Jewish Children Part 30

"Joseph," he repeated.

"Yousef," I corrected him, once again.

"With us it's Joseph. With you it's Youdsef," he said to me, and pinched my cheek. "Joseph, Youdsef, Youdsef, Dsodsepf--what does it matter? It is all the same."

"Ha! ha! ha!"

I buried my face in my hands, and laughed heartily.

But from the day I became a bridegroom-elect, Tchitchick gave up playing with me as if I were a clown; and he began to talk to me as if I were his equal. He told me stories of the regiment and of musicians. "Mr.

Sergeant" had a tremendous lot of talk in him. But no one else excepting myself had the time to listen to him. On one occasion he began to talk to me of playing. And I asked him:

"On which instrument does 'Mr. Sergeant' play?"

"On all instruments," he answered, and raised his eyebrows at me.

"On the fiddle, also?" I asked him. And all at once he took on, in my imagination, the face of an angel.

"Come over to me some day," he said, "and I will play for you."

"When can I come to you Mr. Sargeant, if not on the Sabbath day?" I asked. "But I can only come on condition that no-one knows anything about it." "Can you promise that?"

"As I serve G.o.d," he exclaimed, and lifted his eyebrows at me.

Tchitchick lived far out of town. In a little white house that had tidy windows and painted shutters. Leading up to it, there was a big green garden from out of which peeked proudly a number of tall, yellow sunflowers. As if they were something important. They bent their heads a little to one side and shook themselves to and fro. It seemed to me that they were calling out to me, "Come over here to us, boy." "There is gra.s.s here. There is freedom here. There is light here. It is fresh here. It is warm here. It is pleasant here." And after the stench and heat and dust of the town, and after the overcrowding and the noise and the tumult of the school, one was indeed glad to get here because there is gra.s.s here. It is fresh here. It is bright here. It is warm here. It is pleasant here. One longs to run, leap shout and sing. Or else one wants suddenly to throw oneself on the bear earth. To bury one's face in the green sweet smelling gra.s.s.

But alas, this is not for you Jewish children. Yellow sunflowers, green leaves, fresh air, pure earth or a clear day. Do not be offended Jewish children. But all these have not grown up out of your rubbish.

I was met by a big, s.h.a.ggy-haired dog with red, fiery eyes. He fell upon me with so much fierceness that the soul almost dropped out of my body.

It was fortunate that he was tied up with a rope.

On hearing my screams, Tchitchick flew out without his jacket and began ordering the dog to be silent. And he was silent.

Afterwards, Tchitchick took hold of my hand, led me straight to the black dog and told me not to be afraid. He would not harm me.

"Just try and pat him on the back," said Tchitchick to me. And without waiting, took hold of my hand and drew it all over the dog's skin. At the same time calling him many curious names and speaking kind words to him.

The black villain lowered his head, wagged his tail and licked himself with his tongue. He threw at me a glance of contempt. As if he would say, "It's lucky for you that my master is standing beside you.

Otherwise you would have gone from here without a hand."

I got over my terror of the dog. I entered the house with Mr. Sargeant and I was struck dumb with astonishment. All the walls were covered with guns. From top to bottom. And on the floor lay a skin with the head of a lion or a leopard. It had terribly sharp teeth. But the lion was half an evil. After all, it was dead. But the guns. The guns! I did not even care about the fresh plums and the apples which the master of the house offered me out of his own garden. My eyes did not cease leaping from one wall to the other.... But later on, when Tchitchick took a little fiddle out of a red drawer--a beautiful, round little fiddle, with a curious little belly, let his big spreading beard droop over it, and held it with his big strong hands, and drew the bow across the strings a few times, backwards and forwards, I forgot, in the blinking of an eye, the black dog and the terrible lion, and the loaded guns. I only saw before me Tchitchick's spreading beard and his black, lowered eyebrows. I only saw a round little fiddle with a curious little belly, and fingers which danced over the strings so rapidly that no human brain could answer the questions which arose to my mind: "Where does one get so many fingers?"

Presently, Tchitchick and his spreading beard, vanished, along with his thick eyebrows and his wonderful fingers. And I saw nothing at all before me. I only heard a singing, a groaning, a weeping, a sobbing, a talking, and a growling. They were extraordinary, peculiar sounds that I heard, the like of which I had never heard before, in all my life.

Sounds sweet as honey, and smooth as oil were pouring themselves right into my heart, without ceasing. And my soul went off somewhere far from the little house, into another world, into a Garden of Eden which was nothing else but beautiful sounds--which was one ma.s.s of singing, from beginning to end....

"Do you want some tea?" asked Tchitchick of me, putting down the little fiddle, and slapping me on the shoulder.

I felt as if I had fallen down from the seventh heaven on to the earth.

From that day I visited Tchitchick regularly every Sabbath afternoon, to hear him playing the fiddle. I went straight to the house. I was afraid of no one; and I even became such good friends with the black dog that, when he saw me, he wagged his tail, and wanted to fall upon me to lick my hands. I would not let him do this. "Let us rather be good friends from the distance."

At home not even a bird knew where I spent the Sabbath afternoons. I was a bridegroom-elect, after all. And no one would have known of my visits to Tchitchick to this day, if a new misfortune had not befallen me--a great misfortune, of which I will now tell you.

