Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

TO THE READER

I do a lot of traveling. You’ll find me on the road nearly eleven months of the year. Generally I go by train; most often third class; and almost always to towns and villages where there are Jews, since my business doesn’t take me to places Jews are barred from.

My goodness, the things one sees traveling! It’s a pity I’m not a writer. And yet come to think of it, what makes me say I’m not? What’s a writer, after all? Anyone can be one, and especially in a hodgepodge like our Yiddish. What’s the big fuss about? You pick up a pen and you write!

Come to think of it again, though, writing is not for everyone. We should all stick to what we work at for a living, that’s my opinion, because each of us has to make one. And if you don’t work at anything, that’s work too.

Still, since we travelers often spend whole days on end sitting and looking out the window until we want to bang our heads against the wall, one day I had an idea: I went and bought myself a pencil and a notebook and began jotting down everything I saw and heard on my trips. I don’t mean to boast, but you can see for yourself that I’ve gathered quite a lot of material. Why, it might take you a whole year just to read it all. What, I wondered, should I do with it? It would be a crime to throw it away. Why not, I thought, publish it in a newspaper or a book? God knows that worse stuff gets into print.

And so I sat down and sorted out my goods, throwing out whatever wasn’t up to scratch and keeping only the very best quality, which I divided up into stories — story number one, story number two, and so on, giving each a proper name to make it more professional. I have no idea if I’ll turn a profit on this venture or end up losing my shirt. Quite frankly, I’ll be happy to break even.

But whatever possessed me, you ask, to invest in such a business in the first place? For the life of me, I can’t tell you the answer. Maybe it was a ridiculous thing to do, but there’s no going back on it now. I did take one precaution, though, and that’s against the critics, because I’ve kept my real name a secret. They can try guessing it till they burst! Let them criticize, let them laugh at me, let them climb the walls all they want — it will bother me as much as a catcall on Purim bothers Haman. After all, I’m no scribbler, no ten-o’clock-scholar begging for a job — I’m a commercial traveler and I pay my own way!

COMPETITORS

Always, right in the middle of the worst pandemonium, when Jews are pushing to get in and out and fighting for each seat as though it were in the front row of the synagogue, there the two of them are: him and her.

He’s squat, dark, unkempt, with a cataract in one eye. She’s redheaded, gaunt, and pockmarked. Both are dressed in old rags, both have patches on their shoes, and both are carrying the same thing: a basket. His basket is full of braided rolls, hard-boiled eggs, oranges, and bottled seltzer water. Her basket is full of braided rolls, hard-boiled eggs, oranges, and bottled seltzer water too.

Sometimes he turns up with bags of red or black cherries and green grapes sour as vinegar. Then she also turns up with red or black cherries and green grapes sour as vinegar.

Both always appear together, fight to get through the same door of the same car, and give the same sales spiel, though with different manners of speaking. His is liquid, as though his tongue were melting in his mouth. Hers is lisping, as though her tongue kept getting in her way.

Maybe you think they undersell one another, vie for customers, war over prices? Not a chance! They charge the same amount for everything. The competition between them consists solely of seeing who can make you feel sorrier for whom. Both beg you to have pity on their five orphaned children (his five are motherless, hers have no father) while looking you right in the eye; both shove their goods in your face; and both talk such a blue streak at you that you end up buying something whether you meant to or not.

The trouble is that all their wheedling and whining leaves you confused. Whose customer should you be, his or hers? Because if you think you can get around it by buying from each, they quickly disabuse you of the notion. “Look here, mister,” they tell you, “you either buy from one or the other. You can’t dance at two weddings at once!”

Worse yet, try to be fair and take turns, once him and once her, and you’ll get it from them both. “What’s the matter, mister,” she’ll say, “don’t you like my dress today?” Or else he says to you, “Mister! Just last week you bought from me. Do you mean to tell me my goods poisoned you?”

If you harbor humanitarian sentiments, moreover, and start preaching to them that each is a human being who has to eat — in a word, that they should live and let live, as the English like to say — they’ll answer you right back, and not in English either, but in a simple Yiddish that may sound a wee bit cryptic though it’s really quite understandable: “Brother! You can’t ride one ass to two fairs!”

You see how it is, my dear friends. There’s no pleasing everyone. It’s hopeless even to try, and the more you play the peacemaker, the less peaceful things become. That’s something I know from experience. In fact, I could tell you a good one about how once I was foolish enough to butt in on a married couple in order to make up between them — the outcome of which was that I took it on the chin from my own wife! I don’t want to digress, though. True, it happens even in business that you sometimes put aside one thing to talk about all kinds of others, in fact, about everything under the sun; but we had better get back to our story.

One rainy day in autumn when the sky was weeping buckets and a black pall hung over everything, the station was crawling with people. Passengers kept piling in and out, all of them hurrying, all of them jostling, and most of all, of course, our Jews. Everyone was climbing over everyone with suitcases and packages and bundles made of bedclothes. And the noise, the sheer commotion — what a racket! Just then, in the midst of all this bedlam, there they were: him and her, both loaded down with edibles as usual. As usual, too, both hurled themselves through the same door of the train at once. Only then … goodness me, what had happened? Suddenly both baskets were on the ground and all the rolls and eggs and oranges and seltzer bottles were rolling about in the mud to an uproar of shouts, shrieks, tears, and curses mingled with the laughter of the conductors and the din of the passengers. A bell rang, the train whistled, and in another minute we were off.

There was a babble of voices in the car. Our fellow Israelites were giving their tongues an airing, everyone gabbling together like women in a synagogue or geese in the marketplace. So many different conversations were going on all at once that one could only make out snatches of each.

“What a massacre of rolls!”

“What a pogrom of eggs!”

“What did he have against those oranges?”

“Why ask? A goy is a goy!”

“How much would you say all that food was worth?”

“It serves them right! It’s time they stopped getting on everyone’s nerves.”

“But what do you want from them? A Jew has to make a living.”

“Ha ha, that’s a good one!” said a thick bass voice. “What Jews don’t call making a living!”

“What’s wrong with how Jews make a living?” piped a squeaky voice. “Do you have any better ways to make one? Why don’t you tell us about them!”

“I wasn’t talking to you, young fellow!” the bass voice thundered.

“You weren’t? But I’m talking to you. Do you have any better ways to make a living?… Well, why don’t you say something? Speak up!”

“Will somebody please tell me what this young man wants from me?”

“What do I want from you? You don’t like how Jews make a living, so I’m asking you to tell us a better way. Let’s hear it!”

“Just look how he’s leeched on to me!”

“Shhh, all of you! Stop talking about it. Here she comes.”

“Who?”

“The basket woman.”

“Where? Where is our beauty queen?”

“Right over there!”

Pockmarked and redheaded, her eyes puffy with tears, she struggled through the passengers looking for a place until she finally sat down on her overturned basket, hid her face in her tattered shawl, and resumed crying silently into it.

An odd hush came over the car. Everyone stopped talking. No one let out a peep. Except, that is, for one person, who called out in a heavy bass voice:

“Jews! Why so quiet?”

“What’s there to shout about?” someone asked.

“Let’s pass the hat around!”

So help me! And do you know who the kind heart was? None other than the same character who had laughed at how Jews make a living, a queer-looking fellow with a queer-looking flat, glossy-brimmed cap and blue-tinted glasses that hid his eyes completely: there simply were none to be seen above his fat, fleshy bulb of a nose. Without further ado he took the cap from his head, threw a few silver coins into it, and went from one passenger to another, booming in his bass voice:

“Give what you can, children! All donations are welcome. Darovanomu konyu vzuby nye smotryat—that means, according to Rashi, that we won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Folks began rummaging through their pockets and purses, and all sorts of coins, both silver and copper, were soon clinking in the cap. There was even a Christian there, a Russian with high boots and a silver chain around his neck, who yawned, crossed himself, and gave something too. In the whole car one passenger alone refused to part with a kopeck — and that, of all people, was the very same individual who had taken up the cudgel for Jewish livings, an intellectual-looking young man with pasty cheeks, a pointy yellow beard, and gold pince-nez on his nose. You could see he was one of those types with rich parents and in-laws who travel third class to economize.

“Young fellow,” said the Jew with the blue glasses and big nose, “let’s have something for the hat.”

“I’m not giving,” said our intellectual.

“Why not?”

“Because. It’s a matter of principle with me.”

“You didn’t have to tell me that.”

“Why not?”

“Because vedno pana po kholavakh—that means, according to Rashi, that you can tell a rotten apple by its peel.”

The young man flared up so that he almost lost his pince-nez. “You’re an ignoramus!” he squeaked furiously at the man with the blue glasses. “You’re a cheeky, insolent, impudent, impertinent illiterate!”

“Thank God I’m all of that and not a two-legged animal that oinks,” answered the man with the big nose in a surprisingly good-natured tone of voice before turning to the puffy-eyed woman and saying, “There, there, Auntie, don’t you think you’ve cried enough? You’ll ruin your pretty eyes if you don’t stop. Here, hold out your hands and I’ll fill them with a bit of spare change.”

A strange woman if ever there was one! You might have thought that, seeing all the cash, she would have thanked him from the bottom of her heart. In fact she did nothing of the sort. Instead of thanks, a volley of oaths spewed forth from her. She was a veritable fountain of them.

“It’s all his fault. I hope he breaks his neck! I pray to God he breaks every bone in his body! He’s to blame for everything — I only wish, dear Father in heaven, that everything happens to him! He shouldn’t live to cross his own threshold! He should die a hundred times from a fire, from a fever, from an earthquake, from a plague, from an ill wind that carries him away! He should croak! He should burst! He should dry up like a puddle! He should swell like a dead fish!”

Good Lord, where did one person get so many curses from? It was a lucky thing that the man with the blue glasses interrupted her and said:

“That’s enough of your kind wishes, my good woman. Why don’t you tell us why the conductors had it in for you?”

The woman looked at him with her puffy eyes.

“I only hope he gets a stroke! He was afraid I’d take his customers away, so he tried pushing ahead of me, so I elbowed him out of the way, so he grabbed my basket from behind, so I started to scream, so a policeman came along and winked to the conductors, so they threw both our baskets in the mud. God turn his blood to mud! I swear to you, may I hope to die if I’ve ever been bothered before or had a hair harmed on my head in all the years I’ve been working this line. Do you know why that is? It’s not from the milk of human kindness, believe me. He should only get a box in the ear for each free roll and hard-boiled egg I’ve handed out in that station! Everyone, from top to bottom, has to get his share of the pie. I hope to God they get all of it some day: one of them consumption, another a fever, another the cholera! The chief conductor takes what he wants, and the other conductors help themselves too to a roll, or an egg, or an orange. What can I tell you? Would you believe that even the stoker, a pox on his head, thinks he has a bite coming? I wish his ears were bitten off! He keeps threatening to rat on me to the policeman unless I give him something to eat. If only he knew, may the gout get his bones, that the policeman gets a cut too. Every Sunday I slip him a bagful of oranges to buy him off for the week. And don’t think he doesn’t choose the biggest, the sweetest, the juiciest fruit …”

“Auntie,” said the man with the blue glasses, interrupting her again, “judging by the volume of business you do, you must be making a mint.”

“What are you talking about?” the woman shot back as though her honor were impugned. “I barely manage to meet the overhead. I’ve been taking such a skinning that I’m at starvation’s door.”

“Then what do you go on for?”

“What do you want me to do, steal for a living? I have five children at home, may he get five ulcers in his stomach, and I’m a sick woman too, he should only, dear God, lie sick in the poor-house until the end of next year! Just look how he’s killed the business, buried it in the ground — it’s a pity he wasn’t buried with it. And what a good business it was, too. I couldn’t have asked for a better one.”

“A good business?”

“As good as gold! Why, I was raking it in.”

“But, Auntie, didn’t you just tell me you were starving?”

“That’s because fifty percent goes to the conductors and the Stationmaster and the policeman every Sunday. Do you take me for a gold mine? A buried treasure? A bank robber?”

The man with the blue glasses and the fleshy nose was getting exasperated. “Auntie!” he said. “You’re making me dizzy!”

“I’m making you? My troubles are making you — they should only make a corpse out of him! I hope to God he’s ruined just as he ruined me! Why, he was nothing but a tailor, a needle pusher; he didn’t earn enough to buy the water to boil his kasha in. It made him green with envy to see how well I was doing, the eyes should fall out of his head, and that I brought home enough to eat, he should only be eaten by worms, and that I was supporting five orphaned children with my basket, may he swallow a basket of salt that turns to rocks in his belly! That’s when he went, I hope he goes and drops dead, and bought a basket too, may I soon buy the shrouds for his funeral! ‘What do you call this?’ I asked him. ‘A basket,’ he says. ‘And just what do you intend to do with it?’ I asked him. ‘The same thing that you do,’ he says. ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked him. ‘What I’m talking about,’ he says, ‘is that I have five children who have to eat too, and who aren’t going to be fed by you …’ What do you say to that? And ever since then, as you’ve seen for yourselves, he follows me around with his basket, may he be followed by the Angel of Death, and takes away my customers, I wish he’d be taken by the Devil, and steals the bread from my mouth — oh, dear sweet God, You should knock the teeth out of his!”

That gave the man with the blue glasses an idea that had in fact occurred to the rest of us. “But why do you both have to work the same train?”

The woman gave him a puffy-eyed stare. “What should we do, then?”

“Split up. The line is big enough for both of you.”

“You mean leave him?”

“Leave who?”

“My second husband.”

“What second husband?”

The pockmarked red face turned even redder.

“What do you mean, what second husband? The schlimazel we’re talking about. A black day it was that I married him!”

We nearly fell out of our seats.

“That man you’re competing with is your second husband?”

“Who did you think he was, my first? Eh! If only my first, God bless him, were still alive …”

So she said, the basket woman, in a singsong voice, and started to tell us about her first husband. But who was listening? Everyone was talking, everyone was joking, everyone was making wisecracks, and everyone was laughing till his sides split …

Maybe you know what was so funny?

(1909)

THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ALL KODNY

The best time to travel by train is … shall I tell you? In autumn, right after Sukkos.

It’s neither too hot nor too cold then, and you needn’t look out all the time at a gray sky sobbing on a gloomy, sulking earth. And if it does rain and the drops strike the window and trickle down the steamy pane like tears, you can sit like a lord in the third-class car with a few other privileged souls like yourself and watch a distant wagon as it labors in the mud. On it, covered with a sack and folded nearly into three, huddles one of God’s creatures who takes out all his misery on another of God’s creatures, a poor horse, while you thank the good Lord that you’re in human company with a solid roof over your head. I don’t know about you, but autumn after Sukkos is my favorite time to travel.

The first thing I look for is a seat. If I’ve managed to find one, and better yet, if it’s by a window on the right, I tell you, I’m king. I can take out my tobacco pouch, light up as many cigarettes as I please, and look around to see who my fellow passengers are and which of them I can talk a bit of business with. Usually, I’m sorry to say, they’re packed together like herring in a barrel. Everywhere there are beards, noses, hats, stomachs, faces. But a man worth knowing behind the face? Sometimes there isn’t even one … Yet wait a minute: look at that queer fellow sitting by himself in the corner — there’s something special about him. I have a good eye for such types. Show me a hundred ordinary men and I’ll pick out the one oddball right away.

At first glance, that is, the person in question was a perfectly unremarkable-looking individual of a type that’s a dime a dozen, what we call where I come from a “three-hundred-and-sixty-five-days-a-year Jew.” The one strange thing about him was his clothes: his coat was not exactly a coat, the frock beneath it was not exactly a frock, the hat on his head was not exactly a hat, the skullcap under it was not exactly a skullcap, and the umbrella he held in his hand was not exactly an umbrella, although it was not exactly a broomstick either. A most unusual getup.

What struck me most about him, though, was not what he was wearing but rather the animation with which, unable to sit still for a minute, he took in his surroundings on all sides — and above all, the jolly, lively, radiant expression on his blissful face. Either, I thought, his winning number has come up in a lottery, or else he’s made a good match for his daughter, or else he’s just enrolled a son in the Russian high school that the boy had the luck to get into. A minute didn’t pass without his jumping from his seat, peering out the window, saying out loud to himself, “Are we there? No, not yet,” and sitting down again a bit nearer to me than before, a jolly, radiant, happy-looking fellow.

At heart, you should know, I’m as averse as the next man to anyone prying into my business and making the who, what, and when of it his affair. I hold with the opinion that if a person has something to get off his chest, he doesn’t need to be prompted. And indeed this proved to be the case, because after the second station the lively Jew moved even closer to me, indeed, so close that his mouth was directly opposite my nose, and inquired:

“And where might you be bound for?”

I could easily tell from how he asked, and how he looked around him, and how he scratched himself beneath his hat that hearing my destination concerned him less than telling me his. And I, for my part, was willing to oblige, so that rather than answer his question I asked him one of my own:

“And where might you be bound for?”

That was all it took to set him off.

“Me? For Kodny. Have you ever heard of Kodny? That’s where I’m from, it is. It isn’t far from here, just three stations away. That is, I get off at the third station after this one. From there it’s still an hour and a half by cart. That is, we call it an hour and a half, but it’s really a good two, in fact a little more, and that’s in the best of cases, if the road’s in good shape and there’s a private carriage to take you. I already telegraphed ahead for one. That is, I sent a cable that a carriage should be at the station. Do you think I did it for myself? Don’t get ideas about me! I don’t mind sharing pot-luck in a plain wagon with half a dozen other passengers, and if there’s none to be had, taking my umbrella in one hand and my things in the other and hiking into town on my two feet. Carriages, you understand, are a bit beyond my means. In fact, as far as business is concerned, it isn’t so golden that I couldn’t just as well stay home. What do you say to that, eh?”

The fellow paused, let out a sigh, and began to speak again in a whisper right into my ear, though not before first looking all around him to see if anyone was listening.

“I’m not traveling alone. I have a professor with me, I do. What am I doing with a professor? Well, it’s like this. Have you ever heard of Kashevarevke? There’s a village called that, Kashevarevke, and there’s a rich Jew who lives there, a man who made himself a pile. Maybe you’ve heard of him: Borodenko is the name, Itzikl Borodenko. What do you say to a name like that, eh? It’s a goy’s name, not a Jew’s. You know what, though? You can have a goy’s name and you can have a Jew’s, it’s not the name you have that counts, it’s the money. And Borodenko has lots of it, to put it mildly. The word in Kodny is that he’s worth half a million — and if you were to press me on that, I’d own up to the other half too. The fact is that he is, you should pardon the expression, such a so-and-so that he may even be sitting on two million. You be the judge, because, though I’ve never seen you before in my life, I can tell, I can, that you’re a man who gets about more than I do. Tell me the truth, then: have you ever heard the name Borodenko mentioned in the same breath with the slightest act of generosity — a contribution to charity, something done for one’s fellow Jews, anything? If there ever was such a thing, the news still hasn’t reached Kodny. Well, I’m not God’s bookkeeper and it’s easy to be free with someone else’s bank account. It’s just that I’m not talking philanthropy; I’m talking humanity, that’s what I’m talking. If God has been good enough to let you afford a home visit by a professor of medicine, what harm would it do you if someone else were to benefit too? No one’s asking for your money, only for a good word — why be a wild man about it? Listen to a lovely story.

“It so happened that word reached us in Kodny (there’s nothing we Kodny Jews don’t know) that the daughter of this Itzikl Borodenko from Kashevarevke, God spare us, was ill. And what do you think was the matter with her? A lot of nothing, a love affair! She had fallen for some Russian and tried poisoning herself when he jilted her. (There’s nothing we Kodny Jews don’t know!) All this happened just yesterday, mind you. Right away they ran to bring a professor, the biggest there is. What’s a professor more or less to a man like Borodenko? Well, that set me to thinking. The professor wasn’t going to stay there forever; today or tomorrow he would go home; and when he did he’d have to pass through our station — that is, close to Kodny. Why shouldn’t he stop to change trains there and pay us — I mean me — a quick call? You see, I have a sick child at home, it shouldn’t happen to you. What exactly is wrong with him? All I can tell you is that it must be something internal. A cough, thank God, he doesn’t have. And as far as his heart is concerned, nothing hurts him there either. So what’s the problem? There’s not a drop of blood in his cheeks and he’s as weak as a fly. That’s because he doesn’t eat a thing. But not a thing. How can someone not eat anything, you ask? But he doesn’t, it’s a fact. Now and then he drinks a glass of milk, but only when he’s forced to. We have to get down on our knees and beg him, we do! He won’t even swallow a spoon of soup or a crumb of bread, let alone meat. Why, he can’t stand the sight of meat, it makes him turn his head away. He’s been like that ever since he spat up blood. That happened over the summer, pray God it doesn’t happen again. There was blood just once, but a lot of it. Since then, thank goodness, there’s been no more. I only hope it keeps up. You can’t imagine how weak he is, though. He can barely stand on his feet. And one other tiny little thing: the boy runs a fever, he’s burning up, he is, as though he had the smallpox! That’s been going on since late spring: a hundred and two, a hundred and three, nothing makes it go away. I’ve taken him to the doctors more times than I can count. But what do our doctors know about anything? He needs to eat, he needs a change of air — that’s all they ever say. What do they expect me to do? Eating is something he won’t even hear about. And as for air, where am I supposed to find it? Air in Kodny? Ha ha, that’s a good one! It’s a nice little place, Kodny is. A nice Jewish community. We have, knock wood, a few Jews, we have a synagogue, we have a study house, we have a rabbi, we have everything. In fact, there are only two things that God forgot to give us: a chance to make a living and some air. Well, as far as a living goes, we’ve worked out a system: we all, the Lord be praised, manage to make one from each other. And air? For air we go to the manor grounds; you’ll find as much of it as you want there. Once, when Kodny belonged to the Poles, you couldn’t set foot in the manor. The Polish squires didn’t permit it. Or rather, not the squires themselves, but their dogs. Ever since the manor has been in Jewish hands, though, the dogs are gone and it’s a totally different place. Why, it’s a pleasure to visit! There are still squires there — big landlords, but at least they’re Jewish ones. They speak Yiddish the same as you and I do, and take an interest in Jewish things, and show a friendly face to a Jew. When it comes to Jews, I tell you, they’re no different from the rest of us! Not that you should think they’re such big saints. You don’t see them any more in our synagogue than you do in our bathhouse, and if breaking the Sabbath laws bothers them, they haven’t given any sign of it yet. Eating a chicken cooked in butter doesn’t frighten them either … and I’m not even talking about things like going beardless or hatless, because that’s nothing out of the ordinary these days: even in Kodny, thanks be to God, we have our share of young folks whose heads have only the hair on them. To tell you the truth, though, we can’t complain about our manor owners. Our Jewish squires don’t shirk their duties toward us. On the contrary, they’re as generous as can be. Comes every autumn, they send a hundred sacks of potatoes for the poor, and comes every winter, straw to burn in the oven. Every Passover they give money to the Matsoh Fund. Not long ago they even donated the bricks for a new synagogue. Why go on? They’re fine, considerate people, one couldn’t wish for more from them — if only that chicken weren’t cooked in butter, ai, that poor chicken!.. Don’t get me wrong, though. God knows I don’t mean to criticize. Why should I have anything against them? Far from it! You won’t find them selling me short. Reb Alter (my name is Alter, it is) is tops in their book. Whenever they need anything in the way of things Jewish — a new calendar for the New Year, for example, or matsos for Passover, or a lulav and esrog for Sukkos — they send for me. And in my wife’s store (my wife has a store, she does) there are no better customers for salt and pepper and matches and whatnot. Those are our manor owners … while as for their children, the university students — why, there’s nothing they wouldn’t do for my son! In the summer, when they come home on vacation from St. Petersburg, they teach him whatever he asks them to, they spend whole days with him sitting over some book — and books, I want you to know, are all that boy lives and breathes for! He loves them more than his own father and mother, I’m sorry to say. What I mean is that books will be the death of him, they will. All his troubles began with them, even if my wife still insists that everything started with his call-up from the army. What’s she talking about, I ask you? He forgot all about that call-up long ago. Not that it matters: let it be the books, let it be the call-up — the fact remains that I have a sick boy at home, may we all be blessed with good health, who’s fading away before my very eyes. God in heaven make him well again …”

The man’s beaming face clouded over for a second, but no more. A moment later the sun came back out, the clouds vanished, and he was as radiant as before. The smile once more on his lips and the sparkle back in his eyes, he went on with his story:

“Well now, where were we? Yes. And so I made up my mind to run over to Kashevarevke, to Itzikl Borodenko — that’s the rich Jew I was telling you about. Naturally, I didn’t set out empty-handed just like that. I took a letter with me from our rabbi, I did. (Our rabbi in Kodny is known all over.) A lovely letter it was, too: ‘Inasmuch as God in His beneficence has enabled you to bring home a professor in your hour of need, and inasmuch as our Alter’s son, may you be spared such sorrow, is all but on his deathbed, may your heart be so moved to pity him that you will trouble yourself to prevail upon the aforementioned professor to pay a call on the sick boy for a quarter of an hour between trains on his way home, which must pass close to Kodny. May the Lord requite you …’ and so on and so forth. A lovely letter.”

Suddenly there was a blast of the whistle, our train came to a halt, and my queerly dressed Jew leaped up and exclaimed:

“Eh, another station! I’d better have a look at the first-class car to see how my professor is doing. I’ll tell you the rest when I get back.”

He returned beaming more brightly than ever. If I weren’t afraid of sounding sacrilegious, I would say he was in a state of divine grace. He leaned forward toward my ear and said to me in a whisper, as if he were afraid of waking someone:

“He’s sleeping, my professor. God grant he sleeps soundly, so that his mind will be clear when we reach Kodny … Only where was I? Oh, yes, in Kashevarevke.

“I arrived in Kashevarevke, that is, went straight to the man’s home, and rang the doorbell once, twice, three times. Out comes a fellow without a hair on his chin and with two blubber lips that he keeps licking like a cat and says to me in Goyish, ‘Chto nada?’ ‘I should say there is,’ I said to him — and in Yiddish, mind you. ‘If there weren’t, why drag myself here all the way from Kodny?’

“He listened to that, still licking his chops, shook his head, and said, ‘We can’t let you in now, because the professor’s here.’ ‘But that’s just it,’ I said. ‘It’s because the professor is here that I’m here too.’ ‘What does someone like you want with a professor?’ he asks. That was all I needed, to have to tell him the whole sob story! So I gave him our rabbi’s letter and I said, ‘It’s kind of you to take the time to chat with me when you’re in there and I’m out here in the rain, but please take this document and deliver it straight to the master of the house.’ He took it, he did, and left me standing on the outside side of the door, still waiting to be asked in. I waited half an hour. I waited an hour. I waited two hours. It was pouring cats and dogs and there I was, totally out in the cold. I tell you, it was beginning to annoy me — though not so much for my sake as for our rabbi’s. After all, that letter wasn’t written by someone who was born yesterday. (Our rabbi in Kodny is known all over!) Well, I gave that bellpull a few good yanks. Out comes Blubber Lips again, this time looking fit to kill. ‘The nerve of a Jew,’ he says, ‘to ring like that!’ ‘The nerve of a Jew,’ I say, ‘to let a Jew stand two hours in the rain!’ With which I made as if to step inside — wham, bang, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if he didn’t slam the door in my face! What was I supposed to do now? It wasn’t exactly a cheerful situation. To go home with nothing to show for it would not have been very nice. In the first place, it would have looked bad: I happen to be something of a respected citizen in Kodny, far from a no-account, in any case … And besides, it broke my heart to think of my poor son …

“Well, God is great, as they say. Just then I took a look and what did I see but a droshky pulled by four horses draw up right at the door. I went over to ask the coachman whose it was, and he said it was Borodenko’s, come to take the professor to the train. In that case, I thought, things are beginning to look up. Way up, in fact! Before I knew it the door of the house opened and there he was — I mean the professor: an elderly little man, but with a face … what can I tell you? An angel, an angel from heaven! After him came the rich Jew, Itzikl Borodenko, as bareheaded as the day he was born, and lastly Blubber Lips himself carrying the professor’s satchel. You should have seen that man worth maybe over a million, God help me, with his two google eyes and his hands in the pockets of an ordinary coat just like we wear in Kodny! God in heaven, I thought, is this who You give the millions to? Go argue with God, though!.. Well, Borodenko saw me standing there, gave me a googly look, and said, ‘What do you want?’ ‘It’s like this,’ I said. ‘I’ve brought you a letter from our rabbi, I have.’ ‘What rabbi is that?’ he asks. Would you believe it? He didn’t even know what rabbi I meant! ‘From the Rabbi of Kodny,’ I said. ‘That’s where I’m from, it is. I’ve come from Kodny,’ I said, ‘to ask the professor,’ I said, ‘if he would be kind enough to see my son,’ I said, ‘for a quarter of an hour between trains. I wouldn’t wish it on you,’ I said, ‘but I have a son who’s practically at death’s door.’ That’s exactly what I said to him, I’m not making up a single word of it. What was my line of reasoning? My line of reasoning was, here the man’s had a tragedy, his daughter took poison, who knows but it touched a heartstring somewhere that will make him pity a poor father like me. Would you like to know what kind of pity he had? He didn’t say a blessed word to me; he just googled Blubber Lips as if to say, ‘How about getting rid of this pest of a Jew for me, eh?’ Meanwhile my professor had taken a seat in the droshky with his satchel. In another minute I could kiss him goodbye. What was I to do? I saw I had better act fast. It’s now or never, I thought; whatever will be will be, but the child must be saved — and so I got up all my nerve and whoops! flung myself at the horses’ feet … What can I tell you? That I enjoyed those nags breathing down on me? I can’t say I did. I can’t even tell you how long I went on lying there or if I went on lying there at all. Maybe I didn’t. All I know is that in less time than it’s taken me to tell you all this, the old professor was standing over me and saying, ‘Chto takoye, golubchik?’ He told me to speak up and not be afraid. So I picked myself off the ground and told him everything, with Borodenko standing right there and looking at me cross-eyed. Speaking Russian, you know, is not my strong suit — but God gave me strength and the words came by themselves. I bared my heart to him, I didn’t keep a thing back. ‘It’s like this, Professor,’ I said. ‘Maybe you were sent by Providence to make me a gift of my child, the one and only son left out of six that were born to me, may he live to a ripe old age. If money is the problem, I can let you have twenty-five rubles — that is, please don’t think that they’re mine, because wherever would I get so much cash from? They’re my wife’s, she put them aside to buy stock for her store the next time she went to town. But you can have them,’ I said, ‘all twenty-five of them. My wife’s store can go to the Devil as long as you save the boy’s life!’ And I began to open my coat to take out the twenty-five rubles. ‘Nichevo!’ he says, that little old professor, laying a hand on my arm and helping me into the droshky — may I live to see my son as healthy as every word I say to you is true! I ask you: is an Itzikl Borodenko worth the little finger of a man like that? Why, he would have watched me die in cold blood, he would have! God Almighty came to the rescue in the nick of time, but just suppose that He hadn’t … What do you say to that, eh?”

There was a bustle of passengers in the car and my Jew all but ran to the conductor.

“Kodny?”

“Kodny.”

“Well, be well, and have a good trip, and don’t tell a soul who I’m with. I don’t want anyone in Kodny to know that I’ve got a professor. They’ll all come running if they do!”

And with those last, confidential words to me, he was gone.

A few minutes later, though, while the train was still at a standstill, I caught a glimpse through the window of a rickety buggy and a pair of careworn, ragged gray horses. In the buggy sat a little old man with a gray beard and youthful red cheeks. Across from him, half in and half out of the vehicle, as though hanging from it by a thread, sat my strange Jew. He was rocking back and forth, his face beaming, his eyes glued so hard to the professor that they were all but popping from their sockets.

It’s a pity I’m not a photographer and don’t travel with a camera. It would have been a great thing to have taken that Jew’s picture. Let the world see what a happy man looks like — the happiest man in all Kodny.

(1909)

BARANOVICH STATION

This time there were no more than a few dozen of us Jews, and we sat in the third-class car in comparative comfort. That is, whoever had found a seat had one; the other passengers stood leaning against the walls of the compartments and joined in the conversation from there. And what lively conversation it was! As usual, everyone was talking at once. It was early in the day. We had all had a good night’s sleep, said our morning prayers, grabbed a bite more or less to eat, and even managed to light up a few cigarettes, and we were all in the mood to talk — very much so, in fact. About what? About anything and everything. Everyone tried to think of some fresh, juicy item that would make all the others sit up and listen, but no one was able to hold the stage for long. The subject changed every minute. No sooner did it light on the recent harvest — that is, the wheat and oats crop — than it shifted, don’t ask me why, to the war with Japan, while after barely five minutes of fighting the Japanese, we moved on to the Revolution of 1905. From the Revolution we passed to the Constitution, and from the Constitution it was but a short step to the pogroms, the massacres of Jews, the new anti-Semitic legislation, the expulsion from the villages, the mass flight to America, and all the other trials and tribulations that you hear about these fine days: bankruptcies, expropriations, military emergencies, executions, starvation, cholera, Purishkevich, Azef …

“A-z-ef!”

The name of that secret police spy who had informed on so many revolutionaries only needed to be mentioned for the whole car to be thrown into a turmoil: Azef, and more Azef, and still more Azef, and Azef once again.

“Mind you, you’ll excuse me for saying so, but you’re all a lot of cattle, you are! What’s so special about Ashev? What bunkum! The whole world’s up in arms about him, but who the Devil is he? A young punk, a no-good bum, a nobody, a stool pigeon, a nothing, a big fat zero! If you’d like, I can tell you a story about a stool pigeon, and a hometown boy from Kaminka at that, who makes Ashev look pale by comparison!”

These words were uttered by one of the standees who loomed over us from his place against a wall. I glanced up to have a look at him and saw a generously proportioned individual with a good silk cap on his head, twinkling eyes, a rosy, freckled face, and no front teeth. That is, his two front incisors were missing, which was apparently why he whistled when he spoke, so that “Azef” came out sounding like “Ashev.”

I took a liking to the fellow right away. I liked the broad girth of him, the way he talked, even the names he called us. In fact, I like such Jews so much that I’m actually jealous of them.

Having been unexpectedly branded as cattle by the Jew from Kaminka, the whole car was as dumbfounded for a moment as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over everyone’s head. It didn’t take long, however, for the passengers to recover, exchange a few glances, and say to the Kaminka Jew:

“You want to be asked to tell us a story? All right, we’re asking! Tell us what happened in Kaminka, we’re curious. Only, what are you standing for? Why don’t you have a seat? There aren’t any, you say? Jews! Shove over a bit! Make room, please.”

Whereupon all of us, though we were already squeezed tightly together, squeezed together even more to make room for the Kaminka Jew. He sat himself broadly down, spreading out his knees like a godfather at a circumcision when the baby is placed in his lap, pushed back the cap on his head, rolled up his sleeves, and commenced in his broad manner of speaking:

“Listen well, my dear friends, because what I’m about to tell you, I want you to know, is not some opera or fairy tale. It’s a true story, mind you, that took place right in Kaminka. My own father, God rest him, told it to me himself, and he heard it more than once from his father. I’ve heard it said that the whole thing was even written down in an old chronicle that was burned long ago. You can laugh all you like, but I tell you it’s a crime it was, because it had some fine stories in it — a sight better than what’s printed in your magazines and storybooks these days.

“In a nutshell, it happened in the reign of Nikolai the First, back in the days of the gauntlet. But what are you smiling at? Do you know what the gauntlet meant? The gauntlet meant getting flogged while you ran it. You still don’t know what it was? In that case, I’d better spell it out for you. Just imagine, then: two rows of soldiers with iron maces stand facing each other, and you go for a little stroll between them some twenty times or more, and in your birthday suit, mind you, while they do what the rabbi did in the schoolroom when you weren’t paying attention to your lessons … Do you know what running the gauntlet is now? Then we’re ready to begin.

“Once upon a time it so happened that the governor — Vassilchikov it was, I believe — ordered a Jew named Kivke to run the gauntlet. Exactly who this Kivke was, or what he had done, are details I can’t tell you. Some say he was no great shakes, just a tavern keeper, and an old sourpuss of a bachelor at that. One Sunday, though, when he was chatting with some Russians in his tavern, God put it into his head to argue religion with them: your God, our God … until one thing led to another and the village elder and the constable were brought and charges of blasphemy drawn up. All he had to do, that barman, was give them a barrel of vodka and the whole thing would have been forgotten. But on top of everything else, he was stubborn: no, he says, Kivke takes nothing back! What must he have thought? He must have thought he’d be slapped with a three-ruble fine and business would go on as usual. Who could have guessed that he’d be made to run the gauntlet because of a few foolish words? In short, they took the old boy and threw him into the cooler until an honor guard could give him twenty-five good whacks of the mace, as God in His wisdom had decreed.

