Chapter VII (8)

His parents made preparations for Passover, and poor little preparations they were: there was no Matzes-baking with its merry to-do; a packet of cold, stale Matzes was brought into the house; there was no pail of beet-root soup in the corner, covered with a coarse cloth of unbleached linen; no dusty china service was fetched from the attic, where it had lain many years between one Passover and another; his father brought in a dinner service from the street, one he had bought cheap, and of which the pieces did not match. But the exhilaration of the festival made itself felt for all that, and warmed their hearts. At home, in Tartilov, it had happened once or twice that Meyerl had lain in his little bed with open eyes, staring stock-still, with terror, into the silent blackness of the night, and feeling as if he were the only living soul in the whole world, that is, the whole house; and the sudden crow of a cock would be enough on these occasions to send a warm current of relief and security through his heart.

His father's face looked a little more cheerful. In the daytime, while he dusted the cups, his eyes had something pensive in them, but his lips were set so that you thought: There, now, now they are going to smile! The mother danced the Matzeh pancakes up and down in the kitchen, so that they chattered and gurgled in the frying-pan. When a neighbor came in to borrow a cooking pot, Meyerl happened to be standing beside his mother. The neighbor got her pot, the women exchanged a few words about the coming holiday, and then the neighbor said, "So we shall soon be having a rejoicing at your house?" and with a wink and a smile she pointed at his mother with her finger, whereupon Meyerl remarked for the first time that her figure had grown round and full. But he had no time just then to think it over, for there came a sound of broken china from the next room, his mother stood like one knocked on the head, and his father appeared in the door, and said:

"Go!"

His voice sent a quiver through the window-panes, as if a heavy wagon were just crossing the bridge outside at a trot, the startled neighbor turned, and whisked out of the house.

Meyerl's parents looked ill at ease in their holiday garb, with the faces of mourners. The whole ceremony of the Passover home service was spoilt by an atmosphere of the last meal on the Eve of the Fast of the Destruction of the Temple. And when Meyerl, with the indifferent voice of one hired for the occasion, sang out the "Why is this night different?" his heart shrank together; there was the same hush round about him as there is in Shool when an orphan recites the first "Sanctification" for his dead parents.

His mother's lips moved, but gave forth no sound; from time to time she wetted a finger with her tongue, and turned over leaf after leaf in her service-book, and from time to time a large, bright tear fell, over her beautiful but depressed face onto the book, or the white table-cloth, or her dress. His father never looked at her. Did he see she was crying? Meyerl wondered. Then, how strangely he was reciting the Haggadah! He would chant a portion in long-drawn-out fashion, and suddenly his voice would break, sometimes with a gurgle, as though a hand had seized him by the throat and closed it. Then he would look silently at his book, or his eye would wander round the room with a vacant stare. Then he would start intoning again, and again his voice would break.

They ate next to nothing, said grace to themselves in a whisper, after which the father said:

"Meyerl, open the door!"

Not without fear, and the usual uncertainty as to the appearance of the Prophet Elijah, whose goblet stood filled for him on the table, Meyerl opened the door.

"Pour out Thy wrath upon the Gentiles, who do not know Thee!"

A slight shudder ran down between Meyerl's shoulders, for a strange, quite unfamiliar voice had sounded through the room from one end to the other, shot up against the ceiling, flung itself down again, and gone flapping round the four walls, like a great, wild bird in a cage. Meyerl hastily turned to look at his father, and felt the hair bristle on his head with fright: straight and stiff as a screwed-up fiddle-string, there stood beside the table a wild figure, in a snow-white robe, with a dark beard, a broad, bony face, and a weird, black flame in the eyes. The teeth were ground together, and the voice would go over into a plaintive roar, like that of a hungry, bloodthirsty animal. His mother sprang up from her seat, trembling in every limb, stared at him for a few seconds, and then threw herself at his feet. Catching hold of the edge of his robe with both hands, she broke into lamentation:

"Shloimeh, Shloimeh, you'd better kill me! Shloimeh! kill me! oi, oi, misfortune!"

Meyerl felt as though a large hand with long fingernails had introduced itself into his inside, and turned it upside down with one fell twist. His mouth opened widely and crookedly, and a scream of childish terror burst from his throat. Tartilov had suddenly leapt wildly into view, affrighted Jews flew up and down the street like leaves in a storm, the white-faced Rebbe sat in his chair, his under lip trembling, his mother lay on her bed, looking all pulled about like a rumpled counterpane. Meyerl saw all this as clearly and sharply as though he had it before his eyes, he felt and knew that it was not all over, that it was only just beginning, that the calamity, the great calamity, the real calamity, was still to come, and might at any moment descend upon their heads like a thunderbolt, only _what_ it was he did not know, or ask himself, and a second time a scream of distraught and helpless terror escaped his throat.

A few neighbors, Italians, who were standing in the passage by the open door, looked on in alarm, and whispered among themselves, and still the wild curses filled the room, one minute loud and resonant, the next with the spiteful gasping of a man struck to death.

"Mighty God! Pour out Thy wrath on the peoples who have no God in their hearts! Pour out Thy wrath upon the lands where Thy Name is unknown! 'He has devoured, devoured my body, he has laid waste, laid waste my house!'"

