Chapter V: Preface: 5 (4)

"There's another witness!" said my father, but it appeared that he had begun to feel a little doubtful himself, for after the meal he went up to the clock, got upon a chair, gave a turn to a little wheel inside the clock, and it began to strike. We all counted the strokes, nodding our head at each one the while: one--two--three--seven--nine--twelve--thirteen.

"Thirteen!" exclaimed my father, looking at us in amaze. He gave the wheel another turn, and again the clock struck thirteen. My father got down off the chair with a sigh. He was as white as the wall, and remained standing in the middle of the room, stared at the ceiling, chewed his beard, and muttered to himself:

"Plague take thirteen! What can it mean? What does it portend? If it were out of order, it would have stopped. Then, what can it be? The inference can only be that some spring has gone wrong."

"Why worry whether it's a spring or not?" said my mother. "You'd better take down the clock and put it to rights, as you've a turn that way."

"Hush, perhaps you're right," answered my father, took down the clock and busied himself with it. He perspired, spent a whole day over it, and hung it up again in its place.

Thank God, the clock was going as it should, and when, near midnight, we all stood round it and counted _twelve_, my father was overjoyed.

"Ha? It didn't strike thirteen then, did it? When I say it is a spring, I know what I'm about."

"I always said you were a wonder," my mother told him. "But there is one thing I don't understand: why does it wheeze so? I don't think it used to wheeze like that."

"It's your fancy," said my father, and listened to the noise it made before striking, like an old man preparing to cough: chil-chil-chil-chil-trrrr ... and only then: bom!--bom!--bom!--and even the "bom" was not the same as formerly, for the former "bom" had been a cheerful one, and now there had crept into it a melancholy note, as into the voice of an old worn-out cantor at the close of the service for the Day of Atonement, and the hoarseness increased, and the strike became lower and duller, and my father, worried and anxious. It was plain that the affair preyed upon his mind, that he suffered in secret, that it was undermining his health, and yet he could do nothing. We felt that any moment the clock might stop altogether. The imp started playing all kinds of nasty tricks and idle pranks, shook itself sideways, and stumbled like an old man who drags his feet after him. One could see that the clock was about to stop forever! It was a good thing my father understood in time that the clock was about to yield up its soul, and that the fault lay with the balance weights: the weight was too light. And he puts on a jostle, which has the weight of about four pounds. The clock goes on like a song, and my father becomes as cheerful as a newborn man.

But this was not to be for long: the clock began to lose again, the imp was back at his tiresome performances: he moved slowly on one side, quickly on the other, with a hoarse noise, like a sick old man, so that it went to the heart. A pity to see how the clock agonized, and my father, as he watched it, seemed like a flickering, bickering flame of a candle, and nearly went out for grief.

Like a good doctor, who is ready to sacrifice himself for the patient's sake, who puts forth all his energy, tries every remedy under the sun to save his patient, even so my father applied himself to save the old clock, if only it should be possible.

"The weight is too light," repeated my father, and hung something heavier onto it every time, first a frying-pan, then a copper jug, afterwards a flat-iron, a bag of sand, a couple of tiles--and the clock revived every time and went on, with difficulty and distress, but still it went--till one night there was a misfortune.

It was on a Friday evening in winter. We had just eaten our Sabbath supper, the delicious peppered fish with horseradish, the hot soup with macaroni, the stewed plums, and said grace as was meet. The Sabbath candles flickered, the maid was just handing round fresh, hot, well-dried Polish nuts from off the top of the stove, when in came Aunt Yente, a dark-favored little woman without teeth, whose husband had deserted her, to become a follower of the Rebbe, quite a number of years ago.

"Good Sabbath!" said Aunt Yente, "I knew you had some fresh Polish nuts. The pity is that I've nothing to crack them with, may my husband live no more years than I have teeth in my mouth! What did you think, Malkeh, of the fish to-day? What a struggle there was over them at the market! I asked him about his fish--Manasseh, the lazy--when up comes Soreh Peril, the rich: Make haste, give it me, hand me over that little pike!--Why in such a hurry? say I. God be with you, the river is not on fire, and Manasseh is not going to take the fish back there, either. Take my word for it, with these rich people money is cheap, and sense is dear. Turns round on me and says: Paupers, she says, have no business here--a poor man, she says, shouldn't hanker after good things. What do you think of such a shrew? How long did she stand by her mother in the market selling ribbons? She behaves just like Pessil Peise Avrohom's over her daughter, the one she married to a great man in Schtrischtch, who took her just as she was, without any dowry or anything--Jewish luck! They say she has a bad time of it--no evil eye to her days--can't get on with his children. Well, who would be a stepmother? Let them beware! Take Chavvehle! What is there to find fault with in her? And you should see the life her stepchildren lead her! One hears shouting day and night, cursing, squabbling, and fighting."

The candles began to die down, the shadow climbed the wall, scrambled higher and higher, the nuts crackled in our hands, there was talking and telling stories and tales, just for the pleasure of it, one without any reference to the other, but Aunt Yente talked more than anyone.