“Well, I hardly need to tell you what went on in Kaminka once the story got out. And when did the bad news break? At night — and not only at night, but on a Friday night too. The next morning, when everyone came to the synagogue for Sabbath services, the place was in an uproar. ‘Kivke’s in the clink!’ … ‘He’s been given the gauntlet!’ … ‘The gauntlet? How come? What for?’ … ‘For nothing. For a few words’ … ‘He’s been framed!’ … ‘What kind of framed? He’s a Jew with a mouth that’s too big for him!’ … ‘It can be eighteen sizes too big, but the gauntlet? How can they do that to him?’… ‘Since when do Jews run the gauntlet? And a local Kaminka Jew yet!’ …

“All day long the Jews of Kaminka stewed as if in a pot. On Saturday night, as soon as the Sabbath was over, they ran crying to my grandfather — Reb Nissl Shapiro was his name. ‘Why don’t you say something, Reb Nissl? How can you allow a Jew, and a Kaminkan no less, to be flogged?’

“You must be wondering why they all ran to my grandfather. I don’t mean to boast, mind you, but I have to tell you that my grandfather, may his soul dwell in Paradise, was the richest, most important, most cultured, most highly thought-of Jew in town, and a very brainy man with high connections. When he heard what the trouble was, he paced up and down the floor a few times (when he was thinking, my father told me, he always liked to pace back and forth), then stood still and announced: ‘Children, go home! No one will be hurt. God willing, it will turn out all right; here in Kaminka, the Lord be praised, we’ve never had a Jew flogged yet, and with His help we never will.’

“Those were my grandfather’s very words, God bless him, and it was common knowledge in town that whatever Reb Nissl Shapiro said was as good as done. He just didn’t like being badgered about how he intended to do it. When a Jew is rich and has connections, you understand, and he’s as brainy as my grandfather, you learn to tread lightly with him. And you know what? It turned out exactly as he said it would. What did? Listen and I’ll tell you.”

Seeing that the whole car was waiting with baited breath to hear what happened next, the Jew from Kaminka paused, took out a large tobacco pouch from his pocket, and slowly rolled himself a cigarette. So important had he become that several passengers jumped up to offer him a light. Having taken a few puffs, he resumed his story with fresh vigor:

“Now see how a clever Jew operates — I mean my grandfather, God bless his memory. He thought the matter over and cooked up a little plan, which is to say, he persuaded the authorities that the sentenced man, Kivke, should take time out to die while still in prison … but why are you all staring at me? Don’t you get it? Do you mean to tell me you think he was poisoned? Relax. That’s not how it’s done in Kaminka. What did happen, then? Something much more elegant: it was simply arranged for the sentenced man to go to bed fit as a fiddle one night and wake up a corpse in the morning … do you follow me now? Or do I have to feed it to you from a bottle?

“In a word, early one morning a messenger arrived from the prison with a message for my grandfather: Whereas notification is hereby given that a Jew named Kivke died in prison last night, and whereas Reb Nissl Shapiro is the president of the Burial Society, he, Reb Nissl, is requested to dispose of the deceased, that is, to see to his interment in the Jewish cemetery … How’s that for a neat piece of work? Not bad, eh? But don’t rush out to celebrate yet; it wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Keep in mind that the departed wasn’t just another dead Jew. There was military brass involved … and a governor … and a gauntlet waiting to be run … do you suppose all that’s a laughing matter? The first order of business was preventing an autopsy, which meant going to the doctor and getting him to sign in black and white that he had examined the dead man and determined that the cause of death was conniptions of the heart, that is to say, general apoplexy, it shouldn’t happen to you — after which there were various other authorities to be taken in hand too, because they all had to sign the same document. Only then was the dead man really dead. Bye-bye Kivke!

“Needless to say, everyone in this car would be glad to make in a month what it all cost the Jews of Kaminka — and if you have any doubts about the wager, I’ll be happy to come in as your partner. And on whose say was the money laid out? On my grandfather’s, may he rest in peace. That was a man you could trust. I tell you, the way he had it worked out down to the tiniest little detail was a masterpiece! That evening the sextons of the Burial Society came with a bier to receive the distinguished corpse in grand style and transport it with the highest honors from the prison to the graveyard — that is, with a detail of two soldiers followed by the entire town. You can well imagine that Kivke never dreamed of such a state funeral in his life. And when they reached the gates of the cemetery, the two soldiers were given some vodka to drink and the late departed was brought inside, where Shimon the coachman (I’m passing on his name to you as my father did to me) was waiting for him with a team of four swift horses. Before the cock crowed, mind you, our dead hero was well across the town line on his merry way to Radivil, and from there lickety-split across the Austrian border to Brody.

“It goes without saying that no one in Kaminka slept a wink that night until Shimon the coachman returned from Radivil. The whole town was beside itself with worry, and my grandfather most of all. What if our dear dead Kivke was apprehended at the border and brought back to Kaminka as alive and well as you and me? Why, an entire community might be banished to Siberia … With God’s help, however, Shimon the coachman and his team of swift horses returned safe and sound from Radivil with a letter from Kivke that said, ‘I wish to inform you all that I have arrived in Brody,’ and there was great joy in Kaminka. A banquet was given at my grandfather’s house, to which the jailkeeper and the constable and the doctor and all the authorities were invited, and a gay time was had by all: a band played music and everyone, mind you, got so drunk that the jailkeeper kissed my grandfather and his whole family as hard and as often as he could and the constable greeted the dawn by taking off his unmentionables and dancing on my grandfather’s roof. After all, ransoming a Jew is nothing to sneeze at — and one saved from a flogging yet! Not bad at all, eh? Well, take a deep breath, my good friends, because the real fun has yet to begin. If you want to hear the rest of it, though, you’ll kindly wait a few minutes, because I have to ask the station-master here how much time we have left to Baranovich. That’s not where I’m going, mind you, but I have to change trains there …”

There was nothing to do but wait. The man from Kaminka went to talk to the Stationmaster while we passengers in the car discussed him and his story.

“What do you think of him?”

“A swell fellow!”

“No nonsense about him!”

“He sure can talk.”

“And no need to be coaxed!”

“What about the story?”

“It’s a damn good one.”

“Let’s hope it’s a long one, too.”

Incidentally, there were even a few passengers who claimed that the same thing had happened in their towns. That is, not the exact same thing, but something more or less like it. And since every one of them was keen on telling it, the car soon turned into a free-for-all — but only until the Jew from Kaminka reappeared. As soon as he did, we all quieted down, crowded together to form a human wall, and gave him our undivided attention.

“Now where was I? We had just, thank God, said goodbye to a Jew named Kivke, hadn’t we? You agree? Well then, you’re wrong, my dear friends. A half year or a whole one went by, I can’t tell you exactly, and our Mr. Kivke, mind you, sat down and wrote a letter and addressed it to my grandfather. ‘In the first place,’ he wrote, ‘I wish to inform you that I am in good health and hope to hear the same from you. And in the second place, I’ve been left high and dry here without a cent to my name and no way of earning one, surrounded by Germans in a foreign land. They don’t understand my talk and I don’t understand theirs. If I can’t make a living, I’ll have to lie down and die. And so,’ wrote Kivke, ‘please be so kind as to send …’ A subtle fellow, no? What he wanted to be sent, of course, was money! Everyone, mind you, had a good laugh, and then that letter was torn up into little pieces and forgotten. Well, before three weeks were up, another letter arrived, again from the late Kivke and again addressed to my grandfather, with an ‘I wish to inform you’ at the beginning and a ‘Please be so kind’ at the end, but this time the end had a postscript. Could it be, Kivke wanted to know, that the Kaminkans had something against him? Better to have been flogged and gotten it over with, because his wounds would have healed long ago and he wouldn’t have been left penniless among Germans with nothing to do but watch his own belly swell from hunger …

“When my grandfather, may he rest in peace, received this letter, he called a meeting in his home. ‘What should we do? We can’t let a Jew die from hunger.’ Well, when you were asked to fork up by Reb Nissl Shapiro, you couldn’t be a pig about it. A fine collection was taken up (the biggest contributor to which, needless to say, was my grandfather himself), the sum was sent to Brody, and once more Kaminka forgot that there was such a person as a Jew named Kivke.

“Kivke, however, didn’t forget that there was such a place as a town called Kaminka. Another half a year passed, or maybe it was a whole one, I can’t tell you exactly, and guess what? Another letter arrived! Once more it was addressed to my grandfather and once more it had an ‘I wish to inform you’ with a ‘Please be so kind’ at the end, this time accompanied by some good news, Insofar and inasmuch, wrote Kivke, as he had recently become betrothed to a fine young lady from the very best of families, would the town kindly send him the two hundred rubles he had pledged as a dowry, because otherwise the match was off. What a tragedy, just imagine: Kivke would be left without a bride! I hardly need to tell you that the letter made the rounds of Kaminka as though it were a pearl of great price, and people laughed at it until their ribs ached. It became a running gag around town. ‘Mazel tov, Kivke is engaged!’ … ‘Have you heard? She’s a steal at two hundred rubles!’ … ‘And from the very best of families too, ha ha ha …’

“The ha-ha-ing, mind you, didn’t last very long, though, because a few weeks later came another letter from Kivke to my grandfather — and this time without the ‘I wish to inform you,’ just with the ‘Please be so kind.’ He failed to understand, Kivke wrote, why the two hundred rubles for the dowry had not yet arrived. If he didn’t receive them at once, the wedding would have to be called off — in which case his disgrace would be so great that only one choice would be left: either to drown himself on the spot or to come hell-bent back to Kaminka …

“Those last words of his, mind you, wiped the laugh off everyone’s face. That same evening the town’s leading Jews got together at my grandfather’s house and decided that the most respected of them, my grandfather too, should go from door to door to raise a dowry for Kivke. What else could they do? And so as not to keep you in suspense, let me tell you that they not only sent him the money, they sent it with a mazel tov and wished the lucky bridegroom, as is the custom, many long years of happiness in which to raise children and grandchildren with his wife-to-be. What were they counting on? They were counting on his being so busy with his new marriage that he’d forget all about Kaminka. But do you think he did? A fat chance of that! Haif a year didn’t go by, or maybe it was a whole one, I can’t tell you exactly, and what do you think came along? Another letter from Kivke! What did he want this time? Insofar and inasmuch as he was now married, he had a God-given wife who would be the envy of any Jew. Nothing was perfect, though — in this case the bride’s father, who was such a liar, such a chiseler, such a gangster, such an out-and-out crook beside whom the biggest sinner could be mistaken for a saint, that he had defrauded our Kivke of his two hundred rubles and thrown him into the street with his wife. And so, he wrote, ‘Please be so kind as to send’—would his fellow townsmen have the goodness to forward another two hundred rubles to make up for what he had lost. If not, he could either throw himself in the river or come hell-bent back to Kaminka …

“This time everyone was good and mad. Two dowries? Why, that was already a swindle! And so it was decided to let the letter go unanswered. Well, Kivke waited a week or two, mind you, or maybe even three, and then sent another letter, addressed once again to my grandfather. What, he wanted to know, did they take him for? Why hadn’t they sent him the two hundred rubles? He would give them, he wrote, another week and a half — and if he still hadn’t received the money by then, they could look forward to having him, God willing, as their guest in Kaminka, Yours Etcetera, amen and amen. He sure was some sheygetz!

“Don’t think that didn’t kick up a storm! What could anyone do, though? Once more there was a meeting at my grandfather’s house, and once more it was decided to send the most respected Jews from door to door. This time, mind you, people made a face, because who wanted to dish out still more money to such a scoundrel — but the fact of the matter was that when Reb Nissl Shapiro said ‘Give,’ being a pig was out of the question. Nevertheless, everyone swore that this was the last time. And my grandfather himself, mind you, didn’t think otherwise, because he wrote Kivke back in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t getting another cent and shouldn’t dream of it.

“No doubt you think that put the fear of God into the rascal, eh? Well, suppose I told you that one morning, and a Jewish holiday it was too, another letter arrived from the fine gentleman, addressed, naturally, to my grandfather! Insofar and inasmuch, he wrote, as he had struck up a friendship in Brody with a German, a most excellent and honorable fellow, and decided to go partners with him in the china business, which was a very good, very solid line that could support a person nicely, ‘Please be so kind as to send’ four hundred and fifty rubles — and for heaven’s sake, be quick and don’t dawdle, because the partner refused to wait, he had ten other candidates lined up, and if he, Kivke, was left without a business, he could either go for a long swim in the river or come hell-bent back to Kaminka … In short, the usual. And he signed off with the gentle hint that if he did not have the money in two weeks’ time, there would be the Devil to pay — or more precisely, his round-trip ticket from Brody to Kaminka and back. He sure was some shyster!

“I don’t have to tell you what kind of upside-down holiday it was — and most of all, mind you, for my grandfather, may he rest in peace, because he bore the brunt of it. At the meeting that was held that night, the whole town was griping and grumbling. ‘Enough! How long do we have to go on shelling out? There’s a limit to everything; even chicken soup with kreplach can get to be too much. This Kivke of yours will make paupers of us all!’ ‘Why is he my Kivke?’ asked my grandfather. ‘Whose Kivke do you think he is?’ was the answer. ‘Whose idea was it in the first place to have the little bastard go die of a stroke while in prison?’

“Well, my grandfather (he was one smart Jew, he was) saw right away that it was a waste of time to hope for more money from the town, so he went to the local authorities — after all, they were in the same boat as he was — and asked them for a donation to the cause. Do you think they gave him a kopeck? Not a chance! Your goy is not your Jew; such things don’t faze him in the least. And so my poor grandfather, mind you, had to swallow his medicine and stake that damned cutthroat to some more cash from his own pocket. You should have seen the letter he sent with it, though! (My grandfather, God rest his soul, could give as good as he got.) Mind you, he gave that sheygetz hell in it. He called him a scoundrel, a degenerate, a know-nothing, a leech, a bloodsucker, a fiend, a traitor, a disgrace to the Jewish people, and whatever-else-have-you. He also told him once and for all not to dare write any more letters or ask for another cent, reminded him that God above sees everything and pays back tit for tat, and ended by begging him (a Jewish heart is still a Jewish heart, after all!) to have pity on an old man like himself and not ruin a town full of Jews, in return for which the Almighty would surely assist him in all his endeavors. That was the letter my grandfather sent, and he signed it with his full name, ‘Nissl Shapiro’—which was, mind you, the biggest mistake he ever made in his life, as you’ll shortly see for yourselves.”

The Jew from Kaminka paused again, reached for his tobacco pouch, slowly rolled himself another cigarette, lit it, and took a few deep puffs without even noticing that the whole car was dying of curiosity. When he had breathed in and coughed out enough smoke, he blew his nose, rolled up his sleeves again, and continued in the same tone as before:

“You must be thinking, my friends, that my grandfather’s letter gave that son-of-a-bitch a good scare. Don’t kid yourselves! Half a year didn’t go by, or maybe it was a whole one, mind you, when along came another letter from that turncoat. ‘In the first place,’ it said, ‘I wish to inform you that my German partner, may his life be one bad dream, has cheated me out of house and home and out of my share of the business. I would have sued him if it hadn’t been clear that I didn’t stand a Chinaman’s chance. Taking a German to court around here means taking your life in your hands. Why, I wouldn’t touch one of those bastards with a ten-foot pole! So I went and opened a store near his, right next door to him, in fact, and went into business for myself. With God’s help I’ll bury that Kraut yet, I’ll see to it he ends up eating dirt! The problem is that I need an advance of at least a thousand rubles, so please be so kind as to send …’

“That’s what Kivke wrote in his letter, which concluded: ‘If you don’t come up with the money in eight days, I’m taking your last letter signed “Nissl Shapiro” and forwarding it straight to the provincial governor with an unabridged account of all that happened: how I died of a stroke in prison, and how I was resurrected in the cemetery, and how Shimon the coachman brought me to Brody, and how you’ve kept sending me hush money. I’ll write him everything, I’ll let him know that we Jews have a great God above who rescued Kivke from the grave …’

“How’s that for a greeting card? Mind you, as soon as my grandfather, God rest his soul, read those sweet sentiments, he had such a fright that he fainted dead away. It shouldn’t happen to anyone, but he lost all control of … Jews, where are we? What station is this?”

“Baranovich station!” cried the conductors, running one after another past the windows of our car. “All out for Baranovich!”

Hearing the name Baranovich, the Kaminka Jew jumped from his seat, reached for his belongings, which were in a kind of sack stuffed with God only knew what, and, barely able to carry it, headed for the door. In another minute he was standing on the platform with the sweat pouring off him, struggling through the crowd and asking whomever he stumbled into:

“Baranovich?”

“Baranovich!”

He made me think of a Jew blessing the New Moon in the synagogue courtyard, bumping into his fellow Jews in the darkness and inquiring of each:

“Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me!”

Several passengers from our car, myself included, ran after him and seized him by the coattails. “Hey, there! You can’t do this to us! We won’t let you go. You have to tell us the end of the story!”

“What end? It’s barely begun. Let go of me! Do you want me to miss my train? A strange bunch of Jews you are! Didn’t you hear them say Baranovich?”

And before we knew it, the Jew from Kaminka had vanished into thin air.

I wouldn’t mind if Baranovich station burned to the ground!

(1909)

EIGHTEEN FROM PERESHCHEPENA

“You don’t say! Well, I’ll tell you an even better one. There’s a man in our town called Finkelstein, a rich Jew, but really loaded, with two sons. If I had his money, I could afford to laugh at the whole business. Do you know what it cost him, though? I wish the two of us were worth half as much …”

“I said as much a year ago, damn it all! Just you wait and see, I said, it won’t be long before half the Jews in Russia are baptized.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more! Why, we had a young fellow named Marshak who moved heaven and earth. It didn’t do a bit of good; he actually took poison in the end.”

“I hate to say it, but you’ll soon see the day, damn it all, when there isn’t a Jew left in Russia! How can anyone expect us to survive so many troubles, so many quotas, so much discrimination? Every day, every blessed day, there’s some new regulation against us. Why, there must be a regulation per Jew already! I’m telling you, before long they’ll find a way of turning down everyone. Take Shpole, for example. That’s a town with a few Jews in it, wouldn’t you say?”

“Why not Nemirov? I had a letter not long ago from Nemirov with the most depressing news.”

“Do you mean to tell me it’s any better in Lubin?”

“Why, what happened in Lubin?”

“Or in Ananyev, for instance. They used to take at least three Jews from Ananyev each year.”

“Who cares about Ananyev? Just look at Tomashpol. In Tomashpol, so I hear, they didn’t take a single Jew this year, not for love or money!”

“They didn’t? They took eighteen from our town!”

This last remark came from above. My two Jews and I craned our necks to look up at the top berth. A pair of high rubber galoshes hung down from it. The feet in them belonged to a man with a head of unruly black hair and a face that was swollen from sleep.

My two Jews stared at the sleepy-faced man, devouring him with their eyes as though he were a Martian. Both sat up as if given a new lease on life and asked the upper-berther eagerly:

“You say they took eighteen Jews from your town?”

“Eighteen whole Jews, my own son too.”

“They took your son too?”

“I’ll say!”

“Where? Where?”

“Where I come from, in Lower Pereshchepena.”

“In which Pereshchepena? Where exactly is that?”

The two of them were on their feet now, eyeing each other and the Jew in the upper berth, who looked swollen-facedly back down at them.

“You never heard of Lower Pereshchepena? I assure you there is such a place. You really never heard of it? There are even two Pereshchepenas: Upper Pereshchepena and Lower Pereshchepena. I’m from Lower Pereshchepena.”

“Pleased to meet you! Why don’t you come on down? Why sit up in the sky all by yourself?”

The owner of the high rubber galoshes clambered down with a groan, and the two moved over to make room for him and fell on him like hungry locusts.

“They honestly took your own son?”

“I’ll say!”

“But tell us, old man, how did you manage it? It must have cost you a pretty penny!”

“What are you talking about? You mustn’t even mention money to them. There was a time, I admit, when they could be bought. And how they could! Oho! Jews came flocking to us from all over in those days. Everyone knew that Pereshchepena was the place for it. For the last several years, though, ever since somebody snitched — it’s just my luck it happened when it did! — they haven’t taken a cent.”

“Then how do you explain it? Someone must have pulled strings!”

“What strings? They simply decided once and for all to take every last Jew automatically.”

“You must be joking! Do you realize what you’re saying? Are you trying to pull our legs?”

“Pull your legs? Do I look like the type to you?”

All three stared hard as if trying to read each others’ faces. Since nothing was written there, however, the two Jews resumed their interrogation.

“Just a minute, now. Where did you say you were from?”

“From Pereshchepena!” The third Jew was beginning to get annoyed. “I’ve already told you three times. From Lower Pereshchepena!”

“Don’t take offense. We’ve just never heard of your city before.”

“Ha ha! Pereshchepena a city? That’s rich! Pereshchepena’s barely a town. In fact, it’s more like a village.”

“And from a place like that, you say, they took … from Pere-what? What’s it called?”

By now the Jew from Lower Pereshchepena was hopping mad.

“I’ve never seen such queer Jews in my life! Can’t you pronounce a jewish word? Pe-resh-che-pe-na! Pe-resh-che-pe-na!”

“All right, all right. Pereshchepena is Pereshchepena. Why fly off the handle?”

“Who’s flying off the handle? I just don’t like having to repeat myself ninety-nine times.”

“No offense meant. We have the exact same problem. When you said they took eighteen of you, we couldn’t believe our ears. That’s why we keep asking the same question. The truth of the matter is, we never would have imagined that in Pere … Peresh … that there was even a high school in your town.”

The Jew from Pereshchepena gave them an irritable look. “Who said anything about a high school in Pereshchepena?”

They, for their part, stared at him boggle-eyed. “But didn’t you just tell us that your own son was accepted as a student there?”

The Jew from Pereshchepena seemed about to have a fit. In the end, though, he merely got to his feet and screamed at them:

“What student? A soldier! He was taken to the army to be a soldier! A soldier, not a student, do you hear me?!”

It was already broad daylight outside. A bluish-gray light trickled through the windows of the train. Passengers were slowly waking up, stretching legs, clearing throats, rearranging bundles for the trip that lay ahead.

My three Jews had parted company. Their brief friendship was over. One had retired to a corner and was having a leisurely smoke. The second had taken a small prayer book and sat down on a front bench, where he was reciting his devotions with one eye open and one shut. The third, the irritable Jew from Lower Pereshchepena, was already having his breakfast.

It was curious to see how the three had become total strangers. Not only had they stopped speaking to each other, they no longer even looked at one another, as if they had done something shameful, something that could never be lived down …

(1909)

THE MAN FROM BUENOS AIRES

Riding a train doesn’t have to be dull if you manage to fall in with good company. You can meet up with merchants, men who know business, and then the time flies, or with people who have been around and seen a lot, intelligent men of the world who know the ropes. Such types are a pleasure to travel with. There’s always something to be learned from them. And sometimes God sends you a plain, ordinary passenger, the lively sort that likes to talk. And talk. And talk. His tongue doesn’t stop wagging for a minute. And only about himself, that’s his one and only subject.

Once I ended up traveling with such a character for quite a distance.

Our acquaintance began — how else do these things happen on a train? — with a trivial inquiry like “Do you by any chance know what station this is?” or “Excuse me, what time is it?” or “Would you perhaps have a match?” In no time at all, however, we were on as brotherly terms as if we had met in the cradle. At the first station with a few minutes’ wait, the man put his arm through mine, steered me to the buffet, and ordered two glasses of cognac without even asking if I drank, and soon after, he urged me with a wink to reach for a fork and help myself. When we were through sampling the hors d’oeuvres that every buffet has to offer, he called for two mugs of beer, so that by the time he had lit a cigar for each of us, we were the best of friends.

“I don’t mind telling you frankly and without a bit of flattery,” said my new acquaintance when we were reseated in the car, “that I liked you, believe it or not, the minute I set eyes on you. One look at you was enough to make me say, here’s someone I can have a word with! If there’s one thing I hate, it’s having to clam up like a statue when I travel. I like to talk to a fellow human being, which is why I bought a third-class ticket today, because that’s where the conversation is. Generally, though, I travel second class. Do you suppose that’s because I can’t afford to travel first? Believe me, I certainly can — and if you think that’s just talk, look at this.” And he produced from his rear pocket a wallet stuffed with bills, opened it, thumped it with his hand like a pillow, and put it back again, saying:

“Don’t worry, there’s more where that comes from!”

No matter how much I looked at him, I couldn’t for the life of me guess his age. He might have been about forty and he might have been still in his twenties. His face was round, tanned by the sun, and smooth-shaven, with no trace of whiskers or a beard; his small, beady eyes had a twinkle; and — a short, plump, good-natured, quite vivacious fellow — he cut a sharp figure of the sort I like to see in a spotless white shirt with gold buttons, a stylish necktie with a handsome pin, an elegant blue suit of English worsted, and a pair of smart, lacquered shoes. On one finger he sported a heavy gold ring with a diamond whose thousand facets glittered in the sunlight — which, if it was real, must have set him back a good five or six hundred rubles, if not a bit more than that.

There’s no one I admire more than a spiffy dresser. I like to dress well myself, and I like to see others who do. I can even tell by his clothes if a man is a decent sort or not. I know there are people who say it doesn’t mean a thing, that you can dress like a count and still be the worst sort of bounder. Tell me this, though: why, then, does everyone still try to look his best? Why does one person wear one kind of outfit and another person another? Why does the first choose a conservative tie of pearl-green silk and the second a loud red one with white polka dots? I could give you still other examples but I think that’s enough, because I don’t want to waste your time. Let’s get back to my new acquaintance and what he has to tell us.

“Yes, indeed, my good friend. You can see for yourself that I could easily travel second class. Do you think I travel third to save money? But money is garbage to me! Believe it or not, I travel third class because I like to. I’m a plain, simple person and I like simple people like myself. You might call me a democrat. I started out a small fish. A very small one, like so.” (My newfound friend put his hand near the floor to show me how small he had been.) “And then I grew bigger and bigger.” (Up went his hand toward the ceiling to show me how big he was now.) “It didn’t happen all at once. It took time. Bit by bit. Step by step. I didn’t start out my own boss. Do you think it was so easy even to find a boss to work for? A whole lot of water flowed under the bridge before I got that high up. Believe it or not, when I think of my childhood my hair stands on end! You know, I can’t even remember it. And I don’t want to, either. Do you suppose that’s because I’m ashamed of my origins? Not one bit. I make no bones about who I am. Ask me where I’m from and I’m not embarrassed to tell you that it’s a grand metropolis called Soshmakin. Do you have any idea where that is? It’s a village in Latvia, not far from Mitava. The whole place was so big that I could easily buy it all up today, lock, stock, and barrel. Maybe it’s changed or grown a bit since then — that’s something I really can’t tell you. In my time, though, the most valuable possession in all of Soshmakin, believe it or not, was a single orange that was lent from house to house to decorate the table for Sabbath guests.

“And do you know what I was raised on in Soshmakin? On whippings, beatings, slaps in the face, boxes on the ear, bloody noses, black-and-blue marks, and an empty stomach. You know, what I recall most is being hungry. I came hungry into this world, and hunger was my best friend ever since I can remember. Hunger and heartache and a cramp in the gut … but never mind! Resin, do you know what resin is? It’s something from the sap of trees that fiddlers wax their instruments with. Believe it or not, I lived on resin for nearly a whole summer. That was the summer when my stepfather, a tailor with a broken nose, twisted my arm from its socket and chased me out of my mother’s house, so that I had to run off to Mitava. Do you see this arm? It’s not right to this day.”

My new acquaintance rolled up his sleeve to reveal a soft, pudgy, perfectly normal-looking arm and continued:

“After roaming the streets of Mitava, hungry, barefoot, half-naked, and poking through garbage, I found, thank God, a job, my very first. It was being the seeing eye of an old cantor, a famous performer who went blind in his old age and had to beg for a living. I had to lead him around from house to house. It wasn’t really such a bad job, you know, but a person had to be made of iron to put up with all his crazy whims. Nothing ever satisfied him. But nothing. He yelled at me, pinched me, tore out whole handfuls of my flesh. He was always complaining that I never took him where he wanted to go, though just where that was is a mystery to me to this day. That was one loony cantor! And to top it all off, you should have heard what he made me out to be. Believe it or not, he went around telling people that both my parents had been baptized and wanted to baptize me too, and that he had risked his own neck to save me from the clutches of the Christians! And I had to listen to all those lies and keep myself from bursting with laughter! As a matter of fact, I was supposed to look glum when he told them.

“I realized pretty soon that there must be better things in life than my cantor, so I said to hell with my job and left Mitava for Libau. I went around hungry for a while there, too, until I ran into a group of poor emigrants who were about to embark for a faraway place called Buenos Aires and asked them to take me with them. What? Take you with us? It wasn’t possible. It didn’t depend on them but on the Emigration Committee that was sending them. So I went to the Committee and put on such an act, but a real tearjerker, that they agreed to pay my way to Buenos Aires.

“Search me if I know why I picked Buenos Aires. Do you think I knew a damn thing about it? Everyone was going there, so I went too. It wasn’t until we arrived that I discovered that Buenos Aires was not our real destination; it was simply a transit point from which we were supposed to be shipped still further. And we were: as soon as we landed, we were processed, taken to places where no human being had ever been before, not even in a bad dream, and put to work. You’re wondering what sort of work it was? Don’t ask! I tell you, our forefathers in Egypt never did half the things that we did, and all the horror stories about them in the Bible don’t add up to a fraction of what we went through. It says they had to make bricks out of clay and build the cities of Pithom and Rameses. Bully for them! They should have tried working with their bare hands in the godforsaken pampas that had nothing but thorns growing on them, handling monster oxen that could squash a man to death with one step, breaking wild horses that you first had to chase a hundred miles to lasso, suffering through nights of mosquitos that could eat a human being alive, living on dry bread that tasted like stones, drinking slimy water with worms swimming in it … Believe it or not, one day I saw my reflection in the river and was scared half out of my wits. My skin was cracked, my eyes were swollen, my hands were like cake dough, my legs were a bloody pulp, and I was covered all over with hair. Is that really you, Motek from Soshmakin? I asked myself. I couldn’t help laughing. That same day I said good riddance to the monster oxen, and the wild horses, and the wormy water, and the godforsaken pampas, and yours truly hoofed it back to Buenos Aires.

“If I’m not mistaken, though, there’s a big buffet at this station. Take a look at your train schedule. Don’t you think it’s time for a bite? It will give us the strength for more talk.”

Having feasted royally and washed it down with more beer, we lit up cigars again — good, aromatic, genuine Buenos Aires Havanas, too! — and returned to our seats, where my new friend resumed his story:

“Buenos Aires, you know, is a place the likes of which God never … but never mind! Have you ever been to America? Not even to New York? Or to London? No?… Maybe Madrid? Constantinople? Paris? None of them, eh? Well, I can’t really describe to you then what Buenos Aires is like. All I can tell you is that it’s a cesspool. Hell on earth. But a heavenly hell. That is, it’s hell for some and heaven for others. If you keep on your toes and wait for your chance, there are fortunes to be made. Believe it or not, there’s so much gold in the streets you can trip on it. You only have to bend down and take all you want. Just watch out, though, that your hand isn’t stomped on when you do! The main thing is never to look back. Never to have second thoughts. Never to ask yourself, can I stoop this low or not? You have to learn to stoop to anything. Waiting on customers in a restaurant? Do it! Selling in a store? Do it! Washing glasses in a bar? Do it! Dragging a pushcart? Do it! Hawking papers on the corner? Do it! Washing dogs? Do it! Feeding cats? Do it! Catching rats? Do it! Skinning them for their fur? Do that too! In short, do everything. You know, there’s nothing I didn’t try there, and each time I reached the same conclusion: working for others is for the birds, it’s a thousand times better to have others working for you. Is it any fault of my own if God made the world so that someone sweats to brew the beer I drink? Or so that someone gets cramps in his fingers from rolling the cigars I smoke? The conductor gets to drive the train, the stoker gets to shovel coal, the grease monkey gets to oil the wheels, and you and I get to shoot the breeze. What’s so bad about that? If you don’t like it, go make another world.”

I looked at the fellow and wondered, what can he possibly be? A newly made millionaire? An ex-tailor who now owns a big clothing store? Maybe even an industrialist? Or a landlord? Or an investor who lives off his shares? But let’s leave the telling to him, because he does it so much better:

“You know, it’s a pleasure to live in such a wonderful, well-run world! You just have to make sure that no one spits in your soup. I’ve tried my hand at a thousand different things, done every possible sort of dirty work. There’s not a job that’s been too hard or filthy for me. As a matter of fact, there’s no such thing as a filthy job. All ways of making a living are legitimate as long as you deal honestly and keep your word. Take it from me. I don’t claim to be the Rabbi of Lemberg, but believe me, I’m no thief either. And I’m certainly no swindler or confidence man. I should only live to be as old as I’ve been square in business! I deal fairly, you know. I never sell anyone a bill of goods. What I promise is what you get, there are no pigs in a poke with me. What exactly is my line, you’d like to know? I’m a kind of middleman, what you might call a jobber. That is, I provide a commodity that everyone knows about but no one ever talks about … Why not? Because in this world that’s too clever by half for its own good, no one wants to hear a spade called a spade. On the contrary, they would rather hear it called a silver spoon … I ask you, what can one do with such people?”

I looked at my companion from Buenos Aires and wondered, good God, what on earth does he do? What is this commodity he provides? What’s all this mumbo jumbo about spades? I could have interrupted him and asked, “Look here, my friend, just what do you deal in?”—but that was something I was loath to do. I preferred to let him continue.

“Well now, where was I? Yes: my current business in Buenos Aires. Actually, it’s not just in Buenos Aires. I do business, you know, all over the world: in Paris, in London, in Budapest, in Boston — but my headquarters are in Buenos Aires. It’s a shame we’re not there now, because I’d show you around the office and introduce you to my men. Believe it or not, they live like Rothschilds on the job. They even work an eight-hour day, not a minute more. A man of mine is treated like a man. And do you know why that is? It’s because I was someone’s man once myself. In fact, I worked for my present partners. There are three of us. There used to be two, before they took me into the business. I was their right-hand man. The whole operation, you might say, depended on me: the buying, the selling, the sorting, the pricing — I had a finger in everything … I have a good eye, you know: believe it or not, one look at the merchandise is all I need to tell you what it’s worth and where it will sell. But that’s only a small part of it. A good eye alone won’t get you very far in our business. You need a nose too, you have to sniff some things out a mile away. It takes a sixth sense to tell a good deal from a clinker that can land you up to your neck in such hot water that you’ll rue the day you ever fell for it. There are too many sob sisters around, too many eyes looking our way — and ours is a business, you know, that doesn’t do well in the limelight. One false step can cook your goose for good. Before you know it, there’s such a big stink that it’s smeared all over the newspapers. That’s all they care about. The papers are in seventh heaven if they can find a bit of muck to rake up. They go to town with it, they turn it into such a federal case that the whole police force is breathing down your neck … although just between the two of us, we’ve got the police in our pockets all over the world. Why, you’d turn pale if I told you what they cost us in a single year! Believe it or not, ten, fifteen, twenty grand in fall money is peanuts to us …”

The man from Buenos Aires made a motion with his hand as if throwing thousands into the air, the diamond glittering on his finger. He paused for a moment to see what impression he had made, then went on:

“And if that still won’t do it, do you think I can’t up the ante? We have complete trust in each other — I’m talking about me and my partners. No matter what one of us spends on such things, no questions are ever asked. It’s simply put down to expenses. We never doubt each other’s word. We wouldn’t dream of welshing on each other — and if one of us tried, he wouldn’t get very far … You see, we know each other, we know Buenos Aires, and we know all the tricks of the trade. Each one of us has his own plants and canaries. Does that surprise you? But it’s always that way in a business based on trust … What do you say, though, to our hopping off the train at this station and wetting our whistles a bit?”

My fellow passenger linked his arm in mine and fixed me with a candid look.

Naturally, I had no objection and the two of us hopped off the train to wet our whistles at the buffet. One bottle of lemonade after another popped open to be downed by my companion with a gusto that I envied. All the while, however, I kept wondering the same thing: just what did he deal in, this Jew from Buenos Aires? And how could he have the police in his pocket all over the world? And what did he need plants and canaries for? Was he an international smuggler?… A diamond counterfeiter?… A fence for stolen goods?… Or simply a bull artist, one of that fine breed of gentlemen whose tongues have an odd way of making things swell to many times their true size? We commercial travelers have our own name for these tellers of fish stories: we call them “wholesalers,” that is, people who deal only in bulk. In plain Yiddish you’d say, “He’s as full of hot air as a steam kettle.”