"Thy wrath shall pursue them,
Pursue them--o'ertake them!
O'ertake them--destroy them,
From under Thy heavens!"

SHALOM ASCH

Born, 1881, in Kutno, Government of Warsaw, Russian Poland; Jewish education and Hasidic surroundings; began to write in 1900, earliest works being in Hebrew; Sippurim was published in 1903, and A Staedtel in 1904; wrote his first drama in 1905; distinguished for realism, love of nature, and description of patriarchal Jewish life in the villages; playwright; dramas: Gott von Nekomoh, Meschiach's Zeiten, etc.; collected works, Schriften, Warsaw, 1908-1912 (in course of publication).

A SIMPLE STORY

Feigele, like all young girls, is fond of dressing and decking herself out.

She has no time for these frivolities during the week, there is work in plenty, no evil eye! and sewing to do; rent is high, and times are bad. The father earns but little, and there is a deal wanting towards her three hundred rubles dowry, beside which her mother trenches on it occasionally, on Sabbath, when the family purse is empty.

"There are as many marriageable young men as dogs, only every dog wants a fat bone," comes into her head.

She dislikes much thinking. She is a young girl and a pretty one. Of course, one shouldn't be conceited, but when she stands in front of the glass, she sees her bright face and rosy cheeks and the fall of her black hair. But she soon forgets it all, as though she were afraid that to rejoice in it might bring her ill-luck.

Sabbath it is quite another thing--there is time and to spare, and on Sabbath Feigele's toilet knows no end.

The mother calls, "There, Feigele, that's enough! You will do very well as you are." But what should old-fashioned women like her know about it? Anything will do for them. Whether you've a hat and jacket on or not, they're just as pleased.

But a young girl like Feigele knows the difference. _He_ is sitting out there on the bench, he, Eleazar, with a party of his mates, casting furtive glances, which he thinks nobody sees, and nudging his neighbor, "Look, fire and flame!" and she, Feigele, behaves as though unaware of his presence, walks straight past, as coolly and unconcernedly as you please, and as though Eleazar might look and look his eyes out after her, take his own life, hang himself, for all _she_ cares.

But, O Feigele, the vexation and the heartache when one fine day you walk past, and he doesn't look at _you_, but at Malkeh, who has a new hat and jacket that suit her about as well as a veil suits a dog--and yet he looks at her, and you turn round again, and yet again, pretending to look at something else (because it isn't proper), but you just glance over your shoulder, and he is still looking after Malkeh, his whole face shining with delight, and he nudges his mate, as to say, "Do you see?" O Feigele, you need a heart of adamant, if it is not to burst in twain with mortification!

However, no sooner has Malkeh disappeared down a sidewalk, than he gets up from the bench, dragging his mate along with him, and they follow, arm-in-arm, follow Feigele like her shadow, to the end of the avenue, where, catching her eye, he nods a "Good Sabbath!" Feigele answers with a supercilious tip-tilt of her head, as much as to say, "It is all the same to me, I'm sure; I'll just go down this other avenue for a change," and, lo and behold, if she happens to look around, there is Eleazar, too, and he follows, follows like a wearisome creditor.

And then, O Feigele, such a lovely, blissful feeling comes over you. Don't look, take no notice of him, walk ahead stiffly and firmly, with your head high, let him follow and look at you. And he looks, and he follows, he would follow you to the world's end, into the howling desert. Ha, ha, how lovely it feels!

But once, on a Sabbath evening, walking in the gardens with a girl friend, and he following, Feigele turned aside down a dark path, and sat down on a bench behind a bushy tree.

He came and sat down, too, at the other end of the bench.

Evening: the many branching trees overshadow and obscure, it grows dark, they are screened and hidden from view.

A breeze blows, lightly and pleasantly, and cools the air.

They feel it good to be there, their hearts beat in the stillness.

Who will say the first word?

He coughs, ahem! to show that he is there, but she makes no sign, implying that she neither knows who he is, nor what he wants, and has no wish to learn.

They are silent, they only hear their own beating hearts and the wind in the leaves.

"I beg your pardon, do you know what time it is?"

"No, I don't," she replies stiffly, meaning, "I know quite well what you are after, but don't be in such a hurry, you won't get anything the sooner."

The girl beside her gives her a nudge. "Did you hear that?" she giggles.

Feigele feels a little annoyed with her. Does the girl think _she_ is the object? And she presently prepares to rise, but remains, as though glued to the seat.

"A beautiful night, isn't it?"

"Yes, a beautiful evening."

And so the conversation gets into swing, with a question from him and an answer from her, on different subjects, first with fear and fluttering of the heart, then they get closer one to another, and become more confidential. When she goes home, he sees her to the door, they shake hands and say, "Till we meet again!"

And they meet a second and a third time, for young hearts attract each other like a magnet. At first, of course, it is accidental, they meet by chance in the company of two other people, a girl friend of hers and a chum of his, and then, little by little, they come to feel that they want to see each other alone, all to themselves, and they fix upon a quiet time and place.

And they met.

