Yiddish Tales Part 19

It flashed across her:

"When he dies, things will be easier."

But the thought of his death only increased her apprehension.

It brought with it before her eyes the dreadful words: widow, orphans, poor little fatherless children....

These alarmed her more than her present distress.

How can children grow up without a father? Now, even though he's ill, he keeps an eye on them, tells them to say their prayers and to study. Who is to watch over them if he dies?

"Don't punish me, Lord of the World, for my bad thought," she begged with her whole heart. "I will take it upon myself to suffer and trouble for all, only don't let him die, don't let me be called by the bitter name of widow, don't let my children be called orphans!"

He sits upon his couch, his head a little thrown back and leaning against the wall. In one hand he holds a prayer-book--he is receiving the Sabbath into his house. His pale lips scarcely move as he whispers the words before him, and his thoughts are far from the prayer. He knows that he is dangerously ill, he knows what his wife has to suffer and bear, and not only is he powerless to help her, but his illness is her heaviest burden, what with the extra expense incurred on his account and the trouble of looking after him. Besides which, his weakness makes him irritable, and his anger has more than once caused her unmerited pain.

He sees and knows it all, and his heart is torn with grief. "Only death can help us," he murmurs, and while his lips repeat the words of the prayer-book, his heart makes one request to G.o.d and only one: that G.o.d should send kind Death to deliver him from his trouble and misery.

Suddenly the door opened and a ten-year-old boy came into the room, in a long Sabbath cloak, with two long earlocks, and a prayer-book under his arm.

"A good Sabbath!" said the little boy, with a loud, ringing voice.

It seemed as if he and the holy Sabbath had come into the room together!

In one moment the little boy had driven trouble and sadness out of sight, and shed light and consolation round him.

His "good Sabbath!" reached his parents' hearts, awoke there new life and new hopes.

"A good Sabbath!" answered the mother. Her eyes rested on the child's bright face, and her thoughts were no longer melancholy as before, for she saw in his eyes a whole future of happy possibilities.

"A good Sabbath!" echoed the lips of the sick man, and he took a deeper, easier breath. No, he will not die altogether, he will live again after death in the child. He can die in peace, he leaves a Kaddish behind him.

YOM KIPPUR

Erev Yom Kippur, Minchah time!

The Eve of the Day of Atonement, at Afternoon Prayer time.

A solemn and sacred hour for every Jew.

Everyone feels as though he were born again.

All the week-day worries, the two-penny-half-penny interests, seem far, far away; or else they have hidden themselves in some corner. Every Jew feels a n.o.ble pride, an inward peace mingled with fear and awe. He knows that the yearly Judgment Day is approaching, when G.o.d Almighty will hold the scales in His hand and weigh every man's merits against his transgressions. The sentence given on that day is one of life or death.

No trifle! But the Jew is not so terrified as you might think--he has broad shoulders. Besides, he has a certain footing behind the "upper windows," he has good advocates and plenty of them; he has the "binding of Isaac" and a long chain of ancestors and ancestresses, who were put to death for the sanctification of the Holy Name, who allowed themselves to be burnt and roasted for the sake of G.o.d's Torah. Nishkoshe! Things are not so bad. The Lord of All may just remember that, and look aside a little. Is He not the Compa.s.sionate, the Merciful?

The shadows lengthen and lengthen.

Jews are everywhere in commotion.

Some hurry home straight from the bath, drops of bath-water dripping from beard and earlocks. They have not even dried their hair properly in their haste.

It is time to prepare for the davvening. Some are already on their way to Shool, robed in white. Nearly every Jew carries in one hand a large, well-packed Tallis-bag, which to-day, besides the prayer-scarf, holds the whole Jewish outfit: a bulky prayer-book, a book of Psalms, a Likkute Zevi, and so on; and in the other hand, two wax-candles, one a large one, that is the "light of life," and the other a small one, a shrunken looking thing, which is the "soul-light."

The Tamschevate house-of-study presents at this moment the following picture: the floor is covered with fresh hay, and the dust and the smell of the hay fill the whole building. Some of the men are standing at their prayers, beating their b.r.e.a.s.t.s in all seriousness. "We have trespa.s.sed, we have been faithless, we have robbed," with an occasional sob of contrition. Others are very busy setting up their wax-lights in boxes filled with sand; one of them, a young man who cannot live without it, betakes himself to the platform and repeats a "Bless ye the Lord."

