Chapter III: Preface: 5 (2)

I understood the reason of his refusal, and started a conversation with him.

"Tell me, Yuedel heart, how is it I have fallen into such bad repute among you that you will not even drink a drop of wine in my house? And why do you say that I am 'one of them,' and not pious? A little while ago you spoke differently of me."

"Ett! It just slipped from my tongue, and the truth is you may be what you please, you are a good man."

"No, Yuedel, don't try to get out of it! Tell me openly (it doesn't concern me, but I am curious to know), why this sudden revulsion of feeling about me, this change of opinion? Tell me, Yuedel, I beg of you, speak freely!"

My gentle words and my friendliness gave Yuedel great encouragement. The poor fellow, with whom not one of "them" has as yet spoken kindly! When he saw that I meant it, he began to scratch his head; it seemed as if in that minute he forgave me all my "heresies," and he looked at me kindly, and as if with pity. Then, seeing that I awaited an answer, he gave a twist to his earlock, and said gently and sincerely:

"You wish me to tell you the truth? You insist upon it? You will not be offended?"

"You know that I never take offence at anything you say. Say anything you like, Yuedel heart, only speak."

"Then I will tell you: the town and everyone else is very angry with you on account of your Palestinian earth: you want to do something new, buy earth and plough it and sow--and where? in our land of Israel, in our Holy Land of Israel!"

"But why, Yuedel dear, when they thought I was buying Palestinian earth to bestrew me after death, was I looked upon almost like a saint?"

"E, that's another thing! That showed that you held Palestine holy, for a land whose soil preserves one against being eaten of worms, like any other honest Jew."

"Well, I ask you, Yuedel, what does this mean? When they thought I was buying sand for after my death, I was a holy man, a lover of Palestine, and because I want to buy earth and till it, earth in your Holy Land, our holy earth in the Holy Land, in which our best and greatest counted it a privilege to live, I am a blot on Israel. Tell me, Yuedel, I ask you: _Why_, because one wants to bestrew himself with Palestinian earth after death, is one an orthodox Jew; and when one desires to give oneself wholly to Palestine in life, should one be 'one of them'? Now I ask you--all those Palestinian Jews who came to me with their bags of sand, and were my very good friends, and full of anxiety to preserve my body after death, why have they turned against me on hearing that I wished for a bit of Palestinian earth while I live? Why are they all so interested and such good brothers to the dead, and such bloodthirsty enemies to the living? Why, because I wish to provide for my sad existence, have they noised abroad that I am a missionary, and made up tales against me? Why? I ask you, why, Yuedel, why?"

"You ask me? How should I know? I only know that ever since Palestine was Palestine, people have gone there to die--that I know; but all this ploughing, sowing, and planting the earth, I never heard of in my life before."

"Yes, Yuedel, you are right, because it has been so for a long time, you think so it has to be--that is the real answer to your questions. But why not think back a little? Why should one only go to Palestine to die? Is not Palestinian earth fit to _live_ on? On the contrary, it is some of the very best soil, and when we till it and plant it, we fulfil the precept to restore the Holy Land, and we also work for ourselves, toward the realization of an honest and peaceable life. I won't discuss the matter at length with you to-day. It seems that you have quite forgotten what all the holy books say about Palestine, and what a precept it is to till the soil. And another question, touching what you said about Palestine being only there to go and die in. Tell me, those Palestinian Jews who were so interested in my death, and brought earth from over there to bestrew me--tell me, are they also only there to die? Did you notice how broad and stout they were? Ha? And they, they too, when they heard I wanted to live there, fell upon me like wild animals, filling the world with their cries, and made up the most dreadful stories about me. Well, what do you say, Yuedel? I ask you."

"Do I know?" said Yuedel, with a wave of the hand. "Is my head there to think out things like that? But tell me, I beg, what _is_ the good to you of buying land in Palestine and getting into trouble all round?"

"You ask, what is the good to me? I want to live, do you hear? I want to _live_!"

"If you can't live without Palestinian earth, why did you not get some before? Did you never want to live till now?"

"Oh, Yuedel, you are right there. I confess that till now I have lived in a delusion, I thought I was living; but--what is the saying?--so long as the thunder is silent...."

"Some thunder has struck you!" interrupted Yuedel, looking compassionately into my face.

"I will put it briefly. You must know, Yuedel, that I have been in business here for quite a long time. I worked faithfully, and my chief was pleased with me. I was esteemed and looked up to, and it never occurred to me that things would change; but bad men could not bear to see me doing so well, and they worked hard against me, till one day the business was taken over by my employer's son; and my enemies profited by the opportunity, to cover me with calumnies from head to foot, spreading reports about me which it makes one shudder to hear. This went on till the chief began to look askance at me. At first I got pin-pricks, malicious hints, then things got worse and worse, and at last they began to push me about, and one day they turned me out of the house, and threw me into a hedge. Presently, when I had reviewed the whole situation, I saw that they could do what they pleased with me. I had no one to rely on, my onetime good friends kept aloof from me, I had lost all worth in their eyes; with some because, as is the way with people, they took no trouble to inquire into the reason of my downfall, but, hearing all that was said against me, concluded that I was in the wrong; others, again, because they wished to be agreeable to my enemies; the rest, for reasons without number. In short, reflecting on all this, I saw the game was lost, and there was no saying what might not happen to me! Hitherto I had borne my troubles patiently, with the courage that is natural to me; but now I feel my courage giving way, and I am in fear lest I should fall in my own eyes, in my own estimation, and get to believe that I am worth nothing. And all this because I must needs resort to _them_, and take all the insults they choose to fling at me, and every outcast has me at his mercy. That is why I want to collect my remaining strength, and buy a parcel of land in Palestine, and, God helping, I will become a bit of a householder--do you understand?"

