The Promised Land Part 4

Such creatures of accident are we, liable to a thousand deaths before we are born. But once we are here, we may create our own world, if we choose. Since I have stood on my own feet, I have never met my master.

For every time I choose a friend I determine my fate anew. I can think of no cataclysm that could have the force to move me from my path.

Fire or flood or the envy of men may tear the roof off my house, but my soul would still be at home under the lofty mountain pines that dip their heads in star dust. Even life, that was so difficult to attain, may serve me merely as a wayside inn, if I choose to go on eternally.

However I came here, it is mine to be.

CHAPTER IV

DAILY BREAD

My mother ought to have been happy in her engagement. Everybody congratulated her on securing such a scholar, her parents loaded her with presents, and her friends envied her. It is true that the hossen's family consisted entirely of poor relations; there was not one solid householder among them. From the worldly point of view my mother made a mesalliance. But as one of my aunts put it, when my mother objected to the a.s.sociation with the undesirable cousins, she could take out the cow and set fire to the barn; meaning that she could rejoice in the hossen and disregard his family.

The hossen, on his part, had reason to rejoice, without any reservations. He was going into a highly respectable family, with a name supported by property and business standing. The promised dowry was considerable, the presents were generous, the trousseau would be liberal, and the bride was fair and capable. The bridegroom would have years before him in which he need do nothing but eat free board, wear his new clothes, and study Torah; and his poor relations could hold up their heads at the market stalls, and in the rear pews in the synagogue.

My mother's trousseau was all that a mother-in-law could wish. The best tailor in Polotzk was engaged to make the cloaks and gowns, and his shop was filled to bursting with ample lengths of velvet and satin and silk. The wedding gown alone cost every kopeck of fifty rubles, as the tailor's wife reported all over Polotzk. The lingerie was of the best, and the seamstress was engaged on it for many weeks.

Featherbeds, linen, household goods of every sort--everything was provided in abundance. My mother crocheted many yards of lace to trim the best sheets, and fine silk coverlets adorned the plump beds. Many a marriageable maiden who came to view the trousseau went home to prink and blush and watch for the shadchan.

The wedding was memorable for gayety and splendor. The guests included some of the finest people in Polotzk; for while my grandfather was not quite at the top of the social scale, he had business connections with those that were, and they all turned out for the wedding of his only daughter, the men in silk frock coats, the women in all their jewelry.

The bridegroom's aunts and cousins came in full force. Wedding messengers had been sent to every person who could possibly claim relationship with the hossen. My mother's parents were too generous to slight the lowliest. Instead of burning the barn, they did all they could to garnish it. One or two of the more important of the poor relations came to the wedding in gowns paid for by my rich grandfather. The rest came decked out in borrowed finery, or in undisguised shabbiness. But n.o.body thought of staying away--except the obstructive cousin who had nearly prevented the match.

When it was time to conduct the bride to the wedding canopy, the bridegroom's mother missed Henne Rosel. The house was searched for her, but in vain. n.o.body had seen her. But my grandmother could not bear to have the marriage solemnized in the absence of a first cousin. Such a wedding as this was not likely to be repeated in her family; it would be a great pity if any of the relatives missed it. So she pet.i.tioned the princ.i.p.als to delay the ceremony, while she herself went in search of the missing cousin.

Clear over to the farthest end of the town she walked, lifting her gala dress well above her ankles. She found Henne Rosel in her untidy kitchen, sound in every limb but sulky in spirit. My grandmother exclaimed at her conduct, and bade her hurry with her toilet, and accompany her; the wedding guests were waiting; the bride was faint from prolonging her fast. But Henne Rosel flatly refused to go; the bride might remain an old maid, for all she, Henne Rosel, cared about the wedding. My troubled grandmother expostulated, questioned her, till she drew out the root of the cousin's sulkiness. Henne Rosel complained that she had not been properly invited. The wedding messenger had come,--oh, yes!--but she had not addressed her as flatteringly, as respectfully as she had been heard to address the wife of Yohem, the money-lender. And Henne Rosel wasn't going to any weddings where she was not wanted. My grandmother had a struggle of it, but she succeeded in soothing the sensitive cousin, who consented at length to don her best dress and go to the wedding.

While my grandmother labored with Henne Rosel, the bride sat in state in her father's house under the hill, the maidens danced, and the matrons fanned themselves, while the fiddlers and _zimblers_ sc.r.a.ped and tinkled. But as the hours went by, the matrons became restless and the dancers wearied. The poor relations grew impatient for the feast, and the babies in their laps began to fidget and cry; while the bride grew faint, and the bridegroom's party began to send frequent messengers from the house next door, demanding to know the cause of the delay. Some of the guests at last lost all patience, and begged leave to go home. But before they went they deposited the wedding presents in the bride's satin lap, till she resembled a heathen image hung about with offerings.