Meantime another comes slyly, and takes out two of the candles standing before the platform, planting his own in their place. Not far from the ark stands the beadle with a strap in his hand, and all the foremost householders go up to him, lay themselves down with their faces to the ground, and the beadle deals them out thirty-nine blows apiece, and not one of them bears him any grudge. Even Reb Groinom, from whom the beadle never hears anything from one Yom Kippur to another but "may you be ...

"and "rascal," "impudence," "brazen face," "spendthrift," "carrion,"

"dog of all dogs"--and not infrequently Reb Groinom allows himself to apply his right hand to the beadle's cheek, and the latter has to take it all in a spirit of love--this same Reb Groinom now humbly approaches the same poor beadle, lies quietly down with his face to the ground, stretches himself out, and the beadle deliberately counts the strokes up to "thirty-nine Malkes." Covered with hay, Reb Groinom rises slowly, a piteous expression on his face, just as if he had been well thrashed, and he pushes a coin into the Shamash's hand. This is evidently the beadle's day! To-day he can take his revenge on his householders for the insults and injuries of a whole year!

But if you want to be in the thick of it all, you must stand in the anteroom by the door, where people are crowding round the plates for collections. The treasurer sits beside a little table with the directors of the congregation; the largest plate lies before them. To one side of them sits the cantor with his plate, and beside the cantor, several house-of-study youths with theirs. On every plate lies a paper with a written notice: "Visiting the Sick," "Supporting the Fallen," "Clothing the Naked," "Talmud Torah," "Refuge for the Poor," and so forth. Over one plate, marked "The Return to the Land of Israel," presides a modern young man, a Zionist. Everyone wis.h.i.+ng to enter the house-of-study must first go to the plates marked "Call to the Torah" and "Seat in the Shool," put in what is his due, and then throw a few kopeks into the other plates.

Berel Tzop bustled up to the plate "Seat in the Shool," gave what was expected of him, popped a few coppers into the other plates, and prepared to recite the Afternoon Prayer. He wanted to pause a little between the words of his prayer, to attend to their meaning, to impress upon himself that this was the Eve of the Day of Atonement! But idle thoughts kept coming into his head, as though on purpose to annoy him, and his mind was all over the place at once! The words of the prayers got mixed up with the idea of oats, straw, wheat, and barley, and however much trouble he took to drive these idle thoughts away, he did not succeed. "Blow the great trumpet of our deliverance!" shouted Berel, and remembered the while that Ivan owed him ten measures of wheat.

"...lift up the ensign to gather our exiles!..."--"and I made a mistake in Stephen's account by thirty kopeks...." Berel saw that it was impossible for him to pray with attention, and he began to reel off the Eighteen Benedictions, but not till he reached the Confession could he collect his scattered thoughts, and realize what he was saying. When he raised his hands to beat his breast at "We have trespa.s.sed, we have robbed," the hand remained hanging in the air, half-way. A shudder went through his limbs, the letters of the words "we have robbed" began to grow before his eyes, they became gigantic, they turned strange colors--red, blue, green, and yellow--now they took the form of large frogs--they got bigger and bigger, crawled into his eyes, croaked in his ears: You are a thief, a robber, you have stolen and plundered! You think n.o.body saw, that it would all run quite smoothly, but you are wrong! We shall stand before the Throne of Glory and cry: You are a thief, a robber!

Berel stood some time with his hand raised midway in the air.

The whole affair of the hundred rubles rose before his eyes.

A couple of months ago he had gone into the house of Reb Moisheh Chalfon. The latter had just gone out, there was n.o.body else in the room, n.o.body had even seen him come in.

The key was in the desk--Berel had looked at it, had hardly touched it--the drawer had opened as though of itself--several hundred-ruble-notes had lain glistening before his eyes! Just that day, Berel had received a very unpleasant letter from the father of his daughter's bridegroom, and to make matters worse, the author of the letter was in the right. Berel had been putting off the marriage for two years, and the Mechutton wrote quite plainly, that unless the wedding took place after Tabernacles, he should return him the contract.

"Return the contract!" the fiery letters burnt into Berel's brain.

