Yiddish Tales Part 33

The idea that she should go out to those of them who were in America, never occurred to her, or to them, either! But Yossef, who had taken a wife in his new town, and who, soon after, had set up for himself, and was doing very well, now sent for his mother and little sister to come and live with him. At first the mother was unwilling, fearing that she might be in the way of her daughter-in-law, and thus disturb the household peace; even later, when she had a.s.sured herself that the young wife was very kind, and there was nothing to be afraid of, she could not make up her mind to go, even though she longed to be with Yossef, her oldest son, who had always been her favorite, and however much she desired to see his wife and her little grandchildren.

Why she would not fulfil his wish and her own, she herself was not clearly conscious; but she shrank from the strange fashion of the life they led, and she never ceased to hope, deep down in her heart, that some day they would come back to her. And this especially with regard to Yossef, who sometimes complained in his letters that his situation was anything but secure, because the smallest circ.u.mstance might bring about an edict of expulsion. She quite understood that her son would consider this a very bad thing, but she herself looked at it with other eyes; round about _here_, too, were people who made a comfortable living, and Yossef was no worse than others, that he should not do the same.

Six or seven years pa.s.sed in this way; the youngest daughter was twenty, and it was time to think of a match for her. Her mother felt sure that Yossef would provide the dowry, but she thought best Rivkeh and her brother should see each other, and she consented readily to let Rivkeh go to him, when Yossef invited her to spend several months as his guest.

No sooner had she gone, than the mother realized what it meant, this parting with her youngest and, for the last years, her only child. She was filled with regret at not having gone with her, and waited impatiently for her return. Suddenly she heard that Rivkeh had found favor with a friend of Yossef's, the son of a well-to-do merchant, and that Rivkeh and her brother were equally pleased with him. The two were already engaged, and the wedding was only deferred till she, the mother, should come and take up her abode with them for good.

The longing to see her daughter overcame all her doubts. She resolved to go to her son, and began preparations for the start. These were just completed, when there came a letter from Yossef to say that the situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse, and he and his family might have to leave their town.

This sudden news was distressing and welcome at one and the same time.

She was anxious lest the edict of expulsion should harm her son's position, and pleased, on the other hand, that he should at last be coming back, for G.o.d would not forsake him here, either; what with the fortune he had, and his apt.i.tude for trade, he would make a living right enough. She waited anxiously, and in a few months had gone through all the mental suffering inherent in a state of uncertainty such as hers, when fear and hope are twined in one.

The waiting was the harder to bear that all this time no letter from Yossef or Rivkeh reached her promptly. And the end of it all was this: news came that the danger was over, and Yossef would remain where he was; but as far as she was concerned, it was best she should do likewise, because trailing about at her age was a serious thing, and it was not worth while her running into danger, and so on.

The old woman was full of grief at remaining thus forlorn in her old age, and she longed more than ever for her children after having hoped so surely that she would be with them soon. She could not understand Yossef's reason for suddenly changing his mind with regard to her coming; but it never occurred to her for one minute to doubt her children's affection. And we, when we had read the treasured bundle of letters from Yossef and Rivkeh, we could not doubt it, either. There was love and longing for the distant mother in every line, and several of the letters betrayed a spirit of bitterness, a note of complaining resentment against the hard times that had brought about the separation from her. And yet we could not help thinking, "Out of sight, out of mind," that which is far from the eyes, weighs lighter at the heart. It was the only explanation we could invent, for why, otherwise, should the mother have to remain alone among strangers?

All these considerations moved me to interfere in the matter without the old woman's knowledge. She could read Yiddish, but could not write it, and before we made friends, her letters to the children were written by a shopkeeper of her acquaintance. But from the time we got to know her, I became her constant secretary, and one day, when writing to Yossef for her, I made use of the opportunity to enclose a letter from myself. I asked his forgiveness for mixing myself up in another's family affairs, and tried to justify the interference by dwelling on our affectionate relations with his mother. I then described, in the most touching words at my command, how hard it was for her to live forlorn, how she pined for the presence of her children and grandchildren, and ended by telling them, that it was their duty to free their mother from all this mental suffering.

There was no direct reply to this letter of mine, but the next one from the son to his mother gave her to understand that there are certain things not to be explained, while the impossibility of explaining them may lead to a misunderstanding. This hint made the position no clearer to us, and the fact of Yossef's not answering me confirmed us in our previous suspicions.