They walked away together, outside the town, between the sky and the fields, walked and talked, and again, conscious that the talk was an artificial one, were even more gladly silent. Evening, and the last sunbeams were gliding over the ears of corn on both sides of the way. Then a breeze came along, and the ears swayed and whispered together, as the two passed on between them down the long road. Night was gathering, it grew continually darker, more melancholy, more delightful.

"I have been wanting to know you for a long time, Feigele."

"I know. You followed me like a shadow."

They are silent.

"What are you thinking about, Feigele?"

"What are _you_ thinking about, Eleazar?"

And they plunge once more into a deep converse about all sorts of things, and there seems to be no reason why it should ever end.

It grows darker and darker.

They have come to walk closer together.

Now he takes her hand, she gives a start, but his hand steals further and further into hers.

Suddenly, as dropt from the sky, he bends his face, and kisses her on the cheek.

A thrill goes through her, she takes her hand out of his and appears rather cross, but he knows it is put on, and very soon she is all right again, as if the incident were forgotten.

An hour or two go by thus, and every day now they steal away and meet outside the town.

And Eleazar began to frequent her parents' house, the first time with an excuse--he had some work for Feigele. And then, as people do, he came to know when the work would be done, and Feigele behaved as though she had never seen him before, as though not even knowing who he was, and politely begged him to take a seat.

So it came about by degrees that Eleazar was continually in and out of the house, coming and going as he pleased and without stating any pretext whatever.

Feigele's parents knew him for a steady young man, he was a skilled artisan earning a good wage, and they knew quite well why a young man comes to the home of a young girl, but they feigned ignorance, thinking to themselves, "Let the children get to know each other better, there will be time enough to talk it over afterwards."

Evening: a small room, shadows moving on the walls, a new table on which burns a large, bright lamp, and sitting beside it Feigele sewing and Eleazar reading aloud a novel by Shomer.

Father and mother, tired out with a whole day's work, sleep on their beds behind the curtain, which shuts off half the room.

And so they sit, both of them, only sometimes Eleazar laughs aloud, takes her by the hand, and exclaims with a smile, "Feigele!"

"What do you want, silly?"

"Nothing at all, nothing at all."

And she sews on, thinking, "I have got you fast enough, but don't imagine you are taking somebody from the street, just as she is; there are still eighty rubles wanting to make three hundred in the bank."

And she shows him her wedding outfit, the shifts and the bedclothes, of which half lie waiting in the drawers.

* * * * *

They drew closer one to another, they became more and more intimate, so that all looked upon them as engaged, and expected the marriage contract to be drawn up any day. Feigele's mother was jubilant at her daughter's good fortune, at the prospect of such a son-in-law, such a golden son-in-law!

Reb Yainkel, her father, was an elderly man, a worn-out peddler, bent sideways with the bag of junk continually on his shoulder.

Now he, too, has a little bit of pleasure, a taste of joy, for which God be praised!

Everyone rejoices, Feigele most of all, her cheeks look rosier and fresher, her eyes darker and brighter.

She sits at her machine and sews, and the whole room rings with her voice:

"Un was ich hob' gewollt, hob' ich ausgefuehrt,
Soll ich azoi leben!
Ich hob' gewollt a shenem Choson,
Hot' mir Gott gegeben."

In the evening comes Eleazar.

"Well, what are you doing?"

"What should I be doing? Wait, I'll show you something."

"What sort of thing?"

She rises from her place, goes to the chest that stands in the stove corner, takes something out of it, and hides it under her apron.

"Whatever have you got there?" he laughs.

"Why are you in such a hurry to know?" she asks, and sits down beside him, brings from under her apron a picture in fine woolwork, Adam and Eve, and shows it him, saying:

"There, now you see! It was worked by a girl I know--for me, for us. I shall hang it up in our room, opposite the bed."

"Yours or mine?"

"You wait, Eleazar! You will see the house I shall arrange for you--a paradise, I tell you, just a little paradise! Everything in it will have to shine, so that it will be a pleasure to step inside."

"And every evening when work is done, we two shall sit together, side by side, just as we are doing now," and he puts an arm around her.

"And you will tell me everything, all about everything," she says, laying a hand on his shoulder, while with the other she takes hold of his chin, and looks into his eyes.

They feel so happy, so light at heart.

Everything in the house has taken on an air of kindliness, there is a soft, attractive gloss on every object in the room, on the walls and the table, the familiar things make signs to her, and speak to her as friend to friend.

The two are silent, lost in their own thoughts.

"Look," she says to him, and takes her bank-book out of the chest, "two hundred and forty rubles already. I shall make it up to three hundred, and then you won't have to say, 'I took you just as you were.'"

"Go along with you, you are very unjust, and I'm cross with you, Feigele."

"Why? Because I tell you the truth to your face?" she asks, looking into his face and laughing.

He turns his head away, pretending to be offended.

"You little silly, are you feeling hurt? I was only joking, can't you see?"

So it goes on, till the old mother's face peeps out from behind the curtain, warning them that it is time to go to rest, when the young couple bid each other good-night.

* * * * *

Reb Yainkel, Feigele's father, fell ill.

