Yiddish Tales Part 57

The sun had begun to disappear; it was full time to go home; but the Rav did not know what to do with the folio. He was afraid to leave it in the field, lest Sholem or another should pick it up later, so he got up and began to recite the Afternoon Prayer. Sholem remained standing in his place, and tried to think of nothing and to do nothing.

The old man finished "Sacrifices," tucked the folio into his girdle, and, without moving a step, looked at Sholem, who did not move either.

"Say the Afternoon Prayer, Shegetz!" commanded the old man.

Sholem began to move his lips. And the Rav felt, as he went on with the prayer, that this anger was cooling down. Before he came to the Eighteen Benedictions, he gave another look at his son, and it seemed madness to think of him as a heretic, to think that Sholem ought by rights to be thrown into a ditch and stoned to death.

Sholem, for his part, was conscious for the first time of his father's will: for the first time in his life, he not only loved his father, but was in very truth subject to him.

The flaming red sun dropt quietly down behind the horizon just before the old man broke down with emotion over "Thou art One," and took the sky and the earth to witness that G.o.d is One and His Name is One, and His people Israel one nation on the earth, to whom He gave the Sabbath for a rest and an inheritance. The Rav wept and swallowed his tears, and his eyes were closed. Sholem, on the other hand, could not take his eye off the ma.n.u.script that stuck out of his father's girdle, and it was all he could do not to s.n.a.t.c.h it and run away.

They said nothing on the way home in the dark, they might have been coming from a funeral. But Sholem's heart beat fast, for he knew his father would throw the ma.n.u.script into the fire, where it would be burnt, and when they came to the door of their house, he stopped his father, and said in a voice eloquent of tears:

"Give it me back, Tatishe, please give it me back!"

And the Rav gave it him back without looking him in the face, and said:

"Look here, only don't tell Mother! She is ill, she mustn't be upset.

She is ill, not of you be it spoken!"

MEYER BLINKIN

Born, 1879, in a village near Pereyaslav, Government of Poltava, Little Russia, of Hasidic parentage; educated in Kieff, where he acquired the trade of carpenter in order to win the right of residence; studied medicine; began to write in 1906; came to New York in 1908; writer of stories to the number of about fifty, which have been published in various periodicals; wrote also Der Sod, and Dr. Makower.

WOMEN

A PROSE POEM

Hedged round with tall, thick woods, as though designedly, so that no one should know what happens there, lies the long-drawn-out old town of Pereyaslav.

To the right, connected with Pereyaslav by a wooden bridge, lies another bit of country, named--Pidvorkes.

The town itself, with its long, narrow, muddy streets, with the crowded houses propped up one against the other like tombstones, with their meagre grey walls all to pieces, with the broken window-panes stuffed with rags--well, the town of Pereyaslav was hardly to be distinguished from any other town inhabited by Jews.

Here, too, people faded before they bloomed. Here, too, men lived on miracles, were fruitful and multiplied out of all season and reason.

They talked of a livelihood, of good times, of riches and pleasures, with the same appearance of firm conviction, and, at the same time the utter disbelief, with which one tells a legend read in a book.

And they really supposed these terms to be mere inventions of the writers of books and nothing more! For not only were they incapable of a distinct conception of their real meaning, but some had even given up the very hope of ever being able to earn so much as a living, and preferred not to reach out into the world with their thoughts, straining them for nothing, that is, for the sake of a thing so plainly out of the question as a competence. At night the whole town was overspread by a sky which, if not grey with clouds, was of a troubled and washed-out blue. But the people were better off than by day. Tired out, overwrought, exhausted, prematurely aged as they were, they sought and found comfort in the lap of the dreamy, secret, inscrutable night. Their misery was left far behind, and they felt no more grief and pain.

An unknown power hid everything from them as though with a thick, damp, stone wall, and they heard and saw nothing.

They did not hear the weak voices, like the mewing of blind kittens, of their pining children, begging all day for food as though on purpose--as though they knew there was none to give them. They did not hear the sighs and groans of their friends and neighbors, filling the air with the hoa.r.s.e sound of furniture dragged across the floor; they did not see, in sleep, Death-from-hunger swing quivering, on threads of spider-web, above their heads.