"Why must it be just in Palestine?"

"Because I may not, and I cannot, buy in anywhere else. I have tried to find a place elsewhere, but they were afraid I was going to get the upper hand, so down they came, and made a wreck of it. Over there I shall be proprietor myself--that is firstly, and secondly, a great many relations of mine are buried there, in the country where they lived and died. And although you count me as 'one of them,' I tell you I think a great deal of 'the merits of the fathers,' and that it is very pleasant to me to think of living in the land that will remind me of such dear forefathers. And although it will be hard at first, the recollection of my ancestors and the thought of providing my children with a corner of their own and honestly earned bread will give me strength, till I shall work my way up to something. And I hope I _will_ get to something. Remember, Yuedel, I believe and I hope! You will see, Yuedel--you know that our brothers consider Palestinian earth a charm against being eaten by worms, and you think that I laugh at it? No, I believe in it! It is quite, quite true that my Palestinian earth will preserve me from worms, only not after death, no, but alive--from such worms as devour and gnaw at and poison the whole of life!"

Yuedel scratched his nose, gave a rub to the cap on his head, and uttered a deep sigh.

"Yes, Yuedel, you sigh! Now do you know what I wanted to say to you?"

"Ett!" and Yuedel made a gesture with his hand. "What you have to say to me?--ett!"

"Oi, that 'ett!' of yours! Yuedel, I know it! When you have nothing to answer, and you ought to think, and think something out, you take refuge in 'ett!' Just consider for once, Yuedel, I have a plan for you, too. Remember what you were, and what has become of you. You have been knocking about, driven hither and thither, since childhood. You haven't a house, not a corner, you have become a beggar, a tramp, a nobody, despised and avoided, with unpleasing habits, and living a dog's life. You have very good qualities, a clear head, and acute intelligence. But to what purpose do you put them? You waste your whole intelligence on getting in at backdoors and coaxing a bit of bread out of the maidservant, and the mistress is not to know. Can you not devise a means, with that clever brain of yours, how to earn it for yourself? See here, I am going to buy a bit of ground in Palestine, come with me, Yuedel, and you shall work, and be a man like other men. You are what they call a 'living orphan,' because you have many fathers; and don't forget that you have _one_ Father who lives, and who is only waiting for you to grow better. Well, how much longer are you going to live among strangers? Till now you haven't thought, and the life suited you, you have grown used to blows and contumely. But now that--that--none will let you in, your eyes must have been opened to see your condition, and you must have begun to wish to be different. Only begin to wish! You see, I have enough to eat, and yet my position has become hateful to me, because I have lost my value, and am in danger of losing my humanity. But you are hungry, and one of these days you will die of starvation out in the street. Yuedel, do just think it over, for if I am right, you will get to be like other people. Your Father will see that you have turned into a man, he will be reconciled with your mother, and you will be 'a father's child,' as you were before. Brother Yuedel, think it over!"

I talked to my Yuedel a long, long time. In the meanwhile, the night had passed. My Yuedel gave a start, as though waking out of a deep slumber, and went away full of thought.

On opening the window, I was greeted by a friendly smile from the rising morning star, as it peeped out between the clouds.

And it began to dawn.

ISAAC LOeB PEREZ

Born, 1851, in Samoscz, Government of Lublin, Russian Poland; Jewish, philosophical, and general literary education; practiced law in Samoscz, a Hasidic town; clerk to the Jewish congregation in Warsaw and as such collector of statistics on Jewish life; began to write at twenty-five; contributor to Zedernbaum's Juedisches Volksblatt; publisher and editor of Die juedische Bibliothek (4 vols.), in which he conducted the scientific department, and wrote all the editorials and book reviews, of Literatur and Leben, and of Yom-tov Blaettlech; now (1912) co-editor of Der Freind, Warsaw; Hebrew and Yiddish prose writer and poet; allegorist; collected Hebrew works, 1899-1901; collected Yiddish works, 7 vols., Warsaw and New York, 1909-1912 (in course of publication).

A WOMAN'S WRATH

The small room is dingy as the poverty that clings to its walls. There is a hook fastened to the crumbling ceiling, relic of a departed hanging lamp. The old, peeling stove is girded about with a coarse sack, and leans sideways toward its gloomy neighbor, the black, empty fireplace, in which stands an inverted cooking pot with a chipped rim. Beside it lies a broken spoon, which met its fate in unequal contest with the scrapings of cold, stale porridge.

