Stories and Pictures Part 11

And they continued to embrace and kiss me. They even offered me preserves.... Would I like syrup in water?... Perhaps a sip of wine?

I shut my eyes again, and was choked with a terrible fit of crying.

"Never mind, never mind," said my mother, joyfully. "Poor child, let her have her cry out. It is our fault for telling her the good news all at once, so suddenly. She might have burst a vein, which heaven forbid.

But G.o.d be praised! Yes, cry your heart out. May all sorrow swim away with the tears, and a new life begin for you--a new life."

Man has two angels, a good and a bad, and I felt convinced that the good angel bade me forget my Rofeh-boy, eat Reb Zeinwill's preserves, drink his syrup in water, and dress at his expense, while the bad angel urged me to tell my parents, once and for all, that I would not consent, that on no account would I consent.

I did not know Reb Zeinwill, unless I had seen him once and then forgotten--or else not known who it was--but I disliked him.

The second night I dreamed that I stood under the wedding canopy.

The bridegroom is Reb Zeinwill, and they lead me round him seven times, but my feet are as if paralyzed, and they carry me in their hands.

Then I am taken home.

My mother comes to meet me with a cake, and they are bringing the golden broth.[14]

I am afraid to raise my eyes. I feel sure I shall see before me a blind man, both eyes gone, with a dreadfully long nose--a cold shudder runs through me--but someone whispers in my ear:

"Leah, what a pretty girl you are!" And the voice is not that of an old man; it is _his_ voice. I open my eyes a little way; it is _his_ face: "Sst!" he whispers; "don't tell! I enticed Reb Zeinwill into the wood, put him into a sack, tied it up, and threw it into the river (this was out of a story my mother once told me), and I am here in his place!"

I woke trembling.

Pale moons.h.i.+ne was lighting the whole room through a c.h.i.n.k in the shutter, and I noticed, for the first time, that the lamp was once more hanging from the ceiling, and that my parents were sleeping in bed-clothes. Father smiled in his sleep; mother breathed quietly, and the good angel said to me:

"If you are obedient and pious, your father will recover his health; your mother will not have to toil into her old age, and your little brothers will become learned men--rabbis, authorities in the Law, great, great Jews. Their school fees will be paid."

"Only," put in the bad angel, "Reb Zeinwill will kiss you with his damp whiskers, and clasp you in his bony arms; and he will torment you as he did the other wives, and send you to an early grave, and _he_ will come back and grieve, and he will teach you no more songs, or sit with you evening after evening--you will be sitting with Reb Zeinwill!"

No! not if the heavens should fall about the earth! Tear up the contract!

I did not sleep again till morning. My mother was the first to wake. I wanted to talk with her, but I was accustomed to go for help to my father.

There, he wakes.

"Do you know, Sarah'le," are his first words, "I feel so well to-day.

You will see, I shall go out."

"Praise to His dear Name! It is all owing to our daughter's good fortune, all thanks to her merit."

"And the Rofeh was quite right: the milk agrees very well with me."

They are silent, and the good angel repeats:

"If you are good and pious, your father will get well, while if your lips let fall wicked words, he will decline and die."

"Listen, Sarah'le," continued my father, "you are not to go about peddling any more."

"What do you mean?"

"What I say! I will go to-day to Reb Zeinwill; he will take me into a business, or lend me a few rubles, and we will have a little shop; I will serve a bit, and you a bit--and later I will deal in produce."

"G.o.d grant it."

"He _will_ grant it. If you want a dress for the wedding, buy it--even _two_ dresses. Why not? He said we were to get what we wanted. You are not going in your old clothes?"

"Go along with you! The thing is to have something made for the children. Reuben has been going barefoot--last week he got a splinter in his sole, and he is limping now. Winter is coming on, too, they want coats and s.h.i.+rts and warm cloaks."

"Buy, buy!"

"You hear?" said the good angel. "If you speak out, your mother will have no new dress, and you know the old one is falling to bits; the little brothers will run barefoot to Cheder in the sharpest frost, and in summer they will get splinters in their soles."

"I tell you what it is," said my mother, "everything ought to be talked over and settled in detail, because he is not a _very_ good man.

Whatever settlement he intends to make on her ought to be put down in writing. There will be any quant.i.ty to inherit. Even if it isn't a deed, let him give a written promise, because how long is such a one likely to live? Another year or so!"

"One can live a long time in comfort!" sighed my father.

"A long time! Remember, he's seventy, and sometimes he looks dead behind his ears."

And the bad angel whispered: "If you keep silence, you will marry a dead man; you will live with a corpse; they will lead you to the bridal chamber with a lifeless body."

Mother sighed.

"Everything is in G.o.d's hands," said my father.

Mother sighed again, and father said:

"And what could we do? Anything better? If I only could have gotten well, and earned something, and we had had at least dry bread in the house----"

He broke off; I had a feeling that something wept within him.

"If she had been a year or two younger, I would have risked it all--perhaps even bought lottery tickets."

And I said nothing.

My seventy-year-old bridegroom gave my father a few hundred gulden for clothes for the wedding, and me a check for one hundred and fifty gulden.

People said, "A fine match."

I recovered my companions. The one with the satin skirt and the watch and chain came two or three times a day.

She was the happiest creature in the world, because I had caught her up, and we were to be married in the same month. I had others, but this one stuck to me like a leech. The others were "common girls, there was no saying how long they wouldn't have to wait!"

Rivkah's _fiance_ was a stranger, but she was to board at home for two or three years. During that time we would be close friends; she would run in to me for chicory-coffee; I to her on Sabbath, after the mid-day rest, for chicken-broth and pear cider.

"And when I am expecting a baby," said Rivkah once, and her face shone, "you will come and sit by me?"