Yiddish Tales Part 18

I beg of you--who set the whole thing going? A--woman!

ELIEZER DAVID ROSENTHAL

Born, 1861, in Chotin, Bessarabia; went to Breslau, Germany, in 1880, and pursued studies at the University; returned to Bessarabia in 1882; co-editor of the Bibliothek Dos Leben, published at Odessa, 1904, and Kishineff, 1905; writer of stories.

SABBATH

Friday evening!

The room has been tidied, the table laid. Two Sabbath loaves have been placed upon it, and covered with a red napkin. At the two ends are two metal candlesticks, and between them two more of earthenware, with candles in them ready to be lighted.

On the small sofa that stands by the stove lies a sick man covered up with a red quilt, from under the quilt appears a pale, emaciated face, with red patches on the dried-up cheeks and a black beard. The sufferer wears a nightcap, which shows part of his black hair and his black earlocks. There is no sign of life in his face, and only a faint one in his great, black eyes.

On a chair by the couch sits a nine-year-old girl with damp locks, which have just been combed out in honor of Sabbath. She is barefoot, dressed only in a shirt and a frock. The child sits swinging her feet, absorbed in what she is doing; but all her movements are gentle and noiseless.

The invalid coughed.

"Kche, kche, kche, kche," came from the sofa.

"What is it, Tate?" asked the little girl, swinging her feet.

The invalid made no reply.

He slowly raised his head with both hands, pulled down the nightcap, and coughed and coughed and coughed, hoa.r.s.ely at first, then louder, the cough tearing at his sick chest and dinning in the ears. Then he sat up, and went on coughing and clearing his throat, till he had brought up the phlegm.

The little girl continued to be absorbed in her work and to swing her feet, taking very little notice of her sick father.

The invalid smoothed the creases in the cushion, laid his head down again, and closed his eyes. He lay thus for a few minutes, then he said quite quietly:

"Leah!"

"What is it, Tate?" inquired the child again, still swinging her feet.

"Tell ... mother ... it is ... time to ... bless ... the candles...."

The little girl never moved from her seat, but shouted through the open door into the shop:

"Mother, shut up shop! Father says it's time for candle-blessing."

"I'm coming, I'm coming," answered her mother from the shop.

She quickly disposed of a few women customers: sold one a kopek's worth of tea, the other, two kopeks' worth of sugar, the third, two tallow candles. Then she closed the shutters and the street door, and came into the room.

"You've drunk the gla.s.s of milk?" she inquired of the sick man.

"Yes ... I have ... drunk it," he replied.

"And you, Leahnyu, daughter," and she turned to the child, "may the evil spirit take you! Couldn't you put on your shoes without my telling you?

Don't you know it's Sabbath?"

The little girl hung her head, and made no other answer.

Her mother went to the table, lighted the candles, covered her face with her hands, and blessed them.

After that she sat down on the seat by the window to take a rest.

It was only on Sabbath that she could rest from her hard work, toiling and worrying as she was the whole week long with all her strength and all her mind.

She sat lost in thought.

She was remembering past happy days.

She also had known what it is to enjoy life, when her husband was in health, and they had a few hundred rubles. They finished boarding with her parents, they set up a shop, and though he had always been a close frequenter of the house-of-study, a bench-lover, he soon learnt the Torah of commerce. She helped him, and they made a livelihood, and ate their bread in honor. But in course of time some quite new shops were started in the little town, there was great compet.i.tion, the trade was small, and the gains were smaller, it became necessary to borrow money on interest, on weekly payment, and to pay for goods at once. The interest gradually ate up the capital with the gains. The creditors took what they could lay hands on, and still her husband remained in their debt.

He could not get over this, and fell ill.

The whole bundle of trouble fell upon her: the burden of a livelihood, the children, the sick man, everything, everything, on her.

But she did not lose heart.

"G.o.d will help, _he_ will soon get well, and will surely find some work.

G.o.d will not desert us," so she reflected, and meantime she was not sitting idle.

The very difficulty of her position roused her courage, and gave her strength.

She sold her small store of jewelry, and set up a little shop.

Three years have pa.s.sed since then.

However it may be, G.o.d has not abandoned her, and however bitter and sour the struggle for Parnosseh may have been, she had her bit of bread.

Only his health did not return, he grew daily weaker and worse.

She glanced at her sick husband, at his pale, emaciated face, and tears fell from her eyes.

During the week she has no time to think how unhappy she is. Parnosseh, housework, attendance on the children and the sick man--these things take up all her time and thought. She is glad when it comes to bedtime, and she can fall, dead tired, onto her bed.

But on Sabbath, the day of rest, she has time to think over her hard lot and all her misery and to cry herself out.

"When will there be an end of my troubles and suffering?" she asked herself, and could give no answer whatever to the question beyond despairing tears. She saw no ray of hope lighting her future, only a great, wide, sh.o.r.eless sea of trouble.