The room is choked with furniture; there is a four-post bed with torn curtains. The pillows visible through their holes have no covers.

There is a cradle, with the large, yellow head of a sleeping child; a chest with metal fittings and an open padlock--nothing very precious left in there, evidently; further, a table and three chairs (originally painted red), a cupboard, now somewhat damaged. Add to these a pail of clean water and one of dirty water, an oven rake with a shovel, and you will understand that a pin could hardly drop onto the floor.

And yet the room contains _him_ and _her_ beside.

_She_, a middle-aged Jewess, sits on the chest that fills the space between the bed and the cradle.

To her right is the one grimy little window, to her left, the table. She is knitting a sock, rocking the cradle with her foot, and listens to _him_ reading the Talmud at the table, with a tearful, Wallachian, singing intonation, and swaying to and fro with a series of nervous jerks. Some of the words he swallows, others he draws out; now he snaps at a word, and now he skips it; some he accentuates and dwells on lovingly, others he rattles out with indifference, like dried peas out of a bag. And never quiet for a moment. First he draws from his pocket a once red and whole handkerchief, and wipes his nose and brow, then he lets it fall into his lap, and begins twisting his earlocks or pulling at his thin, pointed, faintly grizzled beard. Again, he lays a pulled-out hair from the same between the leaves of his book, and slaps his knees. His fingers coming into contact with the handkerchief, they seize it, and throw a corner in between his teeth; he bites it, lays one foot across the other, and continually shuffles with both feet.

All the while his pale forehead wrinkles, now in a perpendicular, now in a horizontal, direction, when the long eyebrows are nearly lost below the folds of skin. At times, apparently, he has a sting in the chest, for he beats his left side as though he were saying the Al-Chets. Suddenly he leans his head to the left, presses a finger against his left nostril, and emits an artificial sneeze, leans his head to the right, and the proceeding is repeated. In between he takes a pinch of snuff, pulls himself together, his voice rings louder, the chair creaks, the table wobbles.

The child does not wake; the sounds are too familiar to disturb it.

And she, the wife, shrivelled and shrunk before her time, sits and drinks in delight. She never takes her eye off her husband, her ear lets no inflection of his voice escape. Now and then, it is true, she sighs. Were he as fit for _this_ world as he is for the _other_ world, she would have a good time of it here, too--here, too--

"Ma!" she consoles herself, "who talks of honor? Not every one is worthy of both tables!"

She listens. Her shrivelled face alters from minute to minute; she is nervous, too. A moment ago it was eloquent of delight. Now she remembers it is Thursday, there isn't a dreier to spend in preparation for Sabbath. The light in her face goes out by degrees, the smile fades, then she takes a look through the grimy window, glances at the sun. It must be getting late, and there isn't a spoonful of hot water in the house. The needles pause in her hand, a shadow has overspread her face. She looks at the child, it is sleeping less quietly, and will soon wake. The child is poorly, and there is not a drop of milk for it. The shadow on her face deepens into gloom, the needles tremble and move convulsively.

And when she remembers that it is near Passover, that her ear-rings and the festal candlesticks are at the pawnshop, the chest empty, the lamp sold, then the needles perform murderous antics in her fingers. The gloom on her brow is that of a gathering thunder-storm, lightnings play in her small, grey, sunken eyes.

He sits and "learns," unconscious of the charged atmosphere; does not see her let the sock fall and begin wringing her finger-joints; does not see that her forehead is puckered with misery, one eye closed, and the other fixed on him, her learned husband, with a look fit to send a chill through his every limb; does not see her dry lips tremble and her jaw quiver. She controls herself with all her might, but the storm is gathering fury within her. The least thing, and it will explode.

That least thing has happened.

He was just translating a Talmudic phrase with quiet delight, "And thence we derive that--" He was going on with "three,--" but the word "derive" was enough, it was the lighted spark, and her heart was the gunpowder. It was ablaze in an instant. Her determination gave way, the unlucky word opened the flood-gates, and the waters poured through, carrying all before them.

"Derived, you say, derived? O, derived may you be, Lord of the World," she exclaimed, hoarse with anger, "derived may you be! Yes! You!" she hissed like a snake. "Passover coming--Thursday--and the child ill--and not a drop of milk is there. Ha?"

Her breath gives out, her sunken breast heaves, her eyes flash.

He sits like one turned to stone. Then, pale and breathless, too, from fright, he gets up and edges toward the door.

At the door he turns and faces her, and sees that hand and tongue are equally helpless from passion; his eyes grow smaller; he catches a bit of handkerchief between his teeth, retreats a little further, takes a deeper breath, and mutters:

"Listen, woman, do you know what Bittul-Torah means? And not letting a husband study in peace, to be always worrying about livelihood, ha? And who feeds the little birds, tell me? Always this want of faith in God, this giving way to temptation, and taking thought for _this_ world ... foolish, ill-natured woman! Not to let a husband study! If you don't take care, you will go to Gehenna."

