Stories and Pictures Part 59

She sits in the background, always deep in a book; now and again she lifts her long, silken lashes, and a little brightness is diffused through the room; but so seldom, so seldom!

And what is to come of it?

Nothing ever _can_ come of it, except heart-ache.

"Listen!" My mother's weak voice from the bed recalls me to myself. "The Feldscher says, if only I had a pair of warm, woollen socks, I might creep about the room a little!"

That, of course, decides it.

Except for the lady of the house, who has gone to the play, as usual without the knowledge of her father-in-law, I find the whole family a.s.sembled round the pinchbeck samovar. The young house-master acknowledges my greeting with a negligent "a good year to you!" and goes on turning over in his palm a pack of playing cards. Doubtless he expects company.

The old house-master, in a peaked cap and a voluminous Turkish dressing-gown, does not consider it worth while to remove from his lips the long pipe with its amber mouthpiece, or to lift his eyes from off his well-worn book of devotions. He merely gives me a nod, and once more sinks his attention in the portion appointed for Chanukah.

_She_ also is intent on her reading, only _her_ book, as usual, is a novel.

My arrival makes a disagreeable impression on my pupil.

"O, I say!" and he springs up from his seat at the table, and lowers his black-ringed, little head defiantly, "lessons to-day?"

"Why not?" smiles his father.

"But it's Chanukah!" answers the boy, tapping the floor with his foot, and pointing to the first light, which has been placed in the window, behind the curtain, and fastened to a bit of wood.

"Quite right!" growls the old gentleman.

"Well, well," says the younger one, with indifference, "you must excuse him for once!"

I have an idea that _she_ has become suddenly paler, that she bends lower over her book.

I wish them all good night, but the young house-master will not let me go.

"You must stay to tea!"

"And to 'rascals with poppy-seed!'"[133] cries my pupil, joyfully. He is quite willing to be friends, so long as there is no question of "pakad, pakadti."

I am diffident as to accepting, but the boy seizes my hand, and, with a roguish smile on his restless features, he places a chair for me opposite to his sister's.

Has he observed anything? On _my_ side, of course, I mean....

_She_ is always abstracted and lost in her reading. Very likely she looks upon me as an idler, or even worse ... she does not know that I have a sick mother at home!

"It will soon be time for you to dress!" exclaims her father, impatiently.

"Soon, very soon, Tatishe!" she answers hastily, and her pale cheeks take a tinge of color.

The young house-master abandons himself once more to his reflections; my pupil sends a top spinning across the table; the old man lays down his book, and stretches out a hand for his tea.

Involuntarily I glance at the Chanukah light opposite to me in the window.

It burns so sadly, so low, as if ashamed in the presence of the great, silvered lamp hanging over the dining-table, and lighting so brilliantly the elegant tea-service.

I feel more depressed than ever, and do not observe that she is offering me a gla.s.s of tea.

"With lemon?" her melancholy voice rouses me.

"Perhaps you prefer milk?" says her father.

"Look out! the milk is smoked!" cries my pupil, warningly.

An exclamation escapes her:

"How can you be so ...!"

Silence once more. Nothing but a sound of sipping and a clink of spoons.

Suddenly my pupil is moved to inquire:

"After all, teacher, what _is_ Chanukah?"

"Ask the rabbi to-morrow in school!" says the old man, impatiently.

"Eh!" is the prompt reply, "I should think a tutor knew better than a rabbi!"

The old man casts an angry glance at his son, as if to say: "Do you see?"

"_I_ want to know about Chanukah, too!" she exclaims softly.

"Well, well," says the young house-master to me, "let us hear your version of Chanukah by all means!"

"It happened," I begin, "in the days when the Greeks oppressed us in the land of Israel. The Greeks--" But the old man interrupts me with a sour look:

"In the Benedictions it says: 'The wicked Kingdom of Javan.'"

"It comes to the same thing," observes his son, "what _we_ call Javan, _they_ call Greeks."

"The Greeks," I resume, "oppressed us terribly! It was our darkest hour.

As a nation, we were threatened with extinction. After a few ill-starred risings, the life seemed to be crushed out of us, the last gleam of hope had faded. Although in our own country, we were trodden under foot like worms."

The young house-master has long ceased to pay me any attention. His ear is turned to the door; he is intent on listening for the arrival of a guest.

But the old house-master fixes me with his eye, and, when I have a second time used the word "oppressed," he can no longer contain himself:

"A man should be explicit! 'Oppressed'--what does that convey to me?

They forced us to break the Sabbath; they forbade us to keep our festivals, to study the Law, even to practice circ.u.mcision."

"You play 'Preference'?" inquires the younger gentleman, suddenly, "or perhaps even poker?"

Once more there is silence, and I continue: "The misfortune was aggravated by the fact that the n.o.bility and the wealthy began to feel ashamed of their own people, and to adopt Greek ways of living. They used to frequent the gymnasiums."