"Hush!" cried out Aunt Yente, "listen, because not long ago a still better thing happened. Not far from Yampele, about three versts away, some robbers fell upon a Jewish tavern, killed a whole houseful of people, down to a baby in a cradle. The only person left alive was a servant-girl, who was sleeping on the kitchen stove. She heard people screeching, and jumped down, this servant-girl, off the stove, peeped through a chink in the door, and saw, this servant-girl I'm telling you of, saw the master of the house and the mistress lying on the floor, murdered, in a pool of blood, and she went back, this girl, and sprang through a window, and ran into the town screaming: Jews, to the rescue, help, help, help!"

Suddenly, just as Aunt Yente was shouting, "Help, help, help!" we heard _trrraach!--tarrrach!--bom--dzin--dzin--dzin, bomm!!_ We were so deep in the story, we only thought at first that robbers had descended upon our house, and were firing guns, and we could not move for terror. For one minute we looked at one another, and then with one accord we began to call out, "Help! help! help!" and my mother was so carried away that she clasped me in her arms and cried:

"My child, my life for yours, woe is me!"

"Ha? What? What is the matter with him? What has happened?" exclaimed my father.

"Nothing! nothing! hush! hush!" cried Aunt Yente, gesticulating wildly, and the maid came running in from the kitchen, more dead than alive.

"Who screamed? What is it? Is there a fire? What is on fire? Where?"

"Fire? fire? Where is the fire?" we all shrieked. "Help! help! Gewalt, Jews, to the rescue, fire, fire!"

"Which fire? what fire? where fire?! Fire take _you_, you foolish girl, and make cinders of you!" scolded Aunt Yente at the maid. "Now _she_ must come, as though we weren't enough before! Fire, indeed, says she! Into the earth with you, to all black years! Did you ever hear of such a thing? What are you all yelling for? Do you know what it was that frightened you? The best joke in the world, and there's nobody to laugh with! God be with you, it was the clock falling onto the floor--now you know! You hung every sort of thing onto it, and now it is fallen, weighing at least three pud. And no wonder! A man wouldn't have fared better. Did you ever?!"

It was only then we came to our senses, rose one by one from the table, went to the clock, and saw it lying on its poor face, killed, broken, shattered, and smashed for evermore!

"There is an end to the clock!" said my father, white as the wall. He hung his head, wrung his fingers, and the tears came into his eyes. I looked at my father and wanted to cry, too.

"There now, see, what is the use of fretting to death?" said my mother. "No doubt it was so decreed and written down in Heaven that to-day, at that particular minute, our clock was to find its end, just (I beg to distinguish!) like a human being, may God not punish me for saying so! May it be an Atonement for not remembering the Sabbath, for me, for thee, for our children, for all near and dear to us, and for all Israel. Amen, Selah!"

FISHEL THE TEACHER

Twice a year, as sure as the clock, on the first day of Nisan and the first of Ellul--for Passover and Tabernacles--Fishel the teacher travelled from Balta to Chaschtschevate, home to his wife and children. It was decreed that nearly all his life long he should be the guest of his own family, a very welcome guest, but a passing one. He came with the festival, and no sooner was it over, than back with him to Balta, back to the schooling, the ruler, the Gemoreh, the dull, thick wits, to the being knocked about from pillar to post, to the wandering among strangers, and the longing for home.

On the other hand, when Fishel _does_ come home, he is an emperor! His wife Bath-sheba comes out to meet him, pulls at her head-kerchief, blushes red as fire, questions as though in asides, without as yet looking him in the face, "How are you?" and he replies, "How are _you_?" and Froike his son, a boy of thirteen or so, greets him, and the father asks, "Well, Efroim, and how far on are you in the Gemoreh?" and his little daughter Resele, not at all a bad-looking little girl, with a plaited pigtail, hugs and kisses him.

"Tate, what sort of present have you brought me?"

"Printed calico for a frock, and a silk kerchief for mother. There--give mother the kerchief!"

And Fishel takes a silk (suppose a half-silk!) kerchief out of his Tallis-bag, and Bath-sheba grows redder still, and pulls her head-cloth over her eyes, takes up a bit of household work, busies herself all over the place, and ends by doing nothing.

"Bring the Gemoreh, Efroim, and let me hear what you can do!"

And Froike recites his lesson like the bright boy he is, and Fishel listens and corrects, and his heart expands and overflows with delight, his soul rejoices--a bright boy, Froike, a treasure!

"If you want to go to the bath, there is a shirt ready for you!"

Thus Bath-sheba as she passes him, still not venturing to look him in the face, and Fishel has a sensation of unspeakable comfort, he feels like a man escaped from prison and back in a lightsome world, among those who are near and dear to him. And he sees in fancy a very, very hot bath-house, and himself lying on the highest bench with other Jews, and he perspires and swishes himself with the birch twigs, and can never have enough.

Home from the bath, fresh and lively as a fish, like one newborn, he rehearses the portion of the Law for the festival, puts on the Sabbath cloak and the new girdle, steals a glance at Bath-sheba in her new dress and silk kerchief--still a pretty woman, and so pious and good!--and goes with Froike to the Shool. The air is full of Sholom Alechems, "Welcome, Reb Fishel the teacher, and what are you about?"--"A teacher teaches!"--"What is the news?"--"What should it be? The world is the world!"--"What is going on in Balta?"--"Balta is Balta."

