In Those Days: The Story of an Old Man Part 2

Well, I was caught, and put into prison. I was not alone. Many young boys had been brought there. Some were crying bitterly; some looked at their companions wonderingly. We were told that the next day we should be taken away to some place, and that the rabbi wished to come to see us, but was not permitted to enter our prison.

Yes, a good man was the rabbi, may he rest in peace; yet he was compelled to cheat for once. And when an honest man is compelled to cheat he may outdo the cleverest crook. Do you want to know what the rabbi did? He disguised himself as a peasant, went out, and walked the streets with the rolling gait of a drunkard. The night guards stopped him, and asked him what his business was. "I am a thief," said the rabbi. Then the guards arrested him, and put him into the prison with us.

In the darkness of that night the rabbi never ceased talking to us, swallowing his own tears all the while. He told us the story of Joseph the righteous. It had been decreed in Heaven, said the rabbi, that his brethren should sell Joseph into slavery. And it was the will of the Almighty that Joseph should come to Egypt, to show the Egyptians that there is only one G.o.d in Heaven, and that the Children of Israel are the chosen people.

Then the rabbi examined us: Did we know our Modeh-Ani by heart?

did we know our Shema?

He told us that we should be taken very, very far away, that we should be away many, many years, and should become soldiers when grown up. Then he warned us never to eat of any food forbidden by the Jewish law, and never to forget the G.o.d of Israel and our own people, even if they tore our flesh with thorns. He told us also the story of the Ten Martyrs, who sacrificed their lives to sanctify the G.o.d of Israel. He told us of the mother and her seven children that were killed for having refused to bow before idols; and he told us many more such things. All those saints and martyrs, he said, are now in Paradise, enjoying the bliss of the Divine Presence.

That night I really envied those saints; I longed with all my heart to be forced to bow to idols, to have to withstand all sorts of trials, so as to enjoy, after my death, the bliss of the Divine Presence in Paradise.

Many more stories the rabbi told us; many more words of warning, encouragement, and praise came from his lips, till I really believed I was the one whom G.o.d had picked out from among my equals, to be put through great trials and temptations. . . .

Morning came, and the guard entered the prison. Then the rabbi turned towards us, and said: "Lambs of the G.o.d of Israel, we have to part now: I am going to be lashed and imprisoned for having entered this place by a trick, and you will be taken into exile, to undergo your trials! I may hardly expect to be found worthy of surviving till you return. But there, in the world-of-truth, we shall surely meet. May it be the will of G.o.d that I may have no reason to be ashamed of you there, before Him and His angels, in Heaven!"

We parted, and the words of the rabbi sank deep into my heart.

Then they began dumping us into wagons. The obstreperous boys, who tried to run away, were many of them bound with ropes and thrown into the wagon. Of course, we all howled.

I did not hear my own voice, nor the voice of my neighbor. It was all one great howl. A crowd of men and women followed our wagon--the parents of the boys. Very likely they cried, too; but we could not hear their voices. The town, the fields, heaven and earth, seemed to cry with us.

I caught sight of my parents, and my heart was filled with something like anger and hatred. I felt that I had been sacrificed for my brother.

My mother, among many other mothers, approached the wagon, looked at me, and apparently read my thoughts: she fainted away, and fell to the ground. The accident held up the crowd, which busied itself with reviving my mother, while our wagon rolled away.

My heart was filled with a mixture of anger, pity, and terror. In that mood of mixed feelings I parted from my parents.

We cried and cried, got tired, and finally became still from sheer exhaustion. Presently a noise reached our ears, something like the yelling of children. We thought it was another wagonload of boys like ourselves. But soon we found out our mistake: it was but a wagonload of sheep that were being taken to slaughter. . . .

Of course, we ate nothing the whole of that day, though the mothers had not failed to provide us with food. Meanwhile the sun had set; it got dark, and the boys who had been bound with ropes were released by the guard: he knew they would not attempt to escape at that time. We fell asleep, but every now and then one of the boys would wake up, crying, quietly at first, then louder and louder.

Then another would join him; one more, and yet one more, till we all were yelling in chorus, filling the night air with our bitter cries.

Even the guard could not stand it; he scolded us, and belabored us with his whip. That crying of ours reminds me of what we read in lamentations: "Weeping she hath wept in the night. . . ."

Morning came, and found us all awake: we were waiting for daylight.

We believed it would bring us freedom, that angels would descend from Heaven, just as they had descended to our father Jacob, to smite our guard and set us free. At the same time, the rising sun brought us all a feeling of hunger. We began to sigh, each and every one of us separately. But the noise we made did not amount even to the barking of a few dogs or the cawing of a few crows.