My mother, after thirty years of bustling life, retains a lively memory of the embarra.s.sment she suffered while waiting for the arrival of the troublesome cousin. When that important dame at last appeared, with her chin in the air, the artificial flower still stuck belligerently into her dusty wig, and my grandmother beaming behind her, the bride's heart fairly jumped with anger, and the red blood of indignation set her cheeks afire. No wonder that she speaks the name of the Red-Flower with an unloving accent to this day, although she has forgiven the enemies who did her greater wrong. The bride is a princess on her wedding day. To put upon her an indignity is an unpardonable offense.

After the feasting and dancing, which lasted a whole week, the wedding presents were locked up, the bride, with her hair discreetly covered, returned to her father's store, and the groom, with his new praying-shawl, repaired to the synagogue. This was all according to the marriage bargain, which implied that my father was to study and pray and fill the house with the spirit of piety, in return for board and lodging and the devotion of his wife and her entire family.

All the parties concerned had entered into this bargain in good faith, so far as they knew their own minds. But the eighteen-year-old bridegroom, before many months had pa.s.sed, began to realize that he felt no such hunger for the word of the Law as he was supposed to feel. He felt, rather, a hunger for life that all his studying did not satisfy. He was not trained enough to a.n.a.lyze his own thoughts to any purpose; he was not experienced enough to understand where his thoughts were leading him. He only knew that he felt no call to pray and fast that the Torah did not inspire him, and his days were blank.

The life he was expected to lead grew distasteful to him, and yet he knew no other way to live. He became lax in his attendance at the synagogue, incurring the reproach of the family. It began to be rumored among the studious that the son-in-law of Raphael the Russian was not devoting himself to the sacred books with any degree of enthusiasm. It was well known that he had a good mind, but evidently the spirit was lacking. My grandparents went from surprise to indignation, from exhortation they pa.s.sed to recrimination. Before my parents had been married half a year, my grandfather's house was divided against itself and my mother was torn between the two factions. For while she sympathized with her parents, and felt personally cheated by my father's lack of piety, she thought it was her duty to take her husband's part, even against her parents, in their own house. My mother was one of those women who always obey the highest law they know, even though it leads them to their doom.

How did it happen that my father, who from his early boyhood had been pointed out as a scholar in embryo, failed to live up to the expectations of his world? It happened as it happened that his hair curled over his high forehead: he was made that way. If people were disappointed, it was because they had based their expectations on a misconception of his character, for my father had never had any aspirations for extreme piety. Piety was imputed to him by his mother, by his rebbe, by his neighbors, when they saw that he rendered the sacred word more intelligently than his fellow students. It was not his fault that his people confused scholarship with religious ardor.

Having a good mind, he was glad to exercise it; and being given only one subject to study he was bound to make rapid progress in that. If he had ever been offered a choice between a religious and a secular education, his friends would have found out early that he was not born to be a rav. But as he had no mental opening except through the hedder, he went on from year to year winning new distinction in Hebrew scholarship; with the result that witnesses with preconceived ideas began to see the halo of piety playing around his head, and a well-to-do family was misled into making a match with him for the sake of the glory that he was to attain.

When it became evident that the son-in-law was not going to develop into a rav, my grandfather notified him that he would have to a.s.sume the support of his own family without delay. My father therefore entered on a series of experiments with paying occupations, for none of which he was qualified, and in none of which he succeeded permanently.

My mother was with my father, as equal partner and laborer, in everything he attempted in Polotzk. They tried keeping a wayside inn, but had to give it up because the life was too rough for my mother, who was expecting her first baby. Returning to Polotzk they went to storekeeping on their own account, but failed in this also, because my father was inexperienced, and my mother, now with the baby to nurse, was not able to give her best attention to business. Over two years pa.s.sed in this experiment, and in the interval the second child was born, increasing my parents' need of a home and a reliable income.

It was then decided that my father should seek his fortune elsewhere.

He travelled as far east as Tchistopol, on the Volga, and south as far as Odessa, on the Black Sea, trying his luck at various occupations within the usual Jewish restrictions. Finally he reached the position of a.s.sistant superintendent in a distillery, with a salary of thirty rubles a month. That was a fair income for those days, and he was planning to have his family join him when my Grandfather Raphael died, leaving my mother heir to a good business. My father thereupon returned to Polotzk, after nearly three years' absence from home.

As my mother had been trained to her business from childhood, while my father had had only a little irregular experience, she naturally remained the leader. She was as successful as her father before her.

