 section one of Yiddish Tales. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Yiddish Tales, translated by Helen Frank and read by Adrian Pretzelis in Santa Rosa, California. Preface. This little volume is intended to be both companion and complement to Stories and Pictures by I.L. Perez, published by the Jewish Publication Society of America in 1906. Its object was twofold, to introduce the non-Yiddish reading public to some of the many other Yiddish writers active in Russian Jewry, and to leave it with a more cheerful impression of Yiddish literature than it receives from Perez alone. Yes, and we have collected, largely from magazines and papers and unbound booklets, 48 tales by 20 different authors. This, thanks to such kind helpers as Mr. F. Heiger of London, without whose aid we should never have been able to collect the originals of these stories, Mr. Morris Meyer of London, who most kindly gave me the magazines, etc., in which some of them were contained, and Mr. Israel J. Zevin of New York, and delightful Fui Tauntist, to whose critical knowledge of Yiddish letters we owe so much. Some of these writers, Perez for example, and Sholom Alechem, are familiar by name to many of us already, while the reputation of others rests in circles enthusiastic, but tragically small, on what they have written in Hebrew. Footnote one. Boshatsky's Forlorn and Forsaken, Frishman's Three Who Ate, and Steinberg's A Livelyhood and At the Matzes, though here translated from the Yiddish versions, were probably written in Hebrew originally. In the case of the former two, it would seem that the Yiddish version was made by the authors themselves, and the same may be true of Steinberg's tales too. End of footnote. Sachar Burdachevsky, Yehalel, Frishman, Boshatsky, and the silver-pend Judah Steinberg. On these last two be peace in the Eulema Hermes, the world of truth. The Eulema Shekher, this world of lies, had nothing for them but struggle and suffering and an early grave. The tales given here are by no means all equal in literary merit, but they have each its special note, each special echo from that strangely fascinating world so often quoted, so little understood, we say it against ourselves, the Russian ghetto. A world in the passing, but whose more precious elements shining for all who care to see them through every page of these unpretending tales, and mixed with less and less of what has made their misfortune will surely live on, free on the one hand to blame with all and everything akin to them, and free on the other to develop along their own lines. And this year here, next year in Yerushalayim. The American sketches by Zevin and S. Liebin differ from the others only in their scene of action. Learners were drawn from the life of a little town in Bessarabia. The others are mostly Polish. And the folktale, which is taken from Joshua Mysak's collection, published in Vilna in 1905, with the title Masios van der Beben, Odinism of the Niflaos, may well have sprung from almost any ghetto in the world. We sincerely regret that nothing from the pen of the beloved grandfather of Yiddish storytellers in print, Abramowitz, Mendela Mocha Siforim, was found quite suitable for insertion here, his writings being chiefly much longer than the type selected for this book. Neither have we come across anything appropriate to our purpose by another old favourite, J. Dinosaur. We were, however, able to insert three tales by the veteran author Modekai Specter, whose simple style and familiar figures go straight to the people's heart. With regard to the second half of our object, greater cheerfulness, this collection is an utter failure. It has variety, on account of the many different authors, and the originals have wits and humour in plenty, for wits and humour and an almost passionate playfulness are in the very soul of the language. But it is not cheerful, and we wonder now how we ever thought it could be so, if the collective picture given of Jewish life were, despite its fictitious material, to be anything like a true one. The drollest of the tales, Gimnasii, we refer to the originals, is perhaps the saddest. Anyhow, in point of actuality, seeing that the Russian government is planning to make education impossible of attainment by more and more of the Jewish youth, children giving into its keeping as surely as any others, and for the crushing of whose lives it will have to answer. Well, we have done our best. Among these tales are favourites of ours, which we have not so much as mentioned by a name, thus leaving the gentle reader at liberty to make his own. H. F. London, March, 1911. Acknowledgement. The Jewish Publication Society of America desires to acknowledge the invaluable aid which Mr. A. S. Friedus of the Department of Jewish Literature in the New York Public Library extended to it in compiling the bibliographic data related to the authors whose stories appear in English garb in the present volume. Some of the authors that are living in America courteously furnish the society with the data referring to their own biographies. The following sources have been consulted for the biographies. The Jewish Encyclopedia. Wiener, History of Yiddish Literature in the 19th Century. Pines, Histoire de la Literature Judaire allemande, and the Yiddish version of the same, Die Geschichte van der Yiddische Literature. Baal-Martische Boot, Gek-Libberner-Schriften. Seifer, Sieg-Corona-La-Sophia, Yisra-Ael, Ha-Heim, Itenu, Kayum. Eisenstadt, Hamke, Yisra-Ael, but America. The memoirs preceding the collected works of some of the authors and the scattered articles in European and American Yiddish periodicals. End of section one. Section two of Yiddish Tales. