Yiddish Tales Part 71

"But, Tate, I won't be able to answer," he let out in despair.

"What, not Amen? Eh, eh, you little silly, that is no great matter.

Where is the difficulty? One just ups and answers!" said his father, gently, but Feivke heard that the while his father was trying to quiet him, his own voice trembled.

At the other end of the bridge there appeared the great inn with the covered terrace, and in front of the building were moving groups of Jews in holiday garb, with red handkerchiefs in their hands, women in yellow silk head-kerchiefs, and boys in new clothes holding small prayer-books.

Feivke remained obstinately outside the crowd, and hung about the stable, his black eyes staring defiantly from beneath the worn-out leather cap. But he was not left alone long, for soon there came to him a smart, yellow-haired boy, with restless little light-colored eyes, and a face like a chicken's, covered with freckles. This little boy took a little bottle with some essence in it out of his pocket, gave it a twist and a flourish in the air, and suddenly applied it to Feivke's nose, so that the strong waters spurted into his nostril. Then he asked:

"To whom do you belong?"

Feivke blew the water out of his nose, and turned his head away in silence.

"Listen, turkey, lazy dog! What are you doing there? Have you said Minchah?"

"N-no...."

"Is the Jew in a torn cloak there your father?"

"Y-yes ... T-tate...."

The yellow-haired boy took Feivke by the sleeve.

"Come along, and you'll see what they'll do to your father."

Inside the room into which Feivke was dragged by his new friend, it was hot, and there was a curious, unfamiliar sound. Feivke grew dizzy. He saw Jews bowing and bending along the wall and beating their b.r.e.a.s.t.s--now they said something, and now they wept in an odd way.

People coughed and spat sobbingly, and blew their noses with their red handkerchiefs. Chairs and stiff benches creaked, while a continual clatter of plates and spoons came through the wall.

In a corner, beside a heap of hay, Feivke saw his father where he stood, looking all round him, blinking shamefacedly and innocently with his weak, red eyes. Round him was a lively circle of little boys whispering with one another in evident expectation.

"That is his boy, with the lip," said the chicken-face, presenting Feivke.

At the same moment a young man came up to Mattes. He wore a white collar without a tie and with a pointed bra.s.s stud. This young man held a whip, which he brandished in the air like a rider about to mount his horse.

"Well, Reb Smith."

"Am I ... I suppose I am to lie down?" asked Mattes, subserviently, still smiling round in the same shy and yet confiding manner.

"Be so good as to lie down."

The young man gave a mischievous look at the boys, and made a gesture in the air with the whip.

Mattes began to unb.u.t.ton his cloak, and slowly and cautiously let himself down onto the hay, whereupon the young man applied the whip with might and main, and his whole face shone.

"One, two, three! Go on, Rebbe, go on!" urged the boys, and there were shouts of laughter.

Feivke looked on in amaze. He wanted to go and take his father by the sleeve, make him get up and escape, but just then Mattes raised himself to a sitting posture, and began to rub his eyes with the same shy smile.

"Now, Rebbe, this one!" and the yellow-haired boy began to drag Feivke towards the hay. The others a.s.sisted. Feivke got very red, and silently tried to tear himself out of the boy's hands, making for the door, but the other kept his hold. In the doorway Feivke glared at him with his obstinate black eyes, and said:

"I'll knock your teeth out!"

"Mine? You? You b.o.o.by, you lazy thing! This is _our_ house! Do you know, on New Year's Eve I went with my grandfather to the town! I shall call Leibrutz. He'll give you something to remember him by!"

And Leibrutz was not long in joining them. He was the inn driver, a stout youth of fifteen, in a peasant smock with a collar st.i.tched in red, otherwise in full array, with linen socks and a handsome bottle of strong waters against faintness in his hands. To judge by the size of the bottle, his st.u.r.dy looks belied a peculiarly delicate const.i.tution.

He pushed towards Feivke with one shoulder, in no friendly fas.h.i.+on, and looked at him with one eye, while he winked with the other at the freckled grandson of the host.

"Who is the beauty?"

"How should I know? A thief most likely. The Kozlov smith's boy. He threatened to knock out my teeth."

"So, so, dear brother mine!" sang out Leibrutz, with a cold sneer, and pa.s.sed his five fingers across Feivke's nose. "We must rub a little horseradish under his eyes, and he'll weep like a beaver. Listen, you Kozlov urchin, you just keep your hands in your pockets, because Leibrutz is here! Do you know Leibrutz? Lucky for you that I have a Jewish heart: to-day is Yom Kippur."

But the chicken-faced boy was not pacified.

"Did you ever see such a lip? And then he comes to our house and wants to fight us!"

The whole lot of boys now encircled Feivke with teasing and laughter, and he stood barefooted in their midst, looking at none of them, and reminding one of a little wild animal caught and tormented.