Meanwhile our old friend fell ill, and quickly understood that she would soon die. Among the things she begged me to do after her death and having reference to her burial, there was one particular pet.i.tion several times repeated: to send a packet of Hebrew books, which had been left by her husband, to her son Yossef, and to inform him of her death by telegram. "My American children"--she explained with a sigh--"have certainly forgotten everything they once learned, forgotten all their Jewishness! But my son Yossef is a different sort; I feel sure of him, that he will say Kaddish after me and read a chapter in the Mishnah, and the books will come in useful for his children--Grandmother's legacy to them."

When I fulfilled the old woman's last wish, I learned how mistaken she had been. The answer to my letter written during her lifetime came now that she was dead. Her children thanked us warmly for our care of her, and they also explained why she and they had remained apart.

She had never known--and it was far better so--by what means her son had obtained the right to live outside the Pale. It was enough that she should have to live _forlorn_, where would have been the good of her knowing that she was _forsaken_ as well--that the one of her children who had gone altogether over to "them" was Yossef?

TASHRAK

Pen name of Israel Joseph Zevin; born, 1872, in Gori-Gorki, Government of Mohileff (Lithuania), White Russia; came to New York in 1889; first Yiddish sketch published in Judisches Tageblatt, 1893; first English story in The American Hebrew, 1906; a.s.sociate editor of Judisches Tageblatt; writer of sketches, short stories, and biographies, in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English; contributor to Ha-Ibri, Jewish Comment, and numerous Yiddish periodicals; collected works, Geklibene Schriften, 1 vol., New York, 1910, and Tashrak's Beste Erzahlungen, 4 vols., New York, 1910.

THE HOLE IN A BEIGEL

When I was a little Cheder-boy, my Rebbe, Bunem-Breine-Gite's, a learned man, who was always tormenting me with Talmudical questions and with riddles, once asked me, "What becomes of the hole in a Beigel, when one has eaten the Beigel?"

This riddle, which seemed to me then very hard to solve, stuck in my head, and I puzzled over it day and night. I often bought a Beigel, took a bite out of it, and immediately replaced the bitten-out piece with my hand, so that the hole should not escape. But when I had eaten up the Beigel, the hole had somehow always disappeared, which used to annoy me very much. I went about preoccupied, thought it over at prayers and at lessons, till the Rebbe noticed that something was wrong with me.

At home, too, they remarked that I had lost my appet.i.te, that I ate nothing but Beigel--Beigel for breakfast, Beigel for dinner, Beigel for supper, Beigel all day long. They also observed that I ate it to the accompaniment of strange gestures and contortions of both my mouth and my hands.

One day I summoned all my courage, and asked the Rebbe, in the middle of a lesson on the Pentateuch:

"Rebbe, when one has eaten a Beigel, what becomes of the hole?"

"Why, you little silly," answered the Rebbe, "what is a hole in a Beigel? Just nothing at all! A bit of emptiness! It's nothing _with_ the Beigel and nothing _without_ the Beigel!"

Many years have pa.s.sed since then, and I have not yet been able to satisfy myself as to what is the object of a hole in a Beigel. I have considered whether one could not have Beigels without holes. One lives and learns. And America has taught me this: One _can_ have Beigels without holes, for I saw them in a dairy-shop in East Broadway. I at once recited the appropriate blessing, and then I asked the shopman about these Beigels, and heard a most interesting history, which shows how difficult it is to get people to accept anything new, and what sacrifices it costs to introduce the smallest reform.

This is the story:

A baker in an Illinois city took it into his head to make straight Beigels, in the shape of candles. But this reform cost him dear, because the united owners of the bakeries in that city immediately made a set at him and boycotted him.

They argued: "Our fathers' fathers baked Beigels with holes, the whole world eats Beigels with holes, and here comes a bold c.o.xcomb of a fellow, upsets the order of the universe, and bakes Beigels _without_ holes! Have you ever heard of such impertinence? It's just revolution!

And if a person like this is allowed to go on, he will make an end of everything: to-day it's Beigels without holes, to-morrow it will be holes without Beigels! Such a thing has never been known before!"

And because of the hole in a Beigel, a storm broke out in that city that grew presently into a civil war. The "bosses" fought on, and dragged the bakers'-hands Union after them into the conflict. Now the Union contained two parties, of which one declared that a hole and a Beigel const.i.tuted together a private affair, like religion, and that everyone had a right to bake Beigels as he thought best, and according to his conscience. The other party maintained, that to sell Beigels without holes was against the const.i.tution, to which the first party replied that the const.i.tution should be altered, as being too ancient, and contrary to the spirit of the times. At this the second party raised a clamor, crying that the rules could not be altered, because they were Toras-Lokshen and every letter, every stroke, every dot was a law in itself! The city papers were obliged to publish daily accounts of the meetings that were held to discuss the hole in a Beigel, and the papers also took sides, and wrote fiery polemical articles on the subject. The quarrel spread through the city, until all the inhabitants were divided into two parties, the Beigel-with-a-hole party and the Beigel-without-a-hole party. Children rose against their parents, wives against their husbands, engaged couples severed their ties, families were broken up, and still the battle raged--and all on account of the hole in a Beigel!