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Yiddish Tales, translated by Helena Frank and read by Adrian Pretzelis. Section two, Ruben Asher Braudus, born 1851 in Vilna, Lithuania, white Russia. Went to Romania after the anti-Jewish riots of 1882 and published a Yiddish weekly Yehudit in the Interests of Zionism. Expelled from Romania, published a Hebrew weekly Haziman in Krakow in 1891. Then co-editor of the Yiddish edition of Develt, the official organ of Zionism, Hebrew critic, publicist and novelist. Contributed to Ha-Lebanon at 18, Ha-Sheha, Ha-Bo-Ke-Ore and other periodicals. Chief work, the novel, Religion and Life. The Misfortune, or how the Rav of Pumpian tried to solve a social problem by Ruben Asher Braudus. Pumpian is a little town in Lithuania, a Jewish town. It lies far away from the highway, among the villages reached by the Polish road. The inhabitants of Pumpian are poor people who get a scanty living from the peasants that come into the town to make purchases, or else the Jews go out to them with great bundles on their shoulders and sell them every sort of small ware in return for a little corn or potatoes, etc. Strangers passing through are seldom seen there, and if by any chance a strange person arrives it is a great wonder and rarity. People peep at him through all the little windows. Elderly men venture out to bid him welcome, while boys and youths hang about in the street and stare at him. The women and girls blush and glance at him sideways, and he is the one subject of conversation. Who can that be? People don't just sit off and come like that. There must be something behind it. And in the house of study, between afternoon and evening prayer, they gather closely around the elder men who have been able to greet the stranger to find out who and what the latter may be. Fifty or sixty years ago, when what I'm about to tell you happened, communication between Pumpian and the rest of the world was very restricted indeed. There were as yet no railways, there was no telegraph, the postal service was slow and intermittent. People came and went less often. A journey was a great undertaking, and there were not many outsiders to be found even in the larger towns. Every town was a town to itself apart, and Pumpian constituted a little world of its own which had nothing to do with the world at large, and lived its own life. Neither were there so many newspapers then anywhere to muddle people's heads every day of the week, stirring up questions so that people should have something to talk about. And the Jews had no papers of their own at all, and only heard news, and what was going on in the world, in the house of study, or la Havdil in the bath house. And what sort of news was it then? What sort could it be? World-stirring questions hardly existed, certainly Pumpian was ignorant of them. Politics, economics, statistics, capital, social problems, all these words, now on the lips of every boy and girl, were then all but unknown, even in the great world, let alone among us Jews, and let alone to Reb Nochumsi, the Pumpian Rav. And yet Reb Nochumsi had a certain amount of worldly wisdom of his own. Reb Nochumsi was a native of Pumpian, and had inherited his position there from his father. He had been an only son made much of by his parents, hence the pet name Nochumsi clinging to him, even in his old age, and never let out of their sight. When he had grown up, they connected him by marriage with the tenant of an estate not far from the town, but his father would not hear of his going there, Althkuntz, as the custom is. I cannot be parted from my Nochumsi even for a minute, explained the old Rav, I cannot bear him out of my sight, besides we study together, and in point of fact they did study together day and night. It was evident the Rav was determined his Nochumsi should become Rav in Pumpian after his death, and so he became. He had been Rav some years in the little town, receiving the same five Polish gulden a week salary as his father, on whom be peace, and he sat and studied and thought. He had nothing much to do in the way of exercising authority. The town was very quiet, the people orderly, there were no quarrels, and it was seldom that parties went to law with one another before the Rav. Still less often was there a ritual question to settle. The folk were poor, there was no meat cooked in a Jewish house from one Friday to another, when one must have a bit of meat in honour of Sabbath. Fish was a rarity, and in summer time people often had a milky Sabbath, as well as a milky