It grew dark, and quant.i.ties of soul-lights were set burning down the long tables of the inn. The large building was packed with red-faced, perspiring Jews, in flowing white robes and Tallesim. The Confession was already in course of fervent recital, there was a great rocking and swaying over the prayer-books and a loud noise in the ears, everyone present trying to make himself heard above the rest. Village Jews are simple and ignorant, they know nothing of "silent prayer" and whispering with the lips. They are deprived of prayer in common a year at a time, and are distant from the Lord of All, and when the Awful Day comes, they want to take Him by storm, by violence. The noisiest of all was the prayer-leader himself, the young man with the white collar and no tie.

He was from town, and wished to convince the country folk that he was an adept at his profession and to be relied on. Feivke stood in the stifling room utterly confounded. The prayers and the wailful chanting pa.s.sed over his head like waves, his heart was straitened, red sparks whirled before his eyes. He was in a state of continual apprehension. He saw a snow-white old Jew come out of a corner with a scroll of the Torah wrapped in a white velvet, gold-embroidered cover. How the gold sparkled and twinkled and reflected itself in the illuminated beard of the old man! Feivke thought the moment had come, but he saw it all as through a mist, a long way off, to the sound of the wailful chanting, and as in a mist the scroll and the old man vanished together. Feivke's face and body were flushed with heat, his knees shook, and at the same time his hands and feet were cold as ice.

Once, while Feivke was standing by the table facing the bright flames of the soul-lights, a dizziness came over him, and he closed his eyes.

Thousands of little bells seemed to ring in his ears. Then some one gave a loud thump on the table, and there was silence all around. Feivke started and opened his eyes. The sudden stillness frightened him, and he wanted to move away from the table, but he was walled in by men in white robes, who had begun rocking and swaying anew. One of them pushed a prayer-book towards him, with great black letters, which hopped and fluttered to Feivke's eyes like so many little black birds.

He shook visibly, and the men looked at him in silence: "Nu-nu, nu-nu!"

He remained for some time squeezed against the prayer-book, hemmed in by the tall, strange men in robes swaying and praying over his head. A cold perspiration broke out over him, and when at last he freed himself, he felt very tired and weak. Having found his way to a corner close to his father, he fell asleep on the floor.

There he had a strange dream. He dreamt that he was a tree, growing like any other tree in a wood, and that he saw Anishka coming along with blood on his face, in one hand his long stick, and in the other a stone--and Feivke recognized the stone with which he had hit the crucifix. And Anishka kept turning his head and making signs to some one with his long stick, calling out to him that here was Feivke. Feivke looked hard, and there in the depths of the wood was G.o.d Himself, white all over, like freshly-fallen snow. And G.o.d suddenly grew ever so tall, and looked down at Feivke. Feivke felt G.o.d looking at him, but he could not see G.o.d, because there was a mist before his eyes. And Anishka came nearer and nearer with the stone in his hand. Feivke shook, and cold perspiration oozed out all over him. He wanted to run away, but he seemed to be growing there like a tree, like all the other trees of the wood.

Feivke awoke on the floor, amid sleeping men, and the first thing he saw was a tall, barefoot person all in white, standing over the sleepers with something in his hand. This tall, white figure sank slowly onto its knees, and, bending silently over Mattes the smith, who lay snoring with the rest, it deliberately put a bottle to his nose. Mattes gave a squeal, and sat up hastily.

"Ha, who is it?" he asked in alarm.

It was the young man from town, the prayer-leader, with a bottle of strong smelling-salts.

"It is I," he said with a _degage_ air, and smiled. "Never mind, it will do you good! You are fasting, and there is an express law in the Chayye Odom on the subject."

"But why me?" complained Mattes, blinking at him reproachfully. "What have I done to you?"

Day was about to dawn. The air in the room had cooled down; the soul-lights were still playing in the dark, dewy window-panes. A few of the men bedded in the hay on the floor were waking up. Feivke stood in the middle of the room with staring eyes. The young man with the smelling-bottle came up to him with a lively air.

"O you little object! What are you staring at me for? Do you want a sniff? There, then, sniff!"

Feivke retreated into a corner, and continued to stare at him in bewilderment.

No sooner was it day, than the davvening recommenced with all the fervor of the night before, the room was as noisy, and very soon nearly as hot.

But it had not the same effect on Feivke as yesterday, and he was no longer frightened of Anishka and the stone--the whole dream had dissolved into thin air. When they once more brought out the scroll of the Law in its white mantle, Feivke was standing by the table, and looked on indifferently while they uncovered the black, s.h.i.+ning, crowded letters. He looked indifferently at the young man from town swaying over the Torah, out of which he read fluently, intoning with a strangely free and easy manner, like an adept to whom all this was nothing new.

Whenever he stopped reading, he threw back his head, and looked down at the people with a bright, satisfied smile.