The same formula is repeated every time, every half-year, and Nissel the reader begins to recite the evening prayers, and sends forth his voice, the further the louder, and when he comes to "And Moses declared the set feasts of the Lord unto the children of Israel," it reaches nearly to Heaven. And Froike stands at his father's side, and recites the prayers melodiously, and once more Fishel's heart expands and flows over with joy--a good child, Froike, a good, pious child!

"A happy holiday, a happy holiday!"

"A happy holiday, a happy year!"

At home they find the Passover table spread: the four cups, the bitter herbs, the almond and apple paste, and all the rest of it. The reclining-seats (two small benches with big cushions) stand ready, and Fishel becomes a king. Fishel, robed in white, sits on the throne of his dominion, Bath-sheba, the queen, sits beside him in her new silk kerchief; Efroim, the prince, in a new cap, and the princess Resele with her plait, sit opposite them. Look on with respect! His majesty Fishel is seated on his throne, and has assumed the sway of his kingdom.

* * * * *

The Chaschtschevate scamps, who love to make game of the whole world, not to mention a teacher, maintain that one Passover Eve our Fishel sent his Bath-sheba the following Russian telegram: "Rebyata sobral dyengi vezu prigatovi npiyedu tzarstvovatz," which means: "Have entered my pupils for the next term, am bringing money, prepare the dumplings, I come to reign." The mischief-makers declare that this telegram was seized at Balta station, that Bath-sheba was sought and not found, and that Fishel was sent home with the etape. Dreadful! But I can assure you, there isn't a word of truth in the story, because Fishel never sent a telegram in his life, nobody was ever seen looking for Bath-sheba, and Fishel was never taken anywhere by the etape. That is, he _was_ once taken somewhere by the etape, but not on account of a telegram, only on account of a simple passport! And not from Balta, but from Yehupetz, and not at Passover, but in summer-time. He wished, you see, to go to Yehupetz in search of a post as teacher, and forgot his passport. He thought it was in Balta, and he got into a nice mess, and forbade his children and children's children ever to go in search of pupils in Yehupetz.

Since then he teaches in Balta, and comes home for Passover, winds up his work a fortnight earlier, and sometimes manages to hasten back in time for the Great Sabbath. Hasten, did I say? That means when the road _is_ a road, when you can hire a conveyance, and when the Bug can either be crossed on the ice or in the ferry-boat. But when, for instance, the snow has begun to melt, and the mud is deep, when there is no conveyance to be had, when the Bug has begun to split the ice, and the ferry-boat has not started running, when a skiff means peril of death, and the festival is upon you--what then? It is just "nit guet."

Fishel the teacher knows the taste of "nit guet." He has had many adventures and mishaps since he became a teacher, and took to faring from Chaschtschevate to Balta and from Balta to Chaschtschevate. He has tried going more than half-way on foot, and helped to push the conveyance besides. He has lain in the mud with a priest, the priest on top, and he below. He has fled before a pack of wolves who were pursuing the vehicle, and afterwards they turned out to be dogs, and not wolves at all. But anything like the trouble on this Passover Eve had never befallen him before.

The trouble came from the Bug, that is, from the Bug's breaking through the ice, and just having its fling when Fishel reached it in a hurry to get home, and really in a hurry, because it was already Friday and Passover Eve, that is, Passover eve fell on a Sabbath that year.

Fishel reached the Bug in a Gentile conveyance Thursday evening. According to his own reckoning, he should have got there Tuesday morning, because he left Balta Sunday after market, the spirit having moved him to go into the market-place to spy after a chance conveyance. How much better it would have been to drive with Yainkel-Shegetz, a Balta carrier, even at the cart-tail, with his legs dangling, and shaken to bits. He would have been home long ago by now, and have forgotten the discomforts of the journey. But he had wanted a cheaper transit, and it is an old saying that cheap things cost dear. Yoneh, the tippler, who procures vehicles in Balta, had said to him: "Take my advice, give two rubles, and you will ride in Yainkel's wagon like a lord, even if you do have to sit behind the wagon. Consider, you're playing with fire, the festival approaches." But as ill-luck would have it, there came along a familiar Gentile from Chaschtschevate.

"Eh, Rabbi, you're not wanting a lift to Chaschtschevate?"

"How much would the fare be?"

He thought to ask how much, and he never thought to ask if it would take him home by Passover, because in a week he could have covered the distance walking behind the cart.

But as Fishel drove out of the town, he soon began to repent of his choice, even though the wagon was large, and he sitting in it in solitary grandeur, like any count. He saw that with a horse that dragged itself along in _that_ way, there would be no getting far, for they drove a whole day without getting anywhere in particular, and however much he worried the peasant to know if it were a long way yet, the only reply he got was, "Who can tell?" In the evening, with a rumble and a shout and a crack of the whip, there came up with them Yainkel-Shegetz and his four fiery horses jingling with bells, and the large coach packed with passengers before and behind. Yainkel, catching sight of the teacher in the peasant's cart, gave another loud crack with his whip, ridiculed the peasant, his passenger, and his horse, as only Yainkel-Shegetz knows how, and when a little way off, he turned and pointed at one of the peasant's wheels.

"Hallo, man, look out! There's a wheel turning!"