The people continued to call her Raphael's Hannah Hayye, and under that name she was greatly respected in the business world. Her eldest brother was now a merchant of importance, and my mother's establishment was gradually enlarged; so that, altogether, our family had a solid position in Polotzk, and there were plenty to envy us.

We were almost rich, as Polotzk counted riches in those days; certainly we were considered well-to-do. We moved into a larger house, where there was room for out-of-town customers to stay overnight, with stabling for their horses. We lived as well as any people of our cla.s.s, and perhaps better, because my father had brought home with him from his travels a taste for a more genial life than Polotzk usually asked for. My mother kept a cook and a nursemaid, and a dvornik, or outdoor man, to take care of the horses, the cow, and the woodpile. All the year round we kept open house, as I remember.

Cousins and aunts were always about, and on holidays friends of all degrees gathered in numbers. And coming and going in the wing set apart for business guests were merchants, traders, country peddlers, peasants, soldiers, and minor government officials. It was a full house at all times, and especially so during fairs, and at the season of the military draft.

In the family wing there was also enough going on. There were four of us children, besides father and mother and grandmother, and the parasitic cousins. Fetchke was the eldest; I was the second; the third was my only brother, named Joseph, for my father's father; and the fourth was Deborah, named for my mother's mother.

I suppose I ought to explain my own name also, especially because I am going to emerge as the heroine by and by. Be it therefore known that I was named Maryashe, for a bygone aunt. I was never called by my full name, however. "Maryashe" was too dignified for me. I was always "Mashinke," or else "Mashke," by way of diminutive. A variety of nicknames, mostly suggested by my physical peculiarities, were bestowed on me from time to time by my fond or foolish relatives. My uncle Berl, for example, gave me the name of "Zukrochene Flum," which I am not going to translate, because it is uncomplimentary.

My sister Fetchke was always the good little girl, and when our troubles began she was an important member of the family. What sort of little girl I was will be written by and by. Joseph was the best Jewish boy that ever was born, but he hated to go to heder, so he had to be whipped, of course. Deborah was just a baby, and her princ.i.p.al characteristic was single-mindedness. If she had teething to attend to, she thought of nothing else day or night, and communicated with the family on no other subject. If it was whooping-cough, she whooped most heartily; if it was measles, she had them thick.

It was the normal thing in Polotzk, where the mothers worked as well as the fathers, for the children to be left in the hands of grandmothers and nursemaids. I suffer reminiscent terrors when I recall Deborah's nurse, who never opened her lips except to frighten us children--or else to lie. That girl never told the truth if she could help it. I know it is so because I heard her tell eleven or twelve unnecessary lies every day. In the beginning of her residence with us, I exposed her indignantly every time I caught her lying; but the tenor of her private conversations with me was conducive to a cessation of my activity along the line of volunteer testimony. In shorter words, the nurse terrified me with horrid threats until I did not dare to contradict her even if she lied her head off. The things she promised me in this life and in the life to come could not be executed by a person without imagination. The nurse gave almost her entire attention to us older children, disposing easily of the baby's claims. Deborah, unless she was teething or whoop-coughing, was a quiet baby, and would lie for hours on the nurse's lap, sucking at a "pacifier" made of bread and sugar tied up in a muslin rag, and previously chewed to a pulp by the nurse. And while the baby sucked the nurse told us things--things that we must remember when we went to bed at night.

A favorite subject of her discourse was the Evil One, who lived, so she told us, in our attic, with his wife and brood. A pet amus.e.m.e.nt of our invisible tenant was the translating of human babies into his lair, leaving one of his own brats in the cradle; the moral of which was that if nurse wanted to loaf in the yard and watch who went out and who came in, we children must mind the baby. The girl was so sly that she carried on all this tyranny without being detected, and we lived in terror till she was discharged for stealing.

In our grandmothers we were very fortunate: They spoiled us to our hearts' content. Grandma Deborah's methods I know only from hearsay, for I was very little when she died. Grandma Rachel I remember distinctly, spare and trim and always busy. I recall her coming in midwinter from the frozen village where she lived. I remember, as if it were but last winter, the immense shawls and wraps which we unwound from about her person, her voluminous brown sack coat in which there was room for three of us at a time, and at last the tight clasp of her long arms, and her fresh, cold cheeks on ours. And when the hugging and kissing were over, Grandma had a treat for us. It was _talakno_, or oat flour, which we mixed with cold water and ate raw, using wooden spoons, just like the peasants, and smacking our lips over it in imaginary enjoyment.