It was in the beginning of winter, and there was war between winter and summer: the former sent a snowfall, the latter a burst of sun. The snow turned to mud, and between times it poured with rain by the bucketful.

This sort of weather made the old man ill: he became weak in the legs, and took to his bed.

There was no money for food, and still less for firing, and Feigele had to lend for the time being.

The old man lay abed and coughed, his pale, shrivelled face reddened, the teeth showed between the drawn lips, and the blue veins stood out on his temples.

They sent for the doctor, who prescribed a remedy.

The mother wished to pawn their last pillow, but Feigele protested, and gave up part of her wages, and when this was not enough, she pawned her jacket--anything sooner than touch the dowry.

And he, Eleazar, came every evening, and they sat together beside the well-known table in the lamplight.

"Why are you so sad, Feigele?"

"How can you expect me to be cheerful, with father so ill?"

"God will help, Feigele, and he will get better."

"It's four weeks since I put a farthing into the savings-bank."

"What do you want to save for?"

"What do I want to save for?" she asked with a startled look, as though something had frightened her. "Are you going to tell me that you will take me without a dowry?"

"What do you mean by 'without a dowry'? You are worth all the money in the world to me, worth my whole life. What do I want with your money? See here, my five fingers, they can earn all we need. I have two hundred rubles in the bank, saved from my earnings. What do I want with more?"

They are silent for a moment, with downcast eyes. "And your mother?" she asks quietly.

"Will you please tell me, are you marrying my mother or me? And what concern is she of yours?"

Feigele is silent.

"I tell you again, I'll take you _just as you are_--and you'll take me the same, will you?"

She puts the corner of her apron to her eyes, and cries quietly to herself.

There is stillness around. The lamp sheds its brightness over the little room, and casts their shadows onto the walls.

The heavy sleeping of the old people is audible behind the curtain.

And her head lies on his shoulder, and her thick black hair hides his face.

"How kind you are, Eleazar," she whispers through her tears.

And she opens her whole heart to him, tells him how it is with them now, how bad things are, they have pawned everything, and there is nothing left for to-morrow, nothing but the dowry!

He clasps her lovingly, and dries her cheeks with her apron end, saying: "Don't cry, Feigele, don't cry. It will all come right. And to-morrow, mind, you are to go to the postoffice, and take a little of the dowry, as much as you need, until your father, God helping, is well again, and able to earn something, and then...."

"And then ..." she echoes in a whisper.

"And then it will all come right," and his eyes flash into hers. "Just as you are ..." he whispers.

And she looks at him, and a smile crosses her face.

She feels so happy, so happy.

* * * * *

Next morning she went to the postoffice for the first time with her bank-book, took out a few rubles, and gave them to her mother.

The mother sighed heavily, and took on a grieved expression; she frowned, and pulled her head-kerchief down over her eyes.

Old Reb Yainkel lying in bed turned his face to the wall.

The old man knew where the money came from, he knew how his only child had toiled for those few rubles. Other fathers gave money to their children, and he took it--

It seemed to him as though he were plundering the two young people. He had not long to live, and he was robbing them before he died.

As he thought on this, his eyes glazed, the veins on his temple swelled, and his face became suffused with blood.

His head is buried in the pillow, and turns to the wall, he lies and thinks these thoughts.

He knows that he is in the way of the children's happiness, and he prays that he may die.

And she, Feigele, would like to come into a fortune all at once, to have a lot of money, to be as rich as any great lady.

And then suppose she had a thousand rubles now, this minute, and he came in: "There, take the whole of it, see if I love you! There, take it, and then you needn't say you love me for nothing, just as I am."

They sit beside the father's bed, she and her Eleazar.

Her heart overflows with content, she feels happier than she ever felt before, there are even tears of joy on her cheeks.

She sits and cries, hiding her face with her apron.

He takes her caressingly by the hands, repeating in his kind, sweet voice, "Feigele, stop crying, Feigele, please!"

The father lies turned with his face to the wall, and the beating of his heart is heard in the stillness.

They sit, and she feels confidence in Eleazar, she feels that she can rely upon him.

She sits and drinks in his words, she feels him rolling the heavy stones from off her heart.

The old father has turned round and looked at them, and a sweet smile steals over his face, as though he would say, "Have no fear, children, I agree with you, I agree with all my heart."

And Feigele feels so happy, so happy....

* * * * *

The father is still lying ill, and Feigele takes out one ruble after another, one five-ruble-piece after another.

The old man lies and prays and muses, and looks at the children, and holds his peace.

His face gets paler and more wrinkled, he grows weaker, he feels his strength ebbing away.

Feigele goes on taking money out of the savings-bank, the stamps in her book grow less and less, she knows that soon there will be nothing left.

Old Reb Yainkel wishes in secret that he did not require so much, that he might cease to hamper other people!

He spits blood-drops, and his strength goes on diminishing, and so do the stamps in Feigele's book. The day he died saw the last farthing of Feigele's dowry disappear after the others.

* * * * *

Feigele has resumed her seat by the bright lamp, and sews and sews till far into the night, and with every seam that she sews, something is added to the credit of her new account.