Even the little fires that flickered feverishly on their hearths, and testified to the continued existence of breathing men, even these they saw no longer. Silence cradled everything to sleep, extinguished it, and caused it to be forgotten.

Hardly, however, was it dawn, hardly had the first rays pierced beneath the closed eyelids, before a whole world of misery awoke and came to life again.

The frantic cries of hundreds of starving children, despairing exclamations and imprecations and other piteous sounds filled the air.

One gigantic curse uncoiled and crept from house to house, from door to door, from mouth to mouth, and the population began to move, to bestir themselves, to run hither and thither.

Half-naked, with parched bones and shrivelled skin, with sunken yet burning eyes, they crawled over one another like worms in a heap, fastened on to the bites in each other's mouth, and tore them away--

But this is summer, and they are feeling comparatively cheerful, bold, and free in their movements. They are stifled and suffocated, they are in a melting-pot with heat and exhaustion, but there are counter-balancing advantages; one can live for weeks at a time without heating the stove; indeed, it is pleasanter indoors without fire, and lighting will cost very little, now the evenings are short.

In winter it was different. An inclement sky, an enfeebled sun, a sick day, and a burning, biting frost!

People, too, were different. A bitterness came over them, and they went about anxious and irritable, with hanging head, possessed by gloomy despair. It never even occurred to them to tear their neighbor's bite out of his mouth, so depressed and preoccupied did they become. The days were months, the evenings years, and the weeks--oh! the weeks were eternities!

And no one knew of their misery but the winter wind that tore at their roofs and howled in their all but smokeless chimneys like one bewitched, like a lost soul condemned to endless wandering.

But there were bright stars in the abysmal darkness; their one pride and consolation were the Pidvorkes, the inhabitants of the aforementioned district of that name. Was it a question of the upkeep of a Reader or of a bath, the support of a burial-society, of a little hospital or refuge, a Rabbi, of providing Sabbath loaves for the poor, flour for the Pa.s.sover, the dowry of a needy bride--the Pidvorkes were ready! The sick and lazy, the poverty-stricken and hopeless, found in them support and protection. The Pidvorkes! They were an inexhaustible well that no one had ever found to fail them, unless the Pidvorke husbands happened to be present, on which occasion alone one came away with empty hands.

The fair fame of the Pidvorkes extended beyond Pereyaslav to all poor towns in the neighborhood. Talk of husbands--they knew about the Pidvorkes a hundred miles round; the least thing, and they pointed out to their wives how they should take a lesson from the Pidvorke women, and then they would be equally rich and happy.

It was not because the Pidvorkes had, within their border, great, green velvety hills and large gardens full of flowers that they had reason to be proud, or others, to be proud of them; not because wide fields, planted with various kinds of corn, stretched for miles around them, the delicate ears swaying in sunshine and wind; not even because there flowed round the Pidvorkes a river so transparent, so full of the reflection of the sky, you could not decide which was the bluest of the two. Pereyaslav at any rate was not affected by any of these things, perhaps knew nothing of them, and certainly did not wish to know anything, for whoso dares to let his mind dwell on the like, sins against G.o.d. Is it a Jewish concern? A townful of men who have a G.o.d, and religious duties to perform, with reward and punishment, who have _that_ world to prepare for, and a wife and children in _this_ one, people must be mad (of the enemies of Zion be it said!) to stare at the sky, the fields, the river, and all the rest of it--things which a man on in years ought to blush to talk about.

No, they are proud of the Pidvorke women, and parade them continually.

The Pidvorke women are no more attractive, no taller, no cleverer than others. They, too, bear children and suckle them, one a year, after the good old custom; neither are they more thought of by their husbands. On the contrary, they are the best abused and tormented women going, and herein lies their distinction.

They put up, with the indifference of all women alike, to the belittling to which they are subjected by their husbands; they swallow their contempt by the mouthful without a reproach, and yet they are exceptions; and yet they are distinguished from all other women, as the rushing waters of the Dnieper from the stagnant pools in the marsh.

About five in the morning, when the men-folk turn in bed, and bury their faces in the white feather pillows, emitting at the same time strange, broken sounds through their big, stupid, red noses--at this early hour their wives have transacted half-a-day's business in the market-place.