week. How should there be questions? So he sat and studied and thought, and he was very fond indeed of thinking about the world. It is true that he sat all day in his room, that he had never in all his life been so much as four L's outside the town, that it had never so much as occurred to him to drive about a little in any direction, for, after all, wither should he drive, and why drive any wither? And yet he knew the world, like any other learned man, a disciple of the wise. Everything is in the Torah, and out of the Torah, out of the Gomorrah, and out of all the other sacred books, Reb Nochumsi had learned to know the world also. He knew that Ruben's ox gores Simeon's cow, that a spark from a Smith's hammer can burn a wagon load of hay, that Reb Eliezer Ben-Hasum had a thousand towns on land, and a thousand ships on the sea. Ha! That was a fortune! He must have been nearly as rich as Rothschild. They knew about Rothschild even in Pumpian. Yes, he was a rich tanto, and no mistake, he reflected, and was straightway sunk in the consideration of the subject of rich and poor. He knew from the holy books that to be rich is a pure misfortune. King Solomon, who was certainly a great sage, prayed to God, Reishwa Osheil titanly, give me neither poverty nor riches. He said that riches are stored to the hurt of their owner, and in the Holy Gomorrah there is a passage which says, poverty becomes a Jew as scarlet rains become a white horse, and once a sage had been in heaven for a short time and had come back again, and he said that he had seen poor people there occupying the principal seats in the Garden of Eden, and the rich pushed right away back into a corner by the door. And as for the books of exhortation, there are things written that make you shudder in every limb. The punishments meted out to the rich by God in that world, the world of truth are no joke. For what bit of merit they have, God rewards them in this poor world, the world of vanity. While yonder in the world of truth, they arrive stripped and naked, without so much as a taste of kingdom come. Consequently the question is, thought Rebnohunzi, why should they, the rich, want to keep this misfortune? Of what use is this misfortune to them? Who so mad as to take such a piece of misfortune into his house and keep it there? How can anyone take the world to come in both hands and lose it for the sake of such vanities? He thought and thought and thought it over again. What is a poor creature to do when God sends him the misfortune of riches? He would certainly wish to get rid of them. Only who would take his misfortune to please him? Who would free another from a curse and take it upon himself? But after all, the evil spirit muttered inside him. What a fool you are, thought Rebnohunzi again. If, and he described a half circle downward in the air with his thumb, if troubles come to us such as an illness, may the merciful protect us, or some other misfortune of the kind, it is expressly stated in the sacred writings that it is an expiation for sin, a torment sent into the world so that we may be purified by it and made fit to go straight to paradise. And because it is God who afflicts men with these things, we cannot give them away to anyone else, and we'll have to bear with them. Now such a misfortune as being rich, which is also a visitation of God, must certainly be born with like the rest. And besides, he reflected further, the fool who would take the misfortune to himself doesn't exist. What healthy man in his senses would get into a sick bed? He began to feel very sorry for Eliezer Ben-Chasum with his thousand towns and his thousand ships. To think that such a saint, such a tanto, one of the authors of the Holy Mishno, should incur such a severe punishment. But he stood the trial. Despite this great misfortune he remained a saint and a tanto to the end, and the Holy Gomorrah says particularly that he thereby put to shame all the rich people who go straight to Gehenna. Thus Reb Nochumsi, the Pumpian Rav, sat over the Talmud and reflected continually on the problem of great riches. He knew the world through the Holy Scriptures, and was persuaded that riches were a terrible misfortune which had to be born because nobody would consent to taking it from another and bearing it for him. Again many years passed, and Reb Nochumsi gradually came to see that poverty also is a misfortune and out of his own experience. His Sabbath cloak began to look threadbare. The weekday one was already patched on every side. He had six little children living. One or two of the girls were grown up, and it was time to think of settling them, and they hadn't a frock fit to put on. The five Polish gulden, a weak salary, was not enough to keep them in bread. And the wife, poor thing, wept the whole day through. Well there, ich wie ich. It isn't for myself, but the poor children are naked and barefoot. At last they were even short of bread. Nochumsi, why don't you speak? exclaimed his wife with tears in her eyes. Nochumsi, can't you hear me? I tell you we're starving. The children are skin and bone. They haven't a shirt on their back. They