This time the dowry must be a larger one, because for every stamp that is added to the account-book there is a new grey hair on Feigele's black head.

A JEWISH CHILD

The mother came out of the bride's chamber, and cast a piercing look at her husband, who was sitting beside a finished meal, and was making pellets of bread crumbs previous to saying grace.

"You go and talk to her! I haven't a bit of strength left!"

"So, Rochel-Leoh has brought up children, has she, and can't manage them! Why! People will be pointing at you and laughing--a ruin to your years!"

"To my years?! A ruin to _yours_! _My_ children, are they? Are they not yours, too? Couldn't you stay at home sometimes to care for them and help me to bring them up, instead of trapesing round--the black year knows where and with whom?"

"Rochel, Rochel, what has possessed you to start a quarrel with me now? The bridegroom's family will be arriving directly."

"And what do you expect me to do, Moishehle, eh?! For God's sake! Go in to her, we shall be made a laughing-stock."

The man rose from the table, and went into the next room to his daughter. The mother followed.

On the little sofa that stood by the window sat a girl about eighteen, her face hidden in her hands, her arms covered by her loose, thick, black hair. She was evidently crying, for her bosom rose and fell like a stormy sea. On the bed opposite lay the white silk wedding-dress, the Chuppeh-Kleid, with the black, silk Shool-Kleid, and the black stuff morning-dress, which the tailor who had undertaken the outfit had brought not long ago. By the door stood a woman with a black scarf round her head and holding boxes with wigs.

"Channehle! You are never going to do me this dishonor? to make me the talk of the town?" exclaimed the father. The bride was silent.

"Look at me, daughter of Moisheh Groiss! It's all very well for Genendel Freindel's daughter to wear a wig, but not for the daughter of Moisheh Groiss? Is that it?"

"And yet Genendel Freindel might very well think more of herself than you: she is more educated than you are, and has a larger dowry," put in the mother.

The bride made no reply.

"Daughter, think how much blood and treasure it has cost to help us to a bit of pleasure, and now you want to spoil it for us? Remember, for God's sake, what you are doing with yourself! We shall be excommunicated, the young man will run away home on foot!"

"Don't be foolish," said the mother, took a wig out of a box from the woman by the door, and approached her daughter. "Let us try on the wig, the hair is just the color of yours," and she laid the strange hair on the girl's head.

The girl felt the weight, put up her fingers to her head, met among her own soft, cool, living locks, the strange, dead hair of the wig, stiff and cold, and it flashed through her, Who knows where the head to which this hair belonged is now? A shuddering enveloped her, and as though she had come in contact with something unclean, she snatched off the wig, threw in onto the floor and hastily left the room.

Father and mother stood and looked at each other in dismay.

* * * * *

The day after the marriage ceremony, the bridegroom's mother rose early, and, bearing large scissors, and the wig and a hood which she had brought from her home as a present for the bride, she went to dress the latter for the "breakfast."

But the groom's mother remained outside the room, because the bride had locked herself in, and would open her door to no one.

The groom's mother ran calling aloud for help to her husband, who, together with a dozen uncles and brothers-in-law, was still sleeping soundly after the evening's festivity. She then sought out the bridegroom, an eighteen-year-old boy with his mother's milk still on his lips, who, in a silk caftan and a fur cap, was moving about the room in bewildered fashion, his eyes on the ground, ashamed to look anyone in the face. In the end she fell back on the mother of the bride, and these two went in to her together, having forced open the door between them.

"Why did you lock yourself in, dear daughter. There is no need to be ashamed."

"Marriage is a Jewish institution!" said the groom's mother, and kissed her future daughter-in-law on both cheeks.

The girl made no reply.

"Your mother-in-law has brought you a wig and a hood for the procession to the Shool," said her own mother.

The band had already struck up the "Good Morning" in the next room.

"Come now, Kallehshi, Kalleh-leben, the guests are beginning to assemble."

The groom's mother took hold of the plaits in order to loosen them.

The bride bent her head away from her, and fell on her own mother's neck.

"I can't, Mame-leben! My heart won't let me, Mame-kron!"

She held her hair with both hands, to protect it from the other's scissors.

"For God's sake, my daughter? my life," begged the mother.

"In the other world you will be plunged for this into rivers of fire. The apostate who wears her own hair after marriage will have her locks torn out with red hot pincers," said the other with the scissors.

A cold shiver went through the girl at these words.

"Mother-life, mother-crown!" she pleaded.

Her hands sought her hair, and the black silky tresses fell through them in waves. Her hair, the hair which had grown with her growth, and lived with her life, was to be cut off, and she was never, never to have it again--she was to wear strange hair, hair that had grown on another person's head, and no one knows whether that other person was alive or lying in the earth this long time, and whether she might not come any night to one's bedside, and whine in a dead voice:

"Give me back my hair, give me back my hair!"

A frost seized the girl to the marrow, she shivered and shook.

Then she heard the squeak of scissors over her head, tore herself out of her mother's arms, made one snatch at the scissors, flung them across the room, and said in a scarcely human voice:

"My own hair! May God Himself punish me!"