The peasant stopped the horse, and he and the teacher clambered down together, and examined the wheels. They crawled underneath the cart, and found nothing wrong, nothing at all.

When the peasant understood that Yainkel had made a fool of him, he scratched the back of his neck below his collar, and began to abuse Yainkel and all Jews with curses such as Fishel had never heard before. His voice and his anger rose together:

"May you never know good! May you have a bad year! May you not see the end of it! Bad luck to you, you and your horses and your wife and your daughter and your aunts and your uncles and your parents-in-law and--and all your cursed Jews!"

It was a long time before the peasant took his seat again, nor did he cease to fume against Yainkel the driver and all Jews, until, with God's help, they reached a village wherein to spend the night.

Next morning Fishel rose with the dawn, recited his prayers, a portion of the Law, and a few Psalms, breakfasted on a roll, and was ready to set forward. Unfortunately, Chfedor (this was the name of his driver) was _not_ ready. Chfedor had sat up late with a crony and got drunk, and he slept through a whole day and a bit of the night, and then only started on his way.

"Well," Fishel reproved him as they sat in the cart, "well, Chfedor, a nice way to behave, upon my word! Do you suppose I engaged you for a merrymaking? What have you to say for yourself, I should like to know, eh?"

And Fishel addressed other reproachful words to him, and never ceased casting the other's laziness between his teeth, partly in Polish, partly in Hebrew, and helping himself out with his hands. Chfedor understood quite well what Fishel meant, but he answered him not a word, not a syllable even. No doubt he felt that Fishel was in the right, and he was silent as a cat, till, on the fourth day, they met Yainkel-Shegetz, driving back from Chaschtschevate with a rumble and a crack of his whip, who called out to them, "You may as well turn back to Balta, the Bug has burst the ice."

Fishel's heart was like to burst, too, but Chfedor, who thought that Yainkel was trying to fool him a second time, started repeating his whole list of curses, called down all bad dreams on Yainkel's hands and feet, and never shut his mouth till they came to the Bug on Thursday evening. They drove straight to Prokop Baranyuk, the ferryman, to inquire when the ferry-boat would begin to run, and the two Gentiles, Chfedor and Prokop, took to sipping brandy, while Fishel proceeded to recite the Afternoon Prayer.

* * * * *

The sun was about to set, and poured a rosy light onto the high hills that stood on either side of the river, and were snow-covered in parts and already green in others, and intersected by rivulets that wound their way with murmuring noise down into the river, where the water foamed with the broken ice and the increasing thaw. The whole of Chaschtschevate lay before him as on a plate, while the top of the monastery sparkled like a light in the setting sun. Standing to recite the Eighteen Benedictions, with his face towards Chaschtschevate, Fishel turned his eyes away and drove out the idle thoughts and images that had crept into his head: Bath-sheba with the new silk kerchief, Froike with the Gemoreh, Resele with her plait, the hot bath and the highest bench, and freshly-baked Matzes, together with nice peppered fish and horseradish that goes up your nose, Passover borshtsh with more Matzes, a heavenly mixture, and all the other good things that desire is capable of conjuring up--and however often he drove these fancies away, they returned and crept back into his brain like summer flies, and disturbed him at his prayers.

When Fishel had repeated the Eighteen Benedictions and Olenu, he betook him to Prokop, and entered into conversation with him about the ferry-boat and the festival eve, giving him to understand, partly in Polish and partly in Hebrew and partly with his hands, what Passover meant to the Jews, and Passover Eve falling on a Sabbath, and that if, which Heaven forbid, he had not crossed the Bug by that time to-morrow, he was a lost man, for, beside the fact that they were on the lookout for him at home--his wife and children (Fishel gave a sigh that rent the heart)--he would not be able to eat or drink for a week, and Fishel turned away, so that the tears in his eyes should not be seen.

Prokop Baranyuk quite appreciated Fishel's position, and replied that he knew to-morrow was a Jewish festival, and even how it was called; he even knew that the Jews celebrated it by drinking wine and strong brandy; he even knew that there was yet another festival at which the Jews drank brandy, and a third when all Jews were obliged to get drunk, but he had forgotten its name--

"Well and good," Fishel interrupted him in a lamentable voice, "but what is to happen? How if I don't get there?"

To this Prokop made no reply. He merely pointed with his hand to the river, as much as to say, "See for yourself!"

And Fishel lifted up his eyes to the river, and saw that which he had never seen before, and heard that which he had never heard in his life. Because you may say that Fishel had never yet taken in anything "out of doors," he had only perceived it accidentally, by the way, as he hurried from Cheder to the house-of-study, and from the house-of-study to Cheder. The beautiful blue Bug between the two lines of imposing hills, the murmur of the winding rivulets as they poured down the hillsides, the roar of the ever-deepening spring-flow, the light of the setting sun, the glittering cupola of the convent, the wholesome smell of Passover-Eve-tide out of doors, and, above all, the being so close to home and not able to get there--all these things lent wings, as it were, to Fishel's spirit, and he was borne into a new world, the world of imagination, and crossing the Bug seemed the merest trifle, if only the Almighty were willing to perform a fraction of a miracle on his behalf.

