Stories and Pictures Part 58

The letter is unfinished; it was found together with the other letters in the pocket of the mad Hannah.

XXI

IN THE POND

Once upon a time there was a pond. It had a corner to itself, and lay quite apart from the rest of the field where beasts were wont to graze and herd-boys to fling stones.

A high bank, set with briars, screened it from the wind, and it had a slimy, s.h.i.+ny green covering, in which the breeze tore a hole once in twelve months. In the pond there dwelt (according to the order of nature) a colony of quite small worms which fed on still smaller ones.

The pond was neither long nor wide, not even deep, and if the little worms could neither discover a bottom nor swim to sh.o.r.e, they had only the thick slime and the water-weeds and the fallen twigs to thank for it.

The geography of the pond was in its infancy.

Conceit, on the other hand, flourished, and fancy had it all her own way beneath the green covering--and the two together sat spinning and weaving.

And they wove between them a legend of the beginning of things, a truly worm-like tradition.

The pond is the great sea, and the four streams of Paradise flow into it. Hiddekel brings gold (that is the slime in which they find their nourishment), and the other three bring flowers (the water-weeds among which they play hide-and-seek on holidays), pearls (frog-p.a.w.n), and corals (the little orange fungi on the rotting twigs).

The green cover, the slimy cap on the surface of the pond, is the heaven stretched out over the ocean, a special heaven for their own particular world. Fragments of egg-sh.e.l.l, which have fallen into it, play the part of stars, and a rotten pumpkin does duty for the sun.

The chance stones flung into the pond by the herd-boys are, of course, hailstones flung by heaven at the head of sinners!

And when their heaven opened, and a few beams of the real sun penetrated to a wormy brain, then they believed in h.e.l.l!

But life in the pond was a pleasant thing!

People were satisfied with themselves and with one another.

When one lives in the great sea, one is as good as a fish oneself.

One worm would call another "Tench," "Pike;" "Crocodile" and "Leviathan"

would be engraved on tombstones.

"Roach" was the greatest insult, and "Haddock" not to be forgiven, even on the Day of Atonement.

Meanwhile, astronomy, poetry, and philosophy blossomed like the rose!

The bits of egg-sh.e.l.l were counted over and over again, till everyone was convinced of the absurdity of the attempt.

Romantic poets harped on the Heavenly Academy in a thousand different keys.

Patriots were likened to the stars, stars to ladies' eyes, and the ladies themselves to Paradise--or else to Purgatory! Philosophy transferred the souls of the pious to the rotten pumpkin.

In short, nothing was wanting!

Life had all the colors of the rainbow. In due time a code of law was framed with hundreds of commentaries, they introduced a thousand rules and regulations, and if a worm had the slightest desire to make a change, he had but to remember what the world would think, blush, regret, and do penance!

Once, however, there was a catastrophe! It was caused by a herd of swine. Dreadful feet crashed through the heaven, stamped down the slime, bruised the corals, made havoc of the flowers, and plunged the entire little "world" back into chaos.

Some of the worms were asleep under the slime (and worms sleep fast and long).

These escaped.

When they rose out of the mud, the heavens had already swum together again and united; but whole heaps of squeezed, squashed, and suffocated worms were lying about unburied, witnesses in death of the past awful event!

"What has happened?" was the cry, and search was made for some living soul who should know the cause of the calamity.

But such a living soul was not easy to find!

It is no light thing to survive a heaven!

Those who were not stamped upon had died of fright, and those who were not killed by fright had died of a broken heart.

The remainder committed suicide. Without a heaven, what is life?

One had survived, but, when he had declared to them that the heaven they now saw was a new heaven, fresh, as it were, from the shop, and that the former heaven had been trodden in of beasts; when he a.s.serted that a worm-heaven is not eternal--that only the universal heaven is, perhaps, eternal--then they saw clearly that his mind had become deranged.

He was a.s.sisted with the deepest compa.s.sion, and conveyed to an asylum for lunatics.

XXII

THE CHANUKAH LIGHT

My top-coat was already in my hand, and yet I could not decide: to go, or not to go--to give my lesson! O, it is so unpleasant outside, such horrible weather!--a mile's trudge--and then what?

"Once more: pakad, pakadti"[132]--once more: the old house-master, who has got through his sixty and odd years of life without knowing any grammar; who has been ten times to Leipzig, two or three times to Dantzig; who once all but landed in Constantinople--and who cannot understand such waste of money: Grammar, indeed? A fine bargain!

Then the young house-master, who allows that it is far more practical to wear ear-locks, a fur-cap, and a braided kaftan, to consult with a "good Jew," and not to know any grammar ... not that he is otherwise than orthodox himself ... but he is obliged, as a merchant, to mix with men, to wear a hat and a stiff s.h.i.+rt; to permit his wife to visit the theatre; his daughter, to read books; and to engage a tutor for his son....

"My father, of course, knows best! But one must move with the times!" He cannot make up his mind to be left in the lurch by the times! "I only beg of you," he said to me, "don't make an unbeliever of the boy! I will give you," he said, "as much as would pay for a whole lot of grammar, if you will _not_ teach him that the earth goes round the sun!"

And I promised that he should never hear it from, me, because--because this was my only lesson, and I had a sick mother at home!

To go, or not to go?

The whole family will be present to watch me when I give my lesson.

_She_ also?