That day the bridegroom's mother took herself off home again, together with the sweet-cakes and the geese which she had brought for the wedding breakfast for her own guests. She wanted to take the bridegroom as well, but the bride's mother said: "I will not give him back to you! He belongs to me already!"

The following Sabbath they led the bride in procession to the Shool wearing her own hair in the face of all the town, covered only by a large hood.

But may all the names she was called by the way find their only echo in some uninhabited wilderness.

* * * * *

A summer evening, a few weeks after the wedding: The young man had just returned from the Stuebel, and went to his room. The wife was already asleep, and the soft light of the lamp fell on her pale face, showing here and there among the wealth of silky-black hair that bathed it. Her slender arms were flung round her head, as though she feared that someone might come by night to shear them off while she slept. He had come home excited and irritable: this was the fourth week of his married life, and they had not yet called him up to the Reading of the Law, the Chassidim pursued him, and to-day Chayyim Moisheh had blamed him in the presence of the whole congregation, and had shamed him, because _she_, his wife, went about in her own hair. "You're no better than a clay image," Reb Chayyim Moisheh had told him. "What do you mean by a woman's saying she won't? It is written: 'And he shall rule over thee.'"

And he had come home intending to go to her and say: "Woman, it is a precept in the Torah! If you persist in wearing your own hair, I may divorce you without returning the dowry," after which he would pack up his things and go home. But when he saw his little wife asleep in bed, and her pale face peeping out of the glory of her hair, he felt a great pity for her. He went up to the bed, and stood a long while looking at her, after which he called softly:

"Channehle ... Channehle ... Channehle...."

She opened her eyes with a frightened start, and looked round in sleepy wonder:

"Nosson, did you call? What do you want?

"Nothing, your cap has slipped off," he said, lifting up the white nightcap, which had fallen from her head.

She flung it on again, and wanted to turn towards the wall.

"Channehle, Channehle, I want to talk to you."

The words went to her heart. The whole time since their marriage he had, so to say, not spoken to her. During the day she saw nothing of him, for he spent it in the house-of-study or in the Stuebel. When he came home to dinner, he sat down to the table in silence. When he wanted anything, he asked for it speaking into the air, and when really obliged to exchange a word with her, he did so with his eyes fixed on the ground, too shy to look her in the face. And now he said he wanted to talk to her, and in such a gentle voice, and they two alone together in their room!

"What do you want to say to me?" she asked softly.

"Channehle," he began, "please, don't make a fool of me, and don't make a fool of yourself in people's eyes. Has not God decreed that we should belong together? You are my wife and I am your husband, and is it proper, and what does it look like, a married woman wearing her own hair?"

Sleep still half dimmed her eyes, and had altogether clouded her thought and will. She felt helpless, and her head fell lightly towards his breast.

"Child," he went on still more gently, "I know you are not so depraved as they say. I know you are a pious Jewish daughter, and His blessed Name will help us, and we shall have pious Jewish children. Put away this nonsense! Why should the whole world be talking about you? Are we not man and wife? Is not your shame mine?"

It seemed to her as though _someone_, at once very far away and very near, had come and was talking to her. Nobody had ever yet spoken to her so gently and confidingly. And he was her husband, with whom she would live so long, so long, and there would be children, and she would look after the house!

She leant her head lightly against him.

"I know you are very sorry to lose your hair, the ornament of your girlhood, I saw you with it when I was a guest in your home. I know that God gave you grace and loveliness, I know. It cuts me to the heart that your hair must be shorn off, but what is to be done? It is a rule, a law of our religion, and after all we are Jews. We might even, God forbid, have a child conceived to us in sin, may Heaven watch over and defend us."

She said nothing, but remained resting lightly in his arm, and his face lay in the stream of her silky-black hair with its cool odor. In that hair dwelt a soul, and he was conscious of it. He looked at her long and earnestly, and in his look was a prayer, a pleading with her for her own happiness, for her happiness and his.

"Shall I?" ... he asked, more with his eyes than with his lips.

She said nothing, she only bent her head over his lap.

He went quickly to the drawer, and took out a pair of scissors.

She laid her head in his lap, and gave her hair as a ransom for their happiness, still half-asleep and dreaming. The scissors squeaked over her head, shearing off one lock after the other, and Channehle lay and dreamt through the night.

On waking next morning, she threw a look into the glass which hung opposite the bed. A shock went through her, she thought she had gone mad, and was in the asylum! On the table beside her lay her shorn hair, dead!

She hid her face in her hands, and the little room was filled with the sound of weeping!

A SCHOLAR'S MOTHER

The market lies foursquare, surrounded on every side by low, whitewashed little houses. From the chimney of the one-storied house opposite the well and inhabited by the baker, issues thick smoke, which spreads low over the market-place. Beneath the smoke is a flying to and fro of white pigeons, and a tall boy standing outside the baker's door is whistling to them.

Equally opposite the well are stalls, doors laid across two chairs and covered with fruit and vegetables, and around them women, with head-kerchiefs gathered round their weary, sunburnt faces in the hottest weather, stand and quarrel over each other's wares.

"It's certainly worth my while to stand quarrelling with _you_! A tramp like you keeping a stall!"