Receiving no answer, he grows bolder. Her face gets paler and paler, she trembles more and more violently, and the paler she becomes, and the more she trembles, the steadier his voice, as he goes on:

"Gehenna! Fire! Hanging by the tongue! Four death penalties inflicted by the court!"

She is silent, her face is white as chalk.

He feels that he is doing wrong, that he has no call to be cruel, that he is taking a mean advantage, but he has risen, as it were, to the top, and is boiling over. He cannot help himself.

"Do you know," he threatens her, "what Skiloh means? It means stoning, to throw into a ditch and cover up with stones! Srefoh--burning, that is, pouring a spoonful of boiling lead into the inside! Hereg--beheading, that means they cut off your head with a sword! Like this" (and he passes a hand across his neck). "Then Cheneck--strangling! Do you hear? To strangle! Do you understand? And all four for making light of the Torah! For Bittul-Torah!"

His heart is already sore for his victim, but he is feeling his power over her for the first time, and it has gone to his head. Silly woman! He had never known how easy it was to frighten her.

"That comes of making light of the Torah!" he shouts, and breaks off. After all, she might come to her senses at any moment, and take up the broom! He springs back to the table, closes the Gemoreh, and hurries out of the room.

"I am going to the house-of-study!" he calls out over his shoulder in a milder tone, and shuts the door after him.

The loud voice and the noise of the closing door have waked the sick child. The heavy-lidded eyes open, the waxen face puckers, and there is a peevish wail. But she, beside herself, stands rooted to the spot, and does not hear.

"Ha!" comes hoarsely at last out of her narrow chest. "So that's it, is it? Neither this world nor the other. Hanging, he says, stoning, burning, beheading, strangling, hanging by the tongue, boiling lead poured into the inside, he says--for making light of the Torah--Hanging, ha, ha, ha!" (in desperation). "Yes, I'll hang, but _here, here!_ And soon! What is there to wait for?"

The child begins to cry louder; still she does not hear.

"A rope! a rope!" she screams, and stares wildly into every corner.

"Where is there a rope? I wish he mayn't find a bone of me left! Let me be rid of _one_ Gehenna at any rate! Let him try it, let him be a mother for once, see how he likes it! I've had enough of it! Let it be an atonement! An end, an end! A rope, a rope!!"

Her last exclamation is like a cry for help from out of a conflagration.

She remembers that they _have_ a rope somewhere. Yes, under the stove--the stove was to have been tied round against the winter. The rope must be there still.

She runs and finds the rope, the treasure, looks up at the ceiling--the hook that held the lamp--she need only climb onto the table.

She climbs--

But she sees from the table that the startled child, weak as it is, has sat up in the cradle, and is reaching over the side--it is trying to get out--

"Mame, M-mame," it sobs feebly.

A fresh paroxysm of anger seizes her.

She flings away the rope, jumps off the table, runs to the child, and forces its head back into the pillow, exclaiming:

"Bother the child! It won't even let me hang myself! I can't even hang myself in peace! It wants to suck. What is the good? You will suck nothing but poison, poison, out of me, I tell you!"

"There, then, greedy!" she cries in the same breath, and stuffs her dried-up breast into his mouth.

"There, then, suck away--bite!"

THE TREASURE

To sleep, in summer time, in a room four yards square, together with a wife and eight children, is anything but a pleasure, even on a Friday night--and Shmerel the woodcutter rises from his bed, though only half through with the night, hot and gasping, hastily pours some water over his finger-tips, flings on his dressing-gown, and escapes barefoot from the parched Gehenna of his dwelling. He steps into the street--all quiet, all the shutters closed, and over the sleeping town is a distant, serene, and starry sky. He feels as if he were all alone with God, blessed is He, and he says, looking up at the sky, "Now, Lord of the Universe, now is the time to hear me and to bless me with a treasure out of Thy treasure-house!"

As he says this, he sees something like a little flame coming along out of the town, and he knows, That is it! He is about to pursue it, when he remembers it is Sabbath, when one mustn't turn. So he goes after it walking. And as he walks slowly along, the little flame begins to move slowly, too, so that the distance between them does not increase, though it does not shorten, either. He walks on. Now and then an inward voice calls to him: "Shmerel, don't be a fool! Take off the dressing-gown. Give a jump and throw it over the flame!" But he knows it is the Evil Inclination speaking. He throws off the dressing-gown onto his arm, but to spite the Evil Inclination he takes still smaller steps, and rejoices to see that, as soon as he takes these smaller steps, the little flame moves more slowly, too.