We lit up two more cigars, returned to our seats, and the man from Buenos Aires continued:

“Where were we? I was telling you about my partners. That is, about my current ones. As I say, they used to be my bosses. I hope I haven’t made you think they weren’t good ones. Why shouldn’t they have been good to me, when I was as loyal as a dog to them? I looked after each cent of theirs as though it were my own. And I made some pretty big enemies because of them. Believe it or not, my loyalty almost got me poisoned. That’s right, poisoned! You know, forgive me for boasting, but no one could have been any straighter on the job than I was. I don’t mean to say I never looked out for my own self, because that’s something we all have to do. You can’t forget you’re only human: today you’re alive and kicking — but tomorrow?… And the fact is that I never had the slightest intention of working for them forever. After all, didn’t I have two hands just like they did? And two feet? And a tongue? I knew they couldn’t last a day without me — that they couldn’t and mustn’t! There were secrets, you know, really big ones, the kind there can be in a business … Well, one fine day I made up my mind, knocked on their door, and said to them, ‘So long, gentlemen.’ ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ they asked, giving me a hard look. ‘It means,’ I said, ‘that it’s been good to know you.’ ‘What seems to be the problem?’ they asked. ‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘except that I’m tired of playing second fiddle around here.’ They looked at each other and asked, ‘How much can you come in with?’ ‘However much it is,’ I said, ‘it will do for starters — and if it won’t, God’s in His heaven and Buenos Aires is a big town.’ You can bet they understood me. They’d have had to have their heads on backwards not to. Right then and there they took me into the business and gave me an equal share of the firm. There are no junior or senior partners with us. ‘Let God give and you and me live,’ is our motto. Why quarrel when we’re making good money and the business, God bless it, is growing? It’s a big world and prices keep going up. Each of us draws as much money as he needs from the kitty. All three of us are big spenders. Believe it or not, I can blow three times as much on myself as a married man can on his whole family. Lots of people, you know, would be happy to earn what I give away to charity alone. Everyone puts the touch on me: synagogues, hospitals, immigrant societies, benefits — Buenos Aires is a big town! Don’t think it’s the only one, though. Believe it or not, I even shell out for Palestine. Not long ago I received a letter from a yeshiva in Jerusalem. A nice letter it was too, signed by lots of rabbis, with a star of David and all kinds of stamps. And it was addressed to me personally, with a terrific beginning: ‘To His Illustrious Honor, Reb Mordechai,’ etcetera. Eh, I thought, here are all these fine people sending me a personal appeal — the least I can do is let them have a check for a hundred …

“But that’s just petty cash. My hometown of Soshmakin is something else. Believe it or not, Soshmakin gets a barrelful of gold from me each year! The day doesn’t go by without a letter from there with news of some new cause or emergency — and I’m not even talking about routine things like the Matsoh Fund, which is an automatic hundred every Passover … I’m on my way to Soshmakin now, and believe me, this visit alone will set me back at least a thousand. What am I saying, a thousand? I’ll be happy to get away with two. Frankly, I’m even ready for three. It doesn’t happen every day that a man comes home again after so many years — why, I haven’t seen the place since I was a kid! But it’s still home to me, Soshmakin is. I can tell you that the whole town will be delirious. Everyone will come running at once. Hallelujah! ‘Motek is here, our Motek is here from Buenos Aires!’ … What a whoop-de-do there’ll be! You know, I’m like the Messiah for those poor, hungry devils. Every day I send them a telegram that’s signed ‘I’m on my way, Motek’ to let them know where I am. Believe it or not, I can hardly wait to get there myself. Just to be in Soshmakin again, to kiss the ground, to see my old house! I tell you, you can have your Buenos Aires. You can have your New York. You can have your London. You can even have your Paris. Home for me is Soshmakin …”

As he said these words, the face of the man from Buenos Aires underwent a change. It actually became different, younger and handsomer. The beady little eyes glimmered with a glad, selfless love, a love that couldn’t have been feigned … If only I knew what he did! Before I could pursue the matter, though, he went on:

“You must be wondering why I’m bothering to go to Soshmakin at all. Well, it’s partly because I miss the place and partly to visit my parents’ graves. I have a father and a mother who are buried there, and brothers and sisters too — a whole family, in fact. I’d like to get married also. How long can I live the single life? And I want to marry a hometown girl from Soshmakin, from my own folks. I’ve even written friends there to look for the right one … and they’ve written me back that she won’t be hard to find once I show up. You can see how crazy I am … why, believe it or not, back in Buenos Aires I could have had the greatest beauties in the world. I’ve been offered women, you know, such as even the Turkish sultan doesn’t have — but I turned every one of them down flat. A wife I’ll find in Soshmakin. I want someone with character. A good Jewish girl. I don’t care if she hasn’t a penny to her name: I’ll dress her in gold, I’ll gold-plate her parents too, I’ll make them one big happy family. And then I’ll bring her back to Buenos Aires and build her a palace fit for a princess, do you hear? She won’t have to lift a finger. Believe it or not, I’ll make her the happiest woman in the world. Her whole life will be her house and her husband and her family. I’ll send all my sons to the university. One will study medicine, another engineering, another law. The girls will go to a special Jewish finishing school that I know of. Do you know where it is? In Germany …”

Just then the conductor came along to check our tickets. He always (it’s not the first time I’ve noticed this) gets it into his head to check tickets just when you least want him to! A commotion broke out in the car. Everyone reached for their bags, myself included. It was time for me to change trains. While the man from Buenos Aires helped me get my things together, we exchanged a few last words, which I present here verbatim, exactly as they were spoken.

The man from Buenos Aires: “My, what a pity you’re getting off here. I won’t have anyone to talk to.”

I: “What can I do? Business is business.”

The man from Buenos Aires: “Right you are. Business is business. I’m afraid I’ll have to lay out some more money and move to second class. Not, God bless me, that I can’t afford to travel first. When I go by train—”

I: “Excuse me for interrupting, but we have only a half minute left. There was something I wanted to ask you.”

The man from Buenos Aires: “And what might that be?”

I: “It’s … but there goes the whistle! I wanted to ask what your business is. What exactly do you deal in?”

The man from Buenos Aires: “What do I deal in? Ha ha! Not in Hanukkah candles, my friend, not in Hanukkah candles!”

Even after I was through the door with my luggage, I still saw him before my eyes, the man from Buenos Aires, with his satisfied, smooth-shaven face and the fat cigar between his teeth, his laughter ringing in my ears:

“Not in Hanukkah candles, my friend, not in Hanukkah candles!”

(1909)

ELUL

“So you’re off to the festivities and I’m coming back from them! I’ve just finished crying my heart out and you’re about to begin … But why don’t I make some room for you? Here, move over this way. You’ll be more comfortable.”

“Ah, that’s better!”

So two passengers sat chatting behind me in the car. That is, one did the talking while the other murmured an occasional word.

“My wife and I go together. That’s her, curled up over there. She’s asleep, the poor thing; she must have shed enough tears for all the Jews in the world. She didn’t want to budge from the cemetery. She simply threw herself on the grave and wouldn’t let me tear her away. I tried to reason with her. ‘That’s enough,’ I said. ‘Your tears won’t bring her back to life again.’ Try talking to the wall! And what’s the wonder? Such a tragedy! An only daughter, our pride and joy. As pretty as a postcard. And so gifted, bright as they come! Just out of high school, she was. It’s been two years now. Don’t think it was TB or anything like that. She couldn’t have been healthier. No, she did it herself, she went and took her own life!”

“Dear me!”

By now I understood what sort of “festivities” were being talked about. It was, I realized, the beginning of the penitential month of Elul with its midnight prayers, that sad but dear time of year when Jews travel to visit long-dead parents, children, and relatives. Pining mothers, orphaned daughters, mourning sisters, plain grief-stricken women — all go to have a good cry at the graves of their loved ones, where they can let out their sorrow and ease the bitter burden of an afflicted heart.

It’s an odd thing: I’ve been a traveler for years and yet I can’t remember ever seeing such a run on the cemeteries as there was last Elul. The trains were doing a landslide business. Every car was jam-packed with somber-faced Jews, with shiny-nosed, puffy-eyed women on their way to or from the “festivities.” With the smell of autumn that was already in the air came a powerful, Elulish yearning … Without really wanting to, I listened to the conversation behind me:

“Maybe you’re thinking she got into trouble like some other young folks — black shirts, red flags, prison, and all that? God forbid! That’s one thing I was spared. Or rather, that I spared myself, because I watched her like the apple of my eye. You don’t see such a gifted young girl every day, and an only child at that! Pretty as a postcard. Just out of high school. I did everything I could: kept track of where she went, and who her friends were, and what she talked about with them, and even what books she read. ‘So you like to read?’ I said. ‘Be my guest! Just let me know what you’re reading …’ I admit I’m no great expert on these things — but a bit of horse sense, thank God, I have. I don’t even care if it’s written in French, one look at a book is all I need to tell you what’s in it.”

“You don’t say!”

“I didn’t want a child of mine playing with fire — anyone would have done the same. Don’t think I browbeat her, though. If anything, I tried making light of it. ‘Why pretend we can solve the world’s problems?’ I said to her. ‘Whatever will be, will be, there’s nothing you or I can do about it …’ That’s what I said, and do you know how she took it? She didn’t say a word. But not a peep out of her, as good as gold she was! So what does the good Lord do? The worst of it was already over, thank God; the Revolution, and the Constitution, and all those troubles were behind us. No more black shirts, no more red flags, no more short hair, no more hell’s-a-popping, no more bombs. My teeth could finally stop chattering. Do you think being afraid for her all the time was so easy? An only daughter, our pride and joy, and such a gifted child too. Just out of high school …”

“So?”

“In short, the nightmare was ended, God be praised. We could breathe easily again and think of a match for her. A dowry? No problem, if the right young man could be found. And so we began the whole routine: visits to matchmakers, lists of eligibles, and all the rest of it. I could see she wasn’t too keen on it. Why not? She wouldn’t tell us, not even to say she wasn’t interested. What was the matter, then? Wait until you hear the whole story.

“I kept a sharp eye out and one day I made a discovery: she had a book that she was reading in secret. And not alone, either; she was reading it with a friend of hers, the daughter of the cantor of our synagogue, a bright high school girl herself, and with a third person — the boy from Navaredok. Would you like to know who he was? Well, there’s nothing worth knowing. An ugly, scruffy, moonfaced, pimple-cheeked, eyebrowless little creep with gold-rimmed glasses — you wouldn’t want to eat at the same table with him. And a pest too, a slimy little worm! Do you know what a worm-person is? Then I’d better explain it to you. There are all kinds of people in the world. There are cow-people. There are horse-people. There are dog-people. There are pig-people. And there are worm-people. Do you get it now?”

“Quite.”

“How did this worm enter my life? Through the cantor’s daughter. He was a cousin of hers, a student of pharmacy, or dentistry, or law, or whatever the Devil it was. All I can tell you is that for me he was the Angel of Death. He and his gold glasses rubbed me the wrong way from the start. I told my wife that too. ‘Whatever can you be thinking of!’ she said. But I kept my eyes and ears open, and I didn’t like their reading together, or their talking together, or their arguing together so excitedly one bit … Once I even asked my daughter about it. ‘Tell me, missy,’ I said to her, ‘what’s that the three of you are smacking your lips over?’ ‘It’s nothing,’ she says, ‘just a book.’ ‘I can see it’s a book,’ I say. ‘I’m asking you what book.’ ‘And if I told you,’ she says, ‘would you know?’ ‘Why shouldn’t I know?’ I say. Well, she laughed at me and said, ‘It’s not the sort of book you think … it’s a novel called Sanine by Artsybashev.’ ‘The artsy pasha?’ I said. ‘Is he a Turk?’ That made her laugh even harder. Ai, missy, I thought, you’re laughing your father right into an ulcer! Who knows, I wondered, maybe they’re back to planning revolutions again … Don’t think I wasn’t itching to read that book myself!”

“My goodness!”

“I needed a little help, of course. That’s when I thought of my shopboy, a real whiz who knows Russian like the back of his hand. I stole the book from my daughter’s room one night and brought it to him. ‘Here, Berl,’ I said. ‘I want you to read this tonight and tell me tomorrow what it’s all about.’ I couldn’t wait for it to be morning. ‘All right, Berl,’ I said, grabbing him as soon as he showed up for work, ‘tell me what it says there.’ ‘Whew, that’s some book!’ he says, whistling through his teeth. ‘I didn’t sleep all night, I couldn’t put it down for a minute!’ ‘Is that a fact?’ I say. ‘In that case, suppose you let me in on it …’

“Well, my Berl starts describing the book — what can I tell you? Nothing has anything to do with anything! Listen to a schlock story. ‘Once upon a time,’ he says, ‘there’s this goy named Sanine who likes to get drunk and eat pickles … And he has a sister, Sanine does, called Lida, who’s wild about a doctor, even though she’s pregnant by an officer … And there’s also a student named Yuri, who’s crazy in love with a young teacher called Krasavitsa, who goes sailing one night — guess with who? — no, not with the student! — with that boozer, I mean Sanine …’

“ ‘And that’s all?’ I asked.

“ ‘Not so fast!’ he says. ‘I’m not done yet. There’s another teacher named Ivan, and he comes along with Sanine to see Krasavitsa take a skinny-dip …’

“ ‘Good for him,’ I say. ‘But what’s the upshot of it all?’

“ ‘The upshot,’ he says, ‘is that the boozer, this Sanine, is some stud, and even when he comes home to his own sister, Lida …’

“ ‘Feh,’ I say, ‘you should be ashamed of yourself! I’ve had enough of that drunk. Just tell me how it ends. What’s the punch line?’

“ ‘The punch line,’ he says, ‘is that the officer puts a bullet in his head, and so does the student, and Krasavitsa takes poison, and this Jew, Soloveichik — he’s part of it also — goes and hangs himself.’

“ ‘I wish you’d hanged yourself with him!’ I say.

“ ‘Who, me?’ he says. ‘What did I do?’

“ ‘Not you,’ I said. ‘I meant the artsy pasha.’

“That’s what I told my Berl, though I was really thinking of that damned little creep from Navaredok. Don’t think I wasn’t itching to have it out with him!”

“Well?”

“ ‘Tell me,’ I said to him, ‘where did you ever come up with such a schlock story?’ ‘What schlock story?’ he says, turning his gold glasses on me. ‘The one about that drunk called Sanine,’ I say. ‘Sanine is no drunk,’ he says. ‘Then what is he?’ I say. ‘He’s a hero,’ he says. ‘What makes him a hero,’ I say, ‘his eating sour pickles, drinking vodka from a teacup, and carrying on like a studhorse?’ That got under his skin, that creep from Navaredok. He took off his glasses, gave me a look with those red, browless eyes of his, and said, ‘You may have heard the music, Pa, but you sure can’t carry the tune. Sanine lives a free, natural life. Sanine says and does what he wants!’

“And off he goes into a long harangue about the dickens only knows what, freedom and love and love and freedom, waving his hands in the air and sticking out that pigeon breast of his as though he were preaching hellfire. I stood there looking at him and thinking: God in heaven, would you believe a scrawny little twerp like this talking about love?! Suppose I took him by the scruff of his neck and gave him such a shaking that he’d have to pick his teeth up off the floor? Only then I thought, what’s the matter with you? So the boy is a bubblehead, so what? Would you rather he had bombs on the brain?… Go be a prophet and guess that there are worse things than bombs and that because of that schlock story, I would lose my only daughter, and see my wife go nearly mad with grief, and suffer such shame and heartache that I had to sell my business and move to another town! I can’t believe it’s been two years already …

“But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you exactly what happened and how it all came about. It started with the peasant riots. We had a good scare in our town when they broke out, because we were afraid pogroms would come next. By some miracle, though, everything turned out for the best. How was that? A regiment of soldiers was sent from the provincial capital, and not only did they restore such order that it was a pleasure, they were a windfall for the whole town. What could be better for business than an entire regiment complete with officers, and adjutants, and quartermasters, and barber-surgeons, and camp followers?”

“That’s for sure!”

“Go be a prophet and guess that the cantor’s daughter would fall in love with an officer and announce that she was going to baptize herself and marry him! That put the town into a panic. Not to worry, though: the cantor’s daughter wasn’t baptized and she didn’t marry the officer, because by then the peasant riots were over and he was so involved in decamping with his regiment that he forgot all about saying goodbye to her … Except that she couldn’t forget about him. Imagine her poor father and mother! It was no joke what they went through. The whole town was in an uproar, wherever you went no one talked about anything else. There were even some bigmouths who spread the word that the cantor’s wife had sent for the midwife and went about asking the cantor who he planned to name the child for … although to tell you the truth, it’s perfectly possible that the whole thing was a figment of their imagination. You know how people in a small town like to gossip …”

“Don’t they!”

“I felt so sorry for the two of them, the cantor and his wife, that it broke my heart, because when you get right down to it, what fault was it of theirs? I had a daughter of my own, though, and don’t think I didn’t put my foot down and tell her once and for all, ‘Whatever was, was, but from now on you’re not friends with that girl any longer!’ When I lay down the law, I expect to be obeyed; she may have been an only child, but respect for a father comes first. Go guess that she would go on seeing the girl secretly without anyone knowing about it! When did I find out? When it was already too late …”

From behind me came the sound of someone half coughing and half groaning in sleep. The Jew telling the story fell silent for a few moments, then resumed his tale in a lower tone than before.

“It happened at the beginning of Elul. I remember it as though it were yesterday. You should have heard our cantor lead the midnight prayer: why, the way he wept could have moved a stone to tears! No one, but no one, knew what he was feeling as well as I did — believe me, being the father of today’s children is no great joy … It was already light out when we finished, so I went home, grabbed a bite to eat, took the keys, went to the marketplace, opened the business, and waited for the shopboy to come. I waited half an hour. I waited an hour. Still no shopboy. Finally he appeared. ‘Berl,’ I said, ‘why so late?’ ‘I was at the cantor’s house,’ he says. ‘What on earth were you doing at the cantor’s?’ I asked. ‘What!’ he says, ‘Haven’t you heard what happened to Chaika?’ (That was the cantor’s daughter.) ‘No,’ I said, ‘what happened?’ ‘You won’t believe this,’ he says, ‘but she went and poisoned herself!’ ”

“Dear me!”

“As soon as I heard that, I ran right home. My first thought was, what will Etke say? (My daughter’s name was Etke.) ‘Where’s Etke?’ I asked my wife. ‘She’s still sleeping,’ she says. ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘You won’t believe this,’ I say, ‘but Chaika poisoned herself.’ The words weren’t out of my mouth when my wife grabs her head in her hands and screams: ‘Oh, my God! Oh, dear God! Oh, God help her!’ ‘Who? What?’ I said. ‘You won’t believe this,’ she says, ‘but Etke spent at least two hours with her just last night.’ ‘Etke with Chaika?’ I say. ‘What are you talking about? How can that be?’ ‘Don’t ask me that now!’ she says. ‘I had to give in to her. She begged me not to tell you that she was seeing her every day. Oh, God! If only this were all a bad dream …’ And she turns around, my wife, runs into Etke’s room, and collapses there on the floor. I ran in after her, straight to the bed. ‘Etke! Etke!’ I called. What Etke? Who was I calling? She was gone.”

“Gone?”

“Dead. In her own bed. There was a bottle on the table with a note beside it, written in her own hand — not in Russian, but in Yiddish. It was a thing of beauty, her Yiddish! ‘Dear, darling Papa and Mama,’ she wrote. ‘Please forgive me for causing you such grief and shame. A hundred times I beg your forgiveness. We promised each other, Chaika and I, that we would die a single death, because we can’t live without each other. I know, my dearest ones, that I’m doing a terrible thing to you. I’ve gone through all kinds of torment. But my fate is my fate, and I must go to meet it … I have only one request of you, my dears — that you bury me in a grave next to Chaika’s. Be well, and please, please forget you ever had a daughter named Etke …’ Did you hear that? We should forget we had a daughter named Etke …”

There was a sound of stirring behind me, followed by a yawn or a groan and the hoarse, sleep-constricted voice of a woman calling:

“Avreml?… Avreml!..”

“Gitke, are you up? How did you sleep? Would you like a hot drink? There’s a station coming up soon. Where’s the thermos? Where did you put the tea and sugar?”

(1909)

THE SLOWPOKE EXPRESS

Would you like to know what the best train of all is? The best, the quietest, and the most restful? It’s the Slowpoke Express.

That’s what the Jews of Bohopoli call the narrow-gauge local that connects several towns in their district: Bohopoli, Heysen, Teplik, Nemirov, Khashchevate, and a few other such blessed places that are far from the beaten track indeed.

According to the Bohopolians, who have a reputation for being jokesters, the Slowpoke Express is no ordinary train. In the first place, you needn’t ever worry about missing it: whenever you arrive at the station, it’s still there. Secondly, they say, where else can you find a train on which you never have to fight for a seat — on which, in fact, you can travel for miles all by yourself, stretched out at full length on a bench like a lord and sleeping as much as you please? And they happen to be right on both counts. I’ve been riding the Slowpoke Express for several weeks now, and I’m still practically in the same place. I tell you, it’s magic! Don’t think I’m complaining, either. Far from it. I couldn’t be more satisfied, because I’ve seen so many fine sights and heard so many fine tales that I don’t know when I’ll ever get the chance to jot them all down in my journal.

First, though, let me tell you how this railway came to be built. That’s a story in itself.

When word arrived from St. Petersburg that a line was going to be laid (Witte was the minister in charge then), the Jews refused to believe it. What did Teplik, or Golte, or Heysen, need a railroad for? Hadn’t they gotten along famously without one until now? And the biggest sceptics were the Bohopolians, who received the news, as was their custom, with a spate of jokes. “Do you see this?” they said, holding up the palms of their hands. “We’ll have a railroad the day hair grows here.” After a while, however, when an engineer arrived with a team of surveyors, the Jews ate their words and the Bohopolians hid their hands in their pockets. (One good thing about the Bohopoli Jews is that they don’t take it to heart when they’re wrong. “Even a calendar,” they say, “sometimes has the wrong date on it.”) Soon the engineer was besieged with documents, references, letters of recommendation, requests for favors — in short, with applications for jobs. A Jew, unfortunately, has to make a living, and it was common knowledge among the good burghers of Teplik, Bershed, Heysen, and Bohopoli that building a railroad was the way to get rich quick. Why, just look at Poliakov in Moscow …

There wasn’t a Jewish businessman — not just those who dealt in lumber and stone, but wheat and grain merchants too — who didn’t try to go to work for the railroad. Overnight the whole district blossomed with contractors, subcontractors, and sub-subcontractors. “Our Poliakovs,” the Bohopolians called them, already busily calculating how they too might get their share of the loot.

In a word, the outbreak of railroad fever spared no one. Even in ordinary times it’s hard not to crave an easy ruble, and who can resist becoming a Poliakov quicker than it takes to say one’s bedtime prayers?

Indeed, so I was told, the competition among the contractors, the subcontractors, and the sub-subcontractors was so fierce that the contracts had to be raffled off. Whoever was smiled upon by fortune and the chief engineer received one, and whoever didn’t had to make do with what could be gleaned from those who did. They were sure to part with something, because the losers had a way of hinting that the road leading to St. Petersburg and the hearts of its officials was open to the general public too … To make a long story short, our Jews pawned their wives’ pearls and their Sabbath suits to go into the railroad business and ended up by losing every penny and warning their children and grandchildren never to go near a railroad again.

Nevertheless, the one thing had nothing to do with the other. Our Jews, the poor devils, may have been taken to the cleaner’s, but a train to travel on they had. And even though, as the reader now knows, the Bohopolians christened it the Slowpoke Express, they can’t stop singing its praises and telling its wonders to the world.

For example, they make much of the fact that since the Slowpoke is a slowpoke, there’s no danger of the accidents that occur on other lines. The slower the safer, they say — and the Slowpoke is as slow as can be, indeed, a little too slow for comfort. The wits of Bohopoli, who have a tendency to exaggerate, even claim that a local resident once set out on the Slowpoke for his grandson’s circumcision in Khashchevate and arrived just in time for the bar mitzvah. And they tell another story about a young man from Nemirov and a young lady from Bershed who arranged to be introduced at a station midway between them; by the time they got there, however, the young lady was toothless and the young man was as gray as a rainy day, and so the match was called off …

If you ask me, though, I can do without the Bohopolian jokesters and their tall tales. When I myself state a fact, it’s either something that I’ve seen with my own eyes or that I’ve heard from a reliable source like a businessman.

For instance, I have it on good faith from a merchant in Heysen that several years ago, at Hoshana Rabbah time, the Slowpoke was indeed involved in an accident, a veritable catastrophe that sowed panic up and down the line and set the whole district by the ears. The incident was caused by a Jew and — of all people — a Russian priest. I intend to relate it to you in the next story exactly as it was told me by the merchant. I like to pass on items that I’ve heard from others. You’ll see for yourselves when you read it that it’s the gospel truth, because a merchant from Heysen could never make up such a thing.

(1909)

THE MIRACLE OF HOSHANA RABBAH

“The Miracle of Hoshana Rabbah — that’s what we called the great train accident that took place toward the end of Sukkos. The whole thing happened, don’t you know, right in Heysen. That is, not in Heysen itself but a few stops away, in a place called Sobolivke.”

With these words a businessman from Heysen, a most companionable fellow, began his jovial account of the catastrophe that befell the narrow-gauge train called the Slowpoke Express, which I described in the last chapter. And since we were on the Slowpoke ourselves — where, being the only passengers in our car, we had all the time and space in the world — he sprawled out as comfortably as if he were in his own living room and gave his narrative talents free rein, turning each polished phrase carefully and grinning with pleasure at his own story while stroking his ample belly with one hand.

“So this is already your second week on our Slowpoke! I suppose you must have noticed, then, that it has a temperament of its own and that once it pulls into a station, it sometimes forgets to pull out. According to the schedule, of course, it mustn’t stay a minute longer than it’s supposed to. In Zatkevitz, for instance, that’s an hour and fifty-eight minutes, and in Sobolivke, which is the place I was telling you about, it’s exactly an hour and thirty-two. Bless its sweet little soul, though, if it doesn’t stop for over two hours in each, and sometimes for over three! It all depends how long it takes to tank up. Do you know how the Slowpoke’s crew tanks up? The locomotive is uncoupled and everyone — the motorman, the conductors, and the stokers — goes off with the Stationmaster, the policeman, and the telegraph operator to see how many bottles of beer he can drink.

“And what do the passengers do while the crew is tanking up? That’s something you’ve seen for yourself too: they go stir-crazy, they begin to climb the walls. Some of them just sit there and yawn, some curl up in a corner and grab forty winks, and some walk up and down the platform with their hands behind their backs, humming a little tune.

“Well, it just happened to happen during tank-up time in Sobolivke. One Hoshana Rabbah morning, a Jew was standing by the unhooked locomotive with his hands behind his back — and not even a passenger, don’t you know, but a local citizen who had come to have a look-see. How else does a well-off Jew in Sobolivke pass the time on Hoshana Rabbah? He’s already waved his palm branch and said his prayers in the synagogue, gone home, and eaten an early dinner. It’s only half a holiday, but the next day is a whole one, and there’s really nothing much for him to do. What’s left but to take his walking stick and go off to meet the train at the station?

“ ‘Meeting the train,’ you have to understand, is a local institution. When the train is due in, a Jew moseys down to the station to have a look at it. Just what does he hope to see that’s so exciting — another Jew like himself from Teplik? Or a Jewess from Obodivke? Or a priest from Golovonyevsk? Jewish pleasures! But it was the custom to go, so go this Jew did. And in those days, don’t you know, the railroad was new; we weren’t used to the Slowpoke yet and we were all still curious about it. Take it this way or that, or any way you like, there by the unhooked locomotive with his walking stick stood a Jew from Sobolivke one Hoshana Rabbah morning, half a holiday it was and half a workday, having himself a look-see.

“Well might you ask: and what of it? Whose business was it if a Jew from Sobolivke stood looking at a locomotive or not? Let him look till the cows come home! It just happened to happen, however, that among the passengers that day was a Russian priest from Golovonyevsk, which is, don’t you know, a small town not far from Heysen. And having nothing to do either, he too was walking up and down the same platform with his hands behind his back until he reached the same locomotive. ‘Hey, Yudko!’ he said to the Jew. ‘What are you looking at?’

“ ‘Since when am I Yudko to you?’ the Jew retorted angrily. ‘My name isn’t Yudko. It’s Berko.’

“ ‘Let it be Berko,’ said the priest. ‘Tell me, Berko, what are you looking at?’

“ ‘I’m looking,’ said the Jew without taking his eye off the locomotive, ‘at one of God’s wonders. It’s amazing how a ridiculous little thing like turning one throttle this way and another throttle that way can make such a huge engine go.’

“ ‘What makes you think that turning one throttle this way and another throttle that way will make it go?’ asked the priest.

“ ‘If I didn’t know it would, I wouldn’t have said so,’ said the Jew.

“ ‘Why, you wouldn’t even know how to eat a noodle pudding!’ said the priest.

“That got the Jew’s dander up so (the Sobolivkan Jews think a lot of themselves) that he said to the priest, ‘All right, Father. Suppose you kindly climb aboard with me and let me give you some pointers on how a locomotive runs.’

“Well, by now the priest was pretty damn hot under the collar himself. The idea of that little Jew giving him pointers on anything! And so he said good and loud, ‘Go ahead, climb aboard, Hirshko!’

“ ‘I told you my name isn’t Hirshko,’ said the Jew. ‘It’s Berko!’

“ ‘Fine,’ said the priest, ‘Berko. Up you go, Berko!’

“ ‘What do you mean up I go?’ said the Jew. ‘Why me first? Up you go, Father!’

“ ‘It’s you who’s giving the pointers,’ said the furious priest. ‘Go ahead!’

“In short, one word led to another, don’t you know, and they both climbed aboard the locomotive, where the Jew from Sobolivke began to give the priest driving lessons. He gave one throttle a little twist this way and another throttle a little twist that way, and before they knew it, they were astonished to see that the locomotive was moving and they were off to the races …

“I do believe, though, that now is the time to wish them both a pleasant journey and ask ourselves a basic question: exactly who was this Jew from Sobolivke who had the strength of character to board an unhitched locomotive — and with a priest, at that?

“Berl Vinegar — that was the Jew’s name. Why Berl Vinegar? Because, don’t you know, he makes vinegar, the best money can buy hereabouts. He learned the business from his father, but he himself — I have this directly from Berl — invented a machine that turns out a superior product. If he wanted to, he told me, he could corner the market in three whole provinces. You know what, though? He says he’s got time, he’s no get-rich-quicknik. That’s our vinegar maker. He never studied a day in his life, but there’s nothing he doesn’t know and no machine he can’t take apart. Where did he learn it all? Well, it’s no secret that making vinegar has to do with making spirits, and spirits are distilled in a distillery — and a distillery, he told me, has machinery just like a train engine: both work on hot air, so what’s the big difference between them? The principle of the thing — Berl used both hands to explain it — is boiling water: you boil the water in a boiler, he says, and when the boiling water’s boiled, it turns a shaft, and the shaft, he says, turns the wheels however you want; if you want them to go forwards you turn a gizmo to the right, and if you want them to go backwards you turn a gizmo to the left. Why, it couldn’t be simpler, he says!.. And now that I’ve introduced you to Berl Vinegar and answered a few questions you may have had about him, suppose we get back to our catastrophe.

“I hardly need to tell you what pandemonium broke out among the passengers in Sobolivke station when they saw the uncoupled locomotive mysteriously take off on its own. That’s something you should have no trouble picturing. And the horrified train crew? At first, don’t you know, they tried chasing the locomotive. Pretty soon, however, they gave up, because just to show them who was boss, that engine suddenly put on a mad burst of speed. Since the day the Slowpoke made its debut in our parts, no one ever saw it go so fast. The crew came back without it, conferred with the policeman and the stationmaster, drew up a report, and sent out a telegram to all the other stations that said:

“ ‘Runaway locomotive stop take all necessary precautions stop confirm at once.’

“It’s easy to imagine the panic this telegram sowed all up and down the line. To begin with, nobody understood it. What was runaway locomotive supposed to mean? How could a locomotive run away? And secondly, what kind of precautions was anyone supposed to take? What precautions could be taken besides sending out more telegrams? And so the cables began to fly in every possible direction. The wires hummed as if possessed. Every station contacted every other, and the grim tidings spread so far and wide, don’t you know, that the whole district was plunged into mourning. In Heysen, for example, our Jews were already quoting casualty counts of how many passengers had been killed. What a horrible way to have to die! And when? On Hoshana Rabbah, just when the Book of Life is being shut for the year! Who can fathom the ways of Providence …?

“Well, it was all anyone talked about in Heysen and the villages around. I can’t begin to describe to you the mental anguish we all went through. And yet what was that compared to the anguish of the unlucky passengers in Sobolivke station, who were stranded like shepherdless sheep without a locomotive to take them anywhere! What on earth were they supposed to do? It was Hoshana Rabbah, the next day was Simkhes Toyroh, the merriest day of the year — where were they going to be for it? Did anyone seriously expect them to spend it in such a jerkwater? Some fine holiday that would be!.. The passengers gathered in a corner to discuss their own and the runaway’s plight. Who knew what might happen to the schlimazel? It was no joke, an engine like that going for a joyride by itself. And sooner or later it was bound to run into another engine pulling a train from the opposite direction, that is, from Heysen to Sobolivke via Zatkevitz! What would happen to the poor devils aboard? Imaginations ran wild over the horrible collision with all its gory details. It was as vivid as if it had already happened: the overturned cars, the twisted wheels, the mangled bodies, the mutilated limbs, the blood-spattered remains of suitcases … at which point another telegram arrived. From Zatkevitz. What did it say? It said:

“Locomotive just passed through Zatkevitz at top speed with two passengers stop one looks a Jew the other a priest stop both waved stop destination unknown stop locomotive headed for Heysen.

“That’s when the real shindig started. What could be the meaning of it? A Jew and a priest in a runaway locomotive? Where were they running away to? And why? And who could the Jew be?… A few more minutes passed, two and two were put together, and word went around that the Jew was from Sobolivke. Who? Do you know him? Do I?! Berl Vinegar! How did everyone know it was Berl? But the fact is that they did. Several Sobolivkans even swore they had seen him standing by the locomotive with a priest, explaining something with his hands. Only what could he have been explaining? What was a vinegar maker doing with a priest by a locomotive?… The debate grew so heated that pretty soon it spilled over into the town itself, into Sobolivke, don’t you know — and although the town was not far from the station, the story kept growing by such leaps and bounds with each new arrival from there, everyone adding some new touch of his own, that the version reaching Berl’s home was so gruesome that Berl’s wife must have fainted a good ten times before a doctor could be brought. And simultaneously, don’t you know, Jews from Sobolivke began descending on the station like falling stars and raising such a rumpus that the stationmaster had to order the policeman to clear them all out of there — which means that it’s time for us to go somewhere else too … Suppose, then, that we return to our Jew and our priest in their runaway engine and have a look at what they’re up to.

“Having a look at a runaway engine is easier said than done, though. Who’s to say what went on in it? All we can do is take Berl Vinegar’s word. Granted, his account is full of such wonders that even if only half of it were true, it would be more than enough; still, if I know Berl as I think I do, it’s not like him to exaggerate.

“According to Berl, then, his mind went blank when the locomotive pulled out of the station. It wasn’t the fright, he says, it was simply not understanding why the engine didn’t obey him. Logically speaking, it should have come to a stop with the second turn of the throttle, whereas in actual fact it only picked up more speed. You would have thought that ten thousand devils were pushing it from behind! It was traveling at such a clip that the telegraph poles were dancing like gnats before his eyes, and he felt dizzy and weak all over … After a while, though, when he came to his senses, he recalled that a locomotive had a brake. There were indeed — he drew them for me in the air — two brakes: a hand brake and an air brake, which was a kind of wheel that, when given a good turn, did something to the crankshaft, or maybe it was the connecting rod, and brought the engine to a halt. How in the world could it have slipped his mind? And so he took hold of the wheel and was just about to turn it hard to the right when — don’t think another hand didn’t grab his own. ‘Stop!’ Who was it? It was the priest, don’t you know, white as a sheet and barely able to talk. ‘What are you doing now?’ he asked Berl, trembling like a leaf.

“ ‘Nothing,’ said Berl. ‘I’m just putting on the brake.’

“ ‘God help you,’ said the priest, ‘if you so much as touch another thing! You better listen to me or I’ll take you by the collar and throw you out of here so fast that you’ll forget your name was ever Moshko!’

“ ‘It’s not Moshko, it’s Berko,’ said Berl, and tried to explain the principle of the air brake. It didn’t do a bit of good, though, because that priest was pretty far gone. ‘I don’t want to hear about any brake,’ he said. ‘The only brake that interests me is seeing you break your neck, you little bastard! What did I do to deserve you turning up in my life?’

“ ‘Father,’ said Berl, ‘do you think you value your life more than I value my life?’

“ ‘Your life?’ said the irate priest. ‘Who gives a damn for the life of a dog like you?’

