Yiddish Tales Part 13

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, Pa.s.sover 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 Pa.s.sover meant to the Jews, and Pa.s.sover 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 Pa.s.sover-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 Pa.s.sover 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 G.o.d would bring him home in safety, he would sit up whole nights and study, go through the whole of the Talmud in one year, G.o.d willing, with G.o.d'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 pa.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 Tars.h.i.+sh, and he remembers Jonah's prayer, and sings softly and with tears:

"Affofuni mayyim ad nfesh--the waters have reached unto my soul; tehm 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 sh.o.r.e 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!"