Yente, a woman about forty, whose wide lips have just uttered the above, wears a large, dirty apron, and her broad, red face, with the composed glance of the eyes under the kerchief, gives support to her words.

"Do you suppose you have got the Almighty by the beard? He is mine as well as yours!" answers Taube, pulling her kerchief lower about her ears, and angrily stroking down her hair.

A new customer approached Yente's stall, and Taube, standing by idle, passed the time in vituperations.

"What do I want with the money of a fine lady like you? You'll die like the rest of us, and not a dog will say Kaddish for you," she shrieked, and came to a sudden stop, for Taube had intended to bring up the subject of her own son Yitzchokel, when she remembered that it is against good manners to praise one's own.

Yente, measuring out a quarter of pears to her customer, made answer:

"Well, if you were a little superior to what you are, your husband wouldn't have died, and your child wouldn't have to be ashamed of you, as we all know he is."

Whereon Taube flew into a rage, and shouted:

"Hussy! The idea of my son being ashamed of me! May you be a sacrifice for his littlest finger-nail, for you're not worthy to mention his name!"

She was about to burst out weeping at the accusation of having been the cause of her husband's death and of causing her son to be ashamed of her, but she kept back her tears with all her might in order not to give pleasure to Yente.

The sun was dropping lower behind the other end of the little town, Jews were hurrying across the market-place to Evening Prayer in the house-of-study street, and the Cheder-boys, just let out, began to gather round the well.

Taube collected her few little baskets into her arms (the door and the chairs she left in the market-place; nobody would steal them), and with two or three parting curses to the rude Yente, she quietly quitted the scene.

Walking home with her armful of baskets, she thought of her son Yitzchokel.

Yente's stinging remarks pursued her. It was not Yente's saying that she had caused her husband's death that she minded, for everyone knew how hard she had worked during his illness, it was her saying that Yitzchokel was ashamed of her, that she felt in her "ribs." It occurred to her that when he came home for the night, he never would touch anything in her house.

And thinking this over, she started once more abusing Yente.

"Let her not live to see such a thing, Lord of the World, the One Father!"

It seemed to her that this fancy of hers, that Yitzchokel was ashamed of her, was all Yente's fault, it was all her doing, the witch!

"My child, my Yitzchokel, what business is he of yours?" and the cry escaped her:

"Lord of the World, take up my quarrel, Thou art a Father to the orphaned, Thou shouldst not forgive her this!"

"Who is that? Whom are you scolding so, Taube?" called out Necheh, the rich man's wife, standing in the door of her shop, and overhearing Taube, as she scolded to herself on the walk home.

"Who should it be, housemistress, who but the hussy, the abortion, the witch," answered Taube, pointing with one finger towards the market-place, and, without so much as lifting her head to look at the person speaking to her, she went on her way.

She remembered, as she walked, how, that morning, when she went into Necheh's kitchen with a fowl, she heard her Yitzchokel's voice in the other room disputing with Necheh's boys over the Talmud. She knew that on Wednesdays Yitzchokel ate his "day" at Necheh's table, and she had taken the fowl there that day on purpose, so that her Yitzchokel should have a good plate of soup, for her poor child was but weakly.

When she heard her son's voice, she had been about to leave the kitchen, and yet she had stayed. Her Yitzchokel disputing with Necheh's children? What did they know as compared with him? Did they come up to his level? "He will be ashamed of me," she thought with a start, "when he finds me with a chicken in my hand. So his mother is a market-woman, they will say, there's a fine partner for you!" But she had not left the kitchen. A child who had never cost a farthing, and she should like to know how much Necheh's children cost their parents! If she had all the money that Yitzchokel ought to have cost, the money that ought to have been spent on him, she would be a rich woman too, and she stood and listened to his voice.

"Oi, _he_ should have lived to see Yitzchokel, it would have made him well." Soon the door opened, Necheh's boys appeared, and her Yitzchokel with them. His cheeks flamed.

"Good morning!" he said feebly, and was out at the door in no time. She knew that she had caused him vexation, that he was ashamed of her before his companions.

And she asked herself: Her child, her Yitzchokel, who had sucked her milk, what had Necheh to do with him? And she had poured out her bitterness of heart upon Yente's head for this also, that her son had cost her parents nothing, and was yet a better scholar than Necheh's children, and once more she exclaimed:

"Lord of the World! Avenge my quarrel, pay her out for it, let her not live to see another day!"

Passers-by, seeing a woman walking and scolding aloud, laughed.

Night came on, the little town was darkened.

Taube reached home with her armful of baskets, dragged herself up the steps, and opened the door.

"Mame, it's Ma-a-me!" came voices from within.

The house was full of smoke, the children clustered round her in the middle of the room, and never ceased calling out Mame! One child's voice was tearful: "Where have you been all day?" another's more cheerful: "How nice it is to have you back!" and all the voices mingled together into one.

"Be quiet! You don't give me time to draw my breath!" cried the mother, laying down the baskets.

She went to the fireplace, looked about for something, and presently the house was illumined by a smoky lamp.

