Yiddish Tales Part 34

Eight years after their marriage he was as worn as their furniture in the front parlor.

Rosalie looked out of the window. It was even much brighter outside than indoors. She saw people going up and down the street with different anxieties reflected in their faces, with wrinkles telling different histories of the cares of life. She saw old faces, and the young faces of those who seemed to have tasted of age ere they reached it.

"Everything is old and worn and shabby," whispered a voice in her ear.

A burst of childish laughter broke upon her meditations. Round the corner came with a rush a lot of little boys with books under their arms, their faces full of the zest of life, and dancing and jumping till the whole street seemed to be jumping and dancing, too. Elder people turned smilingly aside to make way for them. Among the children Rosalie espied two little girls, also with books under their arms, her little girls! And the mother's heart suddenly brimmed with joy, a delicious warmth stole into her limbs and filled her being.

Rosalie went to the door to meet her two children on their return from school, and when she had given each little face a motherly kiss, she felt a breath of freshness and new life blowing round her.

She took off their cloaks, and listened to their childish prattle about their teachers and the day's lessons.

The clear voices rang through the rooms, awaking sympathetic echoes in every corner. The home wore a new aspect, and the sun shone even more brightly than before and in more friendly, kindly fashion.

The mother spread a little cloth at the edge of the table, gave them milk and sandwiches, and looked at them as they ate--each child the picture of the mother, her eyes, her hair, her nose, her look, her gestures--they ate just as she would do.

And Rosalie feels much better and happier. She doesn't care so much now about the furniture being old, the dresses worn, the china service not being whole, about the wrinkles round her eyes and in her forehead. She only minds about her husband's being so worn-out, so absent-minded that he cannot take pleasure in the children as she can.

DAVID PINSKI

Born, 1872, in Mohileff (Lithuania), White Russia; refused admission to Gymnasium in Moscow under percentage restrictions; 1889-1891, secretary to Bene Zion in Vitebsk; 1891-1893, student in Vienna; 1893, co-editor of Spektor's Hausfreund and Perez's Yom-tov Blattlech; 1893, first sketch published in New York Arbeiterzeitung; 1896, studied philosophy in Berlin; 1899, came to New York, and edited Das Abendblatt, a daily, and Der Arbeiter, a weekly; 1912, founder and co-editor of Die Yiddishe Wochenschrift; author of short stories, sketches, an essay on the Yiddish drama, and ten dramas, among them Yesurun, Eisik Scheftel, Die Mutter, Die Familie Zwie, Der Oitzer, Der eibiger Jud (first part of a series of Messiah dramas), Der stummer Moschiach, etc.; one volume of collected dramas, Dramen, Warsaw, 1909.

REB SHLOIMEH

The seventy-year-old Reb Shloimeh's son, whose home was in the country, sent his two boys to live with their grandfather and acquire town, that is, Gentile, learning.

"Times have changed," considered Reb Shloimeh; "it can't be helped!" and he engaged a good teacher for the children, after making inquiries here and there.

"Give me a teacher who can tell the whole of _their_ Law, as the saying goes, standing on one leg!" he would say to his friends, with a smile.

At seventy-one years of age, Reb Shloimeh lived more indoors than out, and he used to listen to the teacher instructing his grandchildren.

"I shall become a doctor in my old age!" he would say, laughing.

The teacher was one day telling his pupils about mathematical geography.

Reb Shloimeh sat with a smile on his lips, and laughing in his heart at the little teacher who told "such huge lies" with so much earnestness.

"The earth revolves," said the teacher to his pupils, and Reb Shloimeh smiles, and thinks, "He must have seen it!" But the teacher shows it to be so by the light of reason, and Reb Shloimeh becomes graver, and ceases smiling; he is endeavoring to grasp the proofs; he wants to ask questions, but can find none that will do, and he sits there as if he had lost his tongue.

The teacher has noticed his grave look, and understands that the old man is interested in the lesson, and he begins to tell of even greater wonders. He tells how far the sun is from the earth, how big it is, how many earths could be made out of it--and Reb Shloimeh begins to smile again, and at last can bear it no longer.

"Look here," he exclaimed, "that I cannot and will not listen to! You may tell me the earth revolves--well, be it so! Very well, I'll allow you, that, perhaps, according to reason--even--the size of the earth--the appearance of the earth--do you see?--all that sort of thing.

But the sun! Who has measured the sun! Who, I ask you! Have _you_ been on it? A pretty thing to say, upon my word!" Reb Shloimeh grew very excited. The teacher took hold of Reb Shloimeh's hand, and began to quiet him. He told him by what means the astronomers had discovered all this, that it was no matter of speculation; he explained the telescope to him, and talked of mathematical calculations, which he, Reb Shloimeh, was not able to understand. Reb Shloimeh had nothing to answer, but he frowned and remained obstinate. "He" (he said, and made a contemptuous motion with his hand), "it's nothing to me, not knowing that or being able to understand it! Science, indeed! Fiddlesticks!"

He relapsed into silence, and went on listening to the teacher's "stories." "We even know," the teacher continued, "what metals are to be found in the sun."

"And suppose I won't believe you?" and Reb Shloimeh smiled maliciously.

"I will explain directly," answered the teacher.

"And tell us there's a fair in the sky!" interrupted Reb Shloimeh, impatiently. He was very angry, but the teacher took no notice of his anger.

"Two hundred years ago," began the teacher, "there lived, in England, a celebrated naturalist and mathematician, Isaac Newton. It was told of him that when G.o.d said, Let there be light, Newton was born."

"Psh! I should think, very likely!" broke in Reb Shloimeh. "Why not?"

The teacher pursued his way, and gave an explanation of spectral a.n.a.lysis. He spoke at some length, and Reb Shloimeh sat and listened with close attention. "Now do you understand?" asked the teacher, coming to an end.

Reb Shloimeh made no reply, he only looked up from under his brows.

The teacher went on:

"The earth," he said, "has stood for many years. Their exact number is not known, but calculation brings it to several million--"

"e," burst in the old man, "I should like to know what next! I thought everyone knew _that_--that even _they_--"

"Wait a bit, Reb Shloimeh," interrupted the teacher, "I will explain directly."

"Ma! It makes me sick to hear you," was the irate reply, and Reb Shloimeh got up and left the room.

All that day Reb Shloimeh was in a bad temper, and went about with knitted brows. He was angry with science, with the teacher, with himself, because he must needs have listened to it all.

"Chatter and foolishness! And there I sit and listen to it!" he said to himself with chagrin. But he remembered the "chatter," something begins to weigh on his heart and brain, he would like to find a something to catch hold of, a proof of the vanity and emptiness of their teaching, to invent some hard question, and stick out a long red tongue at them all--those nowadays barbarians, those nowadays Newtons.

"After all, it's mere child's play," he reflects. "It's ridiculous to take their nonsense to heart."

"Only their proofs, their proofs!" and the feeling of helplessness comes over him once more.

"Ma!" He pulls himself together. "Is it all over with us? Is it all up?!

All up?! The earth revolves! Gammon! As to their explanations--very wonderful, to be sure! O, of course, it's all of the greatest importance! Dear me, yes!"

He is very angry, tears the b.u.t.tons off his coat, puts his hat straight on his head, and spits.

"Apostates, nothing but apostates nowadays," he concludes. Then he remembers the teacher--with what enthusiasm he spoke!

His explanations ring in Reb Shloimeh's head, and prove things, and once more the old gentleman is perplexed.

Preoccupied, cross, with groans and sighs, he went to bed. But he was restless all night, turning from one side to the other, and groaning.

His old wife tried to cheer him.