“Well, that got Berl’s goat so it wasn’t even funny, and he gave that priest a piece of his mind. ‘In the first place,’ he said, ‘even a dog has feelings. Our religion forbids us to be cruel to it, because it too is a living creature.’ Secondly, said Berl, he wanted to ask the priest something. ‘What makes you think that my blood is any less red in God’s eyes than yours? Aren’t we all descended from Adam? And won’t we all be buried in the same earth in the end?’ That was number two. And there was something else that Berl told him too. ‘Just look at the difference, Father, between you and me. I’m doing my best to stop this locomotive, because I’m trying to save us both, and all you can think of is throwing me out of it — in other words, of murdering your fellow man!’

“He went on laying into him, Berl did, giving that priest such hell that the Father almost had a stroke. He was still going strong, he says, when what did they see go by but Zatkevitz station with its stationmaster and its policeman. They both began waving their hands, but no one seemed to understand them, and there was unfortunately no choice but to head on for Heysen. By now, Berl says, the priest had calmed down a bit, but he still wouldn’t let him touch the brake. ‘Listen, Liebko,’ he said. ‘I have a proposal to make to you.’

“ ‘My name isn’t Liebko,’ said Berl. ‘It’s Berko.’

“ ‘Then Berko,’ said the priest. ‘Tell me, Berko, what do you say to the two of us making a jump for it?’

“ ‘What for?’ asked Berl. ‘So that the two of us can be killed?’

“ ‘We’ll be killed anyway,’ said the priest.

“ ‘What makes you so sure?’ Berl challenged him. ‘There’s no guarantee of that. If God has something else in mind for us — ai, ai, ai, you’d be surprised at the things He can do.’

“ ‘Such as what?’ asked the priest.

“ ‘I’ll tell you such as what, Father,’ said Berl. ‘We Jews have a day today called Hoshana Rabbah. That’s the day on which the fate of every one of us is sealed in the Book of Life for the year — and not only who lives and who dies, but who dies what sort of death. Think of it this way, then: if it’s God will that I die, there’s nothing I can do about it — what difference does it make to me if it’s in a locomotive, or jumping out of it, or getting hit by a thunderbolt? Do you think I can’t slip and break my back in the street if that’s what God’s put me down for? On the other hand, though, if I’m down for another year of life, why kill myself trying to jump?’

“What can I tell you? According to Berl Vinegar of Sobolivke, who swears to the truth of his story with so many oaths that you’d have to believe him even if he weren’t a jew, he can’t remember the exact order of things, but as they neared Heysen and saw its big factory chimney in the distance, the locomotive began to go slower and slower until it was going so slow that it decided to stop altogether. What had happened to it? Apparently, says Berl, it had no more coal — and when an engine has no more coal, he says, the water stops boiling, it runs out of steam, and kaput! It’s the same, he says, as it is with a man if he doesn’t get anything to eat … And you can be sure he said to that priest right then and there: ‘Well, Father, what did I tell you? If God hadn’t written me down for another year of life, who knows how much steam this locomotive might still have and where we might be in it right now?’

“Those were Berl’s very words — and the priest, don’t you know, just stood there staring at the ground. It was only later, says Berl, when it was time to say goodbye, that the priest stuck out his hand and said to him, ‘All the best, Itzko.’

“ ‘My name,’ said Berl, ‘isn’t Itzko. It’s Berko.’

“ ‘All right,’ said the priest, ‘Berko. You know something, Berko? I never would have guessed that you were such a—’

“But Berl never heard the rest of it, he says, because the priest hitched up the skirts of his gown and began wending his way home to Golovonyevsk, while he, Berl, walked into town to visit his friends in Heysen. And in Heysen, don’t you know, he celebrated the holiday, and thanked God for his deliverance, and told the story of the runaway engine at least a thousand times from A to Z, each time with more miraculous details. All of us insisted on hosting Berl Vinegar in our own homes and hearing about the Miracle of Hoshana Rabbah straight from the horse’s mouth, and a merry Simkhes Toyroh was had by all. In fact, we never had a merrier!”

(1909)

THE WEDDING THAT CAME WITHOUT ITS BAND

“I do believe I promised to tell you about another of our Slowpoke’s miracles, thanks to which, don’t you know, we were saved from a horrible fate. If you’d like to hear about it, why don’t you stretch out on this seat and I’ll lie down on that one. That way we’ll both be more comfortable.”

So said my friend, the merchant from Heysen, as we were traveling one day on the narrow-gauge train called the Slowpoke Express. And since this time too we were all by ourselves in the car, which was rather hot, we took off our jackets, unbuttoned our vests, and made ourselves right at home. I let him tell his story in his jovial, unhurried manner, making a few mental notes as he did so that I could write it down later in his own words.

“Once upon a time … it happened a while ago, back in the days of the Constitution, when we Jews were getting the glad hand. Actually, though, we in Heysen were never afraid of a pogrom. Shall I tell you why not? For the simple reason that there was no one to do the job. Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that if you looked hard enough, you couldn’t have found a few public-spirited citizens who would have welcomed the chance to dust off a Jew or two, that is, to break all our bones — the proof of it being, don’t you know, that when the glad tidings began to arrive from other places, some of our local patriots dashed off a secret message to whoever they thought it might concern: seeing as how, they wrote, it was time to stand up and be counted in Heysen too, where there was a dearth of volunteers, could they please be sent reinforcements in a hurry … And don’t you know that twenty-four hours hadn’t gone by when word reached us Jews, and again in strictest secrecy, that the reinforcements were already on their way. Where were they coming from? From Zhmerinka, and from Kazatin, and from Razdyelne, and from Popelne, and from a few-other places that were equally famous for their roughnecks. How, you ask, did we get wind of such a top secret? The answer, don’t you know, is that we had a hidden agent, a fellow called Noyach Tonkonog. Who was this Tonkonog? I’ll try to describe him for you, because being a traveler in these parts, you may run into him some day.

“Noyach Tonkonog is a Jew who grew more up than out. And since God gave him a pair of long legs, he learned to put them to good use. He’s always on the run and hardly ever at home. He’s got a thousand irons in the fire, most of them not his own. His own business, that is, is a printshop. And because it’s the only one in Heysen, he rubs elbows with government officials, and with our local gentry, and with all kinds of people in high places.

“It was Noyach who broke the good news to us. That is, he personally spread it around town by whispering in everyone’s ear, ‘This is strictly for your private consumption, because I’d never tell anyone else …’ Before long the word had traveled like wildfire that hooligans were being brought in to attack the Jews. We even knew the exact hour of the attack and the direction it would come from — it was all planned like a military operation. Well, there was great gloom in Heysen, don’t you know! And it was the poor who panicked the most. That’s not what you’d normally expect, is it? After all, it makes more sense for a rich Jew to be scared to death of such a thing, because he’s liable to be cleaned out of house and home. If you own nothing to begin with, on the other hand, why worry? What’s there to lose? Still, you should have seen them drop everything, grab their children, and run pell-mell for cover … Just where, you ask, does a Jew hide in Heysen? Either in the cellar of a friendly Russian, or in the attic of the town notary, or wherever the owner puts you in his factory. And in fact, everyone managed to find a place. There was only one Jew who didn’t bother, and you’re looking at him right now. I’m not trying to boast, mind you, but you’ll see if you think about it that I had logic on my side. In the first place, what good does it do to be afraid of a pogrom? You either live through it or you don’t … And secondly, even assuming that I’m no braver than the next man, and that, when push comes to shove, I’d like to be someplace safe myself, where, I ask you, is safe? Whose word do I have that, in all the excitement, the same friendly Russian, or town notary, or factory owner isn’t going to … do you follow me? And besides, how can you just go and abandon a whole town? It’s no trick to skedaddle — the whole point is to stay and do something!.. Of course, you may object, that’s easy to say, but what exactly can a Jew do? Well, I’ll tell you what: a Jew can find a string to pull. I suppose there’s someone with the right sort of influence where you come from, too. In Heysen he’s called Nachman Kassoy, a contractor with a round beard, a silk vest, and a big house all his own. And because he builds roads, he was on good terms with the prefect of the district, who even used to have him over for tea. This prefect, don’t you know, was quite a decent goy. In fact, he was a prince of a goy! Why do I say that? Because he had his price, if you paid it through Nachman Kassoy. That is, he was perfectly willing to accept gifts from anyone (why be rude, after all?), but he liked getting them from Nachman best of all. There’s something about a contractor, don’t you know …

“In short, I fixed things via Nachman, drew up a list of donors, and managed to raise the funds — and a tidy little sum it was too, don’t you know, because you couldn’t cross a prefect’s palm in such a matter without giving it some good scratch … in return for which, he did his best to reassure us that we could sleep calmly that night because nothing would happen to us at all. Fair enough, no? The only trouble was that we still had our secret agent, whose reports went from bad to worse; the latest of them, which he of course passed on in such strict confidence that it was all over town in no time flat, was that he, Noyach Tonkonog, had personally seen a telegram that he very much wished he hadn’t. What was in it? Just one word, but a most unpleasant one: yedyem, it said — here we come! Back to our prefect we ran. ‘Your Excellency, it looks bad!’ ‘How come?’ ‘There’s a telegram.’ ‘From whom?’ ‘The same people.’ ‘What’s in it?’ ‘Yedyem!’ You should have heard him laugh. ‘You’re bigger fools than I thought,’ he said. ‘Why, just yesterday I ordered a company of Cossacks from Tulchin for your protection …’ Well, that put some spunk in us, don’t you know: a Jew only needs to see a Cossack to feel so courageous that he’s ready to take on the whole world! It was nothing to sneeze at, a bodyguard like that …

“In short, there was just one question: who would arrive first, the Cossacks from Tulchin or the roughnecks from Zhmerinka? It stood to reason that the roughnecks would, since they were traveling by train while the Cossacks were on horseback. But we had our hopes pinned on our Slowpoke: God was great, and the only miracle we asked of Him was to make the train a few hours late, which it usually was anyway, in fact, nearly every day … Yet for once, don’t you know, as though out of spite, the Slowpoke was right on time: it pulled in and out of each station like clockwork. You can imagine how it made our blood run cold to hear from our secret agent that another yedyemegram had arrived from Krishtopovka, the last station before Heysen — and this time, for good measure, the yedyem had a yahoo after it … Naturally, we went right to the prefect with the news, threw ourselves at his feet, and begged him not to count on the Cossacks from Tulchin and, if only for appearances’ sake, to send a detachment of police to the station so that the hooligans shouldn’t think the only law was that of the jungle. His Excellency didn’t let us down. In fact, he quite rose to the occasion. What do I mean by that? I mean, he put on his full dress uniform with all its medals and went off to the station with the entire police force to meet the train.

“But our local patriots, don’t you know, weren’t caught napping either. They had also put on their best clothes and their medals, taken along a pair of priests for good luck, and gone off to meet the train at the station — where, in fact, they asked the prefect what he was doing there, which was the exact same question he asked them. A few words were exchanged, and the prefect made it clear that they were wasting their time. As long as he was in charge, he said, there would be no pogroms in Heysen. He read them the riot act, but they just grinned back at him and even had the cheek to answer, ‘We’ll soon see who’s in charge around here …’ Just then a whistle was heard. It made our hearts skip a beat. We were all waiting for it to blow again, followed by a loud ‘Yahoo!’—and what that ‘Yahoo!’ meant, don’t you know, we already knew from other towns … Would you like to hear the end of it, though? There was a second whistle, all right, but there never was any ‘Yahoo.’ Why not? It could only have happened on our Slowpoke. Listen to this.

“The driver pulled into Heysen station, climbed out of the engine full of prunes, and headed straight for the buffet as usual. ‘Just a minute, old man,’ he was asked. ‘Where’s the rest of the train?’ ‘What rest of the train?’ he said. ‘Do you mean to say you didn’t notice,’ he was asked, ‘that your engine wasn’t pulling any cars?’ That driver, he just stared at them and said: ‘What do I care about cars? That’s the crew’s job.’ ‘But where’s the crew?’ he was asked. ‘How should I know?’ he answered. ‘The conductor whistles that he’s ready, I whistle back that I am too, and off I go. I don’t have eyes in the back of my head to see what’s following behind me …’ So he said, the driver — there was nothing wrong with his logic. In a word, it was pointless to argue: the Slowpoke had arrived without its passengers like a wedding without its band …

“As we found out later, that train was carrying a merry gang of young bucks, the pick of the crop, each man jack of them, and in full battle gear too, with clubs, and tar, and what-have-you. They were in a gay old mood, don’t you know, and the vodka flowed like water, and when they reached their last station, that is to say, Krishtopovka, they had themselves such a blast that the whole train crew got drunk too, the conductor and the stoker and even the policeman — in consequence of which, one little detail was forgotten: to hitch up the locomotive again. And so, right on schedule, the driver took off in it for Heysen while the rest of the Slowpoke, don’t you know, remained standing on the tracks in Krishtopovka! Better yet, nobody — neither the roughnecks, nor the other passengers, nor even the train crew — noticed what had happened. They were all so busy emptying glasses and killing bottles that the first they knew about it was when the station-master happened to look out the window and see the cars standing by themselves. Did he raise Cain! And when the rest of the station found out, all hell broke loose: the pogromchiks blamed the train crew, and the train crew blamed the pogromchiks, and they went at it hot and heavy until they realized that there was nothing to do but shoulder their legs and tote them all the way to Heysen. What other choice did they have? And that’s exactly what they did: they rallied round the flag and hotfooted it to Heysen, where they arrived safe and sound, don’t you know, singing and yahooing for God and country. Shall I tell you something, though? They got there a little too late. The streets were already patrolled by mounted Cossacks from Tulchin, who clearly had the whip hand — and I do mean whips! It didn’t take those hooligans half an hour to clear out of town down to the last man. They vanished, don’t you know, like a pack of hungry mice, or like snow on a hot summer’s day …

“Well now, suppose you tell me: shouldn’t our Slowpoke be plated with gold, or at least written up in the papers?”

(1909)

THE TALLIS KOTON

“Speaking of the Drozhne fire — would you like to hear a good one about how a skinflint of a Jew, a rich man who would sooner have parted with his life than with a penny’s worth of charity, was made to cough up a hundred rubles for the relief fund?”

The question was put to me one morning by my merchant friend from Heysen, who had finished his breakfast, lit up a cigarette, and extended one to me too. The story he proposed to tell appeared to amuse him greatly, because he burst right out laughing as though he had thought of the funniest thing. In fact, he laughed so hard that I was afraid he would choke. If you don’t let a man get it out of his system all at once, though, he’ll just laugh his way through everything. And so I waited for him to collect himself, let out a few last wheezes, and begin.

“I’ve already described a few local characters for you. Now let me tell you about another. His name is Yoyl Tashker and he’s certainly nothing to look at. You wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for him. A short little, thin little, prim little man with a wisp of a beard, and a walk — why, he scoots down the street as though the Devil himself were after him! And yet he’s a wealthy Jew, don’t you know. Did I say wealthy? The man is a millionaire! That is, I’ve never counted his money. He may really have a million and he may not have half that much. Believe me, though, whatever he has is more than he deserves, because the man is the world’s biggest tightwad. It’s easier to squeeze water from a stone than it is to squeeze a cent out of him. There’s not a beggar in town he ever gave a crumb of bread to. In fact, if someone you’ve given a handout grumbles about the small size of it, the stock answer in Heysen is, ‘Why don’t you try Yoyl Tashker, I’ll bet he’s good for more!’ That’s the kind of rich Jew he is. Please don’t get the impression, though, that the man is a cheat, or a lowlife, or a boor. Far from it. He comes from a good family, he’s an educated fellow, and he couldn’t be any more honest. He goes by the rules in everything and only asks to be left alone: you keep to your side of the fence and I’ll keep to mine … do you get the picture? He’s a moneylender by profession, but he also owns houses and does business with our local gentry. And he’s a fiend for work, don’t you know, twenty-four hours a day; always traveling, always on the go, never eating or sleeping … and quite alone in the world too, without kith or kin, he won’t even hire an assistant. That is, he has children somewhere, but — I’ll be blamed if I know the reason why — he’s cut off every one of them. I’ve heard it said that they’re in America. After the death of his first wife, he simply went and drove them all out. And they say she died of hunger, too! Well, I suppose that’s just gossip … although who knows if there isn’t some truth in it, because the fact is that his second wife didn’t last two weeks with him either. Would you like to know why he divorced her? It was on account of a glass of milk. I swear, as I’m a Jew! He caught her with it one day and said, ‘One way or another, that does it! If you’re drinking milk for your health because you’re consumptive, a fat lot I need you around here. And if you’re drinking it just for the fun of it, the sooner I get rid of a spendthrift like you, the better.’

“I will say one thing for Yoyl Tashker, though (no one is ever all bad): he’s as pious as the day is long. Why, such piety could scare the pants off a preacher! I’m the last person to object to religion in a man: if that’s how he wants to live his life, who am I to tell him otherwise? But that’s not enough for Tashker. No, he wants the whole world to be as religious as he is, he thinks he’s God’s legal executor: a Jew going hatless is a personal insult, a married woman’s hair makes him see red, parents sending a child to a Russian school can expect to catch hell from him, and so on and so forth …

“Well, as fate would have it, this Yoyl Tashker has a tenant living next door to him, a notary public who is not exactly a paragon of devoutness: he goes about shaven and bareheaded, smokes on the Sabbath, and doesn’t miss many other tricks, either. Kompanyevitch is the name: a big, tall, slightly stoop-shouldered, baggy-cheeked fellow with the Devil in his eyes — but a quiet one, don’t you know, the kind that doesn’t flaunt his debauchery. He earns more at the card table than he does at his notary’s desk, and his place is a hangout for all our fine youngsters who enjoy a good game of triumph, a snack of pork sausage, and other such similar pleasures … Well, it’s as I was saying: if you happen to have a neighbor who’s no candidate for sainthood, why let him get under your skin? I’m referring to Yoyl Tashker, of course. This Kompanyevitch wasn’t proposing to his daughter, so why get all worked up over him? But no, it drove Tashker up the wall. How could Kompanyevitch dare put up his samovar on the Sabbath? Where did he get off serving a seven-course meal on a fast day like Tisha b’Av? Who did he think he was, not koshering his dishes for Passover? And so on and so forth: he poured fire and brimstone on him, he called him every name in the book, he went about telling the whole world, ‘Did you ever hear of such nerve in your life? The man pretends to be a Jew and makes tea on the Sabbath like a goy!’ … When Kompanyevitch heard that, don’t you know, he made sure to put up two samovars the next time. Our Yoyl nearly had a heart attack. What a card! He only had to terminate the lease in order to solve the whole problem, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Of all his tenants, he said, only the notary paid his rent on time. Can you beat that?

“I’ve already introduced you to two new characters. Now I want you to meet a third, a fellow by the name of Froike-Sheygetz. He’s a type too, and has a role to play in our story. In fact, there wouldn’t be one without him.

“Froyke-Sheygetz, don’t you know, is one of a kind, a hail-fellow-well-met, as they say, who dresses half like a Hasid and half like a Parisian dandy. He wears a long black gaberdine with a derby on his head, is partial to bright-red ties, and goes about with the fringes of his tallis koton hanging out of his shirt. There’s a rumor around town that he’s involved with a woman, and another man’s wife at that … yet when it’s prayer time in the synagogue, he’s there faster than a bat out of hell. In a word, he’s God’s own rascal! What does he do for a living? He’s a one-percenter: he brokers checks, loans, IOUs. A lot of rubles pass through his hands — thousands and thousands of them. And he’s the one person Yoyl Tashker ever had complete trust in. When it comes to lending money, don’t you know, even handing over a hundred gives Tashker the willies, but with the green light from Froyke, you could consider it as good as done. Personally, though, I wouldn’t jump from that to the conclusion that our Froyke is a model of financial integrity. He’s a shrewd, cunning son-of-a-gun, and one who doesn’t take no for an answer. I’d rather wind up in hell itself than in his clutches! Efrayim Katz, by the way, is his real name — and now you know why he’s called Froyke-Sheygetz.

“Well, having introduced my three characters, I can get on with the plot. Our story takes place during last summer’s fires, when the whole town of Drozhne, God save us, burned to the ground. Letters, telegrams, appeals for help — all began pouring in: we should send as much as we could as fast as we could, because a town full of Jews was sleeping in the streets and going hungry. I don’t have to tell you what a yammering there was in Heysen. Jews, have a heart! How can you just sit there? We have to do something! Between this, that, and the other thing it was decided to appoint a fund-raising committee. Who was on it? Myself, naturally, along with a few other leading citizens — among them, don’t you know, Froyke-Sheygetz, because we needed someone who wouldn’t take no for an answer. And so we began to pass around the basket. Who did we pass it to first? To our better-heeled Jews, of course. Which brought us to Yoyl Tashker. ‘A good morning to you, Reb Yoyl!’ ‘And a good morning to you! What can I do for you? Have a seat.’ You couldn’t have asked for a finer reception. Tashker, don’t you know, is the very soul of hospitality: knock on his door and he’ll ask you right in, bring you a chair, make you sit down, talk to you about anything at all … as long as it isn’t money. Try raising that subject, and his whole expression changes: one eye slams shut and the entire left side of his face begins to twitch as though he had the palsy. I tell you, it’s painful just to look at him! But that’s the sort of fellow he is.

“Let’s see now, what act was I up to? Yes; our committee called on Tashker. ‘Good morning, Reb Yoyl.’ ‘Good morning to you. Have a seat. What can I do for you?’ ‘We’ve come to ask for a contribution.’ Down goes one eye, and his cheek gives a jerk that I wouldn’t wish on my knee. ‘A contribution? Just like that, you want a contribution?’ Well, Froyke-Sheygetz didn’t take that for an answer. ‘It’s for a good cause, Reb Yoyl,’ he says, ‘the best there could be. You must have heard about it. A whole town, it shouldn’t happen to us, has burned to the ground. Drozhne …’ ‘What?’ cried Reb Yoyl. ‘Drozhne’s burned down? What are you talking about?! I’m ruined! How can it possibly have gone and burned, with all the uncollected debts I have there? I’m wiped out!..’ There was nothing Froyke didn’t do to convince him that his loans were perfectly safe, because the fire had broken out in the poorest neighborhoods where no one could afford to borrow money — but go try explaining something like that to someone who doesn’t want to listen! Tashker just wrung his hands, ran around the room like a madman, and kept moaning out loud, ‘It’s my luck! I’m wiped out! I can’t stand to hear another word! It’s the death of me! It’s more than a body can bear!..’

“How much longer were we going to sit there? We got up, said ‘Good day, Reb Yoyl,’ and walked out. Once we were in the street again, Froyke-Sheygetz said to us, ‘Listen here, all of you: if I don’t make that bastard cough up a hundred rubles for the Drozhne relief fund, my name isn’t Efrayim Katz!’ ‘Are you crazy, Froyke?’ we all said to him. ‘What’s it to you?’ said Froyke. ‘If I tell you he’s giving me the money, it’s as good as in my pocket already, because Efrayim Katz is damn well my name!’

“He meant every word of it, too. Listen to what happened. A few days later our rich friend Yoyl Tashker was taking the train to the Tulchin fair. His neighbor Kompanyevitch was aboard too, as were a whole lot of Jews from Tolchin and Uman. There wasn’t a seat to be had, and everyone was talking at the top of his voice as usual — everyone, that is, except for Yoyl Tashker, who sat in a corner as usual too, reading a religious book. What did he have to talk about, after all, with any of those Jews? And especially with that degenerate Kompanyevitch, whom he couldn’t even stand the sight of. And just as though to get his goat, don’t you know, Kompanyevitch had gone and sat right across from him and was giving him the silent stare! Great God Almighty, Reb Yoyl kept thinking, who will rescue me from this pig eater? To move to the second-class car was a sinful waste of good money, but to have to keep looking at the nude chin of an assassin who had the very Devil in his eyes was hardly a more tolerable prospect … Only just then, don’t you know, the prayed-for miracle occurred: whom did God make board the train at the very next station if not someone Tashker knew — in fact, none other than our good friend Froyke-Sheygetz! The sight of Froyke made Tashker feel like a new man; at last there was someone to have a word with. ‘Where to?’ he asked Froyke. ‘Where to?’ Froyke asked him. And so they began to chat. About what? About everything under the sun — until they arrived at a topic that was close to Yoyl Tashker’s heart: the sorry state of today’s youth. Worthless young men, shameless young women — what could the world be coming to? Froyke-Sheygetz was in perfect agreement; in fact, he even chipped in with a story of his own about a newlywed from Uman who had run away from her husband to take up with a Russian officer. Then he told another about a bridegroom who had married two different women in two different cities, and still another about a youngster who, when struck by his father for refusing to put on his tefillin, had put up his fists and fought back. ‘What, hit his own father?!’ That caused an uproar in the car. Everyone was aghast — and no one more than Yoyl Tashker. ‘What did I tell you? My very word! It’s sheer anarchy. Jewish children won’t even pray any more! They won’t even put on their tefillin …’

“ ‘Tefillin are one thing,’ suddenly said Kompanyevitch, who hadn’t let out a peep all this time. ‘You can take them or leave them, it’s not them I’m concerned about. But a tallis koton is something else. It’s simply beyond me why young people won’t wear it any more! After all, you can’t deny that tefillin are a nuisance. You have to put them on, you have to take them off … but a simple fringed undershirt such as the Bible tells us to wear — who could possibly object to it?’

“Those words were spoken by our infidel in such a calm, deliberate, assured tone of voice that Tashker, don’t you know, couldn’t have been more thunderstruck if the train had suddenly turned upside down or been hit by lightning. ‘I better have my ears examined!’ he thought. ‘The Messiah must have come! Would you listen to the pork lover talk about tallis kotons? Tallis kotons!!!’ And out loud to Froyke he exclaimed, ‘What do you say to this sheep in wolf’s clothing, eh? Did you hear what he said about tallis kotons?’

“ ‘But what’s wrong with it?’ asked Froyke, as innocent as a lamb himself. ‘Isn’t Mr. Kompanyevitch a Jew like you and me?’

“That was already too much for our Tashker. In the first place, since when was it Mr. Kompanyevitch? And in the second place, since when was Kompanyevitch a Jew? ‘A Jew? Don’t make me laugh! A Jew who puts the samovar up on the Sabbath? Who serves a seven-course meal on Tisha b’Av? Who doesn’t even kosher his dishes for Passover? That’s who’s talking tallis kotons?’

“ ‘But why not?’ persisted Froyke, still the picture of innocence. ‘What does the one thing have to do with the other, Reb Yoyl? If you ask me, a Jew like Kompanyevitch can do everything you say and still wear a tallis koton himself.’

“ ‘What?!!’ cried our Tashker at the top of his voice. ‘That beardless wonder? That degenerate? That living affront to man and God?’

“Everyone fell silent and stared at Kompanyevitch. Kompanyevitch, however, said nothing. Nor, for that matter, did Froyke-Sheygetz. All at once, though, he jumped to his feet like a man throwing caution to the wind and declared, ‘You know what, Reb Yoyl? It’s my considered opinion that the Jewish soul runs deeper than you think. If a Jew cares about tallis kotons, he must be wearing one himself. I’ll bet you a hundred rubles that Kompanyevitch is, the loser to donate the money to the Drozhne relief fund. Just say the word, and I’ll ask him to do us the big favor of opening his shirt and jacket and showing us what’s underneath them!’

“ ‘Bravo!’ cried everyone, breaking into such a clamor that the whole car was hopping with excitement. Kompanyevitch alone went on sitting there without a word, as if none of this concerned him in the least. You might have thought that someone else was being talked about. And our good friend Yoyl Tashker? The poor devil was as bathed in sweat as if he were turning on a slow spit. Never in his whole life had he wagered so much as a ruble on anything — and here he was being asked to risk a hundred! And suppose — no, it was too horrible even to think of — just suppose that the scoundrel was wearing a tallis koton, after all?… On second thought, though, Reb Yoyl reflected, ‘Come, now: Kompanyevitch? That renegade? I’ll be hanged if it’s possible’—and, screwing up his courage, he reached into his coat, took out a hundred rubles, and handed them to the two trustworthy Jews who had meanwhile been appointed as seconds. They, in turn, requested of Kompanyevitch that he undress. Who? Me? Not on your life! ‘What do you take me for?’ he asked. ‘A schoolboy? A vaudeville performer? Since when does a grown man strip naked in broad daylight in front of a crowd of Jews?’

“Kompanyevitch’s protests were music to Yoyl Tashker’s ears. ‘So!’ he said to Froyke, his face lighting up. ‘Who’s right? You can’t fool me! Why, the thought of a Jew like that with a tallis koton … what a laugh!’

“Things weren’t looking any too good. Everyone turned to Kompanyevitch. ‘How can you do this to us! One way or another, what do you have to lose? Just think of it: a hundred rubles for the Drozhne relief fund!’

“ ‘A hundred rubles for the relief fund!’ echoed Yoyl Tashker, doing his best not to look at his neighbor.

“ ‘Think of the poor Jews, men, women, and children, without a roof over their heads!’

“ ‘Without a roof, just imagine!’ echoed Tashker.

“ ‘Where’s the God in your heart?’ Kompanyevitch was asked.

“ ‘Where’s the God?’ Tashker wanted to know.

“Well, it wasn’t easy, but in the end Kompanyevitch was persuaded to remove his jacket, take off his vest, and unbutton his shirt. Didn’t I tell you he was a character? Under his shirt was a tallis koton, all right — and not just an ordinary tallis koton either, but a big, fancy, superkosher one with a blue border all around it and a double set of fringes that would have done a rabbi proud. It was a tallis koton to end all tallis kotons, let me tell you! Leave it to a rascal like Froyke-Sheygetz! True, he lost Yoyl Tashker’s business then and there. Froyke hasn’t dared show his face to Tashker ever since. But he did raise a hundred rubles for the Drozhne relief fund — and from whom? From a rich scrooge of a Jew who never gave a penny’s worth of charity in his life, not even a crust of dry bread! Doesn’t someone like that deserve a good whipping? I mean someone like Froyke, of course …”

(1910)

A GAME OF SIXTY-SIX

The following, which I heard on the train from a dignified gentleman of about sixty whom I took to be a commercial traveler like myself, is related here word for word, as has lately been my habit.

“You know, if you always had to pass the time traveling by making conversation with a fellow passenger, you could go out of your mind.

“In the first place, you never know who you’re getting involved with. There are some people who not only like to talk, they like it so much that they give you a headache — and there are others you can’t get a word out of. But not a single word! It’s anyone’s guess why you can’t. Maybe they’re in a bad mood. Maybe they have an upset stomach, or an attack of gall bladder, or a toothache. Maybe they’re even running away from some private hell at home — a house full of brats, a shrew of a wife, problems with the neighbors, a business that can’t pay its debts. Whoever knows what goes on inside another person?

“I know what you’ll tell me: if I don’t feel like talking, why don’t I read a newspaper, or take a look at a book? Ah, newspapers: if only they were the same on the road as they are at home! At home I have my regular paper, I’m as used to it, you might say, as I am to my own slippers. It may be that your slippers are newer than mine. In fact, mine are not only old, they’re so worn-out that they look, you should excuse the comparison, like a pair of cold blintzes. Still, they have one advantage over yours — namely, that they happen to be mine …

“Well, a newspaper, for all the difference between them, is just like a slipper. I have a neighbor back home who lives on the same floor of the same building as I do, in fact, right next door to me. He gets a paper delivered, and so do I. It’s just not the same one. One day I said to him, ‘What’s the point of the two of us getting two different papers? Why not go halves with me in mine, and we’ll share one paper between us.’ ‘Why not indeed?’ he says. ‘It’s a fine idea. Only why not go halves with me in mine?’ ‘Because your paper,’ I say, ‘is a rag. Mine is a newspaper.’ ‘Who says my paper is a rag?’ he says. ‘It so happens to be the other way around.’ ‘Since when are you such a big expert on newspapers?’ I say. ‘Since when are you?’ he says. ‘Eh!’ I say, ‘I never realized what an impossible Jew you were. What’s the point of even talking toyou?’ …

“In short, he kept getting his newspaper, I kept getting mine, and time went by. Until one day — it was during the cholera epidemic in Odessa (my neighbor and I both do business there) — a funny thing happened. We both went downstairs to meet the delivery boy, both got our newspapers, and were both reading them on our way back up, he his paper and I mine. What’s the first thing you read in a newspaper? The news bulletins, of course. So I looked at the first item from Odessa and it said, ‘Yesterday there were 230 new cases of cholera and 160 deaths. General Tolmachov summoned all the Jewish synagogue sextons to his residence,’ etcetera … Well, I could do without Tolmachov and the synagogue sextons. You couldn’t even call that news; if he didn’t find some new way of hassling Jews every day, his name wouldn’t be Tolmachov. What interested me was the cholera. And so I said to my neighbor (he was practically walking down the corridor on my toes — that’s how crude he is!), ‘What do you say about Odessa, eh? Cholera again!’

“ ‘It can’t be,’ he says to me.

“That riled me. What did he mean, it couldn’t be? So I took my newspaper and read the bulletin from Odessa out loud to him. ‘Yesterday there were 230 new cases of cholera and 160 deaths. General Tolmachov summoned all the Jewish synagogue sextons to his residence,’ etcetera. ‘We’ll see about that in a minute,’ he says and sticks his nose back in his newspaper. That riled me even more. ‘What do you think,’ I said, ‘that your paper has different news from my paper?’

“ ‘You never know,’ he mumbled.

“ ‘Are you trying to tell me,’ I said, getting still madder, ‘that your paper writes about a different Odessa, and about a different Tolmachov, and about a different cholera than mine does?’

“He didn’t even answer me. He just went right on searching that paper of his for news of the cholera from Odessa. Now go try making conversation with a primitive like that!

“No, sir. There’s a better way than that to kill time on a train, and that’s with a good game of cards. I mean with a game of sixty-six.

“In general, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that cards are the Devil’s own invention — but on a long train ride they’re a godsend. The time simply flies when you get a game going. Of course, it has to be with the right people. If it isn’t, God save you from the mess you’re liable to get yourself into! You have to make sure you don’t fall in with a bunch of card sharks who can play you for a sucker and take you for all you’re worth. It’s not all that easy to tell one of them from an honest man. In fact, most of those fellows make believe they’re poor innocent saps themselves. They’ll pretend to be more dead than alive, or moan and groan over each bad hand — but it’s all just an act to get you into the game. And even then they’ll let you win a few times … until little by little your luck turns bad and you begin to lose. That’s when they’ve got you where they want you. Believe me, before you’ve seen the last of them you’ll have gambled away your gold watch, and the chain that goes with it, and anything else of value you may have. Even after you realize that you’ve been had by pros, you’ll go right on playing like a sheep that can’t take its head out of the wolf’s mouth. Oh, I know them, I do! And I’ve paid dearly for the privilege … Why, I could tell you no end of stories! When you travel like I do, you get to hear them all.

“For instance, there’s the one about the cashier who was traveling with his boss’s money — and a nice little bundle it was. He ran into some sharpies, lost the whole caboodle, and nearly jumped out of the train window …

“Or else I could tell you about the young man from Warsaw who was coming back from his father-in-law’s with his dowry. He was relieved of the entire amount and passed out right on the train …

“And then there’s the case of the student from Chernigov who was on his way home for the holidays with the few hard-earned rubles he had made tutoring over the summer vacation. The money wasn’t for himself either, but for an old mother and a sick sister, the poor things, who were counting on every penny of it …

“You can see for yourself that each of these sad stories begins and ends the same way — and no one knows it better than I do. Believe you me, I won’t fall for it a second time! Once was more than enough. Why, I can spot one of those birds a mile away now. And I have a strict rule besides: no card games with strangers! I wouldn’t sit down to play with you if you offered me the world … except, that is, for a little two-hand game of sixty-six. Sixty-six — now that’s a different story entirely! What danger is there, I ask you, in a friendly game of sixty-six? And especially if the cards are my own — what’s to be afraid of? You see, I never travel without my own pack of cards. Just as a good Jew takes his tallis and tefillin with him everywhere, so I always have my cards.

“To tell you the truth, I like a good game of sixty-six. It’s a Jewish game, your sixty-six is. I don’t know about you, but I like to play it the old way, with marriages worth twenty and forty. If I’ve won a trick, I can exchange the nine of trumps for the deck trump, and if I haven’t, I can’t. Fair enough, no? That’s how we Jews play it everywhere, at home and on the road. I may not look the type, but if I get into a game of sixty-six while I’m traveling I can go on playing nonstop, day and night. The one thing I don’t like are the kibitzers. God forgive me for speaking frankly, but we Jews are a revolting people. It’s practically impossible to play a game of sixty-six with a crowd of Jews around. Before you know it, they’re standing all over you and telling you what card to play and whether to trump or not. You can’t get rid of them, they stick to you like flies! I’ve tried saying everything, but nothing makes them go away. ‘Look here, my friend, when I want your advice I’ll ask for it.’ Or, ‘Hey, Mr. Buttinski, why don’t you keep your opinions to yourself?’ Or, ‘Would you mind not using me as a leaning post? If there’s anything worse than bad manners, it’s bad breath.’ You might as well talk to the wall!