The feeble shimmer lighted only the part round the hearth, where Taube was kindling two pieces of stick--an old dusty sewing-machine beside a bed, sign of a departed tailor, and a single bed opposite the lamp, strewn with straw, on which lay various fruits, the odor of which filled the room. The rest of the apartment with the remaining beds lay in shadow.

It is a year and a half since her husband, Lezer the tailor, died. While he was still alive, but when his cough had increased, and he could no longer provide for his family, Taube had started earning something on her own account, and the worse the cough, the harder she had to toil, so that by the time she became a widow, she was already used to supporting her whole family.

The eldest boy, Yitzchokel, had been the one consolation of Lezer the tailor's cheerless existence, and Lezer was comforted on his death-bed to think he should leave a good Kaddish behind him.

When he died, the householders had pity on the desolate widow, collected a few rubles, so that she might buy something to traffic with, and, seeing that Yitzchokel was a promising boy, they placed him in the house-of-study, arranged for him to have his daily meals in the houses of the rich, and bade him pass his time over the Talmud.

Taube, when she saw her Yitzchokel taking his meals with the rich, felt satisfied. A weakly boy, what could _she_ give him to eat? There, at the rich man's table, he had the best of everything, but it grieved her that he should eat in strange, rich houses--she herself did not know whether she had received a kindness or the reverse, when he was taken off her hands.

One day, sitting at her stall, she spied her Yitzchokel emerge from the Shool-Gass with his Tefillin-bag under his arm, and go straight into the house of Reb Zindel the rich, to breakfast, and a pang went through her heart. She was still on terms, then, with Yente, because immediately after the death of her husband everyone had been kind to her, and she said:

"Believe me, Yente, I don't know myself what it is. What right have I to complain of the householders? They have been very good to me and to my child, made provision for him in rich houses, treated him as if he were _no_ market-woman's son, but the child of gentlefolk, and yet every day when I give the other children their dinner, I forget, and lay a plate for my Yitzchokel too, and when I remember that he has his meals at other people's hands, I begin to cry."

"Go along with you for a foolish woman!" answered Yente. "How would he turn out if he were left to you? What is a poor person to give a child to eat, when you come to think of it?"

"You are right, Yente," Taube replied, "but when I portion out the dinner for the others, it cuts me to the heart."

And now, as she sat by the hearth cooking the children's supper, the same feeling came over her, that they had stolen her Yitzchokel away.

When the children had eaten and gone to bed, she stood the lamp on the table, and began mending a shirt for Yitzchokel.

Presently the door opened, and he, Yitzchokel, came in.

Yitzchokel was about fourteen, tall and thin, his pale face telling out sharply against his black cloak beneath his black cap.

"Good evening!" he said in a low tone.

The mother gave up her place to him, feeling that she owed him respect, without knowing exactly why, and it was borne in upon her that she and her poverty together were a misfortune for Yitzchokel.

He took a book out of the case, sat down, and opened it.

The mother gave the lamp a screw, wiped the globe with her apron, and pushed the lamp nearer to him.

"Will you have a glass of tea, Yitzchokel?" she asked softly, wishful to serve him.

"No, I have just had some."

"Or an apple?"

He was silent.

The mother cleaned a plate, laid two apples on it, and a knife, and placed it on the table beside him.

He peeled one of the apples as elegantly as a grown-up man, repeated the blessing aloud, and ate.

When Taube had seen Yitzchokel eat an apple, she felt more like his mother, and drew a little nearer to him.

And Yitzchokel, as he slowly peeled the second apple, began to talk more amiably:

"To-day I talked with the Dayan about going somewhere else. In the house-of-study here, there is nothing to do, nobody to study with, nobody to ask how and where, and in which book, and he advises me to go to the Academy at Makove; he will give me a letter to Reb Chayyim, the headmaster, and ask him to befriend me."

When Taube heard that her son was about to leave her, she experienced a great shock, but the words, Dayan, Rosh-Yeshiveh, mekarev-sein, and other high-sounding bits of Hebrew, which she did not understand, overawed her, and she felt she must control herself. Besides, the words held some comfort for her: Yitzchokel was holding counsel with her, with her--his mother!

"Of course, if the Dayan says so," she answered piously.

"Yes," Yitzchokel continued, "there one can hear lectures with all the commentaries; Reb Chayyim, the author of the book "Light of the Torah," is a well-known scholar, and there one has a chance of getting to be something decent."

His words entirely reassured her, she felt a certain happiness and exaltation, because he was her child, because she was the mother of such a child, such a son, and because, were it not for her, Yitzchokel would not be there at all. At the same time her heart pained her, and she grew sad.

Presently she remembered her husband, and burst out crying:

"If only _he_ had lived, if only he could have had this consolation!" she sobbed.

Yitzchokel minded his book.

That night Taube could not sleep, for at the thought of Yitzchokel's departure the heart ached within her.

And she dreamt, as she lay in bed, that some great Rabbis with tall fur caps and long earlocks came in and took her Yitzchokel away from her; her Yitzchokel was wearing a fur cap and locks like theirs, and he held a large book, and he went far away with the Rabbis, and she stood and gazed after him, not knowing, should she rejoice or weep.