That is what hunger can do. And when the guard had distributed among us some of the food we had brought with us, we ate it with relish, and felt satisfied. At the same time we began to feel the discomfort we were causing one another, cooped up as we were in the wagon. I began to complain of my neighbor, who was sitting on my legs. He claimed that I was pressing against him with my shoulder.

We all began to look up to the guard, as if expecting that he could or would prevent us from torturing one another.

Still I had some fun even on that day of weeping. I happened to turn around, and I noticed that Barker, my dog, was running after our wagon.

"Too bad, foolish Barker," said I, laughing at him in spite of my heartache. "Do you think I am going to a feast? It is into exile that I am going; and what do you run after me for?"--

This made old Samuel laugh; he laughed like a child, as if the thing had just happened before his eyes, and as if it were really comical.

Meanwhile our coach had reached the top of the hill; we jumped into our seats, and proceeded to make one another uncomfortable.

The old man glanced at his son, who was sitting opposite to him. It was a loving and tender look, issuing from under long s.h.a.ggy eyebrows, a beautiful, gentle, almost motherly look, out of accord with the hard-set face of an irritable and stern father.

The old man made his son's seat comfortable for him, and then fell silent.

V

I am going to pa.s.s over a long time--resumed the old man later.

There was much traveling and many stops; much tramping on foot, with legs swollen; but all that has nothing to do with the subject.

Once in a while our guard would get angry at us, curse us bitterly, and strike us with his whip. "You cursed Jews," he would say, "do I owe you anything that I should suffer so much on your account, and undergo all the hards.h.i.+ps of travel?"

Indeed, there was a good deal of truth in what he said. For, willingly or unwillingly, we did give him much trouble. Had we died, say the year before, or even at that very moment, he would not have been put to the necessity of leading a crowd of half-dumb boys.

He would not have had to stand the hards.h.i.+ps of travel, and would not have been compelled to listen to the wailings of children torn from the arms of their parents. Or do you think it is agreeable to feel that little children consider you a hard and cruel man? When I grew up and served in the army myself, and had people below me in age and position under my command, I came to understand the troubles of our guard; so that now, after having gone through many experiences, after I have pa.s.sed, as they say, through fire and water, I may confess that I bear no malice towards all those at whose hands I suffered. There are many ex-Cantonists who cannot forget the birch-rod, for instance. Well, so much is true: for every misstep, for every sign of disobedience a whipping was due.

If one of us refused to kneel in prayer before the crucifix; if one of us refused to eat pork; if one of us was caught mumbling a Hebrew prayer or speaking Yiddish, he was sure to get a flogging. Twenty, thirty, forty, or even full fifty lashes were the punishment. But, then, is it conceivable that they could have treated us any other way? Why, hundreds of Jewish children that did not understand a word of Russian had been delivered into the hands of a Russian official that did not understand a word of Yiddish. He would say, Take off my boots, and the boy would wash his hands. He would say, Sit down, and the boy would stand up. Were we not like dumb cattle?

It was only the rod that we understood well. And the rod taught us to understand our master's orders by the mere expression of his eyes.

Then many of the ex-Cantonists still remember with horror the steam-bath they were compelled to take. "The chamber of h.e.l.l," they called the bath. At first blush, it would really seem to have been an awful thing. They would pick out all the Cantonists that had so much as a scratch on their bodies or the smallest sign of an eruption, paint the wounds with tar, and put the boys, stripped, on the highest shelf in the steam-bath. And below was a row of attendants armed with birch-rods. The kettle was boiling fiercely, the stones were red-hot, and the attendants emptied jars of boiling water ceaselessly upon the stones. The steam would rise, penetrate every pore of the skin, and--sting! sting!--enter into the very flesh. The pain was horrible; it p.r.i.c.ked, and p.r.i.c.ked, and there was no air to breathe. It was simply choking. If the boy happened to roll down, those below stood ready to meet him with the rods.

All this is true. At the same time, was it mere cruelty? It is very simple: we were a lot of Jewish lads s.n.a.t.c.hed from the arms of our mothers. On the eve of every Sabbath our mothers would take us in hand, wash us, comb our hair, change our underwear, and dress us in our Sabbath clothes. All at once we were taken into exile.

Days, weeks, nay, months, we pa.s.sed in the dust of the roads, in perspiration and dirt, and sleeping on the ground. Our underwear had not been changed. No water had touched our bodies. So we became afflicted with all kinds of eruptions. That is why we had to pa.s.s through what we called "the chamber of h.e.l.l." And this will give you an idea of the rest.