Such and like thoughts floated in and out of Fishel's head, and lifted him into the air, and so far across the river, he never realized that it was night, and the stars came out, and a cool wind blew in under his cloak to his little prayer-scarf, and Fishel was busy with things that he had never so much as dreamt of: earthly things and Heavenly things, the great size of the beautiful world, the Almighty as Creator of the earth, and so on.

Fishel spent a bad night in Prokop's house--such a night as he hoped never to spend again. The next morning broke with a smile from the bright and cheerful sun. It was a singularly fine day, and so sweetly warm that all the snow left melted into kasha, and the kasha, into water, and this water poured into the Bug from all sides; and the Bug became clearer, light blue, full and smooth, and the large bits of ice that looked like dreadful wild beasts, like white elephants hurrying and tearing along as if they were afraid of being late, grew rarer.

Fishel the teacher recited the Morning Prayer, breakfasted on the last piece of leavened bread left in his prayer-scarf bag, and went out to the river to see about the ferry. Imagine his feelings when he heard that the ferry-boat would not begin running before Sunday afternoon! He clapped both hands to his head, gesticulated with every limb, and fell to abusing Prokop. Why had he given him hopes of the ferry-boat's crossing next day? Whereupon Prokop answered quite coolly that he had said nothing about crossing with the ferry, he was talking of taking him across in a small boat! And that he could still do, if Fishel wished, in a sail-boat, in a rowboat, in a raft, and the fare was not less than one ruble.

"A raft, a rowboat, anything you like, only don't let me spend the festival away from home!"

Thus Fishel, and he was prepared to give him two rubles then and there, to give his life for the holy festival, and he began to drive Prokop into getting out the raft at once, and taking him across in the direction of Chaschtschevate, where Bath-sheba, Froike, and Resele are already looking out for him. It may be they are standing on the opposite hills, that they see him, and make signs to him, waving their hands, that they call to him, only one can neither see them nor hear their voices, because the river is wide, dreadfully wide, wider than ever!

The sun was already half-way up the deep, blue sky, when Prokop told Fishel to get into the little trough of a boat, and when Fishel heard him, he lost all power in his feet and hands, and was at a loss what to do, for never in his life had he been in a rowboat, never in his life had he been in any small boat. And it seemed to him the thing had only to dip a little to one side, and all would be over.

"Jump in, and off we'll go!" said Prokop once more, and with a turn of his oar he brought the boat still closer in, and took Fishel's bundle out of his hands.

Fishel the teacher drew his coat-skirts neatly together, and began to perform circles without moving from the spot, hesitating whether to jump or not. On the one hand were Passover Eve, Bath-sheba, Froike, Resele, the bath, the home service, himself as king; on the other, peril of death, the Destroying Angel, suicide--because one dip and--good-by, Fishel, peace be upon him!

And Fishel remained circling there with his folded skirts, till Prokop lost patience and said, another minute, and he should set out and be off to Chaschtschevate without him. At the beloved word "Chaschtschevate," Fishel called his dear ones to mind, summoned the whole of his courage, and fell into the boat. I say "fell in," because the instant his foot touched the bottom of the boat, it slipped, and Fishel, thinking he was falling, drew back, and this drawing back sent him headlong forward into the boat-bottom, where he lay stretched out for some minutes before recovering his wits, and for a long time after his face was livid, and his hands shook, while his heart beat like a clock, tik-tik-tak, tik-tik-tak!

Prokop meantime sat in the prow as though he were at home. He spit into his hands, gave a stroke with the oar to the left, a stroke to the right, and the boat glided over the shining water, and Fishel's head spun round as he sat. As he sat? No, he hung floating, suspended in the air! One false movement, and that which held him would give way; one lean to the side, and he would be in the water and done with! At this thought, the words came into his mind, "And they sank like lead in the mighty waters," and his hair stood on end at the idea of such a death. How? Not even to be buried with the dead of Israel? And he bethought himself to make a vow to--to do what? To give money in charity? He had none to give--he was a very, very poor man! So he vowed that if God would bring him home in safety, he would sit up whole nights and study, go through the whole of the Talmud in one year, God willing, with God's help.

Fishel would dearly have liked to know if it were much further to the other side, and found himself seated, as though on purpose, with his face to Prokop and his back to Chaschtschevate. And he dared not open his mouth to ask. It seemed to him that his very voice would cause the boat to rock, and one rock--good-by, Fishel! But Prokop opened his mouth of his own accord, and began to speak. He said there was nothing worse when you were on the water than a thaw. It made it impossible, he said, to row straight ahead; one had to adapt one's course to the ice, to row round and round and backwards.

"There's a bit of ice making straight for us now."

Thus Prokop, and he pulled back and let pass a regular ice-floe, which swam by with a singular rocking motion and a sound that Fishel had never seen or heard before. And then he began to understand what a wild adventure this journey was, and he would have given goodness knows what to be safe on shore, even on the one they had left.

"O, you see that?" asked Prokop, and pointed upstream.

Fishel raised his eyes slowly, was afraid of moving much, and looked and looked, and saw nothing but water, water, and water.

"There's a big one coming down on us now, we must make a dash for it, for it's too late to row back."

So said Prokop, and rowed away with both hands, and the boat glided and slid like a fish through the water, and Fishel felt cold in every limb. He would have liked to question, but was afraid of interfering. However, again Prokop spoke of himself.