“Once, you know, a kibitzer got me into such trouble that I was lucky to get out of it again. I can’t resist telling you about it.

“It happened one winter. On the train, of course. The car was packed with people and as hot as a Turkish bath. There were as many Jews as stars in the sky, far more than there were seats — why, you couldn’t stick a needle between them! And it was then of all times that who should turn up but the perfect partner for a game of sixty-six — a quiet, simple Jew, it so happened, but one every bit as wild for it as I am. We looked for a place to put the cards — there wasn’t a square inch available. So what does the good Lord do? Face-down on the bench right across from us is a monk in a sheepskin coat, having himself a snooze. As a matter of fact, he’s snoring away so merrily that you can hear him all over the car. I looked at my partner, my partner looked at me — there was no need for words. A big, fat, broad-bottomed monk with a nice, soft sheepskin on him … what better table for a game of sixty-six could you ask for? Without wasting any time, we laid the cards on his you-know-what and began to play.

“If I remember correctly, spades were trump. I had the king, queen, and jack, the ace of clubs, the king of diamonds, and … but what was my sixth card? I’ve forgotten whether it was the nine or ten of hearts. I think it was the nine. Or could it have been the ten, after all? Well, it makes no difference. In short, I had a dream hand: forty points before a card was played, with a chance for three game-points. The only question was, what would my partner lead with? If he was a nice enough Jew to lead with a club, he’d make me a happy man. And don’t think that isn’t what he did! He thought and thought (good Lord, I wondered, how long can you think about a card?) and finally came out with none other than the ten of clubs. I could have kissed him for it! But when I play sixty-six, you know, it’s not like me to get excited the way some people do. Easy does it. What’s the rush? On the contrary, I like to have a bit of fun. And so I pulled my ear, made a face — why not? Let my partner have the short-lived pleasure of thinking I’m in a fix … How was I to know that a Jew was standing behind me and looking at my hand — he should stand on his head until his eyes fall out! Seeing as how I was taking my time, he reached over my shoulder, grabbed the ace of clubs, threw it on top of the ten, gave the deck of cards a whack right on the fat monk’s bottom, and shouted:

“ ‘The ace takes!’ …

“Well, a nest of angry hornets would have been easier to shoo off than that monk! May all his curses be on him! He kept threatening to get off at the first station and turn us in to the police … I ask you: why can’t a person be allowed to live?

“But that’s neither here nor there. I just wanted you to know what some people will go through for a good game of sixty-six. I’ve only gotten to the real story now. Listen.

“It happened in winter too, around Hanukkah time, and on the train again. I was on my way to Odessa with some money, a whole big wad of it — I should only earn so much in a month! It’s a rule of mine not to sleep when I travel with money. It’s not that I’m afraid of thieves, because I keep it — guess where? — right here in my jacket pocket, in a good wallet that’s tied twice to be safe. I pity the thief who thinks he can make off with it! It’s just that these days, you never know … riots, expropriations … why take chances?… Well, there I was, sitting that winter day all by myself. I don’t mean I was alone in the car; there were other passengers too, but none of them were Jews. What good did that do me? There wasn’t a soul to play a game of sixty-six with. Just as I was beginning to feel sorry for myself, though, the door of the car opens — we were still quite a few stops away from Odessa — and in walks a pair of our fellow Israelites. You know, I can spot a Jew anywhere, even if he’s dressed like a dozen Russians and speaking Russian too, or for that matter, Chinese. One of the pair was an older man and the other was a younger one, and you should have seen what fine fur hats and coats they wore. Fine isn’t the word! They put down their luggage, took off their hats and coats, smoked a few cigarettes, gave me one too — and we began to talk, at first, of course, in Goyish, and then in Yiddish. ‘Where are you from? Where are you going?’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘To Odessa.’ ‘To Odessa? That’s where I’m going too!’ ‘Well, then, that makes three of us.’ We chatted about this and that until one of them says to the other, ‘Say, did you know that today is a holiday?’ ‘It is?’ says the other. ‘Have you forgotten that it’s Hanukkah?’ says the first. ‘Hanukkah, eh?’ says the second. ‘Why, I do believe that it’s a Jewish custom on Hanukkah to play a friendly game of cards. How about a little sixty-six?’ ‘Good idea!’ says the younger man, reaching into the older one’s pocket and taking out a pack of cards. ‘All right, Papa! Let’s play a game of sixty-six in honor of Hanukkah …’

“So the two of them were father and son: it tickled my funny bone to think of them playing sixty-six together! In fact, I had quite an urge to play with them myself, but I was resolved not to give in to temptation. Just watching them would be entertainment enough …

“They upended one of their suitcases, stood it between their legs, and dealt the cards. The father played first hand and the son second, and I sat looking on. After a while the old man turned to me and asked if I knew how to play. I had to laugh at that: it was a good one, all right — why, I had practically invented the game, and here I was being asked if I played it! In fact, it took a will of iron to sit watching quietly, because the way that old codger played his hand could have made you turn over in your grave. Just imagine: the man sits there holding the queen, jack, and nine of trumps, two spades, and the ten of clubs — he only has to take the first trick with the ten and exchange the nine for the deck trump, which happens to be a king, in order to declare a trump marriage. Not him! The old bumblepuppy decides to play the jack of spades instead — and with a perfectly good ten in his hand! So what does his son do? The young rascal takes the jack with a queen, declares two twenty-point marriages, draws the ace of clubs from the deck, tops the old man’s ten with it, and goes out as pretty as you please with three game-points, just as God would have wanted!

“That was a hand to remember!

“What followed, though, was even worse; I tell you, it could have made a man scream! Listen to this. The father has six game-points already, he needs just one more to win. His son has only three. Better yet, the old geezer draws a hand with three trumps and a twenty-point marriage to boot. He doesn’t declare it, though, even when he takes the first trick; no, he’s afraid to play the king or queen, he’s worried his son may top them. Well, his son takes the next trick, declares twenty points of his own, closes the stock, breaks up the marriage, and schneiders his father but good!.. That was already too much for me; such an agonizing Hanukkah I had never yet spent in my life. I couldn’t go on watching any longer. ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ I said to the old coot. ‘It’s a principle of mine never to kibitz, but I’m dying to know why you played that way. What were you thinking of? If your partner was holding junk, you had it made, no matter what. And if he wasn’t — if he happened to have a strong hand — what were you waiting for? What did you have to lose? One game-point at the most, when you were leading six to three anyway. How can a man cut his own throat like that?’

“The old loon didn’t say a word. Junior, though, he smiled at me and said, ‘Papa doesn’t play so well. Papa’s not so good at sixty-six.’

“ ‘Your father,’ I said, ‘has no business playing sixty-six at all. Tell him to move over and make room for me.’

“But the old hound dog refused to quit. He kept on playing and making such blunders that I thought I’d burst a blood vessel. It was all I could do to convince the old booger to let me play two or three hands. ‘After all,’ I said, ‘it’s Hanukkah. Let me celebrate too …’

“ ‘What stakes shall we play for?’ Junior asked me.

“ ‘For whatever you like,’ I say.

“ ‘A ruble a game?’ he asks.

“ ‘Let it be a ruble a game. My one condition is,’ I joked, ‘that your father promise not to look at your hand and give you any advice …’

“Well, he laughed at that and we started to play. We play one game, we play a second, we play a third — I’m going like a house on fire. My partner begins to get flustered. ‘Let’s double the stakes,’ he says. ‘If that’s your pleasure,’ I say, ‘then double it is.’ Of course, that only made him lose twice as much and get twice as flustered as before. ‘You know what,’ he says, ‘let’s double the stakes again.’ ‘If that’s your pleasure,’ I say, ‘then double again it is.’ That meant he was losing quadruple. By now he was foaming at the mouth. ‘All right,’ he says, ‘let’s play for twenty-five rubles.’ When his father hears that, the old Methuselah, he says he won’t allow it, but the young rogue pays him no nevermind. We play for twenty-five rubles — and I win. Well, the old goat is really sore now; he gets up, he sits down, he peeks at my cards, he hums a little tune, he snuffles up his nose — and the boy is mopping his brow as though he’s come down with a fever. The more he loses, the more flustered he gets, the more flustered he gets, the more he loses. The old hoot owl was beside himself. He grumbled, he scolded, he hummed, he snuffled, he peeked at my cards, while the young scamp kept losing hand after hand until he was the color of a burning barn. ‘I’ll be jiggered,’ says the father, ‘if I’ll let you play any more!’ ‘Papa!’ pleads the son, just one more game. I’d sooner die than quit now!’ ‘Just one more, I promise,’ I say to the old buzzard. ‘Come on, be a sport …’

“In the end the cards were dealt and, thank God, the son won. I was actually glad of it. Right away he wanted another game. What the deuce, I thought: when someone’s been losing like he has, you can’t be small about it. Well, we played another game, and then another, and another — the shoe, you should know, was now on the other foot. ‘So tell me,’ I said to the old fox, ‘how come you’re not blowing the whistle on Junior now?’ ‘Just wait till we get home,’ he says, ‘and I’ll give him what-for. He’ll have something to remember me by, he will!’

“That’s what he answers me, the old weasel, peeking at my hand, and humming, and hemming, and snuffling up his nose. Not that I had liked any of that before, either — but as long as the cards were going my way, he could peek-hum-hem-and-snuffle all he pleased; it was only now that they weren’t that I began to smell a rat. Meanwhile, though, they kept being dealt and one deal was worse than the next. I was on a real losing streak; I kept having to get up, reach into my jacket, and take out another hundred. What a turnabout! I was beginning to run low on cash. Suddenly the old horse thief grabs my hand and says, ‘I’ll be jiggered if I’ll let you play another game! Why, you’re down to your last hundred.’ You can be sure that burned me up even more. ‘Who says I’m down to my last hundred?’ I said — and just to show him how wrong he was, I went and bet my last hundred.

“It was only then, when I was totally cleaned out — when, seeing my partner, flushed with victory, button up his vest, the truth hit home that I was as fleeced as a shorn lamb and as broke as a dropped dish — it was only then that I began to take stock of what had happened. Something told me I had supped with the Devil and gotten stuck with the bill. Too late it dawned on me that the father was no father and that son of his no son — you could tell it from how they looked at each other, and from how the young man went off to one side and waited for the old one to join him. The old pirate whispered something to him, and I could have sworn the young punk slipped something into his hand …

“My first thought was to throw myself from the train; my next one: them, not you! You should stick a knife into them, you should put a bullet in them, you should choke the living daylights out of both!.. Just try it, though, when it’s two against one — and meanwhile the train is zipping along, the wheels are going clickety-clack, and my head is spinning too. I felt about to blow a gasket … what now? Before I knew it, the train had pulled into a station. What should I do? Who should I turn to? What should I say?… I looked up and saw my two fellow passengers reaching for their suitcases. ‘Where are we?’ I asked. ‘In a town called Odessa,’ they said. I put a hand in my pocket — there wasn’t enough change there to pay a porter. I broke into a cold sweat. My hands shook. There were actually tears in my eyes. I went over to the old vulture and said, ‘Look, perhaps you could do me a small favor … just twenty-five rubles, that’s all I’m asking for …’

“ ‘Why ask me? Ask him,’ shrugs the old crocodile, pointing to his companion. But the young con just twirled his mustache and pretended not to hear. The engine whistled. ‘All out!’—we were in Odessa. I don’t have to tell you that the first person to jump from that car was me. Or that the shouts that everyone heard were mine too. ‘Police!’ I screamed at the top of my lungs. ‘Po-li-i-ce!..’

“In no time one, two, three, four, five, six, seven policemen sprang up out of the ground. By then, though, the young blan-kety-blank had disappeared from sight. There was only the old hyena, whose arm I had a tight grip on to keep him from getting away. I won’t even try to describe the bedlam that broke out in that station. It was like being in the middle of an earthquake. The two of us were brought to a special room, where I told the whole story from start to finish. I poured my bitter heart out, I all but broke down and cried — and it seemed to make an impression, because right away they warned the old shill that he had better come clean. Guess what, though? He didn’t know what they were talking about! Sixty-six? What sixty-six! Cards? What cards! Son? What son! In fact, he had no son and never had one. ‘The man,’ says the old bastard, putting a finger to his head, ‘is off his rocker …’

“ ‘Oh, I am, am I?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you search him!’

“Well, they took him and turned him inside out right down to his underwear — no money, no cards! His total worth amounted to twenty-two rubles and seventy kopecks, and he really did look like such a poor, harmless beggar that I began to wonder myself if I hadn’t imagined it all. Maybe I just dreamed that I met a father and a son and lost a wad playing sixty-six with them?… You know what the end of it was? Don’t ask! Suppose we forget about the past and play a little game of sixty-six ourselves in honor of Hanukkah …”

Whereupon the dignified gentleman, who appeared to be a commercial traveler like myself, produced a pack of cards, cut the deck for first deal, and inquired, “What stakes shall we play for?”

I watched him cut the deck; he did it a little too skillfully, a little too fast. And his hands were a little too white. Too white and too soft. Suddenly I had a most unpleasant thought …

“I would be happy,” I said, “to play a game of sixty-six with you in honor of Hanukkah, but I wouldn’t know how to begin. What actually is this sixty-six you keep talking about?”

My fellow passenger gave me a long, hard look, the barest hint of a smile on his lips, and then quietly, with an inaudible sigh, replaced the cards in his pocket.

He vanished at the next station. On a whim I walked up and down the train twice, looking for him everywhere — he was nowhere to be seen.

(1910)

HIGH SCHOOL

Winter. Across from me, wearing a rather worn skunk-fur coat, sat a middle-aged man whose blond beard was shot with gray. We began to talk.

“You know,” he said to me, “a man is his own worst enemy, especially when there’s a woman involved — I mean a wife. I happen to be talking about myself. Just from looking at me, what would you take me for? A pretty average Jew, wouldn’t you say? You can’t tell by the shape of my nose if I’m rich, poor, or down-and-out. For all you know, I may once have had lots of money. And not just money, either — because what’s money, after all? — but a solid, respectable business, not one of your flash-in-the-pan operations that make a big hoo-ha while they last. No, sir! It happens to be my personal opinion that slowly but surely is best. Slowly but surely is how I built up my business, slowly but surely is how I watched it go under, slowly but surely is how I paid off my debts, and slowly but surely is how I started all over again. If only God hadn’t gone and given me a wife … she isn’t traveling with me, so I can be frank with you. That is, at first glance she’s just a wife like any other, you wouldn’t guess there was anything the matter with her. She cuts a pretty imposing figure, in fact, because she’s twice as big as I am, and not at all bad-looking either — on the contrary, she’s downright pretty. And intelligent too; why, she’s sharp as a razor, she thinks exactly like a man … which is, you know, the first thing wrong with her, because it’s no good for a woman to want to wear the pants in a family. I don’t care how smart she is — the fact remains that when God Almighty created the world, He made Adam before He made Eve. Just try telling that to her, though. ‘Who God made before who,’ she says to me, ‘is His affair; that still doesn’t make it my fault if I have more brains in my small toe than you have in your whole fat skull’

“ ‘Just what do you mean by that?’ I ask.

“ ‘What I mean,’ she says, ‘is that it’s me who does all the thinking around here. Even when it comes to finding a high school for our son, I have to supply the brainpower.’

“ ‘Where does it say,’ I ask, ‘that our son has to go to high school? If he wants to be a scholar, who’s keeping him from being one at home?’

“ ‘I’ve told you a thousand times,’ she says, ‘that you can’t make me fly in the face of the whole world. And in today’s world, children go to high school.’

“ ‘If you ask my opinion,’ I say, ‘today’s world is crazy.’

“ ‘And you, I suppose,’ she says, ‘are the only sane one in it! A fine world it would be if everyone went by your opinions.’

“ ‘Well,’ I say, ‘they’re the only opinions I have.’

“ ‘All my enemies and friends’ enemies,’ she says, ‘should only have as much in their pockets as you have in your head!’

“ ‘It’s a black day in a man’s life,’ I say, ‘when a woman has to tell him how to run it!’

“ ‘And it’s a black day in a woman’s life,’ she says, ‘when she’s married to such a man!’

“Go argue with your own wife! Whatever you talk about, she’ll answer you off the wall; say one word to her, and she’ll come back at you with ten; try not saying anything, and she’ll begin to cry, or better yet, throw such a fit that you’ll wish you were never born. In short, when the dust had settled, she had her way. Between you and me, why pretend? When she wants it, she gets it …

“Anyway, what can I tell you? A high school it was! And that meant, first of all, starting him in junior high school. You wouldn’t imagine that junior high school was such a big deal, would you? And especially not, I thought, with a whiz kid like mine who ran rings around them all in the rabbi’s schoolroom. Why, you could search all of Russia for another child like him! Granted, I’m his father; but the head on that boy’s shoulders is something else … Why drag it out, though? He applied for the entrance exams, and he took the entrance exams, and he failed the entrance exams. What was the problem? The problem was that he scored only a two in arithmetic. Your child, I was told, has an insufficient mathematical background. I ask you, doesn’t that take the cake? You won’t find a head like his in all of Russia, and they’re talking about mathematical backgrounds! But failed is failed. I don’t have to tell you how down in the dumps I was; if he had to take the exams already, I would just as soon he had passed. But being a mere male of the species, I thought to myself: well, we did what we could — he isn’t the first Jew who won’t go to high school and he won’t be the last … A lot it helped to tell that to the wife, though. There was no getting it out of her head; the boy was going to high school if it killed her!

“ ‘Tell me,’ I said to her, ‘I only want you to be happy, but what do you need all this for? To keep the boy out of the army? But he’s an only son, he already has an exemption. To help him make a living? For that he needs high school like a hole in the head. What’s so terrible if he has to work in the store with me, or buy and sell like other Jews? And if, God forbid, it’s his bad luck to end up a rich businessman or a banker, we’ll manage to live with that too.’

“That was the approach I took with her. Did you ever try talking to a wall? ‘All right,’ she says, ‘it’s just as well. He can skip the first year of junior high school.’ ‘What does that mean?’ I say. ‘It means,’ she says, ‘that he’ll go straight into the second year.’ Well, the second year of junior high school is the second year of junior high school — but with a head you can search all of Russia for, who was I to worry if he hadn’t gotten into the first year? Listen to what happened, though: when the chips were down, the boy pulled a two again. Not in mathematics; this time the bad news was something else. His spelling left a bit to be desired. That is, he knew how to spell, he just sometimes left out a few letters. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even leave them out, he just put them in the wrong places. I was crushed: how would the boy ever go with me to the fair in Poltava or Lodz if his spelling wasn’t letter-perfect? But if you think the wife didn’t turn the world upside down, you have another guess coming. Off she ran to the director to convince him that the boy really could do it; just give him a chance to take the exams over again! I’m afraid she made about as much of an impression as last winter’s snow. The boy had gotten a two and something else called a two-minus — go sue!

“Well, the wife made some scene. How could they refuse to retest him? ‘Look,’ I said to her, ‘that’s the way it is. What do you want me to do, kill myself? He’s not the first Jew and he won’t be the last …’ That just made her so mad, though, that she gave me a royal tongue-lashing as only a woman can. To tell you the truth, I didn’t hold it against her. And my heart went out to the little fellow too, you couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Why, you’d think the sky had fallen in; everyone would be going around in blue blazers with silver buttons except him! ‘Stop being a little fool,’ I said to him. ‘Come to your senses! Was anyone ever born with a written guarantee that he’d get into high school? Someone has to stay home to mind the store, doesn’t he? Open admission is only in the army …’

“That ticked the wife off but good; she really laid into me this time. ‘I suppose that’s your idea of being comforting,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you save your words of wisdom for yourself? You’d be a lot kinder if you went and got him another tutor, a real Russian who can teach him Russian grammar.’

“Did you ever hear anything like it? The boy needed two whole private tutors; one tutor and one Hebrew teacher wasn’t enough for him! But when the dust had settled, she had her way again. When she wants it, she gets it …

“Anyway, what can I tell you? We took a new grammar tutor — and not some measly Jew either, God forbid, but an honest-to-goodness goy. The first-year grammar exam, you should know, is tougher than nails. It’s no picnic, your Russian grammar; you have to mind your p’s and q’s. Just don’t ask me what kind of goy God sent us, though, because I’m ashamed to have to say. The damned anti-Semite took a year off my life! He made fun of us to our faces, he practically spat in them. For instance, when he had to pick a word for my son to practice ‘to eat’ on, all he could think of was ‘garlic’: ‘I eat garlic, you eat garlic, we eat garlic …’ He should only eat garlic in hell! If it hadn’t been for the wife, I would have grabbed him by the seat of his pants and thrown him and his Russian grammar through the window. That’s not how she saw it, though. Why take it personally? It was worth it, she said, just to get those p’s and q’s straight. Imagine, the boy had to go through that torture all winter — in fact, it was nearly summer before he was led to the slaughter again. This time, instead of two twos, he chalked up a four and a five. Glory be! Mazel tov, he’d done it! Or had he? Please to be patient, we wouldn’t know until August whether he’d gotten in or not. Why couldn’t we be told sooner? Go ask! Well, he wasn’t the first or last Jew who had to wait …

“Comes August, I see my wife’s on pins and needles. She makes the rounds of the director, the inspector, the inspector, the director. ‘Why are you running around like a chicken without a head?’ I ask. ‘What do you mean, why?’ she says. ‘What world do you live in? Haven’t you ever heard of the quota system?’ Wouldn’t you know she was right, too! The boy was turned down a third time. Would you like to know why? Because he didn’t have two fives. With two fives, they said, he might have made it. Might have made it — did you ever?! Well, I’ll spare you the details of what I had to put up with from the wife. But it was the boy I felt sorry for; he just laid his head on his pillow and cried and cried … The long and short of it was that we hired another tutor, a high school student himself, who was to coach him for the second year again — but this time by the intensive method, because your second year is no frolic; there’s not only mathematics and grammar, there’s geography, and penmanship, and the Devil only knows what. Not that I’d give two cents for the lot of it, to tell you the truth. A page of Talmud, if you ask me, takes more brains than all those subjects put together, and probably makes more sense too. But what could I do about it? He wasn’t the first or the last Jew …

“Anyway, he began a new regime. Up in the morning — hit the books! Time out for prayers and breakfast — back to the books! All day long — stick to the books! In the middle of the night you could still hear him jabbering, ‘Nominative, genitive, dative, accusative’—I tell you, it gave me an earache! Eating and sleeping, it goes without saying, were out of the question. ‘To take a human being,’ I said, ‘and put him through all this for no good reason — why, I wouldn’t do it to a dog. It will make the boy sick in the end.’ ‘Why don’t you bite your tongue off!’ said my wife. Well, don’t think he didn’t go off to the wars and bring home a pair of straight fives! And why shouldn’t he have? You won’t find a head like his in all of Russia! All’s well that ends well, eh? Until the big day comes when all the names of the new students are posted on the wall of the school — all of them, that is, except my son’s. Was there ever a weeping and wailing! With a pair of straight fives, yet: why, it was cold-blooded murder! The wife ran here, the wife ran there, the wife ran everywhere. In fact, she ran herself ragged until she was told to stop wasting her time — or, to put it more bluntly, to beat it. That’s when she began to raise the roof at home. ‘You call yourself a father?’ she said. ‘Why, if you had a father’s heart you’d use your influence, you’d look for connections, you’d find some way to the director …’ There’s a woman who thinks on her feet for you, eh? ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘isn’t it enough for me to keep track of a thousand different dates and bills and order forms and memos and other headaches? Do you want me to ruin myself just because of your high school, which is coming out of my ears already?’ A man is only human, after all; push him too far and he explodes. Not that she didn’t have her way again. You see, when she wants it, she gets it …

“Anyway, what can I tell you? I used my influence, I looked for some way to the director — and I took some stiff guff in the process, because everybody wanted to know what I was doing and everybody was right. ‘Reb Aharon,’ they all said to me, ‘you have a nice little business, knock wood, and an only son to take into it — why go looking for trouble?’ Go tell them you have a wife at home who has the high school bug so bad that it’s high school, high school, high school all day long! Still, if you don’t mind my saying so, I’m no shrinking violet; with a bit of luck I found my way to the director. In fact, I walked right into Mr. High-and-Mighty’s office and laid it on the line — I can hold my own, praise God, with the best of them, the cat never got my tongue yet. ‘Chto vam ugodno?’ he asks me, offering me a seat. ‘Gospodin Direktor,’ I say, ‘my lyudi nye bogaty, no u nas,’ I say, ‘yest malenka sostoyanye i odin khoroshey, zametshatelene maltshik,’ I say, ‘katore,’ I say, ‘khotshet utshitsa. I ya,’ I say, ‘khotshu. Na moya zshena,’ I say, ‘otshen khotshet.’ ‘Chto vam ugodno?’ he asks again. So I move a little closer and repeat the whole spiel. ‘Look here, Professor,’ I say, ‘rich we’re not,’ I say, ‘but poor we’re not exactly either. And we have a boy at home,’ I say, ‘a fine youngster, who wants to go to school. And I want him to go too. And my wife,’ I say, ‘would give anything for him to go.’ I underlined that ‘anything’ to make sure he understood, but leave it to the dumb goy not to get it! ‘Tak chto-zhe vam ugodno?’ he asks for the third time, beginning to get good and annoyed. So I stick my hand in my pocket real slowly, and pull it out real slowly, and gave my little speech again real slowly too — only this time, while taking all day over the ‘anything,’ I put my hand into his … In a word — success at last! He finally got the point, took out his notebook, and asked me for my name, my son’s name, and the year we wanted to enroll him in. Now you’re talking, I thought — and out loud I said that the name was Katz, Aharon, and that the boy’s name was Moshe, though we all called him Moshke, and that the third year of junior high school would suit us just fine. He read it all back to me — Aharon Katz, Moshke Katz, the third year of junior high school — and told me to bring the boy for enrollment in January. How’s that for a change of tune, eh? A little grease helps turn the wheels, doesn’t it! The only problem was that January was still a long ways off. What could I do about it, though? If we had to wait, we’d wait. We weren’t the first or last Jews …

“Well, comes January, the whole merry-go-round begins again. Between this, that, and the other thing, we’re told that there’s going to be a big meeting of the director, the inspector, and all the teachers, after which there will be an official announcement of who’s accepted and who’s not. When the day arrived there wasn’t a sign of the wife in the house; no hot meal on the table, no samovar, no tea, no nothing. Where was she? In the high school, of course. Or rather, not in it but in front of it, standing out in the cold by herself from early morning. The weather turned freezing, it began to snow, you couldn’t see past the tip of your nose — and there she was, still waiting for the meeting to be over. A scene from the opera! ‘For God’s sake,’ I wanted to tell her, ‘you know as well as I do that the man not only gave his word, he actually pocketed …’ Do you follow me? Just try talking to a woman, though! She waited an hour. She waited two. She waited three. She waited four. All the students had already gone home and she was still standing there. At last, when you’d have thought she couldn’t wait a minute longer, a door of the building opened and out stepped one of the teachers. She collared him at once and asked him if he knew what the meeting had decided. Indeed he did, he said: eighty-five new students were accepted — eighty-three Christians and two Jews. Who were the Jews? One was named Shepselsohn and one was named Katz. Well, as soon as the wife heard Katz she was off like a shot for home with the grand news. ‘Mazel tov! Thank You, thank You, dear God! Oh, thank You! They took him! They took him!..’ I tell you, she had tears in her eyes. I was pleased as punch myself, of course, but I wasn’t about to dance in the streets; that’s a woman’s way, not a man’s. ‘You don’t look any too thrilled by it,’ says the wife to me. ‘Just what makes you say that?’ I ask. ‘Why, you’re as cold as a fish!’ she says. ‘If only you knew how overjoyed your son was, you wouldn’t be sitting there like that; you’d already have gone to buy him his uniform, his cap, and his schoolbag, and you’d be planning a party in his honor.’ ‘What kind of a party?’ I ask. ‘What is this, his bar mitzvah? His engagement?’ I said it calmly enough, because I’m a man, not a woman, but it made her so mad that she stopped talking to me altogether — and a wife who won’t talk is a thousand times worse than a nag, since a nag at least has a human voice, while a deaf mute … try talking to the wall! To make a long story short, what do you think happened? She had her way again. Oh, when she wants it, she gets it …

“Anyway, we had a party to which all our friends came, and the boy was decked out in a fancy uniform with silver buttons and a cap with a dingus on the top. I tell you, he could have passed for the chief of staff! But it really was a lifesaver for the poor little fellow, he looked like a different person. Why, his face was bright as sunshine! We all drank to his health and someone said to me:

“ ‘He should only finish high school, and nail that sheepskin to the wall, and go right on for the next one!’

“ ‘Well, now,’ I said, ‘that’s very kind of you, but don’t think his future depends on it. Let him stick it out for a couple of years, and then, with God’s help, we’ll marry him off and the rest will take care of itself …’

“The wife just gave me a pitying smile when she heard that. ‘Would someone please tell him,’ she said to the guests, ‘that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s way behind the times.’

“ ’Would someone tell her,” I answered, ‘that the times aren’t worth catching up with.’

“ ‘Would someone tell him,’ she said, ‘that he’s nothing but an old f—!’

“That brought the house down. ‘Me oh my, Reb Aharon,’ they said, ‘you’ve got a Cossack there, not a wife!’ Meanwhile the wine kept flowing and we all got so mellow that we started to dance. But I mean dance! The wife, my boy, and I were put in the middle of a circle and everyone cut the rug up around us until, before we knew it, it was dawn …

“That same morning we brought him to the school. We arrived so early that the doors were still locked and there wasn’t a stray dog in sight. At last, thank God, the doors opened and we came in from the cold and revived. Pretty soon the place was full of youngsters, all with their schoolbags on their backs. There was enough talking and laughing and shouting and hallooing for a country fair. In the middle of it all I’m approached by a man with gold buttons — a teacher, it turns out, with a sheet of paper in his hand. Can he help me? Well, I pointed to my boy and said I had come to enroll him in the rabbi’s schoo — I mean in junior high school. ‘What year is he in?’ he asks me. ‘The third,’ I say. ‘He’s just been accepted.’ ‘And what’s his name?’ ‘It’s Katz,’ I say. ‘Moshe Katz, though we all call him Moshke.’ ‘Moshke Katz?’ says the teacher. ‘There’s no Moshke Katz in the Third Form. There is a Katz on the list, but his first name is Mordukh, not Moshke …’

“ ‘Well, it’s a mistake,’ I say. ‘It’s Moshke, not Mordukh.’

“ ‘It’s Mordukh,’ he says to me, waving the list in my face.

“ ‘It’s Moshke!’

“ ‘It’s Mordukh!’

“Well, we Moshked and Mordukhed each other back and forth until the sad truth finally dawned on me; there had been a little error. Do you get the picture? The goy had mixed up the names; he had taken a Katz, all right, it just didn’t happen to be mine. There were, it appeared, more ways to skin a Katz than one …

“What can I tell you? It would have broken your heart to see my boy’s face when he was told to take that dingus off his cap. No stood-up bride ever cried half so hard. He couldn’t stop for the life of him. ‘I hope you see what you’ve done now,’ I said to the wife. ‘Didn’t I tell you they’d crucify the boy? I pray to God he gets over it soon, because if not he’ll get an ulcer for sure.’

“ ‘You can save the ulcers for your enemies,’ she says. ‘That child is going to high school! If he doesn’t get in this year, he’ll get in next; if he’s not accepted here, he will be somewhere else. We’ll stop trying over my dead body!’

“How’s that for a quick comeback? And who do you think had his way in the end, me or her? Let’s not kid ourselves: when she wants it, she gets it …

“Anyway, why drag it out? I went to the ends of the earth with that boy — there wasn’t a town with a high school that we didn’t try. And there wasn’t a town with a high school where he didn’t take the exams, and where he didn’t pass the exams, and where he didn’t pass them with flying colors — and where he wasn’t rejected. How come? Because of those crazy quotas. Believe me, I started to wonder if I wasn’t crazy too. What are you running from town to town for like an idiot? I asked myself. Who the Devil needs it? Supposing he does get in somewhere in the end — so what? Say what you will, though, no one likes to throw in the sponge. And I had become so mule-headed about it that it was an act of sheer mercy on God’s part to find me a commercial high school in Poland where they took a Jew for every Christian — that is, where the quota was fifty percent. There was just one little catch: the Jew had to bring his own Christian with him — and only if your Christian passed the exams and you were ready to treat him to tuition did you stand a fighting chance … In other words, instead of one millstone around my neck, there were two. Do you follow me? As if it weren’t enough to knock my brains out for my own boy, I now had someone else’s to worry about, because if Ivan doesn’t pass, Yankl can pack his bags too. In fact, that’s practically what happened. By the time I found the right Christian, a tailor’s boy named Kholyava, I was green in the gills — and when the chips were down, wouldn’t you know that he went and flunked flat on his face! And in ‘Christian Religion,’ of all things! Don’t think my own son didn’t have to take him in hand and coach him for the makeup. What, you ask, does my son know about Christianity? But with a head you won’t find in all of Russia, what’s there to wonder at?…

“Well, with God’s help we made it to the great day: both of them were accepted. Home free at last, eh? Except that when I come to pay the registration fee, my goy doesn’t show! What seems to be the problem? The damn Russian would rather croak than see his son with so many Jews. What does he need my commercial high school for, he says, when a Christian boy like his own can get in anywhere he pleases? Go tell him he’s mistaken! ‘How can I help change your mind for you, Pani Kholyava?’ I ask him. ‘You can’t,’ he says. So I sat him down and had a little talk with him about all men being brothers, etcetera — I even took him to a tavern for a drink or two, which turned out to be nine or ten — I tell you, I managed to get a few gray hairs before I finally heard from the school that young Kholyava was enrolled there. Thank God, I thought, at last it’s over and done with!

“Well, I came home that day to get a new shock. What was it this time? The wife had thought it over and decided that she couldn’t leave our precious one-and-only all by his lonesome in Poland. How could she ever look herself in the mirror if she did? ‘But what else can you do?’ I asked her. ‘What else can I do?’ she says. ‘Do I have to spell it out for you? I’m going with him.’ ‘But who’ll look after the house?’ I ask. ‘The house,’ she says, ‘is only a house …’ Just what was I supposed to say to that? And don’t think she didn’t pick up and go with him, leaving me all by myself! Imagine, a whole house with no one in it but me — it shouldn’t happen to my worst enemies. My life went to pieces; the business went to the dogs; everything went to hell around me while we sat and wrote each other letters: ‘my dear wife,’ ‘my dear husband’—oh, it was a first-rate correspondence! ‘For God’s sake,’ I wrote her, ‘how long can I go on like this? I’m only human. A house without a woman is no house …’ It did as much good as last winter’s snow, of course. In the end it was she who had her way again. When she wants it, she damn well gets it …

“There’s not much left for me to tell. One day I caved in, I couldn’t take it any longer. I sold the business, which was already in ruins, for a song, took my last few rubles, and went to join her in Poland. Once I settled down there, I began to look around a bit to get the lay of the land — it wasn’t easy, but I managed to put myself back on my feet and even to strike up a partnership with a respectable Jew, a fine fellow from Warsaw who was president of the synagogue. How was I supposed to know that he would turn out to be a purse snatcher, a swindler, a racketeer, who would leave me holding the bag? I don’t have to tell you that I was at the end of my rope … Well, strangely enough, who do I see as I’m walking home one day but my son, all red in the face and without the dingus on his cap. ‘Hey, Moyshele,’ I say, ‘where’s the dingus?’

“ ‘What dingus?’ he says to me.

“ ‘Your school button,’ I say.

“ ‘What school button?’ he says.

“ ‘The button on your cap,’ I say. ‘Just a while ago you bought a new cap with a new button.’

“ ‘I threw it away,’ he says, turning even redder.

“ ‘What do you mean, you threw it away?’ I ask.

“ ‘I’m free!’ he says.

“ ‘What do you mean, you’re free?’ I ask.

“ ‘We’re all free!’ he says.

“ ‘All right,’ I say, ‘so you’re all free. What does that mean?’

“ ‘It means no more school,’ he says.

“ ‘And what does no more school mean?’ I ask.

“ ‘It means,’ he says, ‘that we all voted to walk out.’

“ ‘What do you mean, you all voted to walk out?’ I say. ‘Who asked you to vote? Walk out where? Do you mean to tell me I’ve ruined myself just for you to start a revolution? God help us all! I only hope they don’t pin it on us Jews, because we’re always the first to take the rap.’

