Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance

XII ROCHALLE SINGS HER LITTLE SONGS

That was how Rochalle lived her life at the period when she first came upon Stempenyu, at the wedding of Chayam-Benzion’s daughter.

We left her standing at the door, on the morning after the wedding, gazing dreamily at the scene before her — the market square of Tasapevka — the shops, the booths, and the wagon drawn by oxen, and the peasant boy in the large hat.

That was the life she was leading when, for the first time, she heard the wonderful sounds that came forth from Stempenyu’s fiddle.

She was passionately fond of music, and she had always wanted to hear a good musician, and to know him personally, if possible. When she heard anyone playing or singing, she tried to repeat the melody afterwards in her low, sweet voice. Her parents used to say of her that it was a great pity she was born a woman. She had a man’s talents in a woman’s body. If she were a man she would have set the world on fire.

It seemed that her parents did not understand that Rochalle had within her a certain power — a certain something which we, in our day, call by the name of Talent. But to them, her parents, it seemed that Rochalle’s power of picking up a melody, and afterwards repeating it accurately — this power, they thought, lay in her brain, and not in her quick ear. They thought she could do this remarkable thing because she had the cleverness which had, from time immemorial, been the special prerogative of the male sex.

Amongst us Jews, brains play the most important parting the regulation of our lives — much more so than the rest of our capacities, and our limbs and bones and muscles combined — the two hundred forty parts, as well call them.

A good head! A good little head! That is the finest thing among us.

To return to our story:

Rochalle sand until she was about fifteen or sixteen years old, as if she were a little bird to whom the whole universe was as free as the air itself. No matter what she heard, whether it was the Cantor singing in the synagogue, or a simple ballad sung by a wandering minstrel — a beggar, or a song which the people around her were in the habit of singing, or a melody that no one else could play but the orchestras which came into the village when there was a wedding — no matter what it was, Rochalle was sure to sing it soon after, in her low, clear and sweet voice. It was worth while listening to her, and the village looked upon her as a source of amusement. But, the moment she was the affianced wife of Moshe-Mendel, her mother said to her:

“Phew! It is enough, my daughter! You will have to give up singing now. When you are living with your parents in law, how will it look if you suddenly start squealing like a bird? What would the people say to that?”

Rochalle recognized that it was considered unseemly to sing. She took her mother’s advice, and never sang any more. Not that she never sang at all. Quite unconsciously, she used to break into song now and again.

It was not her fault if she sometimes forgot what was expected of her. If she sang, it was not because she wished to shame her husband’s relatives. When one comes upon the source of a river one may stop it from flowing. But when one does not see — when one does not know whence it comes, one cannot stop it. Not only during the time when she was merely engaged to Moshe-Mendel, but even after she was married to him, it happened many times that she forgot herself completely, and began to sing as of old, just as she used to do when she was a little girl, and cold sing as much as she liked without fear of breaking the code of laws laid down for married women. On one or two occasions she forgot that her mother-in-law was in the room, and that she heard every word she sang:

“Oh, there, of, there,

On yonder spot,

Two little doves are standing.

They talk and they kiss—

But what can they have to say?

They kiss and they talk—

But what have they to say?”

“Oh, goodness gracious me! See what I have done!” cried Rochalle, pulling herself up short, as her eyes fell on her mother-in-law.

“Well, well, I don’t know!” was the other’s reassuring answer. She swung out her arms and thrust her nose forward. “See, Rochalle,” she added, “I am afraid the gooseberries are almost too ripe for the jam. Last year that happened to me, and I lost half a load of gooseberries.”

As for singing before Moshe-Mendel — nothing on earth would have induced her to do it. She felt that it would be altogether too extravagant a thing to go and open her mouth in front of her husband, and to sing into his eyes. She was sure that such a thing had never been heard of. It may be that Moshe-Mendel would not have refused to listen to her. Indeed, he might even have gone so far as to show is appreciation of her voice. He had heard her sing an odd note at different times; and he knew that she had a sweet voice. But, how would it have looked if he had suddenly taken it into his head to stay at home and listen to his wife singing little songs? A nice thing for a respectable man to occupy himself with! It would mean that he deliberately gave the villagers something to talk about, putting it into their very mouths.

On the few occasions when Rochalle had been singing in his hearing she had not known that he was near to her. He had listened to her for a little while, and then he coughed discreetly, to show her that he had only arrived on the spot, after which he came boldly forward into the middle of the room.

A whole year passed by. Rochalle was surrounded by good friends and true; but, in spite of that, she felt very lonely. She was neither happy nor unhappy. Her strongest feelings were of loneliness, despite the goodness and the kindness which met her on all sides.

Often, as she sat over her needlework, she would forget where she was, and would start singing. And, always the song reminded her of home and childhood. Her heart melted within her as the memories crowded fast on top of one another.

“It flies, and it flies,

The golden bird,

Over a thousand seas!

Oh, carry my greetings,

Oh, golden bird,

To my mother so far from me!”

Dvossa-Malka was in the habit of stealing over on tip-toe until she was close enough to Rochalle to hear was she was singing. And, when she took in he meaning of the doggered verse, she would say:

“What is the matter, Rochalle? Are you longing for your old home?”

“Oh, no, no, no! I was just singing a little song to myself! Rochalle made haste to reply. She smiled up to Dvossa-Malka — a wistful, tender smile, as she forced back the tears which were rising to her eyes.