Books: In Those Days

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IN THOSE DAYS

THE STORY OF AN OLD MAN

BY

JEHUDAH STEINBERG

TRANSLATED FROM THE HEBREW BY

GEORGE JESHURUN

1915

IN THOSE DAYS

THE STORY OF AN OLD MAN

I

When the time drew near for Samuel the Beadle to let his son begin
his term of military service, he betook himself to the market,
purchased a regulation shirt, a knapsack, and a few other things
needed by a soldier--and he did not forget the main item: he ran and
fetched a bottle of liquor. Then he went home.

And there, in the presence of his neighbors, of whom I had the
privilege of being one, he drank a glassful to "long life," and
offered another to Rebekah, his good wife.

"Drink, madam," said he, merrily. At this Rebekah turned up her
nose, as if ready to blurt out with "How often have you seen me
drink liquor?"

Indeed, it was an affront which she would not have passed over in
silence at any other time, but she had no heart for an open quarrel
just then, when about to part with her son, and was satisfied with a
silent refusal.

"Woman," said Samuel, angrily, "take it, and do as you are told!"
But Rebekah was not impressed by his angry tone, for in fact Samuel
was an easy "lord and master." As to his loudness, it was but part
of an old habit of his, dating from the days of his own military
service, to bully his inferiors and to let those above him in
authority bully him.

"So are they all of his kind," she would often explain to her
neighbors. "They just fuss, to blow off their tempers, and
then--one may sit on them."

Rebekah persisted in her refusal, and Samuel began in a softer tone:

"But why does it worry you so much? Woman, woman, it is not to
Shemad, God forbid, that he is going!"

At the mention of conversion, Rebekah burst into tears, for Samuel
had unintentionally touched her sore spot: there were rumors in the
town that her family was not without blemish.

"Now that you are crying," exclaimed Samuel, thoroughly angry, "you
are not only hard-headed, but also silly, simply silly! 'Long of
hair but short of sense.' To cry and cry, and not know wherefore!"
With this Samuel turned towards us, and began to plead his case.

"Have you ever seen such a cry-baby? Five times in her life she
filled the world with a hue and cry, when she bore me a child, and
every time it was but an empty bubble: five girls she brought me!
Then, beginning with the sixth birth, she was fortunate enough to
get boys, the real thing. Three sons she gave me as my old age was
approaching. And now, when she ought to thank Heaven for having
been found worthy of raising a soldier for the army, she cries!
Think of it--your son enters the army a free man; but I, in my
time,--well, well, I was taken by force when a mere youngster!"

Here the old man settled his account with the bottle, and took leave
of his crying wife and his good neighbors, and in the company of his
son mounted the coach waiting outside, ready to go to H., the
capital of the district, where the recruits had to report.

By special good fortune I was going to H. by the same coach, and so
I came to hear the story of old Samuel's life from the beginning
till that day.

It was the rainy season; the roads were muddy, and the horses moved
with difficulty. The driver made frequent stops, and whenever the
road showed the slightest inclination to go uphill he would intimate
that it might be well for us to dismount and walk beside the coach a
little.

The cold drizzle penetrated to our very skin and made our flesh
creep. The warmth we had brought with us from the house was
evaporating, and with it went the merry humor of the old man. He
began to contemplate his son, who sat opposite to him, looking him
over up and down.

The wise "lord and master," who had tried to instruct his wife at
home and celebrate the fact of her having reared a soldier for the
army, he failed himself to stand the trial: he began to feel the
pangs of longing and lonesomeness. The imminent parting with his
son, to take place on the morrow, seemed to depress him greatly.

Bent and silent he sat, and one could see that he was lost in a maze
of thoughts and emotions, which came crowding in upon him in spite
of himself.

I took a seat opposite to him, so that I might enter into a
conversation with him.

"Do you remember all that happened to you in those days?" I asked by
way of starting the conversation.

He seemed to welcome my question. In that hour of trial the old man
was eager to unload his bosom, to share his thoughts with some one,
and return mentally to all the landmarks of his own life, till he
reached the period corresponding to that into which he was
introducing his son. The old man took out his well-beloved short
pipe. According to his story it had been a present from his
superior officer, and it had served him ever since. He filled the
pipe, struck a match, and was enveloped in smoke.