“Well, I gave it to him but good, as only a father can. I just should have known that the wife, God bless her and keep her from me, would come running with a mouthful of her own. I had better, she said, brush the cobwebs off of me — I had better wise up, she said — I had better realize, she said, that the old days were gone forever. In the new world that was coming, she said, we would all be free and equal. No more cats, no more mice, no more whips, no more horses, no more dogs, no more lice, no more slaves, no more bosses …

“ ‘My, my, my,’ I said to her, ‘fancy you reciting poetry. Modern times, modern rhymes, eh? I suppose you’d like to open their cages and set the chickens free too. No more pens, no more hens, just imagine!’

“Well, you’d have thought from the way she blew her stack at me that I had poured boiling water on her. There was nothing to do but hear her out to the bitter end. The only trouble was that there was no end. ‘You know something?’ I said. ‘That’s enough. If you’ll just stop, I’ll agree to anything you say. It’s my fault, I’m to blame for everything, it’s all because of me—but won’t you please be q-u-i-e-t!’

“It just went in one ear and out the other, though. Nothing doing! She had to know why, and how could I, and who said, and by what right, and since when, and did it ever, and on and on and on and on and on …

“I ask you, whose idea were wives in the first place?”

(1902)

THE AUTOMATIC EXEMPTION

“Where am I coming from?” said the tall, thin, heavily bearded Jew with the felt hat on his head. He had just finished his morning prayers and was putting away his tefillin and his prayer shawl. “Where am I coming from? It’s just my luck to be coming from the army, that’s where I’m coming from! The young man stretched out on that seat over there is my son. We stopped in Yehupetz on our way home to see a lawyer and a doctor — to get an opinion, that’s what we stopped for. A fine lot I needed the army in my life! This is the fourth time he’s been before the draft board and he isn’t done with it yet. And the boy is an only son, he has an automatic, a guaranteed, a one-hundred-percent lifetime exemption … but why are you looking at me like that? Did I say something wrong? Wait, just wait till you hear the whole story.

“A lot of ancient history, that’s what you’re going to hear. You see, I come from Mezritch, though I grew up in Mazapevke, but Vorotolivke is where I’m still registered. That is, I grew up in Mazapevke, but I lived in Vorotolivke, though Mezritch is where I’m from now. Not that my name and address make a difference; my son’s name, though — now that’s something else again, that has everything to do with it. I’ll say it does! It’s Itsik, his name — that’s short for Avrom-Yitzchok, though he really goes by Alter, which is what his mother, God bless her, took to calling him for good luck, being an only child and all that. That is, he wasn’t always an only child, because there was another boy a year or so younger, Eisik is what his name was. We had a tragedy with him when he was little, though — I mean with Eisik, not with Itsik. One day when we left him alone in the house (it happened in Vorotolivke, because we hadn’t moved to Mezritch, and it couldn’t have been in Mazapevke), he knocked over a boiling samovar and burned, he actually burned himself to death! That’s when we began to call him Alter — Itsik, I mean, not Eisik — that is, bless his soul, Avrom-Yitzchok …

“You must be wondering what it wants, the army, what it wants with an only son. But that’s just it! Maybe you think he’s such a fine specimen, God forbid, that they decided to take him anyway? Don’t you believe it: why, you wouldn’t sell him a penny of life insurance, he’s so sick that he looks like a ghost! That is, sick may not be the right word for him; he’s not really sick, he just isn’t very healthy either. It’s a crime to wake him now, because he’s sleeping, but you’ll see when he gets up what a bag of bones he is. He’s all arms and legs, as thin as a stick, a dried fig has more color than he does … and the height of the boy: good grief, he’s a regular beanpole! That’s because he takes after his mother, God bless her. What I mean is, his mother is tall and thin too, she’s what you might call the refined type … But I ask you: with a spindleshanks of a son who has an automatic exemption, I should have to worry about the army?

“A lot it helped, though, that exemption, when the boy got his call-up. What exemption? It didn’t even exist! Why not? Because there happened to be a small problem — namely, that when my son Eisik was burned to death by the samovar, his name was never struck from the register. Well, I ran to that dunce of a government rabbi that we have and let him know just what I thought of him. ‘You grave robber! You body snatcher! How could you have done this to me? Why didn’t you make out a death certificate for my Eisik?’

“ ‘Who’s Eisik?’ the dumb clunk asks.

“ ‘What?’ I say. ‘You don’t even know who Eisik is? My son Eisik, who knocked over the samovar.’

“ ‘What samovar?’ he asks.

“ ‘Wake up and die right!’ I say. ‘Welcome to Mezritch! Do you call that block of wood of yours a head? You could put it to better use as a nutcracker! Who around here doesn’t know that my Eisik was burned to death by a samovar? I’ll be blamed if I know what we need you for in this town. When a live Jew has a problem, he finds a real rabbi to go to — I’d think the least you could do is keep track of the dead. Why are we paying the taxes for your salary?’

“Do you know what finally dawned on me, though? It dawned on me that I was wasting my breath on our right reverend, because what happened with the samovar wasn’t in Mezritch at all, it was back in Vorotolivke. The things that slip a person’s mind!

“But that’s all a lot of ancient history. By the time I was through running to Vorotolivke and getting all the necessary papers, they had taken away my Avrom-Yitzchok’s — I mean my Itsik’s — that is, my Alter’s — exemption. They wouldn’t even give him a deferment. Not even a deferment? Now we were in for it! I nearly tore my hair out: an only, a one-hundred-percent draft-proof son, eligible for induction! Well, go cry over spilled milk …

“Leave it to God to come through in the pinch, though. When it’s time for the draw, my Alter — I mean my Itsik — picks the highest number there is: six hundred and ninety-nine. You should have seen that draft board go wild. The chairman even slapped him on the back and said, ‘Bravo, Itsko, molodyets!’ I was the envy of the whole town. Six hundred ninety-nine — it was the winning ticket, that’s what it was. Everybody wanted to shake my hand. Congratulations, mazel tov! You’d have thought I’d won a million in the sweepstakes …

“I don’t have to tell you about our Jews, though. When it’s time for the physical, the disqualifications come faster than you can count. Suddenly every boy in town’s a hopeless invalid. There wasn’t one who didn’t claim to be a cripple …

“Well, that’s all a lot of ancient history. They ran through all the numbers until they reached six ninety-nine and my poor Itsik — I mean my poor Alter — had to pick himself up and go off to the induction center like any butcher or baker’s son. My wife was a nervous wreck, my daughter-in-law almost fainted. How, why, who ever heard of an only son with an automatic, a guaranteed exemption being taken for a physical — and without even hope of a deferment? The boy himself wouldn’t let on that he was worried—’If other Jews can be soldiers,’ he said, ‘so can this one’—but I was sure that he was shaking in his boots. Wouldn’t you have been?

“Leave it to God to come through again, though. My Alter — that is, my Itsik — was stripped to his bare bottom, begging your pardon, and brought in to the doctor, who measured him, weighed him, pinched him, poked him, and told him to go home. ‘You’ll never make a soldier out of a mutt like this,’ he says. ‘He doesn’t have what it takes. Why, he has barely thirty inches in the chest.’ (Thank God it takes what he has, I thought, not to have what it takes!) Back comes my Itsik — I mean my Alter — with a white card in his hand … hallelujah, it’s mazel tov again. The whole family got together, broke out a bottle, and drank a toast to the boy’s health. The Lord be praised, we could finally forget about the army …

“You know our Jews, though. Don’t think one of them didn’t find a Russian to complain that I had bribed the doctor! Would you believe that before two months had gone by there was a letter in the mailbox telling my Alter — that is, my Itsik — to report for another physical? How’s that for good news? Happy days are here again! My wife was a nervous wreck, my daughter-in-law almost fainted. How, why, who ever heard of an only son with a guaranteed, a one-hundred-percent exemption having to go for two physicals?

“That’s all a lot of ancient history, though. The fact of the matter was that a personal invitation from the governor was not something you turned down just like that. As soon as we came to the capital, I began to run around like mad. I went looking for people I knew, for someone to put in a good word; I climbed on my soapbox each time I mentioned my delicate, my one-and-only son … and do you know what it was good for in the end? It was good for a few good laughs, that’s what! And the boy himself? Frankly, I’d seen better-looking corpses — although, to listen to him, the trouble wasn’t the army at all. For the army, he said, he didn’t care a fiddlestick; if he had to go, he would go. So what was getting him down? The situation at home — that is, the female hysterics … I tell you, there we were at the governor’s and I didn’t know if I was coming or going. You know what, I thought: life is one big lottery, that’s what!

“But leave it to God to come through a third time! My Itsik — I mean my Alter — is brought in to the governor as naked, begging your pardon, as the day he was born, and this time a whole committee is there to perform the laying on of hands. They measure him, they weigh him, they pinch him, they poke him, and do you know what conclusion they come to? That he doesn’t have what it takes. (Thank God it took what he had not to have it!) At first one of them thought otherwise. ‘He passes!’ he said. ‘He fails!’ said the doctor. Passes, fails, passes, fails — it went on like that for a while until the governor himself got up from his chair, went over to have a good look, and said, ‘Passes? The hell he does!..’ ‘Mazel tov.’ I cabled home at once, ‘goods declared definitely damaged …’

“Listen to this, though. I happen to have a cousin with the same name as mine who lives in Mezritch too. He’s a rich Jew who deals in cattle, that’s who he is, and, if I may say so, a bit of a bastard on the side. Not that that’s such an unusual combination — but wouldn’t it be my luck that the telegram I sent was delivered to him by mistake, and just when he was all on edge waiting to hear about a big shipment of oxen he had sent! You can imagine what it did to his blood pressure to be handed a cable that said, ‘Mazel tov, goods declared damaged’—why, when I got back to Mezritch I thought he would eat me alive! Do you know what it’s like to be in Dutch with a rich bastard of a cattle dealer? As if it wasn’t enough for him to walk off with my telegram, he had to blame me for sending it yet …

“But let me get back to the time in Vorotolivke when my Itsik — I mean my Alter — was still a small boy. One fine day it was decided to have a census in town. The census takers went from house to house and wrote down who lived there, and how many children they had, and whether they were boys or girls, and what were their names — and when my wife, God bless her, was asked about our Itsik, she went and said that he was Alter. Well, there are no two ways about it: if you’re a census taker and you’re told ‘Alter,’ what do you write down? You write down ‘Alter.’

“And so a year after my Itsik was excused from the army, we got another letter in the mail: would my son Alter kindly report to the draft board in Vorotolivke. In my worst dreams I should never have such a nightmare! Would you believe it? A new Jew is born: welcome to the world, Reb Alter!

“Well, that’s all a lot of ancient history. My boy Itsik — I mean Alter — had to go see the draft board again. My wife was a nervous wreck, my daughter-in-law almost fainted. How, why, who ever heard of an only son with an automatic, a guaranteed, a one-hundred-percent exemption having to appear three times before a draft board? A lot of good it did to explain that to anyone, though — I might as well have been talking Turkish. I had to run to our local community council and beat my breast before they would agree to have ten Jews sign an affidavit swearing that my Itsik was my Avrom-Yitzchok, and that my Avrom-Yitzchok was my Alter, and that my Alter, my Itsik, and my Avrom-Yitzchok were all one and the same boy.

“Affidavit in hand, I went to Vorotolivke. I arrive there—Well, well, well, look who’s here! What’s new, Reb Yosl? To what do we owe the pleasure? That’s all I needed, for them to know what I was there for! The less Jews know about your business, the better. ‘Nothing special,’ I said. ‘I just wanted a word with your squire.’ ‘What about?’ they ask. ‘About some grain, that’s what,’ I say. ‘I bought a consignment from him and paid him for it in advance. The grain never came, my money is gone — the dish ran away with the spoon …’ What I actually did, though, was go to the town hall, where I gave the affidavit to a clerk. He took one look at it, the clerk, and hit the ceiling. ‘Stupaytye!’ he says — in other words, I can go to hell, me and all my dirty Jew tricks. ‘If you scheming sheenies think you can dodge the draft,’ he says, ‘by turning Avrom into Yitzchok, and Yitzchok into Itsik, and Itsik into Alter, it’s time you realized that sort of hanky-panky doesn’t cut any ice around here!’ … Aha, I thought, hearing him say ‘hanky-panky,’ he’s out to line his own pocket — and I took out a coin, slipped it into his hand, and said to him in a whisper, ‘For your trouble, Your Worship.’ ‘What’s this,’ he roars at me, ‘bribery?’—and don’t think every clerk in that building didn’t come on the double to show me the way out in a hurry! It was just my luck to run into someone with principles … although to tell you the truth, that’s only in a manner of speaking. One is never at a loss among Jews; it didn’t take me long to find one whose money that clerk was less finicky about. The only trouble was that it did as much good as chicken soup does a dead man — when all was said and done, there I still was, stuck with a son named Alter. And since Alter is what his name was, would he kindly report to the draft board in Vorotolivke … What a mess!

“Believe me, I must be made of iron to have lived through all that. And yet looking back, what was a fool like me so afraid of? The boy could have been called up a hundred times, he still didn’t have what it took. (Thank God, I thought, that it took what he had not to have it!) In fact, he had already been turned down twice … though on the other hand, I couldn’t help thinking: here I am in a strange town, and one with principles yet — who knows what’s liable to happen …

“Leave it to God to come through another time, though! My Alter — I mean my Itsik — drew a new number, went for a new physical, and managed to fail this one too. Now, with God’s help, we had three white cards …

“Well, the boy returned to Mezritch — what a welcome! We threw a big party, the whole town was invited, and we danced and whooped it up all night long. What could anyone do to me now? I wouldn’t have changed places with a king!

“But I had better get back to my Eisik, God rest him, who knocked over the samovar when he was little. Listen, just listen to this: who could have guessed that because the right reverend of Vorotolivke had forgotten to file a death certificate for my Eisik, I would find a letter in the mailbox one day telling him to please report for the draft? Talk about bolts from the blue! What did they want from my poor life? How could I bring my Eisik to the draft board when he was with the angels in heaven? That’s just what I told that government rabbi too; what, I asked him, what was I supposed to do now? ‘You have a problem,’ he says to me. ‘You don’t say!’ I say. ‘And just what do you think it might be?’ ‘Your problem,’ he says, ‘is that Itsik and Eisik happen to be the same name.’ ‘Oh, they do, do they?’ I say. ‘And how does a genius like you figure that?’ ‘Why, it’s very simple,’ he says. ‘Itsik is Yitzchok, and Yitzchok is Isaac, and Isaac is Eisik, so Eisik is Itsik.’ Elementary, no?

“To make a long story short, why bother with a lot of ancient history? My Eisik was wanted by the draft board — it would make my life miserable until I produced him, that’s what it would do! At home the hysterics started all over again. Hysterics? The end of the world! In the first place, the mere mention of Eisik reopened my poor wife’s old wounds. ‘If only he could go to the army,’ she wept, ‘and not have to rot in the grave …’ And besides, she was scared to death that the draft board, God forbid, would reason the same as the rabbi — namely, that Itsik was Yitzchok, Yitzchok was Isaac, Isaac was Eisik, so Eisik was Itsik. Wouldn’t that be just dandy! The thought of it made her a nervous wreck, my daughter-in-law almost fainted. It was really no joke: an only son, with an automatic, a guaranteed, a one-hundred-percent lifetime exemption, three times before the draft board, three white cards to show for it — and he still wasn’t out of the woods …

“Well, I took myself in hand, that’s what I did, and went to Yehupetz to see a good lawyer. And I brought my son with me to see a professor of medicine who could tell us if he had what it took or not, though I knew very well that he didn’t. (That is, it took what he had to have what it took not to have it!) With a legal and a medical opinion, I thought, I could finally sleep soundly at night … but do you know what I found out? I found out that those lawyers and doctors didn’t know which end was up. Whatever one said, another said the opposite; they couldn’t agree on a thing. It was enough to drive me out of my mind. Just listen to this.

“The first lawyer we saw was a real pinhead, though you would never have guessed it from the size of his noodle, which had a bald spot big enough to fry an egg on. He was so brainy, that man, that he couldn’t even understand who was Itsik, who was Alter, who was Avrom-Yitzchok, and who was Eisik. I had to keep telling him that the first three were one boy, and that it was Eisik who knocked over the samovar in Vorotolivke, where I lived before moving to Mezritch, after I left Mazapevke. At last, when I thought he had finally gotten it, he asked, Just tell me one thing, though: which of them is the eldest — Itsik, Alter, or Avrom-Yitzchok?’

“ ‘Try to concentrate,’ I said. ‘I’ve already told you fifteen times that Itsik, Avrom-Yitzchok, and Alter are all the same person, that’s who they are — that is, Itsik is really Avrom-Yitzchok, but his mother called him Alter for good luck. It was Eisik who knocked over the samovar in Vorotolivke, I mean before I moved to—’

“ ‘Just tell me when,’ he says, ‘that is, in what year, Avrom-Alter — I mean Yitzchok-Eisik — was first asked to report for the draft.’

“ ‘But you’re all bollixed up!’ I say. ‘You’re mixing kasha with borscht. I’ve never in my life met a Jew like you, with such a goy’s head on his shoulders. I’m telling you that Yitzchok, and Avrom-Yitzchok, and Itsik, and Alter are all the same person. The same, do you hear me? The same!’

“ ‘All right, all right,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to shout. What are you shouting for?’

“Would you believe it? He wants to know why I’m shouting …

“Well, I said to the Devil with him, that’s what I did, and I went to see another lawyer. This one turned out to be a real logic chopper — in fact, he chopped it a little too fine. He listened to my story, stroked his forehead, waggled his thumb, and began to explain to me that there was a statute on the books that said that the authorities in Mezritch had no right to call the boy up in the first place, although on the other hand, there was another statute that said that since he was called up, the authorities in Vorotolivke could be requested to issue a waiver, which did not mean, however, that the authorities in Mezritch could not be required to waive the request, provided that in the meantime, of course, the authorities in Vorotolivke had not waived the right to have the waiver waived …

“In short, he kept waiving me such waivers that I waved goodbye to him and went to see a third lawyer, that’s where I went. Some meatball he was too, a young fellow fresh out of law school, still wet behind the ears, so to speak! Not that he wasn’t quite charming, with a voice as clear as a bell — the problem was that it didn’t stop ringing. He must have been taking voice lessons, because he kept listening to himself talk as if it were on doctor’s orders. In fact, he was having such a fine time making speeches that I had to interrupt him and say, ‘That’s all very well, and I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment, but what good does your yatata do me? I want some advice from you, that’s what I want, about keeping my son out of the army …’

“Well, that’s all a lot of ancient history. In the end I found an honest-to-god lawyer, a gentleman of the old school who knew exactly what the score was. He sat there listening with his eyes closed while I told him the whole story and when I was finished he said, ‘It that all? No more? Then go home and forget it, it’s all nonsense. The worst you can get is a three-hundred-ruble fine.’

“ ‘Eh?’ I say. ‘That’s the worst? If only I had known that’s all they can stick me with! And here I was worried sick for my son, it’s my son I was worried for.’

“ ‘What son?’ he asks.

“ ‘What do you mean, what son?’ I say. ‘My Alter — I mean my Itsik!’

“ ‘What had you so worried?’ he asks.

“ ‘What do you mean, what?’ I say. ‘What happens if he’s called up again, then what?’

“ ‘But he has a white card,’ he says.

“ ‘He has three of them!’ I say.

“ ‘Then what more do you want?’

“ ‘What more do I want? I don’t want anything,’ I say. ‘I’m just afraid that since they’re looking for Eisik, and there is no Eisik, and Alter — I mean Itsik — is registered as Avrom-Yitzchok, and Yitzchok, according to that dodo of a rabbi, is Isaac, and Isaac is Eisik, they may try to claim that my Itsik — I mean my Avrom-Yitzchok — that is, my Alter — is really my Eisik!’

“ ‘Well, what if they do?’ he says. ‘So much the better. If Itsik is Eisik, you won’t even have to pay the fine. Didn’t you say he had a white card?’

“ ‘Three of them,’ I say. ‘But the white cards are Itsik’s, not Eisik’s.’

“ ‘But didn’t you just tell me,’ he says, ‘that Itsik is Eisik?’

“ ‘Who says that Itsik is Eisik?’

“ ‘You just told me he was!’

“ ‘I told you?’ I say. ‘How can I have told you such a thing when Itsik is Alter, and Eisik is who knocked over the samovar in Vorotolivke, that is, before I moved to Mezritch, I mean, after I left Mazapevke …’

“Well, that’s when he lost his temper and said, ‘Stupaytye, vi nodoyedlive yevrei!’ Did you get that? He called me a nuisance, that’s what he did. Would you believe it? Me, a nuisance? Me?!!!”

(1902)

IT DOESN’T PAY TO BE GOOD

“It doesn’t pay to be good,” said the quite proper Jew with the mole on his nose as he accepted the cigarette I offered him. “Do you hear me? It doesn’t pay. It was being too good, too much of a soft touch, that made me nourish a viper at home — in fact, two of them. Just listen to what I got myself into.

“God wanted to see how good I could be, so He sent me a pair of orphans, a boy and a girl. Because He punished me with no children, I took two of them into my house. I cared for them, I gave them nothing but the best, I made human beings of them both — and how did they thank me for it? With a knife in the back!

“First let me tell you about the girl. Where did I find a girl orphan? It happened like this. My wife had a younger sister named Perl who was, let me tell you, something special. It ran in the family — my wife is an attractive woman to this day. There were men dying to have Perl and keep her in clover just for her looks alone. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“When my sister-in-law got married, we all thought she had hit the jackpot, that it was a stroke of good luck such as comes a woman’s way once in a blue moon. Her husband was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the only heir of a rich father, and of a rich grandfather, and even of a rich, childless uncle — there was money wherever you looked. What a windfall! And that wasn’t the half of it, either. There was only one little hitch, which was that he had the Devil in him. I don’t mean to say that he wasn’t a fine fellow: there was nothing stupid or crass about him, and he was as friendly, as likable, as good company as they come. So what was the matter? The boy was a bum! (May he forgive me for being truthful — he’s in the other world now.) What do I mean by a bum? I mean he had a passion for cards. Why, passion isn’t the word for it: cards were his be-all and end-all, he would have walked a hundred miles for a hand of them! At first it was just a round of sixty-six, or, once a month on a long winter night, a harmless game of challenge or klabberjass among friends … except that he began to play more and more — and with all kinds of riffraff, the worst loafers, drifters, and grifters. Take it from me, once a man starts with cards there’s no telling where he’ll end up. Who even thinks then of praying three times a day, or wearing a hat on his head, or observing the Sabbath laws, or anything else that smacks of being a Jew? And as if that wasn’t bad enough, my sister-in-law Perl was a strictly religious woman who couldn’t put up with her husband’s shenanigans. She took to bed for days on end, she cried such buckets over her fate that it actually made her ill. At first it was nothing serious, then it got worse and worse — until one day, I’m sorry to say, poor Perl passed away. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“Perl died and left behind a child, a little girl of six or seven. Her husband was off somewhere in Odessa, the Devil only knew where; he had sunk so low that he had gambled away every cent of the family fortune — a hopeless derelict, that’s all that remained of him. For a while he was even rumored to be in jail. After that he mooched around here and there until he died of God only knows what and was buried in a potter’s field. That’s the family history in a nutshell. And so the poor little orphan, Rayzl was her name, ended up with us. I took the child in, you see, because I had none myself; God wouldn’t give me one of my own, so why not her? I only wanted to be good — the trouble is that being good gets you nowhere. In any other uncle’s house, an orphan girl like her would have grown up in the kitchen; she would have been put to work, made to serve tea, sent on all kinds of errands. I, though, treated her like my own child: I dressed her in clothes as good as my wife’s, I bought her the same shoes, I gave her the same food to eat. She even sat with us at the table like our own flesh and blood — why, flesh and blood isn’t the word for it. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“When Rayzl grew older, I sent her off to a scrivener to learn to read and write. There’s no denying that she was a good, a hardworking, a well-behaved girl … and beautiful too, a real stunner! I really did love her like a daughter. But children, you know, grow like toadstools; before I knew it, the time came to think of a match for her. And on top of all that, my little niece had blossomed: she was as tall, as lovely, as striking as a rose. My wife had begun to lay away a few things for her — clothes, linens, blankets, pillows — and I myself had every intention of putting up a few hundred rubles for a dowry. We even began to discuss possible husbands. Who could an orphan girl whose father, may he forgive me, was not exactly a savory character and whose stepfather was no Rothschild hope to marry? We had to look for someone suitable who would be able to support her. Only, where would we ever find him? A young man of independent means was setting our sights too high, while I myself didn’t want an ordinary working boy — after all, the girl was almost our own, she was my wife’s sister’s daughter. It was a godsend that we came across a salesman, a young fellow in his twenties, who brought home a few rubles, and had put away a few rubles, and was worth a few rubles in the bargain. Well, I had a little talk with him — yes, he was interested, and how! My niece was just his cup of tea. Next I went to have a talk with her — if you can call what I had with her a talk … why, talking to a tree stump would be easier! What seemed to be the problem? Nothing; she just didn’t want him — she didn’t need him — she would thank me to leave her alone. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘if not him, then who else? The Baron de Hirsch’s grandson?’ If you’ve heard a tree stump talk, you’ll know what she answered me. She just gave me a silent stare. And that’s not the half of it, either!..

“Here, though, I have to interrupt my story to tell you another one, which has to do with the first. That is, the first story and the second story make one story between them.

“All in all I had only one brother, Moyshe-Hirshl, who was younger than I was. One day something happened (why does it always have to happen to me?) that shouldn’t happen to a soul. On a Friday morning in the bathhouse, when he meant to give himself a cold shower, he grabbed a bucket of boiling water by mistake and poured it over his head. He was scalded so badly that he died eight days later in terrible pain, leaving behind a wife and a six-year-old child, a small boy named Paysi. Before half a year had gone by, there was talk of the woman remarrying. That irked me so much that I went to her and said, ‘If you can’t wait to find another husband, I want you to let me have the child.’ At first she balked at the idea, she wouldn’t even think of it. Little by little, though, I got her to come around. She brought me the boy and went off to Poland to get married. In fact, I’ve heard she’s not doing badly there. Only that’s not the half of it, either!

“Well, now I had, with God’s blessing, a son as well. I say I had a son because I actually adopted him and took out all the official papers. And a gifted boy he was, too — why, gifted isn’t the word for him! Of course, he was my nephew, it goes without saying that I’m prejudiced; take it from me, though, you won’t find another youngster like Paysi, I won’t say in the world, but certainly in our town, and in any other town in the district, and up and down the whole province, and maybe in a few more. You just name it. Reading? The tops! Writing? The tops! Arithmetic? The tops! How about French, you say? The boy spoke it like a Frenchman! How about music? You should have heard him play the violin! And good-looking … and with a way of putting things … and a personality … and … and … I tell you, gifted isn’t the word! And when you add the fact that I was ready to give him a wedding gift of a few thousand rubles, since he was my brother’s child and mine by adoption, that is, practically my own natural-born son, in other words, far from a nobody … you’d think he could have had his pick of brides, wouldn’t you? You can bet that he was offered the best, the finest matches available — and you can bet I didn’t jump at any of them. Why should I? You don’t give away a young man like that every day. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“In short, I began getting offers from all over the world: from Kamenets, and from Yelisavet, and from Gomel, and from Lubin, and all the way from Mogilev, and from Berdichev, and Kaminka, and even Brody. They were throwing cash at my feet: ten thousand, twelve thousand, fifteen thousand, eighteen thousand — I didn’t know where to look first! But then I thought it over and decided: why go to the ends of the earth for someone you don’t even know? Better, as they say, the cobbler next door than a rabbi far away. And in fact there was a rich Jew in our town with an only daughter he was prepared to settle quite a few thousands on, a lovely girl too, she was … and the man was all for it … why shouldn’t we call it a deal, could anyone tell me that? And especially since both matchmakers in town were working on it day and night, running back and forth between the two of us until their tongues were hanging out, because they were in a hurry, you understand, they had daughters of their own to marry off, and not such spring chickens at that. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“Well, it was agreed that the two families should get together. Things aren’t what they used to be, though. Once, matches were made behind a child’s back; you came home from shaking hands with your in-laws, you wished the bride or groom a mazel tov, and that was that. But today it’s the fashion to talk to the children first; they even expect to be introduced and decide if they like each other. You’re not allowed to tell them anything — they’re supposed to make up their own minds. Well, and why not? So I took the lad aside and said to him, ‘Tell me, Paysikins, what do you think of So-and-So’s daughter?’ He turned as red as a beet and didn’t say a word. Aha, I thought, silence is golden; no news is good news, as they say. Why else would he have blushed like that? It could only be because he was too embarrassed to talk. And so it was decided that one evening the same week we would first pay a call on the bride’s family and then have them over to our place. What else remained to be done? Only to bake a honey cake and make dinner as usual. Except that wasn’t the half of it, either!

“The day came, and no sooner had I risen that morning than I was handed a letter. By who? By a coachman who brought it. I took it, I opened it, I started to read it — and I saw black before my eyes! What did it say? Listen and I’ll tell you. It was from my Paysi, who asked me not to be angry that he and Rayzele — did you ever?! — had eloped without letting us know. I shouldn’t try to look for them, he wrote, because they were already far away. I tell you, I never! Once they were married, he wrote, they would, God willing, come home again … What do you say to a friendly note like that, eh? And I’m not even talking about my wife, who passed out three times, because the scandal was really hers: Rayzl, after all, was her niece, not mine. ‘Well,’ I said to her, ‘how do you like the bitch your sister whelped now?’ I took it all out on her, I gave it to her for all she was worth. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“You can imagine for yourself what a white-hot rage I was in. Just the thought of having taken in a strange girl as a poor, hungry orphan, of having done all I could to make her happy, only to have her go make an ass of my own brother’s son! I ranted, I raved, I had a fit, I damn near went berserk. On second thought, though, I said to myself, ‘What good does it do to lose your temper? Is stamping your feet going to help any? Why don’t you think of something constructive, some way to catch them in time?’ … My first move was to go to the police; I slipped them a modest retainer and informed them that a niece of mine who was living in my house had stolen some valuables and run off God knows where with my adopted son. Then I laid out some more money and sent telegrams left and right, to every town and village in the area. Sure enough, with God’s help they were caught. Where? In a little town not far from us. Bravo!

“When the good news reached me that they had been nabbed, I went with the police to the town they were found in. I won’t bother to tell you how I felt on the way — worried isn’t the word for it! My greatest fear was, who knows, perhaps they already were married — in which case, as they say, the horse had been stolen before the barn door was locked … But God was with me: the wedding hadn’t taken place yet. It’s just that now there was a new problem: since I had told the police that I was robbed, the two of them were being held in jail. Jail — a bad business! I raised the rafters, I went about telling them that the real thief was my niece and that he, my adopted son, was innocent — but when I finally talked them into releasing my Paysi, what do you think he said? ‘If one of us is a thief, so is the other!’ Did you ever?! It was she, the little bitch, who put him up to it. What a tart!.. I ask you, does it pay to be good? Who in his right mind would have pity on an orphan? Where’s the percentage in it? I tell you, it cost me a year of my life before I could free them both and take them back with me, because he wouldn’t budge unless she was let out too. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“Naturally, I forbade her to set foot in our house again. I paid a cousin of ours, a country bumpkin named Moyshe-Meir, to put her up in his village, and my Paysi came back home to live with us. I gave him a talking to, I did. ‘For God’s sake,’ I said to him, ‘here I’ve taken you and adopted you as my own son, I’ve put aside a couple of thousand for your wedding gift — how could you spring such a scandal on me?’ ‘What scandal?’ he said. ‘She’s your niece, I’m your nephew — we’re cut from the exact same cloth.’ ‘But how,’ I asked, ‘can you even compare yourself to her? Your father was my brother, and a man of character too, while hers, may he forgive me, was nothing but a bum, a lousy card fiend!’ … Just then I glanced at my wife — she’s about to pass out again. Did she let out a squawk: I mustn’t dare say a bad word about her sister’s husband — the two of them were in the other world now, we should let them rest there in peace! Did you ever?! ‘That still, may he forgive me, doesn’t make him any less of a degenerate,’ I said. That did it: she went out like a light! What has the world come to when a man is such a stranger in his own home that he can’t open his mouth any more? And that’s not the half of it, either!

“Well, I took my Paysi in hand and watched him like a hawk to make sure he didn’t pull any more stunts. And, with God’s help, he shaped up and even agreed to be engaged — not to any great world-beater, it’s true, but still, to a girl from a decent family, with a good reputation, with money for a dowry, with … with … with what a man like me had coming to him at last! I was in seventh heaven. All’s well that ends well, eh? Be patient, there’s still more.

“One day I came home from the store to have a bite of lunch. I washed up, I sat down to eat, I said the Lord’s blessing, I looked up from the table — no Paysi! The first thought to cross my mind was that he’d bolted again. ‘Where’s Paysi?’ I asked my wife. ‘I have no idea,’ she says. As soon as I finished eating I ran back into town; I looked here, I looked there, I looked everywhere — he was gone without a trace. Right away I sent a message to our cousin Moyshe-Meir to ask what was doing with Rayzl. Back came a letter with the news that she’d left his house the day before, saying she was going to visit her mother’s grave in town. Was I fit to be tied! I took it all out on my wife again, because she was to blame for everything: the girl, after all, was her niece. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“I ran to the police, I spent a fortune on telegrams, on search parties — not a clue, there wasn’t a sign of them. I ranted, I raved, I had a fit — it didn’t do a bit of good. Take my word for it, in the three weeks that followed I damn near went berserk! Suddenly a letter arrived: mazel tov, all was well; with God’s help they were married, there wasn’t a thing I could do. Did you ever?! Would I kindly call off my dogs, they wrote, all they asked was to be left alone; they had loved each other since childhood, and now, thank God, they had all their hearts desired. I tell you, I never!.. How did they intend to make a living? We shouldn’t worry about them: he was preparing for his entrance exams in medicine, and she was studying to be a midwife. Did you ever?! Meanwhile, both were doing private tutoring and earning, with God’s help, up to fifteen rubles a month; the rent cost them six and a half, food was eight more, and as for the rest — God was great … I tell you, I never! Well, well, I thought, when you’re starving to death and come crawling to me on all fours, we’ll see who’s boss then! ‘I hope you see now,’ I said to my wife, ‘what a bad seed she is. From a bum like her father, from a card fiend like that, what else could you expect?’ … That wasn’t all I said, either — I was just waiting for a word of her back talk. ‘Since you like to faint whenever I mention your dear brother-in-law,’ I said, ‘how come you’re not doing it now?’ … Did you ever hear a stone talk? That’s how she answered me. ‘Do you think I don’t know,’ I said, ‘that you’re in cahoots with them, that you’re the brains behind this whole thing?’ … Not a peep out of her — as quiet as a mouse, she was. Well, what could she have said when she knew damn well I was right? She could see what a state I was in. What, besides being good, had I done to deserve all this? And that’s not the half of it, either!

“I suppose you think that’s the end of the story. Wait, now comes the best part.

“In short, a year went by. They wrote us now and then, but never a word about money. Suddenly they sent us good news — a son had been born and we were invited to the circumcision. ‘Congratulations,’ I said to my wife. ‘It’s an occasion to be proud of! No doubt they’ll name the boy after your dear brother-in-law.’ She didn’t answer me; she just turned white as a sheet, put on her coat, and stalked out of the house. She’ll be back soon enough, I thought; so I waited an hour, and then another, and another — it was already evening, it was the middle of the night, and still no wife in sight. A fine state of affairs it was turning out to be!.. Wouldn’t you know it, she had gone off to them, and ever since then — it’s been nearly two years — she hasn’t been back and hasn’t given any sign of coming back. Have you ever heard anything like it? At first I waited for a letter from her, but when I saw none was coming, I sat down and wrote her myself. ‘Do you know what you’ve done?’ I asked. ‘Do you have any idea what the whole world is saying about us?’ Back came the answer that her place was with her children — did you ever?! — and that her little grandchild (whose name, by the way, was Hirshele, after my brother) meant more to her than ten whole worlds. In fact, you could search ten whole worlds, she wrote, and never find another child like him. And at the bottom she wished me health and happiness — without her. I tell you, I never!

“Well, I wrote her again, and still another time, and let her know in plain language that she wasn’t going to get a penny out of me. Back came the answer that she didn’t need my money … did you ever?! In that case, I wrote, I was disinheriting her and cutting her off without a cent till hell froze over. Back came the answer that she couldn’t care less … I tell you, I never! Her life with the children, she wrote, lacked nothing, it should only always be as good, because Paysi was already in medical school and Rayzl was working as a midwife; in fact, they were earning seventy rubles a month — did you ever?! If I wanted to cut her off, she wrote, I could do it whenever I wished, I could even will my money to the Church. I tell you, I never! And at the bottom she wrote that I was out of my mind. The whole world, she said, was making a laughingstock of me. ‘You would think it a tragedy,’ she wrote, ‘that your brother’s son has married my sister’s daughter. If you don’t like it, you old fool, you can lump it!’ Did you ever?! ‘Why, if you could only see little Hirshele,’ she wrote, ‘pointing to his grandfather’s picture on the wall and saying “gra’papa,” you’d give yourself a swift kick in the pants!’ I tell you, I never! That’s how she writes to me. And that isn’t the half of it, either!