But Grandma Rachel did not come to play. She applied herself energetically to the housekeeping. She kept her bright eye on everything, as if she were in her own trifling establishment in Yuchovitch. Watchful was she as any cat--and harmless as a tame rabbit. If she caught the maids at fault, she found an excuse for them at the same time. If she was quite exasperated with the stupidity of Yakub, the dvornik, she pretended to curse him in a phrase of her own invention, a mixture of Hebrew and Russian, which, translated, said, "Mayst thou have gold and silver in thy bosom"; but to the ch.o.r.eman, who was not a linguist, the mongrel phrase conveyed a sense of his delinquency.

Grandma Rachel meant to be very strict with us children, and accordingly was prompt to discipline us; but we discovered early in our acquaintance with her that the child who got a spanking was sure to get a hot cookie or the jam pot to lick, so we did not stand in great awe of her punishments. Even if it came to a spanking it was only a farce. Grandma generally interposed a pillow between the palm of her hand and the area of moral stimulation.

The real disciplinarian in our family was my father. Present or absent, it was fear of his displeasure that kept us in the straight and narrow path. In the minds of us children he was as much represented, when away from home, by the strap hanging on the wall as by his portrait which stood on a parlor table, in a gorgeous frame adorned with little sh.e.l.ls. Almost everybody's father had a strap, but our father's strap was more formidable than the ordinary. For one thing, it was more painful to encounter personally, because it was not a simple strap, but a bunch of fine long strips, clinging as rubber.

My father called it noodles; and while his facetiousness was lost on us children, the superior sting of his instrument was entirely effective.

In his leisure, my father found means of instructing us other than by the strap. He took us walking and driving, answered our questions, and taught us many little things that our playmates were not taught.

From distant parts of the country he had imported little tricks of speech and conduct, which we learned readily enough; for we were always a teachable lot. Our pretty manners were very much admired, so that we became used to being held up as models to children less polite. Guests at our table praised our deportment, when, at the end of a meal, we kissed the hands of father and mother and thanked them for food. Envious mothers of rowdy children used to sneer, "Those grandchildren of Raphael the Russian are quite the aristocrats."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY FATHER'S PORTRAIT]

And yet, off the stage, we had our little quarrels and tempests, especially I. I really and truly cannot remember a time when Fetchke was naughty, but I was oftener in trouble than out of it. I need not go into details. I only need to recall how often, on going to bed, I used to lie silently rehearsing the day's misdeeds, my sister refraining from talk out of sympathy. As I always came to the conclusion that I wanted to reform, I emerged from my reflections with this solemn formula: "Fetchke, let us be good." And my generosity in including my sister in my plans for salvation was equalled by her magnanimity in a.s.suming part of my degradation. She always replied, in aspiration as eager as mine, "Yes, Mashke, let us be good."

My mother had less to do than any one with our early training, because she was confined to the store. When she came home at night, with her pockets full of goodies for us, she was too hungry for our love to listen to tales against us, too tired from work to discipline us. It was only on Sabbaths and holidays that she had a chance to get acquainted with us, and we all looked forward to these days of enjoined rest.

On Friday afternoons my parents came home early, to wash and dress and remove from their persons every sign of labor. The great keys of the store were put away out of sight; the money bag was hidden in the featherbeds. My father put on his best coat and silk skull-cap; my mother replaced the cotton kerchief by the well-brushed wig. We children bustled around our parents, asking favors in the name of the Sabbath--"Mama, let Fetchke and me wear our new shoes, in honor of Sabbath"; or "Papa, will you take us to-morrow across the bridge? You said you would, on Sabbath." And while we adorned ourselves in our best, my grandmother superintended the sealing of the oven, the maids washed the sweat from their faces, and the dvornik sc.r.a.ped his feet at the door.

My father and brother went to the synagogue, while we women and girls a.s.sembled in the living-room for candle prayer. The table gleamed with spotless linen and china. At my father's place lay the Sabbath loaf, covered over with a crocheted doily; and beside it stood the wine flask and _kiddush_ cup of gold or silver. At the opposite end of the table was a long row of bra.s.s candlesticks, polished to perfection, with the heavy silver candlesticks in a shorter row in front; for my mother and grandmother were very pious, and each used a number of candles; while Fetchke and I and the maids had one apiece.

After the candle prayer the women generally read in some book of devotion, while we children amused ourselves in the quietest manner, till the men returned from synagogue. "Good Sabbath!" my father called, as he entered; and "Good Sabbath! Good Sabbath!" we wished him in return. If he brought with him a Sabbath guest from the synagogue, some poor man without a home, the stranger was welcomed and invited in, and placed in the seat of honor, next to my father.