II

You ask me whether I remember everything--he began from behind the
smoke. Why, I see it all as if it had happened yesterday. I do not
know exactly how old I was then. I remember only that my brother
Solomon became a Bar-Mitzwah at that time. Then there was Dovidl,
another brother, younger than Solomon, but older than myself; but he
had died before that time. I must have been about eleven years old.

Just then the mothers fell a-worrying: a Catcher was coming to town.
According to some he had already arrived.

At the Heder the boys were telling one another that the Catcher was
a monster, who caught boys, made soldiers out of them, and turned
them over to the Government, in place of the Jewish grown-ups that
were unwilling and unable to serve. And the boys were divided in
their opinions: some said that the Catcher was a demon, one of those
who had been created at twilight on the eve of the Sabbath. Others
said that he was simply a "heathen," and some others, that he was an
"apostate." Then, there were some who asserted that he was merely a
bad Jew, though a learned one nevertheless;--that he wore the
regular Jewish costume, the long coat and the broad waistband, and
had the Tallis-Koton on his breast, so that the curse of the
righteous could not hurt him. According to rumor, he was in the
habit of distributing nuts and candy among Jewish boys; and if any
one tasted of them, he could not move from the spot, until the
Catcher put his hand on him and "caught" him. I happened to
overhear a conversation between father and mother, and I gathered
from it that I need not fear the Catcher.

It was a Saturday night, soon after the death of my elder brother
Dovidl, within the period of the thirty days' mourning for him.
Mother would not be consoled, for Dovidl had been her "very best."

Three brothers had I. The first-born, Simhah, may he rest in peace,
had been married long before; he was the junior Shohet in town, and
a candidate for the Rabbinate. Solomon was more learned in the
Torah, young though he was, peace be unto him. . . . Well, they are
now in the world-of-truth, in the world-to-come, both of them. But
Dovidl, had he lived, would have excelled them both. That is the
way of the Angel of Death, he chooses the very best. As to
myself--why deny it?--I was a dullard. Somehow my soul was not
attuned to the Torah.

As I said, mother was uttering complaints against Heaven, always
crying. Yes, in the matter of tears they are experts. I have
pondered over it, and have found it out: fish were created out of
the mud-puddle, and woman out of tears. Father used to scold her
mightily, but she did not mind it; and she never ceased bemoaning
Dovidl and crying unto Heaven, "who gave the Angel of Death power
over him."

On the night after Sabbath, when father had extinguished the taper
in the dregs of the Havdolah cup, he turned to mother, and said:
"Now man born of woman is unwise all his life long. He knows not
how to thank for the sorrows that have been sweetened by His mercy,
blessed be He!"

Mother did not understand, and looked at father questioningly. "The
Catcher is in town," explained father.

"The Catcher!" shuddered mother.

"But he takes only Fourths and upwards," said father, reassuringly.

Fourths, Fifths, etc., those households were called which had four,
or five, or more sons.

"And our household has only three sons at present," continued
father. "Do you understand, woman? Three sons were left to us, and
our household is exempt from military duty. Now do you see the
mercy of the Lord, blessed be He? Do you still murmur against Him,
blessed be He?"--

So it was in those days. Every Jewish community had to deliver a
certain fixed number of recruits to the Government annually. This
number was apportioned among the families, and every family taxed
the households composing it. But not every household had to supply
a recruit. A household with a large number of sons secured the
exemption of a household with fewer sons. For instance, a household
with four sons in it was exempted, if there was a household with
five sons to levy from in the same family. And a household of three
sons was spared when there was, in the same family, a household of
four sons. And so forth.--

And as father was speaking--the old man continued--mother
contemplated us, as one that escapes from a fire contemplates the
saved remnants; and her eyes overflowed with silent tears. Those
were the last tears shed over the grave of Dovidl, and for those
tears father had no rebuke. We felt that Dovidl was a saint: he had
departed this life to save us from the hand of the Catcher. It
seemed to me that the soul of Dovidl was flitting about the room,
listening to everything, and noticing that we were pleased that he
had died; and I felt ashamed.

The next day I went to the Heder, somewhat proud of myself. I
boasted before my mates that I was a Third. The Fourths envied me;
the Fifths envied the Fourths, and all of us envied the Seconds and
the only sons. So little chaps, youngsters who knew not what their
life was going to be, came to know early that brothers, sons of one
father, may at times be a source of trouble to one another.