“What do you say, does a man need nerves of steel or doesn’t he? Do you think it doesn’t stick in my craw to come home to an empty house with only the four walls to talk to? It makes a man wonder; I ask you, who am I living for? Why has this happened to me? For what do I deserve an old age like this? For being good? For being such a big soft touch?… You’ll have to excuse me, but when I begin to talk about it I get such a lump in my throat that I can’t go on anymore …

“Oy, it doesn’t pay to be good. Do you hear me? It doesn’t pay!”

(1903)

BURNED OUT

“May God not punish me for saying this,” I heard a Jew behind me tell some passengers, “but our Jews, our Jews, do you hear me, are an amo pezizo. Do you know what that means in plain Yiddish? It means they’re safe to eat a noodle pudding with, to sit next to in the synagogue, and to be buried beside in the graveyard — but as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“You’d like to know what I have against Jews and why I’m running them down? But if you’d been through with them what I have and had done to you what I’ve had, you’d be running amuck in the streets!.. Well, forget it; I’m not one to go around bearing grudges. With me it’s a principle to let the other man have his way, oylom keminhogoy, as it says. What does that mean in plain Yiddish? It means that I’ll leave it to God to settle accounts with them — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“Listen to this. I wouldn’t wish it on you, but I happen to come from a nice little town by the name of Boheslav, one of those places of which it’s said, sow a bushel and you’ll reap a peck. In fact, if there’s anyone you really want to punish, don’t send him to Siberia, that’s nothing; send him to us in Boheslav, and make him a storekeeper, and give him enough credit to run up a nice debt, and see to it he has a fire that burns him out of house and home, and have all the Jews in town go around saying that he personally gave the match a scratch, because he wanted … but you can guess for yourselves what a Boheslav Jew is capable of thinking, and of saying, and even of writing to the right places — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“You can guess for yourselves who you’re looking at, too — at a man whose rotten luck it is to have been a three-time loser. Three strikes is what I have against me: in the first place, I’m a Jew; in the second place, I’m a Jew from Boheslav; and in the third place, I’m a burned-out Jew from Boheslav — and burned out to a fine crisp too, a whole-offering to the Lord, just as it says in the Bible! It happened this year. The whole place went up in smoke like a straw roof. I came out of it bekharbi uvekashti—that means in plain Yiddish, with nothing but the shirt on my back. And the fact of the matter is that I wasn’t even there when it happened. Where was I? Not far away, in Tarashche, at my niece’s engagement party. It was a first-rate party too, with a banquet, with fine guests — none of your Boheslav trash. You can guess for yourselves that we drank a good barrel and a half of vodka, not to mention the beer and the wine. In short, the time went by kidibo’ey—that’s swimmingly to you, in plain Yiddish. All of a sudden I was handed a telegram. It was in Russian and it said, ‘Wife sick, children sick, mother-in-law sick, you come quick.’ I don’t have to tell you that I picked up my feet and cleared out of there in a hurry. I come home — surprise, surprise! The store is gone, the stock is gone, the house is gone, and everything in it is gone, down to the last pair of socks. Begapoy yovoy uvegapoy yeytsey—do you know what that means in plain Yiddish? It means that some go from rags to riches and I go from rags to rags … The poor wife stood there crying; the children just stared at her, they didn’t have a place to lay their heads. It was a lucky thing it was all insured, and well-insured too — only that, you can guess for yourselves, is what smelled fishy. It wouldn’t have looked so bad in itself; but the worst part was that it wasn’t the first time, I’d already had a fire before — and also at night, and also when I wasn’t at home. Then, though, everything went smoothly. The inspector came, made a list of the burned rubble, gave an appraisal, haggled with me fair and square, a ruble more, a ruble less, until we reached an agreement — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“That was the first time. God save all Jews from the inspector they sent me this time, though: a mean bastard if ever there was one! And to make matters worse, an honest one too, there was no way I could slip him a bribe. Doesn’t that beat all? The man’s incorruptible, go do something about it! He poked and picked and puttered around, he kept asking me to explain to him how the whole thing had happened, and what exactly was burned, and where everything was, and why there wasn’t a trace left of anything, but not an iota …

“ ‘But that’s just my point!’ I said to him. ‘I’ve been totaled. If you want to know why, don’t ask me, ask God.’

“ ‘I don’t like the looks of it,’ he said. ‘Don’t think that getting us to pay up will be easy.’

“That’s one smart sleuth for you, eh? He thought he’d play the big bad wolf with me. And ditto the police detective who came to see me next. He kept trying to trip me up, he was sure he’d got his hands on a first-grader. ‘So tell me, Moshke,’ he says, ‘how come things have such a way of burning down with you?’

“ ‘How come?’ I say. ‘Because they catch fire.’

“ ‘Then suppose you explain to me,’ he says, ‘how come you took out insurance just two weeks before it happened?’

“ ‘When should I have taken it out, Officer,’ I say, ‘two weeks after it happened?’

“ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘how come you weren’t at home?’

“ ‘And if I had been,’ I say, ‘you’d be happier?’

“ ‘But how come,’ he asks, ‘you received a telegram telling you that your family was sick?’

“ ‘Because,’ I say, ‘they wanted me to come quick.’

“ ‘Then how come they didn’t tell you the truth?’ he asks.

“ ‘Because they didn’t want to scare me,’ I say.

“ ‘All right,’ he says. ‘I’ve had enough of this! I want you to know that I’m running you in.’

“ ‘But what for?’ I say. ‘What did I ever do to you? You’re taking a perfectly innocent man and ruining his good name! Does it make you feel good to cut a man’s throat in cold blood? Well, if that’s what you want, I can’t stop you. Just remember, though, that there’s a God above Who sees everything.’

“Did he blow his top at that! ‘Just who do you think you’re talking to about God, you little so-and-so?’ he said. That didn’t scare me, though — not when they had nothing on me, because I was clean as the driven snow. How does the saying go? Al tehi boz lekhoyl bosor: in plain Yiddish that means that you don’t smell of garlic when you haven’t eaten it — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“In fact, everything would have been just fine if it weren’t for Boheslav. Do you think a Boheslav Jew can stand to see another Jew come by money? That’s when the poison pen letters began to circulate. Some sent them by mail and some brought them down to the insurance company in person, but everyone said it was me who gave the match a scratch … how’s that for sheer finkery? They said I had purposely left home that night so that … doesn’t that beat all for low-downness? They even claimed I never had the stock I put in for and that my account books were faked — they tried to pin such a bum rap on me that it would have made a Haman blush — they … they … but as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“That didn’t scare me, though, not when they had nothing on me, because I was as clean as the driven snow. After all, to say it was me who gave the match a scratch was ridiculous. Any child understands that if you do such a thing you don’t dirty your hands yourself, not when three rubles will get you a good angel to do the job for you … isn’t that how it’s done where you come from? And as for the rumor that I purposely left home that night because of it, nothing could be further from the truth, because I was at my sister’s party. I have an only sister in Tarashche, she was marrying off her middle daughter — are you telling me I shouldn’t have gone? What kind of a brother would that make me? I ask you: suppose you had an only sister whose daughter was getting engaged — would you have stood her up and stayed home? Of course not! It’s not as if I had any way of knowing it was the night my house would burn down. It’s a lucky thing I happened to be insured. And the reason I was is that lately, fires have been breaking out all over. Every summer each little town has too many of them for comfort. It’s one fire after another; if it’s not Mir, it’s Bobroisk, if it’s not Bobroisk, it’s Rechitsa, if it’s not Rechitsa, it’s Bialystok — the whole world is going up in flames!.. So I thought to myself, koyl yisro’el khaveyrim—do you know what that means in plain Yiddish? It means that if Jews are burning out everywhere, who’s to say it can’t happen to me! Why be a booby and trust in miracles to save a store that can be insured? And if I was already taking out insurance, why not the maximum? You know what they say: if you have to eat pork, you may as well eat it till you burst. The company wouldn’t lose its shirt or even grow a cent poorer because of my monthly payments — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“And so I toddled off to my agent and I said to him, ‘Listen here, Zaynvel, it’s like this: the whole world is burning out, why take chances? I want you to insure my store.’

“ ‘You don’t say,’ he says, giving me a weird grin.

“ ‘How come you’re smiling at me like a freshly laid-out corpse?’ I ask him.

“ ‘Because I’m feeling so good and so bad,’ he says.

“ ‘If you’re feeling so good, how come you’re feeling so bad?’ I ask him.

“ ‘I’m feeling so bad,’ he says, ‘because I insured you before. And I’m feeling so good because I’m not doing it again.’

“ ‘How come?’ I ask.

“ ‘Because,’ he says, ‘you already bamboozled me once.’

“ ‘When did I bamboozle you?’ I ask.

“ ‘When you burned out the last time,’ he says with the same grin.

“ ‘You might at least say you’re sorry it happened, you young jerk!’ I say.

“ ‘Am I sorry it happened!’ he says — and he laughs right in my face.

“Doesn’t that beat all for sheer crust? You can guess for yourselves that I went somewhere else. Who did he think he was scaring? Hamibli eyn kvorim bemitsrayim—in plain Yiddish that means that there’s more than one insurance company in Russia. Good lord, there are as many agents around as fleas on a dog! And so I found a young fellow who had just landed his first job and was looking for business. You can guess for yourselves that he was happy to insure me, and for a good ten thousand at that — and why not? Don’t I look like a man who might have ten thousand smackers’ worth of goods in his store? Tovar voborotye, as the goyim say — that’s easy come, easy go in plain Yiddish … Now they’re all saying, those Boheslav Jews, that I never carried that much stock in the first place. Who do they think they’re scaring? Let them talk, let them squawk, let them just try to prove it — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“It was a lucky thing that at the time, when I took out the policy, no one in Boheslav knew a thing about it, so that it went through without a hitch. It was only after the accident, when I was burned out a second time, that our brother Jews began running to the agents. What company was I insured with? And when was the policy taken out? And how much was it for?… And when they discovered that it was for ten thousand rubles, the fur began to fly. Great God Almighty! Ten thousand rubles? Our Moyshe-Mordechai is going to get away with ten whole thousand rubles?… A black plague take them all! What was it to them if I got my ten thousand? Was it any skin off their noses if some cash came my way? Suppose the opposite had happened and the fire had left me flat broke — would they have given me a refund?… But no, you don’t fool around with Boheslav! In Boheslav they run a clean town! It’s a town of such great saints, Boheslav is, that you better not try any funny stuff!.. As if they couldn’t see with their own eyes what a tragedy I had had — why, we barely escaped with our lives, not to mention the damage!.. And supposing it wasn’t as great as all that, so what? You’d think they would sooner break every bone than see me get paid for any of it … Although even supposing I get it all, the full ten thousand, I ask you: what of it, what? Why should anyone lose any sleep over it? The man burned? Let him burn! If you don’t like it, you can go and burn too! Put yourselves in his shoes and you would see what this means to him. Did it ever occur to you that he might have children at home? That he might have a daughter to marry off, an absolute pearl of a child who’s everything a father can ask for? That he might have to watch her become an old maid, because he can’t afford to pay a matchmaker? That he might also have a son, a boy with a brain that’s one in a million, who’s wasting away because there’s no money to send him to school? That he might literally be killing himself, bleeding himself white — and for who? For his own family!.. But no one even thinks of that! Everyone looks at me crosswise and says, ulai yerakheym—shall I tell you what that means in plain Yiddish? It means that maybe, God forbid, I may end up with something in the bank. That’s what they’re afraid of — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“You know what, though? I’ll be honest with you. If some poor storekeeper like me begrudges me the money, that doesn’t bother me so much; it’s only natural for him to be jealous when he’d like to have it himself. But what excuse does a rich Jew have? And the person who burns me up the most is the son of the richest Jew in town. He’s a real know-it-all, but a good Jew, a warm Jew, a smart young fellow with a heart of gold who won’t take a penny’s interest on a loan and gives to charity like there’s no tomorrow; in short, a decent, a fine human being; it’s just that whenever he sees me, he stops me and says, ‘What’s new with your claim? I hear you lost a bundle in that fire’—and he puts his hands in his pockets, lets his tummy hang out, gives me a look like a satisfied cow, and makes a face I’d love to stick a fist in … and I have to grin and bear it! What else can I do? Pshoyt neveyloh, it says, ve’al titstoreykh—do you know what that means in plain Yiddish? It means that a pinch in the cheek brings out the color … If only the police investigation would be over already. Have I ever been given the third degree! The detective keeps calling me back, each time he’s got some new question … Of course, it’s all water off a duck’s back, since what’s there to worry about? They can’t scare me, because they have nothing on me, not when I’m as clean as the driven snow … They even made me sign a paper that I wouldn’t leave Boheslav, but you can see that I travel when and where I please, just to show those Boheslav Jews what I think of them. Koyl dikhfin yeysey veyitzrokh—in plain Yiddish that means that if they can’t stand to be without me, they’ll just have to travel with me — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“Maybe you think that with a claim like mine, the company won’t come to terms? Well, Mr. Know-it-all should only get a smack in his fat puss for every thousand rubles I could have gotten already! Then why haven’t I taken them, you ask? That just shows how little you know me! I happen to be, you should know, a tough customer myself, I’m not such an easy nut to crack. My philosophy is, hekhiloysoh linpoyl—that means once you’ve gone the first step in plain Yiddish — then nofoyl tipoyl—you may as well go the whole hog … What about the investigation? But an investigation never hurt anyone. Why let it scare me when they have nothing on me, because I’m as clean as the driven snow?… It’s just a crying shame that they’re holding up my money, because I happen to be good and hard-pressed, my creditors have me by the throat. That’s what hurts! I swear, it drives me up the wall; after all, in the end I’ll get the money anyway, there’s not a thing they can do about it, so why drag it out for no good reason? All I want is what I have coming. Why take it out on my kids, you childmurderers? Am I asking for so much? Give me my ten thousand rubles, my children’s money! Do you think I want it for myself? It’s for them, I tell you! Give me their money and leave me in peace! You go your way and I’ll go mine — and as for the rest, to hell with it all and forget it!..

“But what good does it do to argue? What good does it do to shout? It doesn’t make things any better, not when they couldn’t be worse. The business is gone, my daughter has no dowry, my son can’t go to school, and just staying alive, just staying alive, praise God, costs an arm and a leg. My life is sheer hell! Who can sleep at night? Who can even think of it?… Don’t imagine I’m worried, though. Why let them scare you when they have nothing on you, because you’re as clean as the driven snow?… Still, you’re only human, you can’t help wondering; there’s the investigation, and there’s the state prosecutor, and there are the Jews in Boheslav who will swear on the witness stand that they saw you with a candle in your attic late that night … No, you don’t fool around with Boheslav! Believe me, we have a Jew in town called Dovid-Hirsh — all of us together should only earn in a week what I’ve had to pay him to keep his mouth shut! And he’s a good fellow too, and from a good home; it’s all done with a smile, with a ‘please God’ and a ‘God willing’—and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“Now do you see what Boheslav is like? Am I right or not to be down on our Jews there? Just you wait until I get my money, I’ll show them a thing or two then! First of all, I’ll let the town have a contribution — I can’t tell you the exact sum, but it won’t be a cent less than our richest Jews give. I won’t take a back seat to any of them; when I’m called up to the Torah on the Sabbath and the sexton sings out loud and clear what I’ve given the synagogue, there’ll be some shocked faces, believe me! The Hospital and the Talmud Torah Funds go without saying: the first will get half-a-dozen new linen smocks, and the second a brand-new set of tallis kotons for the children … And then I’ll marry off my daughter. But what a wedding it will be! I suppose you think I’m planning an affair like everyone has these days? Eh, I can see you still don’t know me. Why, I’ll throw the wedding of the century — Boheslav won’t ever have seen the likes of it! I’ll put up a tent over the whole synagogue courtyard. The band will come all the way from Smila. There’ll be a table big enough for three hundred beggars with the very best food, and the fanciest rolls, and the most expensive liquor, and a five-spot for each … And as for the guests themselves — the whole town will be there, every last mother’s son of them, and at the table of honor I’ll sit the very bastards who would have liked to see me croak, and I’ll drink to their health, just see if I don’t, and we’ll dance, and we’ll dance, and we’ll dance!.. Jews, dance harder! Musicians, give it all you’ve got!.. That’s the sort of Jew I am! You don’t know me yet, but you will. Do you hear me? You don’t know me yet! When I celebrate, money is no object — it’s another quart of vodka and another quart of vodka and tomus nafshi im plishtim. Do you know what that means in plain Yiddish? It means drink till you burst, children, and then off you go — and to hell with you all and forget it!..”

(1903)

HARD LUCK

“You’re talking about thieves!” exclaimed a nattily dressed gentleman who was clutching an attaché case for dear life. (It was nighttime and there were three of us in the second-class waiting room at the station. While keeping an eye out for the mail train, which was an hour and a quarter late, we had struck up a conversation about crime.) “So it’s thieves you want to hear about? Then you’ve found yourselves the right man! Where else in the world do you have as many thefts as you do in my line of business? Diamonds aren’t small potatoes. They can do such things to a person that sometimes your own customer will try stealing one from under your nose. And especially if it’s a female. We never take our eyes off a woman we don’t know. It’s not so easy to steal from a diamond dealer. If I may say so myself, in all the years I’ve been one I’ve never lost a stone yet. Although once, as luck would have it, I had a close call. If you’d like, I’ll tell you about it.

“To tell you the truth, I’m not exactly a diamond dealer. That is, I deal in diamonds, but I have nothing to do with the cutting; I just buy and sell, generally wholesale, and generally at trade fairs that I go to. Sometimes, though, when there are serious private clients, I take my display case, this one right here, and pay a special call on them.

“One time I happened to hear about a rich Jew in Yehupetz who was marrying off a daughter. That meant diamonds for sure. Not that, in case you’re wondering, there weren’t plenty of diamond dealers in Yehupetz already — in fact, too many of them — but what did that have to do with it? Lock me up in a room with a thousand dealers and one customer, and you’ll soon see who rings up the sale. Selling diamonds is an art. You have to know just what to show, and how to show it, and who to show it to. I don’t mean to boast, because publicity is the last thing I’m after, but ask anyone who knows the least thing about it and he’ll tell you that I’m in a class by myself. If someone else can sell you X amount of diamonds, I can sell you 3X. It’s an art and I’m an artist.

“Well, then, I took the train to Yehupetz. The merchandise I had with me fitted right into this little case, but believe me, the three of us together should only be worth as much as it was. I found myself a place and sat myself down with my case pressed tight against me; I needn’t tell you that I didn’t leave it for a second. Sleeping, of course, was out of the question. You don’t sleep when you’re traveling with merchandise. My heart gave a thump every time a new passenger entered the car. Could he be a thief? No one has it written on the tip of his nose.

“With God’s help, after a day and a night without food or sleep I arrived at the rich Yehupetz Jew’s house, took out my goods, and launched right into my sales pitch. I talked and talked until I was blue in the face — and, as luck would have it, got nothing but a headache for my pains.

“Far be it from me to complain about our rich Jews, but for my part they can all catch the cholera! A slow boil is all they ever give you. They look at each item, they turn it every which way, they ooh and they ah over it — but when it’s time to do business, one big goose egg is all you end up with. Well, what could I do about it? You make a sale, you lose a sale — the main thing is to keep hustling. Who knows what you might be missing out on elsewhere? Most probably nothing, but that’s no reason not to get there as fast as you can. So I hailed a cab and asked to be rushed to the station. Just then I heard someone shout, ‘Hey, mister! Hey, stop!’ I turned around to look — a young man was running after me with an attaché case in his hand that looked exactly like mine. ‘Here, you dropped this,’ he says.

“I could have died! It was my case. How could I have dropped it? When? Where? As luck would have it, the case turned out to have slipped from my hand just as the young man happened by; he picked it up and … but I’ve already told you that part, what more is there to say? I climbed out of the cab, shook his hand, and said, ‘I don’t know how to thank you. May God give you health and happiness. Thank you, thank you ever so much!’

“ ‘Don’t mention it,’ he says to me.

“ ‘How can I not mention it?’ I say. ‘You’ve saved my life. You’ve done such a good deed that no reward in the whole world would be big enough. Just tell me what I owe you. Speak up, don’t be shy.’

“ ‘But if it’s really the good deed you say it is,’ he says, seeing me reach into my pocket, ‘why should I sell the rights to it for money?’

“Well, when I heard that, I took that young man and actually gave him a kiss. ‘God Himself will reward you for what you’ve done,’ I said. ‘Please come with me now, though, and at least let me treat you to a glass of wine and some food.’

“ ‘A glass of wine,’ he said, ‘I’ll have with pleasure. Why not?’

“And so we both climbed into the cab and I told the driver to forget about the station and take us to a good restaurant instead. When we got there I asked for a private booth for two, ordered a fine meal from the waiter, and began to chat with my companion. Not only had he saved my life, he was, I now saw, an extremely likable young man with an attractive face and deep, dark, earnest eyes — in short, a peach of a fellow. And bashful to beat the band! I kept having to tell him not to be embarrassed to ask for whatever he craved without worrying about the cost. And whatever he ordered, of course, I asked the waiter to bring twice as much of. We ate and drank like kings. Not, God forbid, that we were drunk. That isn’t like a Jew. But when I was feeling just a little balmy I said to him, ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done for me? I’m not even talking about the cash value of what you found, although we should both only be worth what I owe for it. My life belongs first to God and then to my creditors. And you’ve saved not only it but my honor as well, because if I had come home without this case, my creditors would have thought it was just a diamond dealer’s trick. (Pocketing the goods and crying “thief” is something we dealers have a name for!) The one thing left for me to do would have been to buy a rope and hang myself from the nearest tree. To your health!’ I said. ‘God grant your every wish! Be well, and let me give you one more kiss, because I really have to be off.’ And, saying goodbye to the young fellow, I paid the bill and reached for my case—what case? What young fellow? There wasn’t a sign of either.

“At that point I fainted dead away.

“As soon as I was revived, I promptly lost consciousness again. It was only when I came to a second time that I began to scream so loud that the whole Yehupetz police force came running. I promised them a fat reward and they took me with them to every thieves’ den in town, to every underworld rathole — but my young man was nowhere to be found. By now I was thoroughly exhausted and at the end of my tether. I went back to my lodgings, lay down on the bed there, and wondered how to take my life. By hanging? With a knife? Or by throwing myself in the Dnieper? As I was trying to decide, there was a knock on the door. Who is it? It was someone come to take me to the police station. My fine feathered friend had been caught — and with the goods still on him!

“Is there any need to tell you how I felt when I saw my case with all the diamonds in it? Before I knew it, I had blacked out once more. (That’s something I have a way of doing.) When I came around this time, I went over to the young man and said to him, ‘I simply don’t understand it. Please, explain it to me before I go crazy: where’s the logic in first running after me with my case and refusing to take even a cent for it, and then, the minute my back is turned, walking off with it again? Why, my whole life was in it, it was everything I had in the world! You almost ruined me. I was a hair’s breadth away from putting an end to it all!’

“He looked at me, that young man did, with those earnest brown eyes of his and said as calmly as you please, ‘What does one thing have to do with the other? A good deed is a good deed, but stealing is my profession.’

“ ‘Young man,’ I said to him, just exactly who are you?”

“ ‘Who am I?’ he said. ‘I’m a Jewish thief with a house full of children and the worst luck you ever saw. Not that I’ve chosen a hard line of work — I’m just a total bungler. Don’t think I’m complaining. Stealing, thank God, is no problem. The problem is getting caught. That’s where I never have luck.’

“Only when I was already on the train did it occur to me what an ass I had been. For a pittance I could have bought that thief his freedom. Why should I have been his Waterloo? Let someone else have it on his hands …

“Could I interest you in some reasonably priced diamond earrings? Here, let me show them to you. Stones like these you’ve never even seen in a dream — they’re something extra-special, let me tell you …”

(1910)

FATED FOR MISFORTUNE

Taking his time as if weighing each word, a cultivated, rather worried-looking Jew with a broad, pale, wrinkled forehead, a good black Sabbath frock coat, and a hat with a wide silk ribbon around it told the following story about himself:

“If you’re fated for misfortune, there’s no place you can run to. You can try eighteen different ways to escape it — none of them will do any good. Take me, for example: I’m a quiet, peaceable Jew who minds his own business, never makes a fuss, and hates being in the public eye. I’ll do anything to avoid being made president of the synagogue, or the godfather at a circumcision, or the guest of honor at a wedding, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …

“Well, just listen to what happened anyway. One day a Jew died in our town. We called him ‘Menashe-Goy,’ because he was, God forgive me, a simple soul. He couldn’t read or write, he didn’t know a Hebrew letter from the sign of the Cross, he was barely able to recite a few prayers, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …

“In short, he was a real Simple Simon, but a decent fellow and honest to the core; his word of honor was sacred to him, and the next man’s money — sacrosanct. Was he ever stingy with his own, though! He would rather have given up his eyeteeth than a penny. He spent his whole life accumulating more and more, and he was still going strong when suddenly he upped and died. Well, dead is dead — and since that’s what Menashe now was, I was approached with the suggestion that, as he had left behind no small amount of money, plus some outstanding loans, plus some other assets, plus some property, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and as there was no one to manage it all — she, his widow, being only a woman and his children being too small (there were five of them, four boys and a girl) — I should agree to be their fiduciary, that is, their guardian. Of course, I wouldn’t hear of it. Their fi-who-ciary? What did I need it for?… But that only made them pester me more. ‘How,’ I was asked, ‘can you possibly refuse when you’re the only one in town who can be trusted,’ etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. ‘Don’t you realize what a crime it is to let such wealth go unmanaged? What will the poor children, the four little boys and the girl, have left when they grow up? What are you so afraid of? Be the fi-who-ciary, and let the widow, their mother, be the fi-who-ciary-ess!’ I did my best to beg off: what did they want from my life? What kind of fi-who-ciary would I make when I didn’t even know how to spell it? That just added fuel to the fire, though. How could I, and what kind of person was I, and where was my sense of duty, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …

“Well, in the end I had to give in: I became a fi-who-ciary, that is, the children’s legal guardian, together with her, the widow. And since a fi-who-ciary is what God had made me, the first thing I did was try to determine just what the poor orphans were worth. I went about locating every asset, store, house, horse, cow, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and converting it all into cash … which was easier said than done, mind you, because Menashe, may he rest in peace, was one well-fixed miser of a Jew! However much people had guessed he was worth, they hadn’t guessed enough by half — and to make matters worse, he hadn’t put down a single thing in writing, because he was, God forgive me, an illiterate. New loans he had made kept turning up all the time. Wherever you looked, you found someone else who owed him money. And of course, you understand, I had to walk around with it all in my head and get every penny that I could for it — what other choice did I have? And I had to do it all by myself too, because she, my fi-who-ciary-ess, was a cow of a housewife who didn’t know left from right — a perfectly nice cow, it so happened, but a cow all the same. She couldn’t have told a good IOU from a bad one if her life depended on it, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …

“Well, I put together ruble after ruble until there was quite a pile. And having gone to no small trouble to put it together, I next had to think of investing it, because if the family used it to live off, what would become of it? Children, it so happens, need clothing and shoes, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, to say nothing of having to eat — and once you start eating up your capital, you eat your way through it in no time. And then what? A responsible person, you understand, had to put the money to work. And so I began to look around for somewhere to put it. Should I open a store for the family? But who was going to run it when my fi-who-ciary-ess, it so happened, was a cow, and the children were only children?… Should I lend it out at interest? But supposing the borrower went bankrupt — who would be held accountable? The fi-who-ciary!.. Until finally I decided, what more solid business could there be to sink it in than my own? What safer borrower was there than me, eh?… Credit, God be praised, I had everywhere, at every fair in the country, while as for my reputation — it should only be as good all my life! Wasn’t it the best solution by far to put the money into my own store? What better way to guard its value than to keep turning over the stock with it, eh?… And if you buy with cash, you should know, you’re in a different league entirely, because it commands a good premium. Hard cash, you understand, is a rare commodity these days; everyone pays with paper, with notes, a signature here, a signature there, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …

“Well, I put the money into my business and it wasn’t such a poor idea, because things didn’t go badly, they didn’t go badly at all. My gross, you understand, grew very nicely, since a well-stocked store draws a different type of customer. It’s the bait that makes them bite, as any fisherman will tell you. There was just one little problem: my expenses! They were now double what they used to be, because I was supporting two whole households … My own family, knock wood, was nothing new; but she, the widow, kept needing things too, as did all five of her children, four boys and a girl who weren’t even mine. That was no joking matter! There were clothes to buy, and shoes to buy, and a school for the boys, and a private tutor for the girl, to say nothing of a family outing here and a snack for the kids there, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera — there simply was no way of avoiding it. What would everyone have said? A fine fi-who-ciary he is, taking all the money for himself and not sparing the poor orphans even a kopeck for candy!.. There I was, you understand, slaving away, beating my brains out, on the road all the time buying merchandise, with a ledger full of debts and bad news — and no one could have cared less. She, the widow, never once lent a hand; all she wanted was her half of the income … But after all, you say, it was her money I was using? In the first place, though, her money was tied up in stock; in the second place, I wasn’t just using it, I was planning to pay her good interest; and however you look at it, it wasn’t worth the bother of having it on my mind day and night, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera — if you don’t believe me, go be a fi-who-ciary yourself! Try making it your business how somebody else’s children are doing in school, and whether they are where they should be, and if they aren’t where they shouldn’t be, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera — who did they all think I was, their governess? It’s all you can do these days to look after your own kids, especially if you’ve been blessed with a bad egg. Menashe, may God forgive me, was a simpleton of a Jew, but the very soul of honor; his children, though — Lord have mercy! One was worse than the other … The two older ones, at least, were halfway manageable; the first, who was deaf and a real sad sack, I managed to apprentice to a trade, and the second, though a total idiot, was at least quiet and kept out of people’s hair … The third, on the other hand, was gifted enough as a child, but fell in with a bad crowd when he grew older and turned into such a scoundrel himself that it was best to give him a wide berth. He bothered and badgered and blustered and bedeviled and etcetera-ed me so that I finally gave him a few rubles and packed him off to America, which had been his great dream since he was little; good riddance was all I could say!.. As for the girl, I married her off with nearly a thousand rubles’ dowry, bought her a trousseau, stood her to a fine wedding with a band, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera — I gave her everything a bride could desire, almost as if I were her own father … and what, what other choice did I have, would someone please tell me that? They had no father of their own, she, their mother, was a cow — who was there, if not me, to break his neck for them?… ‘You’re a damn fool!’ my wife kept saying to me. ‘As if you had nothing better to do than sacrifice yourself for someone else’s children! Just wait and see, they’ll thank you like a ton of bricks for being such a fi-who-ciary.’ That’s what she said, and she couldn’t have been more right: a ton of bricks is what I feel I’ve been hit with — why, every brick weighs a ton! Just wait till you hear what I’ve been through. Believe me, I must be made of iron if I can still sit here and tell you about it …

“Well, of all the children Menashe left behind, there was one, the youngest, a boy called Danielchik, who really took the cake; he was the wrath of God in person. From the time he was a tot, he was a terror. At the age of five he thought nothing of beaning his mother with a boot — and on a Sabbath morning before prayers, of all times! — while ripping off her shawl in the presence of strangers was second nature to him. I tell you, she must have had the skin of an elephant to put up with him! Day in and day out we had our hands full with Danielchik. Whenever I dropped by, I found her, the widow, sitting and sobbing her heart out: what ever had she done to deserve such a child? Why couldn’t he have rotted away in the womb instead of having to be born? The things that Danielchik did to her defied all description. He stole whatever he could get his hands on: her jewelry, her rings, her earrings, her pearl necklace, her silk kerchief, her lamps, her kitchen knives, an old pair of eyeglasses, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera — everything was fair game; he swiped it all and sold it to buy candy, or nuts, or watermelons, or expensive tobacco for himself and his friends. You can imagine the sort of friends they were! Thieves, drunks, hoodlums — the Devil only knows where he found them. He gave away everything he owned to them: his new boots, his best cap, the shirt off his back … ‘Danielchik,’ you’d ask him, ‘what’s wrong with you? How can you just go and give away a brand-new pair of boots?’ ‘Screw them!’ he would say. ‘Have a heart, the poor guy was going barefoot …’ A big-hearted little fellow, no? And I’m not even talking about money; every cent he got hold of, he simply passed on to that gang of his. ‘Danielchik, for God’s sake, what are you doing?’ ‘Screw it! The guy’s human too, he’s got to eat just like you do …’ Quite the little philanthropist, eh? There was nothing halfway about him, he was a one-hundred-percent pure freak of nature! Don’t think he was stupid, though, or some kind of ugly duckling. Far from it; he was a clever, handsome, healthy, high-spirited boy, a talented singer and dancer — he just happened to be a thoroughbred hell-pup … What didn’t we try with him? We tried the carrot — and the stick: we locked him in his room for three days and three nights, we thrashed him with a cat-o’-nine-tails, we even broke a good bamboo cane over him that I had paid three whole rubles for … it was all spitting into the wind! I tried apprenticing him to every kind of tradesman, making a watchmaker, a goldsmith, a carpenter, a musician, an ironsmith, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, out of him — not a chance! You could cut him in two with a carving knife before he’d do a stitch of work. ‘But what will you be when you grow up, Danielchik?’ you’d ask. ‘A free bird,’ he would say with a laugh. ‘A free bird? A jailbird is more like it!’ ‘Screw it!’ he would say — and before you could open your mouth again, he was gone.

“Well, we washed our hands of him and let him grow up as he pleased — which meant, you can imagine, as a perfect black sheep. Not that he continued stealing; in any case, there was hardly anything left to steal. It was rather the way he carried on in general, the fine company he kept and all his monkeyshines, plus the getup he went around in: a red blouse hanging down over his pants, high boots up to his knees, hair as long as a priest’s, chin as smooth as a goy’s — quite the young gentleman he was!.. He never had the cheek to come see me himself, though. Whenever he wanted something from me, he put her, his mother, up to it — and she, the widow, was such a cow that she actually went right on loving him, her precious darling couldn’t do wrong! Until one day when I came to my store, my fair-haired boy was waiting there for me.

“ ‘Well, well, a guest!’ I said. ‘Welcome, Danielchik. What’s the good word?’

“ ‘The good word,’ he said, ‘is that I’m getting married.’

“ ‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘Who’s the lucky girl?’

“ ‘Osna,’ he said.

“ ‘What Osna?’

“ ‘Our Osna, who worked in our house.’

“ ‘Holy God!’ I said. ‘You’re marrying a housemaid?’

“ ‘Screw that!’ he said. ‘Don’t you think a housemaid’s human too?’

“ ‘God help your poor mother,’ I said. ‘Have you come to invite me to the wedding?’

“ ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to talk to you about clothes. We sat down together, Osna and me, and drew up a list of what we need: for me, one flannel winter suit, one sailcloth summer suit, a dozen undershirts, and half-a-dozen shirts; and for Osna, some calico for a summer dress, a woolen winter dress, a few yards of gingham for house frocks, a fur muff, two shawls, half-a-dozen handkerchiefs,’ etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …

“ ‘And is that all?’ I asked when he was done, doing my best not to smile.

“ ‘That’s all,’ he said.

“Well, I couldn’t hold it in any longer; all of a sudden I burst out laughing so hard that I nearly fell off my seat. My employees took one look at me and began to laugh too. We laughed until the walls shook. And when I had laughed so much that I couldn’t laugh any more, I said to my fine young Romeo:

“ ‘Danielchik, sweetheart, just tell me one thing: is it because you and me are such partners in the store that you think you can hand me a list like this?’

“ ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I can’t tell you exactly what my share of your store is. But if you take my father’s money and divide it five ways, there should be enough to cover the clothes with plenty to spare for after the wedding …’

“Well, what can I tell you? Hearing him say that was like being shot in the heart, or having a fire lit under me, or God only knows what. I saw stars in front of my eyes! Do you get me? As if it wasn’t enough that I had spent all those years of my life supporting a widow and five children, and attending to all their needs, and marrying them all off, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera — now along comes this little upstart and thinks he can lecture me about shares he has in my store …

“ ‘What did I tell you?’ said my wife. ‘Didn’t I say they would thank you like a ton of bricks?’

“Well, you may as well know that I gave him everything he asked for. Why argue with a snotnose like that? It was beneath my dignity. Let him take his money and go hang — all I wanted was to get rid of the little pest … Do you think I did, though? Then you better think some more. A month after the wedding he came to see me again, did my clean-cut young friend, to demand the sum of two hundred twenty-three rubles.