AS THE YEARS ROLL ON

Rosalie laid down the cloth with which she had been dusting the furniture in her front parlor, and began tapping the velvet covering of the sofa with her fingers. The velvet had worn threadbare in places, and there was a great rent in the middle.

Had the rent been at one of the ends, it could have been covered with a cushion, but there it was, by bad luck, in the very centre, and making a shameless display of itself: Look, here I am! See what a rent!

Yesterday she and her husband had invited company. The company had brought children, and you never have children in the house without having them leave some mischief behind them.

To-day the sun was shining more brightly than ever, and lighting up the whole room. Rosalie took the opportunity to inspect her entire set of furniture. Eight years ago, when she was given the set at her marriage, how happy, she had been! Everything was so fresh and new.

She had noticed before that the velvet was getting worn, and the polish of the chairs disappearing, and the seats losing their spring, but to-day all this struck her more than formerly. The holes, the rents, the damaged places, stared before them with such malicious mockery--like a poor man laughing at his own evil plight.

Rosalie felt a painful melancholy steal over her. Now she could not but see that her furniture was old, that she would soon be ashamed to invite people into her parlor. And her husband will be in no hurry to present her with a new one--he has grown so parsimonious of late!

She replaced the holland coverings of the sofa and chairs, and went out to do her bedroom. There, on a chair, lay her best dress, the one she had put on yesterday for her guests.

She considered the dress: that, too, was frayed in places; here and there even drawn together and sewn over. The bodice was beyond ironing out again--and this was her best dress. She opened the wardrobe, for she wanted to make a general survey of her belongings. It was such a light day, one could see even in the back rooms. She took down one dress after another, and laid them out on the made beds, observing each with a critical eye. Her sense of depression increased the while, and she felt as though stone on stone were being piled upon her heart.

She began to put the clothes back into the wardrobe, and she hung up every one of them with a sigh. When she had finished with the bedroom, she went into the dining-room, and stood by the sideboard on which were set out her best china service and colored plates. She looked them over.

One little gold-rimmed cup had lost its handle, a bowl had a piece glued in at the side. On the top shelf stood the statuette of a little G.o.d with a broken bow and arrow in his hand, and here there was one little goblet missing out of a whole service.

As soon as everything was in order, Rosalie washed her face and hands, combed up her hair, and began to look at herself in a little hand-gla.s.s, but the bath-room, to which she had retired, was dark, and she betook herself back into the front parlor, towel in hand, where she could see herself in the big looking-gla.s.s on the wall. Time, which had left traces on the furniture, on the contents of the wardrobe, and on the china, had not spared the woman, though she had been married only eight years. She looked at the crow's-feet by her eyes, and the lines in her forehead, which the worrying thoughts of this day had imprinted there even more sharply than usual. She tried to smile, but the smile in the gla.s.s looked no more attractive than if she had given her mouth a twist. She remembered that the only way to remain young is to keep free from care. But how is one to set about it? She threw on a scarlet j.a.panese kimono, and stuck an artificial flower into her hair, after which she lightly powdered her face and neck. The scarlet kimono lent a little color to her cheeks, and another critical glance at the mirror convinced her that she was still a comely woman, only no more a young one.

The bloom of youth had fled, never to return. Verfallen! And the desire to live was stronger than ever, even to live her life over again from the beginning, sorrows and all.

She began to reflect what she should cook for supper. There was time enough, but she must think of something new: her husband was tired of her usual dishes. He said her cooking was old-fashioned, that it was always the same thing, day in and day out. His taste was evidently getting worn-out, too.

And she wondered what she could prepare, so as to win back her husband's former good temper and affectionate appreciation.

At one time he was an ardent young man, with a fiery tongue. He had great ideals, and he strove high. He talked of making mankind happy, more refined, more n.o.ble and free. He had dreamt of a world without tears and troubles, of a time when men should live as brothers, and jealousy and hatred should be unknown. In those days he loved with all the warmth of his youth, and when he talked of love, it was a delight to listen. The world grew to have another face for her then, life, another significance, Paradise was situated on the earth.

Gradually his ideals lost their freshness, their shine wore off, and he became a business man, racking his brain with speculations, trying to grow rich without the necessary qualities and capabilities, and he was left at last with prematurely grey hair as the only result of his efforts.