That was at the beginning of the summer.

The teachers decided that we remain within the walls of the Heder
most of the time, and show ourselves outside as little as possible
during the period of danger. But a decree like that was more than
boys could stand, especially in those beautiful summer days.

Meanwhile the Catcher came to town, and set his eye on the
son-in-law of the rich Reb Yossel, peace be unto him. The name of
the young man was Avremel Hourvitz--a fine, genteel young man. He
had run away from his home in Poland and come to our town, and was
spending his time at the Klaus studying the Torah. And Reb Yossel,
may he rest in peace, had to spend a pile of money before he got
Avremel for his daughter. From the same Polish town came the
Catcher, to take Avremel as the recruit of the family Hourvitz due
to the Jewish community of his city. When he laid his hand on
Avremel, the town was shocked. The rabbi himself sent for the
Catcher, and promised to let him have, without any contention, some
one else instead of Avremel. Then they began to look for a
household with the family name of Hourvitz, and they found my
father's. Before that happened I had never suspected that my father
had anything like a family name. For some time the deal remained a
deep secret. But no secret is proof against a mother's intuition,
and my mother scented the thing. She caught me by the arm--I do not
know why she picked me out--rushed with me to the rabbi, and made it
hot for him.

"Is this justice, rabbi? Did I bear and rear children, only to give
up my son for the sake of some Avremel?!"

The rabbi sighed, cast down his eyes, and argued, that said Avremel
was not simply "an Avremel," but a "veritable jewel," a profound
Lamdan, a noble-hearted man, destined to become great in Israel. It
was unjust to give him away, when there was someone else to take his
place. Besides, Avremel was a married man, and the father of an
infant child. "Now where is justice?" demanded the rabbi. But my
mother persisted. For all she knew, her own sons might yet grow up
to become ornaments to israel . . . And she, too, was observing the
ordinances of the Hallah and the Sabbath candles, and the rest of
the laws, no less than Avremel's mother.

More arguments, more tears without arguments--till the rabbi
softened: he could not resist a woman. Then mother took me and
Solomon up to the garret, and ordered us not to venture outside.--

Here the old man interrupted himself by a soft sigh, and
continued:--

To a great extent it was my own fault, wild boy that I was. I broke
my mother's injunction. In the alley, near the house of my parents,
there lived a wine-dealer, Bendet by name. Good wine was to be
found in his cellar. For this reason army officers and other
persons of rank frequented his place, and he was somewhat of a
favorite with them. In short, though he lived in a mean little
alley, those important personages were not averse to calling at his
house. That Bendet had an only child, a daughter. She was
considered beautiful and educated. I had not known her. In my day
they spoke ill of her. Naturally, her father loved her. Is there a
father who loves not his offspring? And how much more such a
daughter, whom everyone loved. However that may be, one day
Bendet's daughter broke away, left her father's house, and renounced
her faith--may we be spared such a fate! And many years after her
father's death she returned to our town, to take possession of her
portion of the inheritance. That happened at a time when we were
hiding in the garret. The town was all agog: people ran from every
street to get a look at the renegade, who came to take possession of
a Jewish inheritance. I, too, was seized with a wild desire to get
a look at her, to curse her, to spit in her face . . . . And I
forgot all the dangers that surrounded me.

Young as I was, I considered myself as a Jew responsible for the
wayward one. I lost control of myself, and ran out. But after I
had been in the street for some time, I was seized with fear of the
Catcher. Every stranger I met seemed to me to be a Catcher. I
shrank into myself, walked unsteadily hither and thither, and did
not know how to hide myself. Then a man met me. His large beard
and curled side-locks made me think he was a good man. I looked at
him imploringly. "What ails you, my boy?" he asked in a soft tone.
"I am afraid of the Catcher," said I, tearfully.

"Whose son are you?"

I told him.

"Then come with me, and I shall hide you, my boy. Don't be afraid.
I am your uncle. Don't you recognize me?"

He took me by the arm, and I went after him. Then I noticed that
the children of my neighborhood were eyeing me terror-stricken. The
womenfolk saw me, wrung their hands, and lamented aloud.

"What are they crying about?" I wondered.

