Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance

XXII A FIRE IS ENKINDLED

In the village of Tasapevka there was a monastery. It had been built, according to legend, by the national here, Mazeppa. A high, white stone wall encircled the monastery on all sides. And, the ground that the monastery and its garden covered was equal in size to about three-fourths of the area of the village itself. Facing one wall were the shops and the warehouses of the village. At another wall were built a number of underground passages and cellars in which had hidden long ago a whole army of Haidemaks; but, now they were used for storing away apples and other thing which need to be kept in a cold place. The third wall was covered with thorns and briars, and was overhung with poplars and other trees which grew in the monastery garden, on the other side of the wall. The fourth wall was bare and smooth. In several places there were holes, where the mortar had fallen out from between the bricks, loosening them. The wall had cried out for repairs years ago, but had been neglected. And, opposite this wall, with only the roadway intervening, there stood a group of houses and wooden isbas, farmsteads and villas, occupied by Jews as well as Christians, in about equal proportions. The little road upon which the houses stood, and which was bounded by the dead wall of the monastery, was called the Monastery Road. And, there at the corner of the road, where the first clump of trees overhung the wall, there took place the first meeting between Rochalle and Stempenyu.

The reader, who has probably been accustomed to highly interesting romances, has surely been tortured enough in reading this romance down to this particular point in the narrative, for it contains neither stirring scenes nor extraordinary happenings. No one was shot, and no one was poisoned. And neither dukes nor earls have come upon the stage, so to speak. All the characters are the most ordinary, commonplace folks of everyday life — commonplace men, ordinary musicians, and plain women of rather course grain. And, the reader is probably waiting for the Sabbath evening to come round, when will be enacted the great melodramatic scene — the romantic meeting between the hero and the heroine on the Monastery Road. But, I must say in advance that the expectation is in vain. There took place no melodramatic scene; because Rochalle did not come here after the fashion of an abandoned woman — not at all like one of those wicked women of highly spiced romances who runs to kiss her lover in secret in every dark corner. No such thing! Rochalle only wanted to see Stempenyu in order to ask him how he — a mere musician — had the audacity to write her such a letter? How he dared to forget for a moment that she was the daughter-in-law of Isaac-Naphtali, and the wife of Moshe-Mendel?

“I must prevent the like from ever happening again,” she said to herself. “I will tell him what I think of him once and for all. How does the saying go, ‘Better the first tiff than the last quarrel!’ ”

That thought did not come to her suddenly. Rochalle had time all the week, and especially on the Sabbath day, to think of everything. And oh, what she had suffered on that last day! What a terrible struggle she had had with the Spirit of Evil — with temptation. No, the name of the Spirit of Evil hardly fits in here. How could it come near her — near such a good woman, a pure and virtuous woman? How could she be connected with such a fearful person as the Spirit of Evil? How could he come near to a woman like Rochalle who had never read a romance in her life, and who knew nothing at all about love affairs, excepting the one story of Chaya-Ettel — peace be unto her! How could she come to be struggling with the Evil One? Love? Nonsense! If she were not married it might have been different. She would then have been, as they say, a free bird, her head unadorned with the matron’s cap — an individual for herself. But, a married woman — and a pious woman into the bargain, of good family, full of pride — she herself stood in the way of doing what was wrong. Her own conscience was aflame with righteous indignation. She thought that she had already committed a great wrong, and felt that she could never again lift her head for shame. She wandered about the house, finding no place for herself. Now she lay down on her bed, and again she rushed out in the open air; for it seemed to her as if she were choking — as if she could not draw her breath. And, then she was overcome with a curious feeling, as if her soul could not hold itself within her, but was trying to make its escape out into the broad world. In distraction, she betook herself to the Bible. She opened the book at random, and her eyes fell upon the following passage:

“And Dinah the daughter of Leah,… went out to see the daughters of the land.

“And when Shechem the son of Hamor saw her … he took her.” And, the commentary added, “Shechem persuaded her.”

Rochalle went on reading from the Bible which Dvossa-Malka had given her for a present before she was married. She forgot, by degrees, that she was reading. Her imagination took hold of the story, and her thoughts wandered off, carrying her away towards Stempenyu, to the Monastery Road, under the beech trees, where he promised to wait for her… He was surely waiting there.

No sooner did Stempenyu come into her mind than she felt drawn towards him, as if he were a magnet and influenced her movements. She did not understand her own heart, and her own weakness.

“I should like to ask him only this,” she repeated a dozen times, for her own personal satisfaction. “I should like to know what I am to him that he should bother me in this way. What does he want of me?”

And, again Rochalle remembered her comrade, Chaya-Ettel — peace be unto her! And all that she had suffered through the falseness of Benjamin…

But, Benjamin had been Chaya-Ettel’s own cousin and foster-brother; and, at the time when she fell in love with Benjamin, she was not married, neither was he. Whilst she, Rochalle, was another man’s wife when Stempenyu came into the road; and, he too was married. Oh, how terrible it was to knock up against such hard facts as these! She shuddered at the thought of them.

And he, Stempenyu? He was no more than a wandering musician. Why did he get in her way? What was he to her that he should write her letters? Surely, he had no right whatever to do any such thing. The cheek of him — the cheek of that good-for-nothing!

“If the world were to turn upside down,” she said to herself repeatedly, “if the world were to turn itself upside down, I must see him, and must tell him what I think of him. Why should I be afraid of him? I will see him — I will see him without fail. No one will see me. I will steal out for a minute. It is not far. It is only over the road. I shall be home again before they miss me.”

And, Rochalle looked through the open window, on the Monastery Road, and saw the trees — the tall beeches and poplars as they stood erect in all their pride and glory. And, she heard the songs of the birds that had their nests in the branches. How beautifully they sang from out the garden! Rochalle’s fanciful thoughts, her fantasies, went out yonder, where, in an hour, or perhaps less she would talk to Stempenyu and see him, eye to eye. And, she felt her heart beating wildly within her. She was breathing heavily, as if a great struggle were going on within her. And, the truth — the truth must be told — was that the minutes were terribly long to her. She could hardly contain herself. She wished that it were evening already. She counted the minutes until her father-in-law and her husband came back from the evening prayer at the synagogue, and when her mother-in-law would change her Sabbath dress for her everyday one, and begin to fuss around the somovar, and heat the oven, to make the great Saturday night supper, at which there were always a houseful of visitors. Then would come the moment when she, Rochalle, would throw a shawl about her shoulders and steal out, quietly, through the door, and into the street, as if she were going for a walk. Who would notice that she was going to—? Where? Her limbs trembled and her cheeks were aflame. And her heart? Oh, her heart was almost throbbing out of her body. As the minutes went by, she felt herself being drawn more and more to the spot where Stempenyu was waiting for her, until she could think of no one and nothing else.

She did not see what lay about her. She saw only the trees of the monastery garden — only Stempenyu with his great blazing eyes like two living coals. She heard nothing. The murmur of voices about her did not reach her. She was listening to an imaginary sound — to the sweet melodies that came forth from the little fiddle, at the touch of Stempenyu’s hand.

Rochalle was entirely filled with one desire — to see Stempenyu and to be near him. She thought only of him.

And, she felt that there was nothing in the whole world which could hinder her, or prevent her from carrying out what she wished to do from the very bottom of her heart — from going to meet Stempenyu.