Thus he follows the flame, and follows it, till he gradually finds himself outside the town. The road twists and turns across fields and meadows, and the distance between him and the flame grows no longer, no shorter. Were he to throw the dressing-gown, it would not reach the flame. Meantime the thought revolves in his mind: Were he indeed to become possessed of the treasure, he need no longer be a woodcutter, now, in his later years; he has no longer the strength for the work he had once. He would rent a seat for his wife in the women's Shool, so that her Sabbaths and holidays should not be spoiled by their not allowing her to sit here or to sit there. On New Year's Day and the Day of Atonement it is all she can do to stand through the service. Her many children have exhausted her! And he would order her a new dress, and buy her a few strings of pearls. The children should be sent to better Chedorim, and he would cast about for a match for his eldest girl. As it is, the poor child carries her mother's fruit baskets, and never has time so much as to comb her hair thoroughly, and she has long, long plaits, and eyes like a deer.

"It would be a meritorious act to pounce upon the treasure!"

The Evil Inclination again, he thinks. If it is not to be, well, then it isn't! If it were in the week, he would soon know what to do! Or if his Yainkel were there, he would have had something to say. Children nowadays! Who knows what they don't do on Sabbath, as it is! And the younger one is no better: he makes fun of the teacher in Cheder. When the teacher is about to administer a blow, they pull his beard. And who's going to find time to see after them--chopping and sawing a whole day through.

He sighs and walks on and on, now and then glancing up into the sky: "Lord of the Universe, of whom are you making trial? Shmerel Woodcutter? If you do mean to give me the treasure, _give_ it me!" It seems to him that the flame proceeds more slowly, but at this very moment he hears a dog bark, and it has a bark he knows--that is the dog in Vissoke. Vissoke is the first village you come to on leaving the town, and he sees white patches twinkle in the dewy morning atmosphere, those are the Vissoke peasant cottages. Then it occurs to him that he has gone a Sabbath day's journey, and he stops short.

"Yes, I have gone a Sabbath day's journey," he thinks, and says, speaking into the air: "You won't lead me astray! It is _not_ a God-send! God does not make sport of us--it is the work of a demon." And he feels a little angry with the thing, and turns and hurries toward the town, thinking: "I won't say anything about it at home, because, first, they won't believe me, and if they do, they'll laugh at me. And what have I done to be proud of? The Creator knows how it was, and that is enough for me. Besides, _she_ might be angry, who can tell? The children are certainly naked and barefoot, poor little things! Why should they be made to transgress the command to honor one's father?"

No, he won't breathe a word. He won't even ever remind the Almighty of it. If he really has been good, the Almighty will remember without being told.

And suddenly he is conscious of a strange, lightsome, inward calm, and there is a delicious sensation in his limbs. Money is, after all, dross, riches may even lead a man from the right way, and he feels inclined to thank God for not having brought him into temptation by granting him his wish. He would like, if only--to sing a song! "Our Father, our King" is one he remembers from his early years, but he feels ashamed before himself, and breaks off. He tries to recollect one of the cantor's melodies, a Sinai tune--when suddenly he sees that the identical little flame which he left behind him is once more preceding him, and moving slowly townward, townward, and the distance between them neither increases nor diminishes, as though the flame were taking a walk, and he were taking a walk, just taking a little walk in honor of Sabbath. He is glad in his heart and watches it. The sky pales, the stars begin to go out, the east flushes, a narrow pink stream flows lengthwise over his head, and still the flame flickers onward into the town, enters his own street. There is his house. The door, he sees, is open. Apparently he forgot to shut it. And, lo and behold! the flame goes in, the flame goes in at his own house door! He follows, and sees it disappear beneath the bed. All are asleep. He goes softly up to the bed, stoops down, and sees the flame spinning round underneath it, like a top, always in the same place; takes his dressing-gown, and throws it down under the bed, and covers up the flame. No one hears him, and now a golden morning beam steals in through the chink in the shutter.

He sits down on the bed, and makes a vow not to say a word to anyone till Sabbath is over--not half a word, lest it cause desecration of the Sabbath. _She_ could never hold her tongue, and the children certainly not; they would at once want to count the treasure, to know how much there was, and very soon the secret would be out of the house and into the Shool, the house-of-study, and all the streets, and people would talk about his treasure, about luck, and people would not say their prayers, or wash their hands, or say grace, as they should, and he would have led his household and half the town into sin. No, not a whisper! And he stretches himself out on the bed, and pretends to be asleep.

And this was his reward: When, after concluding the Sabbath, he stooped down and lifted up the dressing-gown under the bed, there lay a sack with a million of gulden, an almost endless number--the bed was a large one--and he became one of the richest men in the place.

And he lived happily all the years of his life.

Only, his wife was continually bringing up against him: "Lord of the World, how could a man have such a heart of stone, as to sit a whole summer day and not say a word, not a word, not to his own wife, not one single word! And there was I" (she remembers) "crying over my prayer as I said God of Abraham--and crying so--for there wasn't a dreier left in the house."

Then he consoles her, and says with a smile:

"Who knows? Perhaps it was all thanks to your 'God of Abraham' that it went off so well."

IT IS WELL

You ask how it is that I remained a Jew? Whose merit it is?

Not through my own merits nor those of my ancestors. I was a six-year-old Cheder boy, my father a countryman outside Wilna, a householder in a small way.

No, I remained a Jew thanks to the Schpol Grandfather.

How do I come to mention the Schpol Grandfather? What has the Schpol Grandfather to do with it, you ask?