"Do you want some candy? Your uncle has plenty of it," said he,
bending over me, as if to protect me. "Or maybe your feet hurt you?
Let your uncle take you on his arms." As soon as I heard "candy,"
I felt that the man was the Catcher himself, and I tried to break
away. But the "uncle" held me fast. Then I began to yell. It was
near our house, and the people of our alley rushed towards us, some
yelling, some crying, some armed with sticks. Pretty soon I
recognized my mother's voice in the mixture of voices and noises.
You see, peculiar is the charm of a mother's voice: a knife may be
held to one's throat, but the mere sound of mother's voice awakens
new courage and begets new hope. Mother made a way for herself, and
fell upon the Catcher like a wild beast. She struck, she pinched,
she scratched, she pulled his hair, she bit him. But what can a
woman do in the line of beating? Nothing! Her neighbors joined
her, one, two, three; and all tried hard to take me out of the hands
of the Catcher. What can a few women do against one able-bodied
man? Nothing at all! That happened during the dinner hour. One of
our neighbors got the best of the Catcher, a woman who happened
rather to dislike me and my mother; they quarreled frequently.
Perhaps on account of this very dislike she was not over-excited,
and was able to hit upon the right course to take at the critical
moment. She went to our house, took in one hand a potful of roasted
groats, ready for dinner, and in the other a kettle of boiling
water. Unnoticed she approached the Catcher, spilled the hot groats
upon his hands, and at the same time she poured the boiling water
over them. A wild yell escaped from the mouth of the Catcher--and I
was free.--

There was no more tobacco in the pipe, and the old man lost his
speech. That was the way of Samuel the Beadle; he could tell his
story only from behind the smoke of his pipe, when he did not see
his hearers, nor his hearers saw him. In that way he found it easy
to put his boyhood before his mind's eye and conjure up the
reminiscences of those days. Meanwhile the horses had stopped, and
let us know that a high and steep hill was ahead of us, and that it
was our turn to trudge through the mud. We had to submit to the
will of the animals, and we dismounted.

III

After tramping a while alongside the coach, the old man lit his
pipe, emitted a cloud of smoke, and continued:--

I do not know what happened then. I cannot tell who caught me, nor
the place I was taken to. I must have been in a trance all the
while.

When I awoke, I found myself surrounded by a flock of sheep, in a
meadow near the woods. Near me was my brother Solomon; but I hardly
recognized him. He wore peasant clothes: a linen shirt turned out
over linen breeches and gathered in by a broad belt. I was eyeing
my brother, and he was eyeing me, both of us equally bewildered, for
I was disguised like himself.

A little boy, a real peasant boy, was standing near us. He smiled
at us in a good-natured, hospitable way. It was the chore-boy of
the Jewish quarter. On the Sabbaths of the winter months he kept up
the fires in the Jewish houses; that is why he could jabber a few
words of Yiddish. During the summer he took care of the flocks of
the peasants that lived in the neighborhood.

When I awoke, my mother was with us too. She kissed us amid tears,
gave us some bread and salt, and, departing, strictly forbade us to
speak any Yiddish. "For God's sake, speak no Yiddish," said she,
"you might be recognized! Hide here till the Catcher leaves town."

It was easy enough to say, "Speak no Yiddish"; but did we know how
to speak any other language?

I saw then that I was in a sort of hiding-place--a hiding-place
under the open sky! I realized that I had escaped from houses,
garrets, and cellars, merely to hide in the open field between
heaven and earth. I had fled from darkness, to hide in broad
daylight!

Indeed, it was not light that I had to fear. Nor was it the sun,
the moon, or the sheep. It was only man that I had to avoid.

Mother went away and left us under the protection of the little
shepherd boy. And he was a good boy, indeed. He watched us to the
best of his ability. As soon as he saw any one approach our place,
he called out loudly: "No, no; these are not Jewish boys at all! On
my life, they are not!"

As a matter of facet, a stranger did happen to visit our place; but
he was only a butcher, who came to buy sheep for slaughtering.

Well, the sun had set, and night came. It was my first night under
an open sky. I suffered greatly from fear, for there was no Mezuzah
anywhere near me. I put my hand under my Shaatnez clothes, and felt
my Tzitzis: they, too, seemed to be in hiding, for they shook in my
hand.

Over us the dark night sky was spread out, and it seemed to me that
the stars were so many omens whose meaning I could not make out.
But I felt certain that they meant nothing good so far as I was
concerned. All kinds of whispers, sizzling sounds of the night,
reached my ears, and I knew not where they came from.