He knew his Mechutton well. The Misnaggid! He wouldn't hesitate to tear up a marriage contract, either! And when it's a question of a by no means pretty girl of twenty and odd years! And the kind of bridegroom anybody might be glad to have secured for his daughter! And then to think that only one of those hundred-ruble-notes lying tossed together in that drawer would help him out of all his troubles. And the Evil Inclination whispers in his ear: "Berel, now or never! There will be an end to all your worry! Don't you see, it's a G.o.dsend." He, Berel, wrestled with him hard. He remembers it all distinctly, and he can hear now the faint little voice of the Good Inclination: "Berel, to become a thief in one's latter years! You who so carefully avoided even the smallest deceit! Fie, for shame! If G.o.d will, he can help you by honest means too." But the voice of the Good Inclination was so feeble, so husky, and the Evil Inclination suggested in his other ear: "Do you know what? _Borrow_ one hundred rubles! Who talks of stealing? You will earn some money before long, and then you can pay him back--it's a charitable loan on his part, only that he doesn't happen to know of it. Isn't it plain to be seen that it's a G.o.dsend? If you don't call this Providence, what is? Are you going to take more than you really need? You know your Mechutton? Have you taken a good look at that old maid of yours? You recollect the bridegroom? Well, the Mechutton will be kind and mild as milk. The bridegroom will be a 'silken son-in-law,' the ugly old maid, a young wife--fool! G.o.d and men will envy you...." And he, Berel, lost his head, his thoughts flew hither and thither, like frightened birds, and--he no longer knew which of the two voices was that of the Good Inclination, and--

No one saw him leave Moisheh Chalfon's house.

And still his hand remains suspended in mid-air, still it does not fall against his breast, and there is a cold perspiration on his brow.

Berel started, as though out of his sleep. He had noticed that people were beginning to eye him as he stood with his hand held at a distance from his person. He hastily rattled through "For the sin, ..." concluded the Eighteen Benedictions, and went home.

At home, he didn't dawdle, he only washed his hands, recited "Who bringest forth bread," and that was all. The food stuck in his throat, he said grace, returned to Shool, put on the Tallis, and started to intone tunefully the Prayer of Expiation.

The lighted wax-candles, the last rays of the sun stealing in through the windows of the house-of-study, the congregation entirely robed in white and enfolded in the prayer-scarfs, the intense seriousness depicted on all faces, the hum of voices, and the bitter weeping that penetrated from the women's gallery, all this suited Berel's mood, his contrite heart. Berel had recited the Prayer of Expiation with deep feeling; tears poured from his eyes, his own broken voice went right through his heart, every word found an echo there, and he felt it in every limb. Berel stood before G.o.d like a little child before its parents: he wept and told all that was in his heavily-laden heart, the full tale of his cares and troubles. Berel was pleased with himself, he felt that he was not saying the words anyhow, just rolling them off his tongue, but he was really performing an act of penitence with his whole heart. He felt remorse for his sins, and G.o.d is a G.o.d of compa.s.sion and mercy, who will certainly pardon him.

"Therefore is my heart sad," began Berel, "that the sin which a man commits against his neighbor cannot be atoned for even on the Day of Atonement, unless he asks his neighbor's forgiveness ... therefore is my heart broken and my limbs tremble, because even the day of my death cannot atone for this sin."

Berel began to recite this in pleasing, artistic fas.h.i.+on, weeping and whimpering like a spoiled child, and drawling out the words, when it grew dark before his eyes. Berel had suddenly become aware that he was in the position of one about to go in through an open door. He advances, he must enter, it is a question of life and death. And without any warning, just as he is stepping across the threshold, the door is shut from within with a terrible bang, and he remains standing outside.

And he has read this in the Prayer of Expiation? With fear and fluttering he reads it over again, looking narrowly at every word--a cold sweat covers him--the words p.r.i.c.k him like pins. Are these two verses his pitiless judges, are they the expression of his sentence? Is he already condemned? "Ay, ay, you are guilty," flicker the two verses on the page before him, and prayer and tears are no longer of any avail.

His heart cried to G.o.d: "Have pity, merciful Father! A grown-up girl--what am I to do with her? And his father wanted to break off the engagement. As soon as I have earned the money, I will give it back...."

But he knew all the time that these were useless subterfuges; the Lord of the Universe can only pardon the sin committed against Himself, the sin committed against man cannot be atoned for even on the Day of Atonement!