The Schpol Grandfather was no Schpol Grandfather then. He was a young man, suffering exile from home and kindred, wandering with a troop of mendicants from congregation to congregation, from friendly inn to friendly inn, in all respects one of them. What difference his heart may have shown, who knows? And after these journeyman years, the time of revelation had not come even yet. He presented himself to the Rabbinical Board in Wilna, took out a certificate, and became a Shochet in a village. He roamed no more, but remained in the neighborhood of Wilna. The Misnagdim, however, have a wonderful _flair_, and they suspected something, began to worry and calumniate him, and finally they denounced him to the Rabbinical authorities as a transgressor of the Law, of the whole Law! What Misnagdim are capable of, to be sure!

As I said, I was then six years old. He used to come to us to slaughter small cattle, or just to spend the night, and I was very fond of him. Whom else, except my father and mother, should I have loved? I had a teacher, a passionate man, a destroyer of souls, and this other was a kind and genial creature, who made you feel happy if he only looked at you. The calumnies did their work, and they took away his certificate. My teacher must have had a hand in it, because he heard of it before anyone, and the next time the Shochet came, he exclaimed "Apostate!" took him by the scruff of his coat, and bundled him out of the house. It cut me to the heart like a knife, only I was frightened to death of the teacher, and never stirred. But a little later, when the teacher was looking away, I escaped and began to run after the Shochet across the road, which, not far from the house, lost itself in a wood that stretched all the way to Wilna. What exactly I proposed to do to help him, I don't know, but something drove me after the poor Shochet. I wanted to say good-by to him, to have one more look into his nice, kindly eyes.

But I ran and ran, and hurt my feet against the stones in the road, and saw no one. I went to the right, down into the wood, thinking I would rest a little on the soft earth of the wood. I was about to sit down, when I heard a voice (it sounded like his voice) farther on in the wood, half speaking and half singing. I went softly towards the voice, and saw him some way off, where he stood swaying to and fro under a tree. I went up to him--he was reciting the Song of Songs. I look closer and see that the tree under which he stands is different from the other trees. The others are still bare of leaves, and this one is green and in full leaf, it shines like the sun, and stretches its flowery branches over the Shochet's head like a tent. And a quantity of birds hop among the twigs and join in singing the Song of Songs. I am so astonished that I stand there with open mouth and eyes, rooted like the trees.

He ends his chant, the tree is extinguished, the little birds are silent, and he turns to me, and says affectionately:

"Listen, Yuedele,"--Yuedel is my name--"I have a request to make of you."

"Really?" I answer joyfully, and I suppose he wishes me to bring him out some food, and I am ready to run and bring him our whole Sabbath dinner, when he says to me:

"Listen, keep what you saw to yourself."

This sobers me, and I promise seriously and faithfully to hold my tongue.

"Listen again. You are going far away, very far away, and the road is a long road."

I wonder, however should I come to travel so far? And he goes on to say:

"They will knock the Rebbe's Torah out of your head, and you will forget Father and Mother, but see you keep to your name! You are called Yuedel--remain a Jew!"

I am frightened, but cry out from the bottom of my heart:

"Surely! As surely may I live!"

Then, because my own idea clung to me, I added:

"Don't you want something to eat?"

And before I finished speaking, he had vanished.

The second week after they fell upon us and led me away as a Cantonist, to be brought up among the Gentiles and turned into a soldier.

* * * * *

Time passed, and I forgot everything, as he had foretold. They knocked it all out of my head.

I served far away, deep in Russia, among snows and terrific frosts, and never set eyes on a Jew. There may have been hidden Jews about, but I knew nothing of them, I knew nothing of Sabbath and festival, nothing of any fast. I forgot everything.

But I held fast to my name!

I did not change my coin.

The more I forgot, the more I was inclined to be quit of my torments and trials--to make an end of them by agreeing to a Christian name, but whenever the bad thought came into my head, he appeared before me, the same Shochet, and I heard his voice say to me, "Keep your name, remain a Jew!"

And I knew for certain that it was no empty dream, because every time I saw him _older_ and _older_, his beard and earlocks greyer, his face paler. Only his eyes remained the same kind eyes, and his voice, which sounded like a violin, never altered.

Once they flogged me, and he stood by and wiped the cold sweat off my forehead, and stroked my face, and said softly: "Don't cry out! We ought to suffer! Remain a Jew," and I bore it without a cry, without a moan, as though they had been flogging _not_-me.