Looking down, I saw sparks a-twinkling. I knew they were stars
reflected in the near-by stream. But soon I thought it was not the
water and the stars: the sheen of the water became the broad smile
of some giant stretched out flat upon the ground; and the sparks
were the twinkling of his eyes. And the sheep were not sheep at
all, but some strange creatures moving to and fro, spreading out,
and coming together again in knotted masses. I imagined they all
were giants bewitched to appear as sheep by day and to become giants
again by night. Then I knew too well that the thick, dark forest
was behind me; and what doesn't one find in a forest? Is there an
unholy spirit that cannot be found there? Z-z-z- - - - a sudden
sizzling whisper reached my ear, and I began to cry.

"Why don't you sleep?" asked the shepherd boy in his broken Yiddish.

"I am afraid!"

"What are you afraid of?"

"Of--of--the woods . . . ."

"Ha--ha--ha--I have good dogs with the flock!"

I wanted a Mezuzah, some talisman, a protection against evil
spirits, and that fool offered me barking dogs! All at once he
whistled loudly, and his dogs set up a barking that nearly made me
deaf. The flock was panic-stricken. I thought at first that the
earth had opened her mouth, and packs of dogs were breaking out from
hell.

The noise the dogs made broke the awful hush of the night, and my
fears were somewhat dispelled.

But there were other reasons why I liked to hear the dogs bark. I
was myself the owner of a dog, which I had raised on the sly in my
father's house. Imagine the horror of my brother Solomon, who as a
real Jewish lad was very much afraid of a dog!

In that way we spent a few days, hiding under the open sky,
disguised in our Shaatnez clothes. Soon enough the time came when
my parents _had_ to understand what they would not understand when
the rabbi wanted to give me up in place of the famous Avremel. For
they caught my oldest brother Simhah, may he rest in peace. And
Simhah was a privileged person; he was not only the Shohet of the
community and a great Lamdan, but also a married man, and the father
of four children to boot. Only then, it seems, my parents
understood what the rabbi had understood before: that it was not
fair to deliver up my brother when I, the ignorant fellow, the lover
of dogs, might take his place. A few days later mother came and
took us home. As to the rest, others had seen to it.--

Here the old man stopped for a while. He was puffing and snorting,
tired from the hard walk uphill. Having reached the summit, he
turned around, looked downhill, straightened up, and took a deep
breath. "This is an excellent way of getting rid of your tired
feeling," said he. "Turn around and look downhill: then your
strength will return to you."--

IV

We had left the coach far behind, and had to wait till it overtook
us. Meanwhile I looked downhill into the valley below: it was a
veritable sea of slush. The teams that followed ours sank into it,
and seemed not to be moving at all. The oblique rays of the setting
sun, reflected and radiating in every direction, lent a peculiar
glitter to the slushy wagons and the broken sheet of mire, as if
pointing out their beauty to the darkening sky. So much light
wasted, I thought. But on the summit of the hill on which I was
standing, the direct rays of the sun promised a good hour more of
daylight.

The old man drew breath, and continued his story:--

Well, I was caught, and put into prison. I was not alone. Many
young boys had been brought there. Some were crying bitterly; some
looked at their companions wonderingly. We were told that the next
day we should be taken away to some place, and that the rabbi wished
to come to see us, but was not permitted to enter our prison.

Yes, a good man was the rabbi, may he rest in peace; yet he was
compelled to cheat for once. And when an honest man is compelled to
cheat he may outdo the cleverest crook. Do you want to know what
the rabbi did? He disguised himself as a peasant, went out, and
walked the streets with the rolling gait of a drunkard. The night
guards stopped him, and asked him what his business was. "I am a
thief," said the rabbi. Then the guards arrested him, and put him
into the prison with us.

In the darkness of that night the rabbi never ceased talking to us,
swallowing his own tears all the while. He told us the story of
Joseph the righteous. It had been decreed in Heaven, said the
rabbi, that his brethren should sell Joseph into slavery. And it
was the will of the Almighty that Joseph should come to Egypt, to
show the Egyptians that there is only one God in Heaven, and that
the Children of Israel are the chosen people.

Then the rabbi examined us: Did we know our Modeh-Ani by heart?
did we know our Shema?

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