To make a long story short: there were many of us, and we were distributed in various places. Many of the boys had taken ill; many died on the road. The survivors were distributed among peasants, to be brought up by them till they reached the age of entering the army. I was among the latter. Many months, maybe even years, I pa.s.sed in knocking about from village to village, from town to town, till, at last, I came into the joint possession of a certain Peter Semionovich Khlopov and his wife Anna Petrovna. My master was neither old nor young; he was neither a plain peasant nor a n.o.bleman. He was the clerk of the village. In those days that was considered a genteel occupation, honorable and well-paid. He had no sons, but he and one daughter, Marusya by name. She was then about fourteen years old, very good-looking, gay, and rather wild.

According to the regulations, all the Cantonists in the village had to report daily for military drill and exercise on the drill grounds before the house of the sergeant. He lived in the same village. At the request of my patron Khlopov I was excused from the daily drill, and had to report but once a week. You see, Peter expected to derive some benefit from me by employing me about the house and in the field.

Now it was surely through the merits of my ancestors that I happened to be placed in the household of Peter Khlopov. Peter himself spent but little of his time at home. Most of the time he was at the office, and his free moments he liked to spend at the tavern, which was owned by the only Jew in the village, "our Moshko" the Klopovs used to call him. But whenever he happened to be at home, Peter was very kind to me, especially when he was just a little tipsy.

Perhaps he dreamt of adopting me as his son: he had no sons of his own. And he tried to make me like military service. "When you grow up," he sued to say, "you will become an officer, and wear a sword.

Soldiers will stand at attention before you, and salute you. You will win distinction in battle, and be found worthy of being presented to the Czar." He also told me stories of Russian military life. By that time I had learned some Russian. They were really nice stories, as far as I could understand them; but they were made nicer yet by what I could not understand of them. For then I was free to add something to the stories myself, or change them according to my own fancy. If you are a lover of stories, take the advice of a plain old man like myself. Never pay any attention to stories in which everything has been prepared from the very start, and you can tell the end as soon as you begin to read them or listen to them. Such stories make one yawn and fall asleep. Stories of this kind my daughter reads to me once in a while, and I always fall asleep over them. Stories are good only when told the way Khlopov used to tell them to me.

But that is all irrelevant. In short, Khlopov was kind to me.

As to Anna, she was entirely different. She was close-mouthed, ill-tempered, and a great stay-at-home. She never visited her neighbors, and they, in turn, called on her very rarely. In the village she was spoken of as a sn.o.b and a hypocrite. Peter was afraid of her as of the plague, especially in his sober hours. All her power lay in her eyes. When that strong man--he who had the whole village in the palm of his hand--felt her eye fixed on him, his strength left him. It seemed as if some devil were ready to jump out of that eye and turn the house topsyturvy. You fellows are mere youngsters, you have seen nothing of the world yet; but take it from me, there are eyes that seem quite harmless when you first look into them, but just try to arouse their temper: you will see a h.e.l.lish fire spring up in them. Have you ever looked into my Rebekah's eyes? Well, beware of the eyes.

The look Anna gave me when I first entered her house promised me nothing good. She hated me heartily. She never called me by my own name. She called me "Zhid" all the time, in a tone of deep hatred and contempt.

Among the orders the Cantonists had to obey were the following: to speak no Yiddish; to say no Jewish prayer; to recite daily a certain prayer before the image of the Virgin and before the crucifix, and not to abstain from non-kosher food.

With regard to all injunctions except the last, Anna was very strict with me. But she was not very particular as to the last injunction.

Out of sheer stinginess she fed me on bread and vegetables, and that in the kitchen. Once she did offer me some meat, and I refused to touch it. Then she got very angry, flew into a temper, and decided to complain to the sergeant. But Peter did not let her be so cruel. "Let him grow up, he will know better," said Peter, waving his hand at me.

Then Anna made up her mind to force me to eat forbidden meat. But I was obstinate. And she decided once more to complain to the sergeant. Just at that time another Cantonist had been found guilty of some offense. He belonged to the same village; his name was Jacob. I did not know him at that time. His patron complained that Jacob had persisted in reciting Hebrew prayers, and that he abstained from meat. Jacob was condemned to twenty lashes with rods. An order was issued that all Cantonists should a.s.semble to witness the flogging of the offender.

In the course of time we got used to such sights; but the first time we were terribly shocked. Just imagine: a lad of about fifteen is stripped, put on the ground face downwards; one man sits on his head, and another on his feet. Two men are put on either side of him, each with a bundle of birch-rods in his hand. Ten times each of them has to strike him with the rods, to make up the twenty lashes. I looked at the face of the culprit; it was as white as chalk. His lips were moving. I thought he was reciting the prayer: "And He, the Merciful, will forgive sin, and will not destroy.