We all stood around the table while _kiddush_, or the blessing over the wine, was said, and if a child whispered or nudged another my father reproved him with a stern look, and began again from the beginning. But as soon as he had cut the consecrated loaf, and distributed the slices, we were at liberty to talk and ask questions, unless a guest was present, when we maintained a polite silence.

Of one Sabbath guest we were always sure, even if no dest.i.tute Jew accompanied my father from the synagogue. Yakub the ch.o.r.eman partook of the festival with us. He slept on a bunk built over the entrance door, and reached by means of a rude flight of steps. There he liked to roll on his straw and rags, whenever he was not busy, or felt especially lazy. On Friday evenings he climbed to his roost very early, before the family a.s.sembled for supper, and waited for his cue, which was the breaking-out of table talk after the blessing of the bread. Then Yakub began to clear his throat and kept on working at it until my father called to him to come down and have a gla.s.s of vodka.

Sometimes my father pretended not to hear him, and we smiled at one another around the table, while Yakub's throat grew worse and worse, and he began to cough and mutter and rustle in his straw. Then my father let him come down, and he shuffled in, and stood clutching his cap with both hands, while my father poured him a br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.s of whiskey. This Yakub dedicated to all our healths, and tossed off to his own comfort. If he got a slice of boiled fish after his gla.s.sful, he gulped it down as a chicken gulps worms, smacked his lips explosively, and wiped his fingers on his unkempt locks. Then, thanking his master and mistress, and sc.r.a.ping and bowing, he backed out of the room and ascended to his roost once more; and in less time than it takes to write his name, the simple fellow was asleep, and snoring the snore of the just.

On Sabbath morning almost everybody went to synagogue, and those who did not, read their prayers and devotions at home. Dinner, at midday, was a pleasant and leisurely meal in our house. Between courses my father led us in singing our favorite songs, sometimes Hebrew, sometimes Yiddish, sometimes Russian, or some of the songs without words for which the Hasidim were famous. In the afternoon we went visiting, or else we took long walks out of town, where the fields sprouted and the orchards waited to bloom. If we stayed at home, we were not without company. Neighbors dropped in for a gla.s.s of tea.

Uncles and cousins came, and perhaps my brother's rebbe, to examine his pupil in the hearing of the family. And wherever we spent the day, the talk was pleasant, the faces were cheerful, and the joy of Sabbath pervaded everything.

The festivals were observed with all due pomp and circ.u.mstance in our house. Pa.s.sover was beautiful with shining new things all through the house; _Purim_ was gay with feasting and presents and the jolly mummers; _Succoth_ was a poem lived in a green arbor; New-Year thrilled our hearts with its symbols and promises; and the Day of Atonement moved even the laughing children to a longing for consecration. The year, in our pious house, was an endless song in many cantos of joy, lamentation, aspiration, and rhapsody.

We children, while we regretted the pa.s.sing of a festival, found plenty to content us in the common days of the week. We had everything we needed, and almost everything we wanted. We were welcomed everywhere, petted and praised, abroad as well as at home. I suppose no little girls with whom we played had a more comfortable sense of being well-off than Fetchke and I. "Raphael the Russian's grandchildren" people called us, as if referring to the quarterings in our shield. It was very pleasant to wear fine clothes, to have kopecks to spend at the fruit stalls, and to be pointed at admiringly. Some of the little girls we went with were richer than we, but after all one's mother can wear only one pair of earrings at a time, and our mother had beautiful gold ones that hung down on her neck.

As we grew older, my parents gave us more than physical comfort and social standing to rejoice in. They gave us, or set out to give us, education, which was less common than gold earrings in Polotzk. For the ideal of a modern education was the priceless ware that my father brought back with him from his travels in distant parts. His travels, indeed, had been the making of my father. He had gone away from Polotzk, in the first place, as a man unfit for the life he led, out of harmony with his surroundings, at odds with his neighbors. Never heartily devoted to the religious ideals of the Hebrew scholar, he was more and more a dissenter as he matured, but he hardly knew what he wanted to embrace in place of the ideals he rejected. The rigid scheme of orthodox Jewish life in the Pale offered no opening to any other mode of life. But in the large cities in the east and south he discovered a new world, and found himself at home in it. The Jews among whom he lived in those parts were faithful to the essence of the religion, but they allowed themselves more lat.i.tude in practice and observance than the people in Polotzk. Instead of bribing government officials to relax the law of compulsory education for boys, these people pushed in numbers at every open door of culture and enlightenment. Even the girls were given books in Odessa and Kherson, as the rock to build their lives on, and not as an ornament for idleness. My father's mind was ready for the reception of such ideas, and he was inspired by the new view of the world which they afforded him.