* * * * *

Once, during the last year, I had to go as a sentry to a public house behind the town. It was evening, and there was a snow-storm. The wind lifted patches of snow, and ground them to needles, rubbed them to dust, and this snow-dust and these snow-needles were whirled through the air, flew into one's face and pricked--you couldn't keep an eye open, you couldn't draw your breath! Suddenly I saw some people walking past me, not far away, and one of them said in Yiddish, "This is the first night of Passover." Whether it was a voice from God, or whether some people really passed me, to this day I don't know, but the words fell upon my heart like lead, and I had hardly reached the tavern and begun to walk up and down, when a longing came over me, a sort of heartache, that is not to be described. I wanted to recite the Haggadah, and not a word of it could I recall! Not even the Four Questions I used to ask my father. I felt it all lay somewhere deep down in my heart. I used to know so much of it, when I was only six years old. I felt, if only I could have recalled one simple word, the rest would have followed and risen out of my memory one after the other, like sleepy birds from beneath the snow. But that one first word is just what I cannot remember! Lord of the Universe, I cried fervently, one word, only one word! As it seems, I made my prayer in a happy hour, for "we were slaves" came into my head just as if it had been thrown down from Heaven. I was overjoyed! I was so full of joy that I felt it brimming over. And then the rest all came back to me, and as I paced up and down on my watch, with my musket on my shoulder, I recited and sang the Haggadah to the snowy world around. I drew it out of me, word after word, like a chain of golden links, like a string of pearls. O, but you won't understand, you couldn't understand, unless you had been taken away there, too!

The wind, meanwhile, had fallen, the snow-storm had come to an end, and there appeared a clear, twinkling sky, and a shining world of diamonds. It was silent all round, and ever so wide, and ever so white, with a sweet, peaceful, endless whiteness. And over this calm, wide, whiteness, there suddenly appeared something still whiter, and lighter, and brighter, wrapped in a robe and a prayer-scarf, the prayer-scarf over its shoulders, and over the prayer-scarf, in front, a silvery white beard; and above the beard, two shining eyes, and above them, a sparkling crown, a cap with gold and silver ornaments. And it came nearer and nearer, and went past me, but as it passed me it said:

"It is well!"

It sounded like a violin, and then the figure vanished.

But it was the same eyes, the same voice.

I took Schpol on my way home, and went to see the Old Man, for the Rebbe of Schpol was called by the people Der Alter, the "Schpol Grandfather."

And I recognized him again, and he recognized me!

WHENCE A PROVERB

"Drunk all the year round, sober at Purim," is a Jewish proverb, and people ought to know whence it comes.

In the days of the famous scholar, Reb Chayyim Vital, there lived in Safed, in Palestine, a young man who (not of us be it spoken!) had not been married a year before he became a widower. God's ways are not to be understood. Such things will happen. But the young man was of the opinion that the world, in as far as he was concerned, had come to an end; that, as there is one sun in heaven, so his wife had been the one woman in the world. So he went and sold all the merchandise in his little shop and all the furniture of his room, and gave the proceeds to the head of the Safed Academy, the Rosh ha-Yeshiveh, on condition that he should be taken into the Yeshiveh and fed with the other scholars, and that he should have a room to himself, where he might sit and learn Torah.

The Rosh ha-Yeshiveh took the money for the Academy, and they partitioned off a little room for the young man with some boards, in a corner of the attic of the house-of-study. They carried in a sack with straw, and vessels for washing, and the young man sat himself down to the Talmud. Except on Sabbaths and holidays, when the householders invited him to dinner, he never set eyes on a living creature. Food sufficient for the day, and a clean shirt in honor of Sabbaths and festivals, were carried up to him by the beadle, and whenever he heard steps on the stair, he used to turn away, and stand with his face to the wall, till whoever it was had gone out again and shut the door.

In a word, he became a Porush, for he lived separate from the world.

At first people thought he wouldn't persevere long, because he was a lively youth by nature; but as week after week went by, and the Porush sat and studied, and the tearful voice in which he intoned the Gemoreh was heard in the street half through the night, or else he was seen at the attic window, his pale face raised towards the sky, then they began to believe in him, and they hoped he might in time become a mighty man in Israel, and perhaps even a wonderworker. They said so to the Rebbe, Chayyim Vital, but he listened, shook his head, and replied, "God grant it may last."

Meantime a little "wonder" really happened. The beadle's little daughter, who used sometimes to carry up the Porush's food for her father, took it into her head that she must have one look at the Porush. What does she? Takes off her shoes and stockings, and carries the food to him barefoot, so noiselessly that she heard her own heart beat. But the beating of her heart frightened her so much that she fell down half the stairs, and was laid up for more than a month in consequence. In her fever she told the whole story, and people began to believe in the Porush more firmly than ever and to wait with increasing impatience till he should become famous.

They described the occurrence to Reb Chayyim Vital, and again he shook his head, and even sighed, and answered, "God grant he may be victorious!" And when they pressed him for an explanation of these words, Reb Chayyim answered, that as the Porush had left the world, not so much for the sake of Heaven as on account of his grief for his wife, it was to be feared that he would be sorely beset and tempted by the "Other Side," and God grant he might not stumble and fall.

* * * * *

And Reb Chayyim Vital never spoke without good reason!