"If we don't win by a minute, it will be the worse for us."

Fishel can now no longer contain himself, and asks:

"How do you mean, the worse?"

"We shall be done for," says Prokop.

"Done for?"

"Done for."

"How do you mean, done for?" persists Fishel.

"I mean, it will grind us."

"Grind us?"

"Grind us."

Fishel does not understand what "grind us, grind us" may signify, but it has a sound of finality, of the next world, about it, and Fishel is bathed in a cold sweat, and again the words come into his head, "And they sank like lead in the mighty waters."

And Prokop, as though to quiet our Fishel's mind, tells him a comforting story of how, years ago at this time, the Bug broke through the ice, and the ferry-boat could not be used, and there came to him another person to be rowed across, an excise official from Uman, quite a person of distinction, and offered a large sum; and they had the bad luck to meet two huge pieces of ice, and he rowed to the right, in between the floes, intending to slip through upwards, and he made an involuntary side motion with the boat, and they went flop into the water! Fortunately, he, Prokop, could swim, but the official came to grief, and the fare-money, too.

"It was good-by to my fare!" ended Prokop, with a sigh, and Fishel shuddered, and his tongue dried up, so that he could neither speak nor utter the slightest sound.

In the very middle of the river, just as they were rowing along quite smoothly, Prokop suddenly stopped, and looked--and looked--up the stream; then he laid down the oars, drew a bottle out of his pocket, tilted it into his mouth, sipped out of it two or three times, put it back, and explained to Fishel that he had always to take a few sips of the "bitter drop," otherwise he felt bad when on the water. And he wiped his mouth, took the oars in hand again, and said, having crossed himself three times:

"Now for a race!"

A race? With whom? With what? Fishel did not understand, and was afraid to ask; but again he felt the brush of the Death Angel's wing, for Prokop had gone down onto his knees, and was rowing with might and main. Moreover, he said to Fishel, and pointed to the bottom of the boat:

"Rebbe, lie down!"

Fishel understood that he was to lie down, and did not need to be told twice. For now he had seen a whole host of floes coming down upon them, a world of ice, and he shut his eyes, flung himself face downwards in the boat, and lay trembling like a lamb, and recited in a low voice, "Hear, O Israel!" and the Confession, thought on the graves of Israel, and fancied that now, now he lies in the abyss of the waters, now, now comes a fish and swallows him, like Jonah the prophet when he fled to Tarshish, and he remembers Jonah's prayer, and sings softly and with tears:

"Affofuni mayyim ad nofesh--the waters have reached unto my soul; tehom yesoveveni--the deep hath covered me!"

Fishel the teacher sang and wept and thought pitifully of his widowed wife and his orphaned children, and Prokop rowed for all he was worth, and sang _his_ little song:

"O thou maiden with the black lashes!"

And Prokop felt the same on the water as on dry land, and Fishel's "Affofuni" and Prokop's "O maiden" blended into one, and a strange song sounded over the Bug, a kind of duet, which had never been heard there before.

"The black year knows why he is so afraid of death, that Jew," so wondered Prokop Baranyuk, "a poor tattered little Jew like him, a creature I would not give this old boat for, and so afraid of death!"

The shore reached, Prokop gave Fishel a shove in the side with his boot, and Fishel started. The Gentile burst out laughing, but Fishel did not hear, Fishel went on reciting the Confession, saying Kaddish for his own soul, and mentally contemplating the graves of Israel!

"Get up, you silly Rebbe! We're there--in Chaschtschevate!"

Slowly, slowly, Fishel raised his head, and gazed around him with red and swollen eyes.

"Chasch-tsche-va-te???"

"Chaschtschevate! Give me the ruble, Rebbe!"

Fishel crawls out of the boat, and, finding himself really at home, does not know what to do for joy. Shall he run into the town? Shall he go dancing? Shall he first thank and praise God who has brought him safe out of such great peril? He pays the Gentile his fare, takes up his bundle under his arm and is about to run home, the quicker the better, but he pauses a moment first, and turns to Prokop the ferryman:

"Listen, Prokop, dear heart, to-morrow, please God, you'll come and drink a glass of brandy, and taste festival fish at Fishel the teacher's, for Heaven's sake!"

"Shall I say no? Am I such a fool?" replied Prokop, licking his lips in anticipation at the thought of the Passover brandy he would sip, and the festival fish he would delectate himself with on the morrow.

And Prokop gets back into his boat, and pulls quietly home again, singing a little song, and pitying the poor Jew who was so afraid of death. "The Jewish faith is the same as the Mahommedan!" and it seems to him a very foolish one. And Fishel is thinking almost the same thing, and pities the Gentile on account of _his_ religion. "What knows he, yon poor Gentile, of such holy promises as were made to us Jews, the beloved people!"

And Fishel the teacher hastens uphill, through the Chaschtschevate mud. He perspires with the exertion, and yet he does not feel the ground beneath his feet. He flies, he floats, he is going home, home to his dear ones, who are on the watch for him as for Messiah, who look for him to return in health, to seat himself upon his kingly throne and reign.

Look, Jews, and turn respectfully aside! Fishel the teacher has come home to Chaschtschevate, and seated himself upon the throne of his kingdom!