Dressed in short, light skirts with blue ap.r.o.ns, over which depends on their left a large leather pocket for the receiving of coin and the giving out of change--one cannot be running every minute to the cash-box--they stand in their shops with miscellaneous ware, and toil hard. They weigh and measure, buy and sell, and all this with wonderful celerity. There stands one of them by herself in a shop, and tries to persuade a young, barefoot peasant woman to buy the printed cotton she offers her, although the customer only wants a red cotton with a large, flowery pattern. She talks without a pause, declaring that the young peasant may depend upon her, she would not take her in for the world, and, indeed, to no one else would she sell the article so cheap. But soon her eye catches two other women pursuing a peasant man, and before even making out whether he has any wares with him or not, she leaves her customer and joins them. If they run, she feels so must she. The peasant is sure to be wanting grease or salt, and that may mean ten kopeks'

unexpected gain. Meantime she is not likely to lose her present customer, fascinated as the latter must be by her flow of speech.

So she leaves her, and runs after the peasant, who is already surrounded by a score of women, shrieking, one louder than the other, praising their ware to the skies, and each trying to make him believe that he and she are old acquaintances. But presently the tumult increases, there is a cry, "Cheap fowls, who wants cheap fowls?" Some rich landholder has sent out a supply of fowls to sell, and all the women swing round towards the fowls, keeping a hold on the peasant's cart with their left hand, so that you would think they wanted to drag peasant, horse, and cart along with them. They bargain for a few minutes with the seller of fowls, and advise him not to be obstinate and to take their offers, else he will regret it later.

Suddenly a voice thunders, "The peasants are coming!" and they throw themselves as for dear life upon the cart-loads of produce; they run as though to a conflagration, get under each other's feet, their eyes glisten as though they each wanted to pull the whole market aside. There is a shrieking and scolding, until one or another gets the better of the rest, and secures the peasant's wares. Then only does each woman remember that she has customers waiting in her shop, and she runs in with a beaming smile and tells them that, as they have waited so long, they shall be served with the best and the most beautiful of her store.

By eight o'clock in the morning, when the market is over, when they have filled all the bottles left with them by their customers, counted up the change and their gains, and each one has slipped a coin into her knotted handkerchief, so that her husband should not know of its existence (one simply must! One is only human--one is surely not expected to wrangle with _him_ about every farthing?)--then, when there is nothing more to be done in the shops, they begin to gather in knots, and every one tells at length the incidents and the happy strokes of business of the day.

They have forgotten all the bad luck they wished each other, all the abuse they exchanged, while the market was in progress; they know that "Parnosseh is Parnosseh," and bear no malice, or, if they do, it is only if one has spoken unkindly of another during a period of quiet, on a Sabbath or a holiday.

Each talks with a special enthusiasm, and deep in her sunken eyes with their blue-black rings there burns a proud, though tiny, fire, as she recalls how she got the better of a customer, and sold something which she had all but thrown away, and not only sold it, but better than usual; or else they tell how late their husbands sleep, and then imagine their wives are still in bed, and set about waking them, "It's time to get up for the market," and they at once pretend to be sleepy--then, when they have already been and come back!

And very soon a voice is heard to tremble with pleasant excitement, and a woman begins to relate the following:

"Just you listen to me: I was up to-day when G.o.d Himself was still asleep."--"That is not the way to talk, Sheine!" interrupts a second.--"Well, well, well?" (there is a good deal of curiosity). "And what happened?"--"It was this way: I went out quietly, so that no one should hear, not to wake them, because when Lezer went to bed, it was certainly one o'clock. There was a dispute of some sort at the Rabbi's.

You can imagine how early it was, because I didn't even want to wake Soreh, otherwise she always gets up when I do (never mind, it won't hurt her to learn from her mother!). And at half past seven, when I saw there were no more peasants coming in to market, I went to see what was going on indoors. I heard my man calling me to wake up: 'Sheine, Sheine, Sheine!' and I go quietly and lean against the bed, and wait to hear what will happen next. 'Look here!--There is no waking her!--Sheine!

It's getting-up time and past! Are you deaf or half-witted? What's come to you this morning?' I was so afraid I should laugh. I gave a jump and called out, O woe is me, why ever didn't you wake me sooner? Bandit!

It's already eight o'clock!"