One day the Porush was sitting deep in a book, when he heard something tapping at the door, and fear came over him. But as the tapping went on, he rose, forgetting to close his book, went and opened the door--and in walks a turkey. He lets it in, for it occurs to him that it would be nice to have a living thing in the room. The turkey walks past him, and goes and settles down quietly in a corner. And the Porush wonders what this may mean, and sits down again to his book. Sitting there, he remembers that it is going on for Purim. Has someone sent him a turkey out of regard for his study of the Torah? What shall he do with the turkey? Should anyone, he reflects, ask him to dinner, supposing it were to be a poor man, he would send him the turkey on the eve of Purim, and then he would satisfy himself with it also. He has not once tasted fowl-meat since he lost his wife. Thinking thus, he smacked his lips, and his mouth watered. He threw a glance at the turkey, and saw it looking at him in a friendly way, as though it had quite understood his intention, and was very glad to think it should have the honor of being eaten by a Porush. He could not restrain himself, but was continually lifting his eyes from his book to look at the turkey, till at last he began to fancy the turkey was smiling at him. This startled him a little, but all the same it made him happy to be smiled at by a living creature.

The same thing happened at Minchah and Maariv. In the middle of the Eighteen Benedictions, he could not for the life of him help looking round every minute at the turkey, who continued to smile and smile. Suddenly it seemed to him, he knew that smile well--the Almighty, who had taken back his wife, had now sent him her smile to comfort him in his loneliness, and he began to love the turkey. He thought how much better it would be, if a _rich_ man were to invite him at Purim, so that the turkey might live.

And he thought it in a propitious moment, as we shall presently see, but meantime they brought him, as usual, a platter of groats with a piece of bread, and he washed his hands, and prepared to eat.

No sooner, however, had he taken the bread into his hand, and was about to bite into it, than the turkey moved out of its corner, and began peck, peck, peck, towards the bread, by way of asking for some, and as though to say it was hungry, too, and came and stood before him near the table. The Porush thought, "He'd better have some, I don't want to be unkind to him, to tease him," and he took the bread and the platter of porridge, and set it down on the floor before the turkey, who pecked and supped away to its heart's content.

Next day the Porush went over to the Rosh ha-Yeshiveh, and told him how he had come to have a fellow-lodger; he used always to leave some porridge over, and to-day he didn't seem to have had enough. The Rosh ha-Yeshiveh saw a hungry face before him. He said he would tell this to the Rebbe, Chayyim Vital, so that he might pray, and the evil spirit, if such indeed it was, might depart. Meantime he would give orders for two pieces of bread and two plates of porridge to be taken up to the attic, so that there should be enough for both, the Porush and the turkey. Reb Chayyim Vital, however, to whom the story was told in the name of the Rosh ha-Yeshiveh, shook his head, and declared with a deep sigh that this was only the beginning!

Meanwhile the Porush received a double portion and was satisfied, and the turkey was satisfied, too. The turkey even grew fat. And in a couple of weeks or so the Porush had become so much attached to the turkey that he prayed every day to be invited for Purim by a _rich_ man, so that he might not be tempted to destroy it.

And, as we intimated, _that_ temptation, anyhow, was spared him, for he was invited to dinner by one of the principal householders in the place, and there was not only turkey, but every kind of tasty dish, and wine fit for a king. And the best Purim-players came to entertain the rich man, his family, and the guests who had come to him after their feast at home. And our Porush gave himself up to enjoyment, and ate and drank. Perhaps he even drank rather more than he ate, for the wine was sweet and grateful to the taste, and the warmth of it made its way into every limb.

Then suddenly a change came over him.

The Ahasuerus-Esther play had begun. Vashti will not do the king's pleasure and come in to the banquet as God made her. Esther soon finds favor in her stead, she is given over to Hegai, the keeper of the women, to be purified, six months with oil of myrrh and six months with other sweet perfumes. And our Porush grew hot all over, and it was dark before his eyes; then red streaks flew across his field of vision, like tongues of fire, and he was overcome by a strange, wild longing to be back at home, in the attic of the house-of-study--a longing for his own little room, his quiet corner, a longing for the turkey, and he couldn't bear it, and even before they had said grace he jumped up and ran away home.

He enters his room, looks into the corner habitually occupied by the turkey, and stands amazed--the turkey has turned into a woman, a most beautiful woman, such as the world never saw, and he begins to tremble all over. And she comes up to him, and takes him around the neck with her warm, white, naked arms, and the Porush trembles more and more, and begs, "Not here, not here! It is a holy place, there are holy books lying about." Then she whispers into his ear that she is the Queen of Sheba, that she lives not far from the house-of-study, by the river, among the tall reeds, in a palace of crystal, given her by King Solomon. And she draws him along, she wants him to go with her to her palace.

And he hesitates and resists--and he goes.

Next day, there was no turkey, and no Porush, either!

They went to Reb Chayyim Vital, who told them to look for him along the bank of the river, and they found him in a swamp among the tall reeds, more dead than alive.

They rescued him and brought him round, but from that day he took to drink.

And Reb Chayyim Vital said, it all came from his great longing for the Queen of Sheba, that when he drank, he saw her; and they were to let him drink, only not at Purim, because at that time she would have great power over him.

Hence the proverb, "Drunk all the year round, sober at Purim."

MORDECAI SPEKTOR