Surely it is no one's affair if a Jewish young man goes for a walk on the Sabbath afternoon a little beyond the town? Have people really got nothing better to do than to think of others and look after them to see where they are going? But of what use are such questions as these? It lies in our nature, in the Jewish nature, I mean, to look well after every one else, to criticize others and advise them. For example, a Jew will go over to his neighbour, at prayers, and straighten out the "Frontispiece" of his phylacteries. Or he will stop his neighbour, who is running with the greatest haste and excitement, to tell him that the leg of his trouser is turned up. Or he will point his finger at his neighbour, so that the other shall not know what is amiss with him, whether it is his nose, or his beard, or what the deuce is wrong with him. Or a Jew will take a thing out of his neighbour's hand, when the other is struggling to open it, and will say to him: "You don't know how. Let me." Or should he see his neighbour building a house, he will come over to look for a fault in it. He says he believes the ceiling is too high, the rooms are too small, or the windows are awkwardly large.

And there seems nothing else left the builder to do but scatter the house to pieces, and start it all over again.... We Jews have been distinguished by this habit of interfering from time immemorial--from the very first day on which the world was created. And you and I between us will never alter the world full of Jews. It is not our duty to even attempt it....

After this long introduction, it will be easy for you to understand how Ephraim Log-of-wood--a Jew who was a black stranger to me, and who did not care a b.u.t.ton for any of us--should poke his nose into my affairs.

He sniffed and smelled my tracks, and found out where I went on Sabbath afternoons, and got me into trouble. He swore that he himself saw me eating forbidden food at the house of "Mr. Sergeant," and that I was smoking a cigarette on the Sabbath. "May I see myself enjoying all that is good!" he cried. "If it is not as I say, may I never get to the place where I am going," he said. "And if I am uttering the least word of falsehood, may my mouth be twisted to one side, and may my two eyes drop out of my head," he added.

"Amen! May it be so," I cried.

And I caught from my father another smack in the face. I must not be insolent, he told me....

But I imagine I am rus.h.i.+ng along too quickly with my story. I am giving you the soup before the fish. I was forgetting entirely to tell you who Ephraim Log-of-wood was, and what he was, and how the incident happened.

At the end of the town, on the other side of the bridge, there lived a Jew named Ephraim Log-of-wood. Why was he called Log-of-wood? Because he had once dealt in timber. And today he is not dealing in timber because something happened to him. He said it was libel, a false accusation.

People found at his place a strange log of wood with a strange name branded on it. And he had a fine lot of trouble after that. He had a case, and he had appeals, and he had to send pet.i.tions. He just managed to escape from being put into prison. From that time, he threw away all trading, and betook himself to looking after public matters. He pushed himself into all inst.i.tutions, the tax-collecting, and the work done at the House of Learning. Generally speaking, he was not so well off. He was often put to shame publicly. But as time went on, he insinuated himself into everybody's bones. He gave people to understand that "He knew where a door was opening." And in the course of time, Ephraim became a useful person, a person it was hard to do without. That is how a worm manages to crawl into an apple. He makes himself comfortable, makes a soft bed for himself, makes himself a home, and in time becomes the real master of the house.

In person, Ephraim was a tiny little man. He had short little legs, and small little hands, and red little cheeks, and a quick walk which was a sort of a little dance. And he tossed his little head about. His speech was rapid, and his voice squeaky. And he laughed with a curious little laugh which sounded like the rattling of dried peas. I could not bear to look at him, I don't know why. Every Sabbath afternoon, when I was going to Tchitchick's, I used to meet Ephraim on the bridge, walking along, in a black, patched cloak, the sleeves of which hung loosely over his shoulders. His hands were folded in front of him, and he was singing in his thin little voice. And the ends of his long cloak kept dangling at his heels.

"A good Sabbath," I said to him.

"A good Sabbath," he replied. "And where is a boy going?"

"Just for a walk," I said.

"For a walk? All alone?" he asked. And he looked straight into my eyes with such a little smile that it was hard to guess what he meant by it--whether he thought that it was very brave of me to be walking all alone or not. Was it, in his opinion, a wise thing to do, or a foolish?

On one occasion, when I was going to Tchitchick's house, I noticed that Ephraim Log-of-wood was looking at me very curiously. I stopped on the bridge and gazed into the water. Ephraim also stopped on the bridge, and he also gazed into the water. I started to go back. He followed me. I turned round again, to go forward, and he also turned round in the same direction. A few minutes later, he was lost to me. When I was sitting at Tchitchick's table, drinking tea, we heard the black dog barking loudly at some one, and tearing at his rope. We looked out of the window, and I imagined I saw a low-sized, black figure with short little legs, running, running. Then it disappeared from view. From his manner of running, I could have sworn the little creature was Ephraim Log-of-wood.

And thus it came to pa.s.s--

I came home late that Sabbath evening. It was already after the "_Havdalah_." My face was burning. And I found Ephraim Log-of-wood sitting at the table. He was talking very rapidly, and was laughing with his curious little laugh. When he saw me, he was silent. He started drumming on the table with his short little fingers. Opposite him sat my father. His face was death-like. He was pulling at his beard, tearing out the hairs one by one. This was a sure sign that he was in a temper.

"Where have you come from?" my father asked of me and looked at Ephraim.

"Where am I to come from?" said I.

"How do I know where you are to come from?" said he. "You tell me where you have come from. You know better than I."

"From the House of Learning," said I.

"And where were you the whole day?" said he.