AN EASY FAST

That which Doctor Tanner failed to accomplish, was effectually carried out by Chayyim Chaikin, a simple Jew in a small town in Poland.

Doctor Tanner wished to show that a man can fast forty days, and he only managed to get through twenty-eight, no more, and that with people pouring spoonfuls of water into his mouth, and giving him morsels of ice to swallow, and holding his pulse--a whole business! Chayyim Chaikin has proved that one can fast more than forty days; not, as a rule, two together, one after the other, but forty days, if not more, in the course of a year.

To fast is all he asks!

Who said drops of water? Who said ice? Not for him! To fast means no food and no drink from one set time to the other, a real four-and-twenty-hours.

And no doctors sit beside him and hold his pulse, whispering, "Hush! Be quiet!"

Well, let us hear the tale!

Chayyim Chaikin is a very poor man, encumbered with many children, and they, the children, support him.

They are mostly girls, and they work in a factory and make cigarette wrappers, and they earn, some one gulden, others half a gulden, a day, and that not every day. How about Sabbaths and festivals and "shtreik" days? One should thank God for everything, even in their out-of-the-way little town strikes are all the fashion!

And out of that they have to pay rent--for a damp corner in a basement.

To buy clothes and shoes for the lot of them! They have a dress each, but they are two to every pair of shoes.

And then food--such as it is! A bit of bread smeared with an onion, sometimes groats, occasionally there is a bit of taran that burns your heart out, so that after eating it for supper, you can drink a whole night.

When it comes to eating, the bread has to be portioned out like cake.

"Oi, dos Essen, dos Essen seiers!"

Thus Chaike, Chayyim Chaikin's wife, a poor, sick creature, who coughs all night long.

"No evil eye," says the father, and he looks at his children devouring whole slices of bread, and would dearly like to take a mouthful himself, only, if he does so, the two little ones, Fradke and Beilke, will go supperless.

And he cuts his portion of bread in two, and gives it to the little ones, Fradke and Beilke.

Fradke and Beilke stretch out their little thin, black hands, look into their father's eyes, and don't believe him: perhaps he is joking? Children are nashers, they play with father's piece of bread, till at last they begin taking bites out of it. The mother sees and exclaims, coughing all the while:

"It is nothing but eating and stuffing!"

The father cannot bear to hear it, and is about to answer her, but he keeps silent--he can't say anything, it is not for him to speak! Who is he in the house? A broken potsherd, the last and least, no good to anyone, no good to them, no good to himself.

Because the fact is he does nothing, absolutely nothing; not because he won't do anything, or because it doesn't befit him, but because there is nothing to do--and there's an end of it! The whole townlet complains of there being nothing to do! It is just a crowd of Jews driven together. Delightful! They're packed like herrings in a barrel, they squeeze each other close, all for love.

"Well-a-day!" thinks Chaikin, "it's something to have children, other people haven't even that. But to depend on one's children is quite another thing and not a happy one!" Not that they grudge him his keep--Heaven forbid! But he cannot take it from them, he really cannot!

He knows how hard they work, he knows how the strength is wrung out of them to the last drop, he knows it well!

Every morsel of bread is a bit of their health and strength--he drinks his children's blood! No, the thought is too dreadful!

"Tatinke, why don't you eat?" ask the children.

"To-day is a fast day with me," answers Chayyim Chaikin.

"Another fast? How many fasts have you?"

"Not so many as there are days in the week."

And Chayyim Chaikin speaks the truth when he says that he has many fasts, and yet there are days on which he eats.

But he likes the days on which he fasts better.

First, they are pleasing to God, and it means a little bit more of the world-to-come, the interest grows, and the capital grows with it.

"Secondly" (he thinks), "no money is wasted on me. Of course, I am accountable to no one, and nobody ever questions me as to how I spend it, but what do I want money for, when I can get along without it?

"And what is the good of feeling one's self a little higher than a beast? A beast eats every day, but I can go without food for one or two days. A man _should_ be above a beast!

"O, if a man could only raise himself to a level where he could live without eating at all! But there are one's confounded insides!" So thinks Chayyim Chaikin, for hunger has made a philosopher of him.

"The insides, the necessity of eating, these are the causes of the world's evil! The insides and the necessity of eating have made a pauper of me, and drive my children to toil in the sweat of their brow and risk their lives for a bit of bread!

"Suppose a man had no need to eat! Ai--ai--ai! My children would all stay at home! An end to toil, an end to moil, an end to 'shtreikeven,' an end to the risking of life, an end to factory and factory owners, to rich men and paupers, an end to jealousy and hatred and fighting and shedding of blood! All gone and done with! Gone and done with! A paradise! a paradise!"

So reasons Chayyim Chaikin, and, lost in speculation, he pities the world, and is grieved to the heart to think that God should have made man so little above the beast.

* * * * *

The day on which Chayyim Chaikin fasts is, as I told you, his best day, and a _real_ fast day, like the Ninth of Ab, for instance--he is ashamed to confess it--is a festival for him!

You see, it means not to eat, not to be a beast, not to be guilty of the children's blood, to earn the reward of a Mitzveh, and to weep to heart's content on the ruins of the Temple.

