The Rise of David Levinsky Part 3

"I don't know. It was a boy in the street."

"You are a liar."

The next morning when I went to cheder she accompanied me

Arrived there, she stripped me half-naked and, pointing at the discoloration on my arm, she said, with ominous composure: "Look! Whose work is it?"

"Mine," Shmerl answered, without removing his long-stemmed pipe from his wide mouth. He was no coward

"And you are proud of it, are you?" "If you don't like it you can take your ornament of a son along with you.

Clear out, you witch!"

She flew at him and they clenched. When they had separated, some of his hair was in her hand, while her arms, as she subsequently owned to me, were marked with the work of his expert fingers.

Another schoolmaster had a special predilection for digging the huge nail of his thumb into the side of his victim, a peculiarity for which he had been named "the Cossack," his famous thumb being referred to by the boys as his spear. He had a pa.s.sion for inventing new and complex modes of punishment, his spear figuring in most of them. One of his methods of inflicting pain was to slap the boy's face with one hand and to prod his side with the thumb of the other, the slaps and the thrusts alternating rhythmically. This heartless wretch was an abject coward. He was afraid of thunder, of rats, spiders, dogs, and, above all, of his wife, who would call him indecent names in our presence. I abhorred him, yet when he was thus humiliated I felt pity for him His wife kept a stand on a neighboring street corner, where she sold cheap cakes and candy, and those of her husband's pupils who were on her list of "good customers" were sure of immunity from his spear. As I scarcely ever had a penny, he could safely beat me whenever he was so disposed

CHAPTER IV

THE Cossack had a large family and one of his daughters, a little girl, named Sarah-Leah, was the heroine of my first romance.

Sarah-Leah had the misfortune to bear a striking resemblance to a sister of her father's, an offense which her mother never forgave her. She treated her as she might a stepdaughter. As for the Cossack, he may have cared for the child, but if he did he dared not show it. Poor little Sarah-Leah! She was the outcast of the family just as I was the outcast of her father's school.

She was about eleven years old and I was somewhat younger. The similarity of our fates and of our self-pity drew us to each other.

When her father beat me I was conscious of her commiserating look, and when she was mistreated by her mother she would cast appealing glances in my direction. Once when the teacher punished me with special cruelty her face twitched and she broke into a whimper, whereupon he gave her a kick, saying: "Is it any business of yours? Thank G.o.d your own skin has not been peeled off."

Once during the lunch hour, when we were alone, Sarah-Leah and I, in a corner of the courtyard, she said: "You are so strong, Davie!

Nothing hurts you."

"Nothing at all. I could stand everything," I bragged

"You could not, if I bit your finger."

"Go ahead!" I said, with bravado, holding out my hand. She dug her teeth into one of my fingers. It hurt so that I involuntarily ground my own teeth, but I smiled

"Does it not hurt you, Davie?" she asked, with a look of admiration

"Not a bit. Go on, bite as hard as you can."

She did, the cruel thing, and like many an older heroine, she would not desist until she saw her lover's blood

"It still does not hurt, does it?" she asked, wiping away a red drop from her lips.

I shook my head contemptuously

"When you are a man you will be strong as Samson the Strong."

I was the strongest boy in her father's school. She knew that most of the other boys were afraid of me, but that did not seem to interest her. At least when I began to boast of it she returned to my ability "to stand punishment," as the pugilists would put it

One day one of my schoolmates aroused her admiration by the way he "played" taps with his fist for a trumpet. I tried to imitate him, but failed grievously. The other boy laughed and Sarah-Leah joined him. That was my first taste of the bitter cup called jealousy

I went home a lovelorn boy

I took to practising "taps." I was continually trumpeting. I kept at it so strenuously that my mother had many a quarrel with our room-mates because of it

My efforts went for nothing, however. My rival, and with him my lady love, continued to sneer at my performances

I had only one teacher who never beat me, or any of the other boys.

Whatever anger we provoked in him would spend itself in threats, and even these he often turned to a joke, in a peculiar vein of his own

"If you don't behave I'll cut you to pieces," he would say. "I'll just cut you to tiny bits and put you into my pipe and you'll go up in smoke." Or, "I'll give you such a thras.h.i.+ng that you won't be able to sit down, stand up, or lie down. The only thing you'll be able to do is to fly--to the devil."

This teacher used me as a living advertis.e.m.e.nt for his school. He would take me from house to house, flaunting my recitations and interpretations. Very often the pa.s.sage which he thus made me read was a lesson I had studied under one of his predecessors, but I never gave him away

Every cheder had its king. As a rule, it was the richest boy in the school, but I was usually the power behind the throne. Once one of these potentates (it was at the school of that kindly man) mimicked my mother hugging her pot of pea mush

"If you do it again I'll kill you," I said

"If you lay a finger on me," he retorted, "the teacher will kick you out.

Your mother doesn't pay him, anyhow."

I flew at him. His Majesty tearfully begged for mercy. Since then he was under my thumb and never omitted to share his ring-shaped rolls or apples with me

Often when a boy ate something that was beyond my mother's means--a cookie or a slice of b.u.t.tered white bread--I would eye him enviously till he complained that I made him choke. Then I would go on eying him until he bribed me off with a piece of the tidbit. If staring alone proved futile I might try to bring him to terms by naming all sorts of loathsome objects. At this it frequently happened that the prosperous boy threw away his cookie from sheer disgust, whereupon I would be mean enough to pick it up and to eat it in triumph, calling him something equivalent to "Sissy."

The compliments that were paid my brains were ample compensation for my mother's struggles. Sending me to work was out of the question. She was resolved to put me in a Talmudic seminary. I was the "crown of her head" and she was going to make a "fine Jew" of me. Nor was she a rare exception in this respect, for there were hundreds of other poor families in our town who would starve themselves to keep their sons studying the Word of G.o.d

Whenever one of the neighbors suggested that I be apprenticed to some artisan she would flare up. On one occasion a suggestion of this kind led to a violent quarrel

One afternoon when we happened to pa.s.s by a bookstore she stopped me in front of the window and, pointing at some huge volumes of the Talmud, she said: "This is the trade I am going to have you learn, and let our enemies grow green with envy."

BOOK II

ENTER SATAN

CHAPTER I

THE Talmudic seminary, or yes.h.i.+vah, in which my mother placed me was a celebrated old inst.i.tution, attracting students from many provinces. Like most yes.h.i.+vahs, it was sustained by donations, and instruction in it was free. Moreover, out-of-town students found shelter under its roof, sleeping on the benches or floors of the same rooms in which the lectures were delivered and studied during the day. Also, they were supplied with a pound of rye bread each for breakfast. As to the other meals, they were furnished by the various households of the orthodox community. I understand that some school-teachers in certain villages of New England get their board on the rotation plan, dining each day in the week with another family. This is exactly the way a poor Talmud student gets his sustenance in Russia, the system being called "eating days."

One hour a day was devoted to penmans.h.i.+p and a sorry smattering of Russian, the cost of tuition and writing-materials being paid by a "modern" philanthropist

I was admitted to that seminary at the age of thirteen. As my home was in the city, I neither slept in the cla.s.sroom nor "ate days."