“ ‘Just how did you arrive at two hundred twenty-three rubles?’ I asked him.

“ ‘That’s what they’re asking,’ he says to me without batting an eyelash, ‘for the beer hall and the billiard parlor.’

“ ‘What beer hall? What billiard parlor?’

“ ‘I’m going into business,’ he says. ‘I’ve bought a beer hall with a billiard parlor. Osna will run the bar and I’ll keep an eye on the billiard tables. We can make a good living from it.’

“ ‘And a very respectable one too,’ I told my young provider. ‘A beer hall with a billiard parlor — I must say it’s just your style.’

“ ‘Screw that!’ he says, ‘I don’t want to be a sponge, that’s all. I don’t mind eating dry bread once a day, just as long as it’s mine …’

“Introducing Danielchik the philosopher! Isn’t that a scream? ‘Congratulations!’ I said. ‘You can sell beer and play billiards all you want. What does it have to do with me, though?’

“ ‘It has to do with you,’ he says, ‘because of the two hundred twenty-three rubles you’re giving me.’

“ ‘What do you mean, I’m giving you?’ I say. ‘Just where am I supposed to take them from?’

“ ‘From my father’s money,’ he says without a blush.

“Would you believe it? At first I had a powerful urge to grab him by the neck and throw him right to the Devil!.. On second thought, though, I said to myself: for heaven’s sake, who are you rolling in the mud with? Let him have the money and the deuce take him! ‘Tell me, Danielchik,’ I said to him, ‘do you happen to have any idea how much your father left you?’

“ ‘No,’ he says. ‘What do I need to know for? In a year from now, when I turn twenty-one, you and I will go over the books. In the meantime, let me have my money and I’ll go.’

“That made me see more stars. Would you like to know why? It wasn’t because I was afraid of anyone, since what was there to be afraid of? Hadn’t I spent more than enough on them already? I tell you, it was no trifle to have supported a widow and her five children all those years, to have attended to their every need, to have married off each one of them, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera — and now here was this little crumb wanting to go over my books!

“Well, I took out two hundred and twenty-three rubles and gave them to him with the prayer that from now on he would leave me alone … and in fact, quite a while went by without his showing his face again. Until one day when I came home — there he was! My heart sank when I saw him. I’d be blamed, though, if I was going to show it, so I said to him perfectly naturally:

“ ‘Eh, a guest! Where have you been hiding, Danielchik? How’s your health? How’s business?’

“ ‘Screw my health!’ he said. ‘And since you ask, business isn’t so hot.’

“You don’t say! I thought to myself. Well, better luck next time! A little bird tells me, though, that I’m about to be hit for more cash. And out loud I said to him, ‘Why, what seems to be the matter? Aren’t you making any money?’

“ ‘What money? Who cares about money? Screw it!’ he said. ‘I’m through with the beer hall, I’m through with the billiard parlor, and I’m through with my wife. She ditched me, Osna. Screw her too! I’m going to America. My brother’s been wanting me to come.’

“Was it a weight off my mind to hear that! Suddenly I even found myself liking the boy. If I hadn’t been embarrassed, I would have hugged him on the spot… ‘America?’ I said. ‘A fine idea! America is the land of opportunity. People find happiness there, they find money. And if you have family there already, it’s even better … Did you come to say goodbye to me? That’s very decent of you. Don’t forget to drop us a line. After all, we’re practically next of kin … Daniel, do you need any money for the trip? I’ll be glad to help out a bit …’

“ ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘that’s what I’ve come about. You can let me have three hundred rubles. That’s what the ticket costs.’

“ ‘Three hundred rubles?’ I said. ‘Isn’t that a bit steep? How about one hundred and fifty?’

“ ‘Why waste your time haggling?’ he said. ‘Don’t you think I know that if I asked you for four hundred you’d give me that too, and five and six also, for that matter? But screw it, I don’t need all that much. I just need three hundred for the passage.’

“I tell you, butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth! Three hundred lashes, I thought to myself, is what you deserve! If only I could be sure that this was really his grand exit and that I was seeing the last of him and of all his etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …

“Well, I counted him out those three hundred rubles and even bought a present for his brother — a whole pound of Russian tea, a carton of good cigarettes, and a few bottles of Jewish wine from Palestine. We gave him a food hamper too, with a duck my wife roasted, some rolls, some oranges, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and off we went to the train station to kiss him and our troubles goodbye. We hugged him like a son and, so help me, even cried — why, the boy had grown up on my knees, and a fine young lad he had turned out to be, why deny it? A little on the brash side perhaps, but with a heart of gold, I declare! True, I was a wee bit relieved that he had gone and left me with one headache less … but I was also a wee bit sorry: a young boy like that and little more than a vagabond — who knew where he might wind up and what might become of him? If only he would remember to write now and then … although perhaps it was just as well that he didn’t. Let him have a long life and a happy one! There was nothing I would have wished for my own child that I didn’t wish for him, believe me …

“Well, lo and behold — two years hadn’t passed since he left for America when one day the door opens and who should walk in but some stranger in a top hat, a handsome, ruddy, brawny, merry young fellow who grabs me in his arms and begins to cover me with kisses! ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he says to me. ‘Are you just pretending, or do you really not know who I am?’

“ ‘Well, I’ll be! It’s Danielchik!’ I said, trying to look glad, though I was boiling inside. Why the Devil, I thought, couldn’t you have been killed in America, or better yet, on the train we saw you off on, or best of all, drowned in the ocean? But out loud I just said, ‘When did you get here, Danielchik, and what brings you back?’

“ ‘I blew in this morning,’ he says. ‘What brings me? I’ve come to settle the accounts with you.’

“When I heard him say ‘the accounts,’ I thought I would rupture an artery. What accounts did that gangster think he was talking about? But I managed to pull myself together and say to him, ‘Why trouble yourself to come all the way from America for that? My goodness, if you wanted to pay me what you owe me, you could have mailed it to me from there …’

“ ‘What I owe you?’ he says with a grin. ‘Don’t you mean what you owe me?’

“ ‘What I owe you?’ I say. ‘What makes you think I owe you?’

“ ‘Me, and my brothers, and my sister, and all of us,’ he says. ‘I’ve come from America on behalf of the whole family. I want a full accounting of my father’s money. You can deduct whatever you laid out for us and give us the balance. We won’t go to court over a ruble more or less; screw that, we’ll work it out between us … How the heck are you? How are your children? I’ve brought each one of them a present …’

“I thought I would keel over, or else take a chair and bash his head in with it … but I got a grip on myself and invited him to come, God willing, on Saturday night to go over the books with me. Then I went to see some lawyers. How, I asked them, could I get him off my back? The Devil take them if I could get a straight answer! One said that since ten years had gone by, I could claim the statute of limitations; another said no, being a fi-who-ciary meant I had to give an accounting even after a hundred years …

“ ‘But how can I give an accounting,’ I said, ‘when I kept no books and have no receipts?’

“ ‘In that case,’ says the lawyer, ‘you’re in trouble.’

“ ‘I didn’t need you to tell me that,’ I say. ‘What I want to know is, how do I get out of it?’

“A blank, that’s all I drew from him. I must be made of iron, do you hear me, to have gone through all this! I ask you, what did I need such a miserable mess for, this whole etcetera, etcetera, etcetera? What in the world ever made me agree to be someone else’s fi-who-ciary? Don’t you think I would have been a thousand times better off coming down with pneumonia, or breaking a leg, or having some terrible accident? Anything, anything, but this fool fi-who-ciation of five children, of a widow, of a Danielchik, of no account books, of etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera!..”

(1902)

GO CLIMB A TREE IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT

Across from me, by the window, sat a man with a smile on his face and the kind of eyes that try to crawl under your skin. I could see he was waiting for me to break the ice, but I preferred to keep to myself. After a while, though, it was simply too much for him to sit in silence with a fellow Jew. He laughed to himself abruptly, then turned to me and said:

“You’re wondering what made me laugh? I just happened to think of a joke that I played on Yehupetz, ha ha! You’d never guess it from looking at me, Moyshe-Nachman from Kennele, a Jew with a cough and with asthma, would you? Well, did I put one over on Yehupetz — but one that will give them something to remember me by! If you’ll just excuse me for a moment while I cough … ai, Purishkevitch should only have a cough like this … there! Now let me tell you what a Jew can do.

“One fine day I had to go to Yehupetz. Why does a Jew with a cough and with asthma have to go to Yehupetz? To see the doctor, of course. With my cough and my asthma, I don’t have to tell you, Yehupetz gets to see a lot of me, even if it’s not supposed to, since what business do I, Moyshe-Nachman from Kennele, have in Yehupetz without a pravozshitelestvo, that is, a residence permit?… But when you have a cough and asthma and you need to see the doctor — well, that’s life: where else but Yehupetz can you go? You get there in the morning, you slip away at night, and you’re in a panic all day long, because if you’re caught and served a prokhodnoyo, that is, an expulsion order, you’re right back where you started from. Still, that’s nothing compared to an etap; an etap, you should know, is a criminal arrest — why, I’d die of shame three times before I could live through one of those! After all, I am, as you can see, a pretty solid citizen, praise God. I own my own house, I can afford my own cow, and I have two daughters, one married and one engaged. What can I tell you? That’s life …

“And so I came to Yehupetz to see the doctor — or rather, the doctors, because this time I meant to have a consultation with at least three of them. I wanted, you see, to have it out with them once and for all and to know what I was, fish or fowl. There wasn’t any question I had asthma, but how you get rid of it when you have it — that, you see, was a different story entirely. Each doctor had run all the tests on me. Each had tried everything. And each was at his wits’ end. For example, the first, a prince of a fellow named Stritzel, wrote me out a prescription for codeini sacchari pulverati; it wasn’t expensive and it even tasted sweet. The second doctor prescribed tinctura opia—why, you could have passed out from a drop of it! Then I went to see a third doctor; the medicine he gave me tasted almost the same, but it wasn’t tinctura opia, it was tinctura tebiacca. If you were me, you’d have called it quits by now, no? Well, I went to still another doctor; what he prescribed was as bitter as wormwood and went by the name of morphium aqua amigdalarium. Does it surprise you that I know all that Latin? In fact, I’ve studied Latin the way you’ve studied Greek, but that’s life: when you have a cough with asthma, and a touch of tuberculosis on the side, picking up Latin is a breeze …

“And so I came to Yehupetz for a consultation. Where does a Jew like me stay in Yehupetz? Not in a hotel, of course, and not in a boardinghouse either. First of all, they fleece you but good there. And second of all, how can I stay in a hotel when I don’t have a pravozshitelestvo? The place I always go is my brother-in-law’s. I happen to have, you see, a schlemiel of a brother-in-law, a miserable beggar of a heder teacher; Purishkevitch should only be as poor. And children — God save us from such a litter! You know what, though? The lucky devil has a pravozshitelestvo, and a perfectly good one at that. How did he come by it? Because of Brodsky; he’s got a little job with Brodsky on the side. Don’t think that means he runs a factory. In fact, he’s just a backbencher in Brodsky’s synagogue, but he happens to be the Torah reader there. That makes him an obradchik, which is someone with clerical status, and gives him the right to live on Malovasilkovsky Street, not far from the ex-chief of police, though it’s all he can do to keep body and soul together. The one bright spot in his life is me. I am, so to speak, the moneyman in the family — and whenever I come to Yehupetz I stay with him, eat lunch and supper at his house, and find him some errand to run that will earn him a ruble or two; Purishkevitch should only earn as much. But that’s life …

“This time, though, as soon as I saw him and my sister, I could tell that something was wrong; they both looked like they’d just seen a ghost. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

“ ‘We’re in for it,’ they said.

“ ‘How come?’ I asked.

“ ‘Because there’s an oblave,’ they said.

“ ‘Pshaw!’ I said. ‘Who’s afraid of an oblave? The police have been rounding up Jews since Adam was knee-high to a grasshopper.’

“ ‘You’re wrong there,’ they said. ‘It’s not just any oblave. This oblave is for real. There have been dragnets every night. If a Jew gets caught, they don’t care who he is — it’s an etap and no questions asked!’

“ ‘We’ll pay them off, then,’ I said.

“ ‘Impossible!’

“ ‘They won’t take a ruble?’

“ ‘Not a chance!’

“ ‘How about three?’

“ ‘Not even a million!’

“ ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘we’re over a barrel.’

“ ‘You’re right,’ they said. ‘And not just any barrel, either. This barrel is for real. First, there’s the jail sentence. Then there’s the criminal record. And then there’s having to face Brodsky …’

“ ‘Look,’ I said, ‘as far as Brodsky is concerned, I can either take him or leave him. I don’t intend to gamble with my health for Brodsky’s sake. I came here for a medical consultation, and I’m not going home without it.’

“Well, between one thing and another, the clock wasn’t standing still; I had to consult with my doctors. Did someone say doctors? Not when the first could only make it Monday morning, the second Wednesday afternoon, and the third the following Thursday — and go climb a tree if you don’t like it! I could see I was in for a long siege; why do a favor for Moyshe-Nachman of Kennele just because he has a cough with asthma and can’t sleep at night? (Purishkevitch should have insomnia like mine!) … Meanwhile it was getting late. We ate supper and went to bed. I had just dozed off when bing! bang! there’s a knocking on the door. I opened my eyes and asked, ‘Who is it?’

“ ‘We’re done for!’ my poor sap of a brother-in-law says to me. He looks like a corpse and he’s shaking like a branch in the wind.

“ ‘What do we do now?’ I ask.

“ ‘What do you suggest?’ he says.

“ ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It looks like we’re in a jam.’

“ ‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘And not just any jam, either. It’s a real sour-apple jam.’

“Bangety-bang! goes the knocking on the door. By now all the poor little children are awake and screaming for their mama, who’s running around trying to hush them — what can I tell you, it’s a regular carnival! Oy, Moyshe-Nachman from Kennele, I say to myself, are you ever between a rock and a hard place! Why couldn’t it have happened to Purishkevitch?… Just then, though, I had a brilliant idea. ‘Listen, Dovid,’ I said to my brother-in-law, ‘I have it! You’ll be me and I’ll be you!’

“He looks at me like the dumb bunny he is and says, ‘How’s that?’

“ ‘I mean,’ I say, ‘that we’ll pull the old switcheroo. You’ll give me your pass and I’ll give you mine. You’ll be Moyshe-Nachman and I’ll be Dovid.’

“A pumpkin head if there ever was one! He doesn’t know what I’m talking about, he stands there with a helpless stare. ‘Dummy!’ I say to him. ‘What don’t you get? It’s as simple as can be. Any child would understand. You’ll show them my pass and I’ll show them yours. That’s life. Has it gotten through your thick skull now, or do I have to knock it in with a hammer?’

“Well, it must have gotten through, because he agreed to the switcheroo. I gave him my pass and he gave me his. By then the door was nearly coming off its hinges. Bangety-bang! Bingety-bangety! ‘Hey, what’s the hurry?’ I called out. ‘Where’s the fire?’ Then I said one last time to my brother-in-law, ‘Now just remember, Dovid, you’re not Dovid any more, you’re Moyshe-Nachman’—and I went to open the door. ‘Come in, gentlemen, come in, what a surprise!’ In charges a whole company, Captain Flatfoot and all his little flatfeet. There’ll be a gay time in the old town tonight, I thought …

“Naturally, they all made a beeline for my poor sap of a brother-in-law. Why him and not me? Because I stood there with my chin up — it’s when the fat is in the fire that you can tell the men from the boys — while Purishkevitch should only look as bad as he did. ‘Pravozshitelestvo, Gospodin Yevrei!’ they demanded, pouncing on him. He couldn’t get out a word. ‘Damn you,’ I said, trying to help him out of a tight spot, ‘why don’t you say something? Speak up! Tell them you’re Moyshe-Nachman from Kennele.’ And turning to the police, I begged them to go easy on him. ‘Please try to understand,’ I said, ‘he’s just a poor cousin of mine from Kennele, we haven’t seen each other in ages.’ I was trying so hard not to laugh that I thought I would burst. Just picture it: there I was, Moyshe-Nachman from Kennele, begging for mercy for Moyshe-Nachman from Kennele, who was standing right next to me, ha ha! The only catch was that it did as much good as last winter’s snow, because they grabbed the poor sap like a sack of potatoes and quick-marched him off to the cooler. At first they wanted to take me too. That is, they took me, but I was released right away. What, I ask you, could they do to me? I had a perfectly good pravozshitelestvo, I was an obradchik in Brodsky’s synagogue, and I left behind a few rubles at the station just to be on the safe side, do you get it? That’s life! ‘Khorosho, Gospodin Obradchik,’ they said to me. ‘Now run on home and finish your noodles. Let this be a lesson to you not to harbor illegals on Malovasilkovsky Street!’… A lesson that hurt like a slice of fresh bread in the kisser, ha ha!..

“Do you want to hear the rest of it? The consultation, of course, had to be called off. Who could think of consultations when a brother-in-law had to be bailed out? I suppose you think I’m referring to the etap. I wish I were! There was no standing bail for that; the poor sap had to sit in jail — and believe me, he didn’t sit very pretty! It should only happen to Purishkevitch. We didn’t grow any younger in Kennele waiting for him to be let out — and when we finally brought him back there, our real troubles first began. Don’t ask me what I had to go through to arrange new papers with a new name for him. I only wish I earned in three months what it cost me, not to mention the fact that I’m now saddled with his entire upkeep, that is, with supporting his wife and children, because he claims I’m to blame for the whole pickle. It’s all my fault, he says, that he lost his pravozshitelestvo and his job with Brodsky. And he may even have something there. He’s just missing the point, ha ha. The point’s the quick thinking, the old switcheroo, do you get it? Just imagine: a Jew with a cough and asthma that Purishkevitch should only have, a touch of tuberculosis on the side, and no pravozshitelestvo—that’s life! — comes to Yehupetz anyway, stays on Malovasilkovsky Street right under the ex-police chief’s nose, and go climb a tree if you don’t like it!”

(1911)

THE TENTH MAN

There were nine of us in the car. Nine Jews. And we needed a tenth for a prayer group.

In actual fact, there was a tenth person there. We just couldn’t make up our minds if he was a Jew or a Christian. An uncommunicative individual with gold pince-nez, a freckled face, and no beard. A Jewish nose but an oddly twirled, un-Jewish mustache. Ears that stuck out like a Jew’s but a neck that was red like a goy’s. From the start he had kept his distance from us. Most of the time he just looked out the window and whistled. Naturally, he was hatless, and a Russian newspaper lay across his knees. And not a word out of him! A genuine Russian, the real McGoy, no?… On second thought, though, how could he be a goy? Who did he think he was fooling? The idea! It takes a Jew to know one; a Jew can smell another Jew a mile off on a moonless night. For goodness’ sake, God’s written it all over us!.. No, the man was a Jew for sure, I’d stake my life on it! Or was he? These days you never can tell … By the time the nine of us were through conferring in whispers, it was decided that we had seen his type before. What to do, though? If a Jew wanted to pass for a Christian it was nobody’s business but his own — yet just then we needed a tenth man and needed him badly, because one of us had a deathday to observe and wanted to say the mourner’s prayer. And it wasn’t any ordinary deathday either, the kind we all have for a father or a mother. No, this was the anniversary of the passing of a child; an only son’s, that’s whose it was … It had been a struggle, the boy’s father told us, just to get the body returned by the prison so that it could be brought to a jewish grave — and the youngster, he swore, was perfectly innocent, he had been railroaded at his trial. Not that he hadn’t been in thick with the other revolutionaries, but that was still no reason to hang him. Hang him they did, though; and his mother died soon after. Not as soon as all that, however. Oh, no! First she ate her heart out bit by bit — and while she did, made her husband gray before his time.

“How old would you say I am?” the man asked us.

We all looked at him, trying to guess his age. It was impossible. While his eyes were young, his hair was gray. His heavily lined face seemed on the verge of either laughter or tears. There was in fact something strange about his whole appearance. He was wearing a smoking jacket that was much too long for him, the hat he had on was pushed way back on his head, and the beard on his chin was an oddly rounded goatee. And those eyes of his … ah, those eyes! They were the kind of eyes that once you’ve seen, you’ll never ever forget: half-laughing and half-crying they were, or half-crying and half-laughing … if only he would unburden himself and let the tears out! But no, he insisted on being the very soul of gaiety. A most peculiar fellow.

“Well now, where are we going to find a tenth man?” asked one of us out loud, with a glance at the pince-nezed passenger, who gave no sign of having heard. He simply looked out the window and went on whistling some Russian tune.

“What do you mean, where?” asked someone else. “Don’t we have ten already?” And he began to go around the car with his finger: “One, two, three …”

“Count me out!” said the whistler — in Yiddish.

We stared at him openmouthed.

“You mean you’re not a Jew?”

“I am a Jew. I just don’t happen to believe in such things.”

For a long moment we sat there dumbfounded, looking at each other without a word. The bereaved father alone did not seem put out in the least. With his half-laugh, half-cry of a smile, he said to the whistling young man:

“The more power to you! You deserve a gold medal.”

“I do? What for?”

“To tell you the truth, that’s a rather long story. But if you’ll agree to be a tenth for prayers, so that I can say the kaddish for my son, I promise to tell it to you afterwards.”

With which our good-humored mourner took out a large handkerchief from his pocket, twisted it into a belt, girded his waist in the manner of a pious Jew, turned his face to the wall of the car, and began the afternoon prayer:

“Ashrey yoyshvey veysekho, oyd yehalelukho seloh …”

I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing I like better than a simple afternoon prayer. I prefer it any time to all the do-re-mi operatics that the synagogues are full of on Sabbaths and holidays. And our mourner led us in it with such feeling, with such soulfulness, that we were all touched to the quick — even, I daresay, our conscripted tenth man. Listening to a father pray on the occasion of his son’s deathday is not something that can leave a person cold, especially when the words are chanted in such a sweet, heartfelt voice that they’re like balm to one’s weary bones. And above all — the kaddish. The kaddish! A stone couldn’t help but be moved by a kaddish like that …

In a word, that was an afternoon prayer to remember!

Having finished praying and removed his makeshift belt, the mourner sat himself down opposite our tenth man and, with the same gaily tragic expression as before, commenced his promised story. He stroked his round little beard as he told it, speaking slowly like a man who has time.

“The story I’m going to tell you, young man, is actually not one story but three. Three little stories in one.

“The first story happened to an innkeeper in a village. Once, that is, an innkeeper lived with his wife in quite a large village. There were many Russians in it but no other Jews; they were the only ones. Not that it troubled them; far from it, it meant they could earn a good living without fear of competition. Better rich among Christians, as they say, than poor among Jews … In fact, they lacked only one thing: children. For years they had prayed for them in vain, and this made their life sorrowful. Finally, when they were nearly past childbearing age, God had mercy; the innkeeper’s wife conceived and gave birth to a healthy child. And a male child, too — what happiness! Of course, it was necessary to circumcise the boy. And so, on the eighth day, the innkeeper gladly harnessed his horse to his wagon, drove off to town, and came back with the rabbi, the circumciser, the beadle, and five other Jews. Naturally, his wife had a magnificent banquet ready for them when they arrived. Everything was just fine until the time came for the circumcision — at which point, it was discovered that they were missing a Jew. There were only nine of them. What had happened? Leave it to a country innkeeper: in counting to ten he had made the mistake of including his own wife! You can imagine what a good laugh the guests had. Meanwhile, though, the time was passing; what were they supposed to do now? It was a big village full of goyim, but there was nary another Jew. What a predicament!.. Just then, however, someone looked out the window — and what did he see but a coach heading straight for the inn. In it was sitting a coachman. Well, let it be even a coachman as long as it was a Jew … ‘Welcome, stranger!’ ‘Sholem aleykhemi’ ‘A Jew! You’re just in time, we need a tenth for a minyan …’ No words can describe the joy there was! Tell me now, don’t we have a great God in heaven? A whole village of goyim couldn’t save the day — along comes a single Jew and sets everything right!

“The second story, my dear fellow, took place not in a village but in a town, and in a solidly Jewish one, too. It happened on the Sabbath, that is, on a Friday night, after the candles had been lit. A father came home from the synagogue, blessed the wine, washed his hands — and just as he was sitting down to eat with his family, a candle had the bright notion of breaking in two. They tried propping it up with the hallah to keep it from toppling over — to no avail; the burning candle fell on the tablecloth and threatened to set it afire. In a minute the whole house would be in flames. What were they supposed to do now? Put it out? But it was the holy Sabbath! By now the neighbors had come running, the whole street was gathered there; a great hue and cry broke out. ‘Jews, we’ll be ruined!’ … Just then, however, someone glanced up the street — and who should be coming down it but Chvedka the goy! ‘Chvedka, serdtse,’ they cried, being careful not to overstep the Law, ‘did you ever see such a queerly burning candle?’ And Chvedka, dumb goy though he was, got the hint at once, spat on his hands, grabbed the burning candlewick between two callused Christian fingers, gave it a pinch — and the fire was out. I ask you: don’t we still live in an age of miracles? A town full of Jews couldn’t save the day — along comes one goy and rescues them all!

“And now I have to tell you my third story. This one concerns none other than a famous rabbi. This rabbi had an only son, an exceptionally capable youngster who was all a rabbi’s son should be. He was married off when still young, given a handsome dowry, and encouraged to study Torah all day long at his father-in-law’s expense. Indeed, that’s just what he did, and everything would have been perfect if there hadn’t been such a thing as the draft. On the face of it, of course, the boy had nothing to worry about: to begin with, he was an only son — and secondly, if it was a problem of money, money was no problem in this case. But the times, the times were bitter! Even only sons were being taken to the army, and ten thousand rubles couldn’t buy a boy’s way out of it. The authorities were ruthless, the doctor had a heart of stone; I tell you, it was a bad lookout. Just imagine, my dear young fellow, the rabbi’s son was stripped to the bone and brought before the draft board — why, never before in his whole life had he been without a hat on his head! And that’s what saved him, because he happened to have a canker there, a real running sore; there was nothing make-believe about it. He must have had it since childhood without knowing it — he had been so stubborn as a boy that he had refused to have his hair washed even once … Well, I needn’t tell you that the draft board sent him packing in a hurry!

“And now tell me, my dear young friend, do you understand your true worth? You were born a Jew, you’ll soon be a goy, and you’re quite a running sore already. Don’t you think you deserve a gold medal?”

At the very next station our tenth man slipped away.

(1910)

THIRD CLASS

This is not so much a story as a little chat, a few words of admonition and farewell from a good friend.

As we are about to part, dear reader, I would like to show my gratitude for your having borne with me for so long by giving you some useful advice, the fond counsel of a practical man. Listen carefully.

If you must go somewhere by train, especially if the trip is a long one, and you wish to have the feeling of traveling, that is, of having enjoyed the experience, avoid going first or second class.

First class, of course, is out of the question anyway. God protect you from it! Naturally, I’m not referring to the ride itself. The ride in first class is far from unpleasant — indeed, it’s sumptuous, comfortable, roomy, and with every possible convenience. It’s not that I’m talking about; it’s the people, the passengers. What can be the point, I ask you, of a Jew traveling in total solitude without a living soul to speak to? By the time you’ve reached your destination, you can have forgotten how to use your voice! And even if once in a blue moon you happen to run into another passenger, it’s either some vulgar country squire with crimson jowls like a trombonist’s, or some stuck-up lady who’s as sniffy as a mother-in-law, or some foreign tourist in checked pants whose eyes are glued so tightly to the window that not even a fire in the car could tear him away from it. When you travel with such types, you begin to have the most depressing thoughts — why, you may even find yourself ruminating about death. Who needs it?

Do you think second class is any better, though? There you are, surrounded by all sorts of people who are obviously no different from yourself, with the identical human passions. They would like nothing better than to talk to you; in fact, they’re dying of curiosity to know where you’re going, where you’re from, and who you are; but they sit there like so many tailor’s dummies and so do you, and all that happens is one big exchange of stares. The whole car has taken a vow of silence — shhh, watch out you don’t break it!

For example: across from you is a young dandy with manicured nails and a smart mustache whom you could swear you know from someplace, you just can’t remember where. Indeed, he shows every sign of stemming from Mosaic lineage, that is, of being a fellow tribesman of yours. What good does that do you, though, when you can’t get a word out of him? He’s finished twirling the ends of his mustache, and now all he wants is to look out the window and whistle.

If you’d like to take a few good years off such a person’s life — in fact, bury him so thoroughly that not even the Resurrection can put him back on his feet — all you need to do, provided there’s a Christian sitting next to him, or better yet, a young lady, is turn to him in any language at all, though Russian is preferable, and inquire, “Yesli ya nye oshibayus, ya imyel udovolstvye vstryetitsa s’vami v’Berdichevye?” (In Yiddish we would say, “If I’m not mistaken, didn’t I once have the pleasure of meeting you in Berdichev?”) Believe me, that’s a thousand times worse than any name you might call his father!

On the other hand, if you run into such a type in Podolia or Volhynia, Polish might be the better gambit. “Pszepraszam, Pana! “Jesli się nie mylę znalem ojca Pana z Jarmelyncu, który byl w laskach u jasnie wielmożnego Potokego?” (Roughly speaking that’s, “Excuse me, sir, but if my memory doesn’t betray me, I’m an old friend of your father’s from Yarmelinetz; wasn’t he in the service of Count Potocki there?”) That may not seem like any great insult, but Yarmelinetz and the service of Count Potocki just happen to spell J-e-w … Enough of this, though! Let me tell you a story I happened to witness myself.

It happened on the mail train. Since there’s no third class there, I had no choice but to travel second. Across from me was sitting a gentleman who could have been either a Christian or a Jew. To tell the truth, though, Jew seemed the more likely … or did it? Who could say? He was a handsome young fellow, smooth-shaven and sportily dressed with a black sash around his white pants — and a bit of a Don Juan in the bargain. Why do I call him that? Because he was showering his attentions on a pretty young thing, a mademoiselle with a high chignon and pince-nez on her small, turned-up nose. Although newly acquainted, they were already fast friends. She kept offering him chocolates while he amused her with funny jokes, first Armenian and then Jewish ones, until both of them were holding their sides. And they laughed hardest of all at the Jewish jokes, which the young man in the white pants told with a decidedly Christian-like relish without showing the slightest appreciation of the fact that I might be a Jew myself who could be offended by them … In short, the romance was getting on famously. Soon he was sitting beside her and looking deep into her eyes (at first they had been opposite each other) while she played with the chain of his watch, which was tucked into his sash. All of a sudden, at some remote station whose name I can’t even recall, the train was boarded by a lame, sallow-faced, perspiring Jew carrying a white parasol who stuck out his hand to the young sport and said in a plain, earthy Yiddish:

“Well, hello there! I recognized you through the window. I have regards for you from your Uncle Zalman in Manestrishtch …”

Needless to say, the young man made his exit at the same station and the pretty young thing was left sitting all by herself. But that’s not the end of the story. The mademoiselle — she must have been a Christian, because otherwise why would our Don Juan have made such a hasty getaway? — began to collect her things a few stations later and prepared to leave the train too, still without having said a word to me, or even so much as glanced in my direction. It was as if I didn’t exist. Yet waiting for her on the platform at the stop where she got off were — a patriarchal Jew with a beard as long as Father Abraham’s and a Jewess with a wig and two huge diamonds in her ears. “Riva darling!” the old couple called out, and fell upon their daughter with tears in their eyes …

No commentary is necessary. I simply wanted to introduce you to some of the types who travel second class and to persuade you not to go that way yourself, because even among your own, you’re always a stranger there.

When you travel third class, on the other hand, you feel right at home. In fact, if you happen to be in a car whose passengers are exclusively Jews, you may feel a bit too much at home. Granted, third class is not the height of luxury; if you don’t use your elbows, you’ll never find a seat; the noise level, the sheer hubbub, is earsplitting; you can never be sure where you end and where your neighbors begin … and yet there’s no denying that that’s an excellent way to meet them. Everyone knows who you are, where you’re bound for, and what you do, and you know the same about everyone. At night you can save yourself the bother of having to fall asleep, because there’s always someone to talk to — and if you’re not in the mood to talk, someone else will be glad to do it for you. Who expects to sleep on a train ride anyway? Talking is far better, because you never know what may come of it. I should only live another year of my life for each time I’ve seen perfect strangers on the train end up by making a business deal, arranging a match for their children, or learning something worth knowing from each other.

For instance, all the talk you hear about doctors, indigestion, sanatoriums, toothaches, nervous conditions, Karlsbad, and so forth — you’d think it was all just a lot of malarkey, wouldn’t you? Well, let me tell you a story about that. Once I was traveling with a group of Jews. We were talking about doctors and prescriptions. At the time, it shouldn’t happen to you, I was having problems with my stomach, and a fellow passenger, a Jew from Kamenetz, recommended a medicine that came in the form of a powder. It so happened, said the Jew, that he had been given this powder by a dentist rather than a doctor, but the powder, which was yellow, was absolutely first-rate. That is, it wasn’t yellow, it was white, like all powders; but it came in a yellow wrapper. He even swore to me by everything that was holy, the Jew did, that he owed his life to the yellow powder, because without it — no, he didn’t even want to think of it! And I didn’t need to use a whole lot, either. Two or three grains, he said, would make me feel like a new man; no more stomachaches, and no more money-grubbing, bloodsucking physicians; I could say to hell with every one of the damn quacks! “If you’d like,” he said, “I can give you two or three grains of my yellow powder right now. You’ll never stop thanking me …”

And that’s what he did. I came home, I took one, two, three grains of the stuff, and after a while — it didn’t happen at once, but later on, in the middle of the night — I had such pains that I thought I was kicking the bucket. I swear, I was sure I was on my last gasp! A doctor was called, and then another — it was all they could do to bring me back from death’s door … Well, now I know that if a Jew from Kamenetz tries giving you a yellow powder, you should tell him to take a powder himself. Every lesson has its price.

When you go third class and wake up in the morning to discover that you’ve left your tefillin and your prayer shawl at home, there isn’t any cause for alarm — you only need to ask and you’ll be given someone else’s, along with whatever else you require. All that’s expected of you in return, once you’re done praying, is to open your suitcase and display your own wares. Vodka, cake, a hard-boiled egg, a drumstick, a piece of fish — it’s all grist for the mill. Perhaps you have an apple, an orange, a piece of Strudel? Out with it, no need to be ashamed! Everyone will be glad to share it with you, no one stands on ceremony here. A train ride and good company, you understand, are two things that create an appetite … And of course, if you happen to have a wee bit of wine with you, there’s no lack of volunteer tasters, each with his own verdict and name for it. “It’s a Bessarabian muscat,” says one. “No, it’s an imported Akerman,” says another. “What kind of muscat?” says a third, getting angrily to his feet. “What kind of Akerman? Can’t you tell it’s a Koveshaner Bordeaux?” At which point a fourth fellow rises from his corner with the smile of a true connoisseur, accepts the glass of wine with an expression that says, “Stand back, you duffers, this calls for an expert,” takes a few sips, and pronounces, his cheeks flushed a merrymaker’s red:

“Jews, do you know what this is? No, I can see that you don’t. It’s neither more nor less than a pure, simple, honest, no-nonsense, homemade Berdichev kiddush wine!”

And everyone realizes that the man is right, a Berdichev kiddush wine it is. And since quite a few tongues have been loosened by the time the wine has made its rounds, suddenly everyone is telling everybody everything, and everything is being told to everyone. The whole car is talking together at once in a splendid show of Jewish solidarity. Before long each of us not only knows all about the others’ troubles, he knows about every trial and tribulation that ever befell a Jew anywhere. It’s enough to warm the cockles of your heart!

When you travel third class and arrive in some town and don’t know where to stay, you have a car full of Jews to help you out. In fact, the number of different places recommended will tally exactly with the number of Jews in the car. “The Hotel Frankfurt,” says one of them, singing the praises of his choice. “It’s bright and it’s cheery, it’s clean and it’s breezy, it’s the biggest bargain in town.” “The Hotel Frankfurt?” exclaims someone else. “God forbid! It’s dark and it’s dreary, it’s sordid and sleazy, it’s the biggest gyp joint around. If you really want to enjoy yourself, I suggest you try the Hotel New York.” “The only reason I can think of for staying in the New York,” puts in another traveler, “is that you’re homesick for bedbugs. Here, hand me your bag and come with me to my favorite, the Hotel Russia. It’s the only place for a Jew!”

Of course, having given him your bag you had better keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t make off with it … but I ask you, where in this wonderful world of ours aren’t there thieves nowadays? Either you’re fated to meet up with one or you’re not. If it’s in your crystal ball to be robbed, you can be cleaned out in broad daylight, and no amount of prayers or policemen will make the slightest difference. If anything, you’ll thank your lucky stars that you got away with your life …

In a word, go third class. Those are the parting words to you of a good friend and a practical man, a commercial traveler.

Adieu!

(1902)