews.

But the roofs are of iron, and they are at home.