Chapter L: Shapiro

Rab’ Shachneh’s hands and feet trembled, and he felt an awful bitterness in the mouth. It seemed to him, sitting in the chair, that the wild uproar of the street, the howling and the whistling, the cracking and the ringing of the shattering window-panes, were taking place within him, within his own head.

The pogrom had broken out with such fearful suddenness that he found himself forced to fly home without stopping to lock his shop. But on reaching home, he discovered no one there. Sarah and the children had, seemingly, managed to hide themselves somewhere, leaving the house and their few belongings in God’s care. He himself, however, did not think of hiding. He did not think of anything, in fact. He was conscious only of the wild noises of the street, and the unbearable bitterness in his mouth.

The noises sounded now nearer, now more distant, like the roar of a neighboring conflagration. But suddenly, it surrounded the house on all sides at once. The window-panes cracked, rocks flew into the room; and the next instant, young peasants with flaming, drunken faces, carrying knives and clubs, came crawling through doors and windows.

It then occurred to Rab’ Shachneh that he ought to do something about it. And he lifted himself laboriously from the chair, and began to crawl under a sofa, right before the eyes of the rioters. The peasants roared with laughter.

“Nah! _There_ is a fool for you!” and one of them grabbed him by a leg. “Eh, you! Get up!”

This brought Rab’ Shachneh to his senses, and he began to weep like a child.

“Boys,” he pleaded, “I will let you have everything--the money, the jewelry--everything. Spare my life! Why should you kill me? I have a wife and children.”

But nothing availed him. They took everything, and beat him besides, struck him in the face and chest, kicked him in the abdomen with mad fury. He cried, pleaded, and they kept up their beating.

“Vasily, Vasilinka, you know me! Your father worked for us. Haven’t we always paid him well? Vasilinka, save me! Save....”

A violent blow on the chest cut short his pleading. Two young peasants sat on him and pressed their knees into his abdomen. Vasilinka, a small spare fellow with a crooked face and grey eyes, spoke up proudly:

“You paid him, did you! Father worked, so you paid. I would have just liked to see you refuse to pay him.”

Nevertheless it pleased Vasilinka greatly that Rab’ Shachneh should have appealed to him for mercy, and he thereupon turned to the others.

“Now, boys, enough! Let the carcass be. You can see that it’s barely gasping.”

Reluctantly, one by one, the peasants tore themselves away from their victim, and began to leave the house, smashing whatever articles had previously escaped their notice.

“Nu, Shachneh,” Vasily turned to him, “you have me to thank for being alive yet. The boys would have made short work of you, if it hadn’t been for me.”

He was on the point of leaving with the others, when something occurred to him that made him halt.

“There!” he said, extending his hand to Rab’ Shachneh. “Kiss!”

Rab’ Shachneh raised his bloodshot eyes and looked at him bewildered. He did not understand.

Vasily’s face darkened.

“Didn’t you hear me? Kiss, I tell you!”

Two of the peasants halted in the doorway, watching the scene. Rab’ Shachneh looked at Vasily and was silent. Vasily’s face turned green.

“Ah, Jew-face that you are!” He gnashed his teeth, and drove his open hand into Rab’ Shachneh’s face. “You hesitate! Oh, boys! Come back here!”

The two peasants came up closer.

“Ah, nu! Get to work, boys. Since he’s such a fine gentleman, he’s got to kiss my foot! If he won’t....”

He sat down upon a chair. The two peasants grabbed hold of Rab’ Shachneh, and flung him at Vasily’s feet.

“Pull off that boot!” Vasily commanded kicking Rab’ Shachneh in the mouth.

Rab’ Shachneh slowly pulled the boot off the peasant’s foot.

They stood face to face--a red dirty foot smelling strongly of perspiration and a beaten-up face with a long, noble, dark beard. Strangely enough the beard wasn’t harmed much. It was torn and plucked in but a few spots, but it retained the dignity of respectability. From above, Vasily’s crooked face looked down, glaring with its grey eyes.

“Kiss, I tell you!”

And another kick in the face followed the command.

For a moment all was silent and motionless, then Rab’ Shachneh bowed down his head, and Vasily emitted a sharp frightful cry. All of the five toes and part of his foot had disappeared into Rab’ Shachneh’s mouth. The two rows of teeth sank deep into the dirty, sweaty flesh.

What followed was wild and lurid, like an evil, revolting dream.

The peasants struck Rab’ Shachneh with their booted feet. They kicked him with such fury that it resounded loud and hollow like an empty barrel. They pulled out his beard in handfuls. They dug their nails into his eyes and tore them out. They searched out the most sensitive parts of his body and ripped out pieces. His body shivered, trembled, bent and twisted. And the two rows of teeth pressed on convulsively closer and closer, and something cracked inside the mouth, the teeth, the bones, or perhaps both. All this while, Vasilinka raved, shrieked, screeched like a stuck pig.

How long this lasted, the peasants did not know. They had taken no notice of the time. It was only when they saw that Rab’ Shachneh’s body no longer moved that they stopped at last. A shudder shook them from head to foot when they looked into his face.

His torn out eyes hung loose near the bloody sockets. His face was no longer recognizable; while what was left of his beard hung in blood-congealed strands. The dead teeth, with a piece of the foot still between them, glared like those of a dead wolf.

Vasilinka still wriggled, no longer upon the chair, but upon the floor. His body was twisted like a snake, and from his throat came long-drawn-out, hoarse sounds. His gray eyes grew large, dim and glassy. It was evident that he had lost his mind.

“God help us,” the terrified peasants screamed, as they fled from the house.

Out in the street, the pogrom, in all its beastly ferocity, was still raging, and amidst the many noises, no one heard the broken cries of the living man who was slowly expiring within the jaws of the dead man.

--Translated by Israel Solon.

YIDDISH LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

The following books, translated (with one exception) from the Yiddish by Isaac Goldberg, are procurable through the HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY, Girard, Kansas, at the prices indicated, postpaid.

DAVID PINSKI

Huebsch, _Three Plays_ (Isaac Sheftel; The Dumb Messiah; The Last Jew) $1.65.

Huebsch, _Ten Plays_ (The Phonograph; The God of the Newly Rich Wool Merchant; A Dollar; The Cripples; The Inventor and the King’s Daughter; Diplomacy; Little Heroes; The Beautiful Nun; Poland--1919; The Stranger) $2.15.

Huebsch, _The Treasure_ (Translated by Ludwig Lewisohn) $1.40.

Huebsch, _The Wives of King David_.

SHOLOM ASCH

Luce, _Mottke the Vagabond_ (A novel of the underworld of Warsaw.) $2.65.

Dutton, _Uncle Moses_ (A novel of the East Side suppressions and aspirations.) $2.15.

_The God of Vengeance_ (Pocket Series No. 416 Revised Edition.)

LEON KOBRIN

_Brentano, A Lithuanian Village_ (An exceptionally well-done idyll of the old world summoned to the new.) $1.90.

PLAYS OF THE YIDDISH THEATRE

Luce, _First_ and _Second Series_, each containing six one-act plays by Pinski, Asch, Hirschbein, Kobrin, Sholom Aleikhem, Levin, $1.65 each.

PEREZ HIRSCHBEIN

Luce, _The Haunted Inn_ (A Play in Four Acts) $1.65.

YEHOASH (Sol Bloomgarden)

Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia. _The Feet of the Messenger._ (Travels of the noted poet from New York to Palestine and back.)

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

- Clear typos and wrong punctuation were corrected.

- Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of their sections.

- Text between _underscores_ represent italics.