For how can one weep when one is full? How can a full man grieve? Only he can grieve whose soul is faint within him! The good year knows how some folk answer it to their conscience, giving in to their insides--afraid of fasting! Buy them a groschen worth of oats, for charity's sake!

Thus would Chayyim Chaikin scorn those who bought themselves off the fast, and dropped a hard coin into the collecting box.

The Ninth of Ab is the hardest fast of all--so the world has it.

Chayyim Chaikin cannot see why. The day is long, is it? Then the night is all the shorter. It's hot out of doors, is it? Who asks you to go loitering about in the sun? Sit in the Shool and recite the prayers, of which, thank God, there are plenty.

"I tell you," persists Chayyim Chaikin, "that the Ninth of Ab is the easiest of the fasts, because it is the best, the very best!

"For instance, take the Day of Atonement fast! It is written, 'And you shall mortify your bodies.' What for? To get a clean bill and a good year.

"It doesn't say that you are to fast on the Ninth of Ab, but you fast of your own accord, because how could you eat on the day when the Temple was wrecked, and Jews were killed, women ripped up, and children dashed to pieces?

"It doesn't say that you are to weep on the Ninth of Ab, but you _do_ weep. How could anyone restrain his tears when he thinks of what we lost that day?"

"The pity is, there should be only one Ninth of Ab!" says Chayyim Chaikin.

"Well, and the Seventeenth of Tammuz!" suggests some one.

"And there is only one Seventeenth of Tammuz!" answers Chayyim Chaikin, with a sigh.

"Well, and the Fast of Gedaliah? and the Fast of Esther?" continues the same person.

"Only one of each!" and Chayyim Chaikin sighs again.

"E, Reb Chayyim, you are greedy for fasts, are you?"

"More fasts, more fasts!" says Chayyim Chaikin, and he takes upon himself to fast on the eve of the Ninth of Ab as well, two days at a stretch.

What do you think of fasting two days in succession? Isn't that a treat? It is hard enough to have to break one's fast after the Ninth of Ab, without eating on the eve thereof as well.

One forgets that one _has_ insides, that such a thing exists as the necessity to eat, and one is free of the habit that drags one down to the level of the beast.

The difficulty lies in the drinking! I mean, in the _not_ drinking. "If I" (thinks Chayyim Chaikin) "allowed myself one glass of water a day, I could fast a whole week till Sabbath."

You think I say that for fun? Not at all! Chayyim Chaikin is a man of his word. When he says a thing, it's said and done! The whole week preceding the Ninth of Ab he ate nothing, he lived on water.

Who should notice? His wife, poor thing, is sick, the elder children are out all day in the factory, and the younger ones do not understand. Fradke and Beilke only know when they are hungry (and they are always hungry), the heart yearns within them, and they want to eat.

"To-day you shall have an extra piece of bread," says the father, and cuts his own in two, and Fradke and Beilke stretch out their dirty little hands for it, and are overjoyed.

"Tatinke, you are not eating," remark the elder girls at supper, "this is not a fast day!"

"And no more _do_ I fast!" replies the father, and thinks: "That was a take-in, but not a lie, because, after all, a glass of water--that is not eating and not fasting, either."

When it comes to the eve of the Ninth of Ab, Chayyim feels so light and airy as he never felt before, not because it is time to prepare for the fast by taking a meal, not because he may eat. On the contrary, he feels that if he took anything solid into his mouth, it would not go down, but stick in his throat.

That is, his heart is very sick, and his hands and feet shake; his body is attracted earthwards, his strength fails, he feels like fainting. But fie, what an idea! To fast a whole week, to arrive at the eve of the Ninth of Ab, and not hold out to the end! Never!

And Chayyim Chaikin takes his portion of bread and potato, calls Fradke and Beilke, and whispers:

"Children, take this and eat it, but don't let Mother see!"

And Fradke and Beilke take their father's share of food, and look wonderingly at his livid face and shaking hands.

Chayyim sees the children snatch at the bread and munch and swallow, and he shuts his eyes, and rises from his place. He cannot wait for the other girls to come home from the factory, but takes his book of Lamentations, puts off his shoes, and drags himself--it is all he can do--to the Shool.

He is nearly the first to arrive. He secures a seat next the reader, on an overturned bench, lying with its feet in the air, and provides himself with a bit of burned-down candle, which he glues with its drippings to the foot of the bench, leans against the corner of the platform, opens his book, "Lament for Zion and all the other towns," and he closes his eyes and sees Zion robed in black, with a black veil over her face, lamenting and weeping and wringing her hands, mourning for her children who fall daily, daily, in foreign lands, for other men's sins.

"And wilt not thou, O Zion, ask of me
Some tidings of the children from thee reft?
I bring thee greetings over land and sea,
From those remaining--from the remnant left!----"

And he opens his eyes and sees:

A bright sunbeam has darted in through the dull, dusty window-pane, a beam of the sun which is setting yonder behind the town. And though he shuts them again, he still sees the beam, and not only the beam, but the whole sun, the bright, beautiful sun, and no one can see it but him! Chayyim Chaikin looks at the sun and sees it--and that's all! How is it? It must be because he has done with the world and its necessities--he feels happy--he feels light--he can bear anything--he will have an easy fast--do you know, he will have an easy fast, an easy fast!