can hardly keep body and soul together. Think of a way out of it. Invent something to help us. And Reb Nochumsi sat and considered. He was considering the other misfortune, poverty. It is equally a misfortune to be really very poor. And this also he found stated in the holy scriptures. It was King Solomon, the famous sage, who prayed as well, Reish, wo osha el titan li, that is, give me neither poverty nor riches. Poverty is no advantage either. And what does the Holy Gomorrah say, but poverty diverts a man from the way of God? In fact it is a second misfortune in the world, and one he knows very well, one with which he has a practical working acquaintance, he and his wife and his children. And Reb Nochum pursued his train of thought. So there are two contradictory misfortunes in the world. This why it's bad, and that why it's bitter. Is there really no remedy? Can no one suggest any help? And Reb Nochumsi began to pace the room up and down, lost in thought, bending his whole mind to the subject. A whole flight of Bible texts went through his head, a quantity of quotations from the Gomorrah, hundreds of stories and anecdotes from the fountain of Jacob, the Midrash, and other books telling of rich and poor, fortunate and unfortunate people, till his head went round with them all as he thought. Suddenly he stood still in the middle of the room and began talking to himself. Ah ha! Perhaps I've discovered a plan after all, and a good plan too, upon my word it is. Once more it is quite certain that there will always be more poor than rich, lots more. Well, and it's quite certain that every rich man would like to be rid of his misfortune, only that there is no one willing to take it from him. No one, not any one, of course not. Nobody would be so mad. But we have to find a way by which lots and lots of people should rid him of his misfortune little by little. What do you say to that? Once more, that means that we must take his unfortunate riches and divide them among a quantity of poor. That will be a good thing for both parties. He will be easily rid of his great misfortune, and they would be helped too. And the petition of King Solomon would be established when he said, Give me neither poverty nor riches. It would come true of them all. There would be no riches and no poverty. Ha! What do you think of it? Isn't it really and truly an excellent idea? Reb Nochuntsi was quite astonished himself at the plan he had invented. Cold perspiration ran down his face, his eyes shone brighter, a happy smile played on his lips. That's the thing to do! he explained aloud, sat down by the table, blew his nose, wiped his face, and felt very glad. There is only one difficulty about it, occurred to him, when he had quietened down a little from his excitement, one thing that doesn't fit in. It says particularly in the Torah that there will always be poor people among the Jews. The poor shall not cease out of the land. There must always be poor, and this would make an end of them all together. Besides, the precept concerning charity would heaven forbid be annulled. The precept, which God, blessed be he, wrote in the Torah, and for which the Holy Gomorrah and all the other holy books make so much of. What is to become of the whole treatise on charity in the Shulkaneruch? How can we continue to fulfill it? But such a good head is never at a loss. Rebn Chumpzi soon found a way out of the difficulty. Never mind. And he wrinkled his forehead and pondered on. There is no fear. Who said that even the whole of the money in the possession of a few unfortunate rich men will be enough to go round, that there will be just enough to help all the Jewish poor? No fear there will be enough poor left for the exercise of charity. Eh, Vos? There is another thing. To whom shall be given? And to whom not? Ha! That's a detail too. Of course one would begin with the learned and the poor scholars and sages who have to live on the Torah and on divine service. The people can just be left to go on as it is. No fear, but it will be all right. At last the plan was ready. Rebn Chumpzi thought it over once more, very carefully, found it complete from every point of view, and gave himself up to a feeling of satisfaction and delight. Deveira! he called to his wife. Deveira, don't cry. Please, God, it will be all right. Quite all right. I've thought out a plan. A little patience, and it will all come right. Whatever! What sort of plan? There, there. Wait and see and hold your tongue. No woman's brain could take it in. You leave it to me. It will be all right. And Rebn Chumpzi reflected further. Yes, the plan is a good one. Only how is it to be carried out? With whom am I to begin? And he thought of all the householders in Pumpian. But there was not one single unfortunate man among them. That is, not one of them had money. A real lot of money. There was no one with whom to discuss his invention to any purpose. If so, I shall have to drive to one of the large towns. And one Sabbath the beetle gave out in the house of study that the Rav begged them all to be present that evening at a convocation. At the said convocation the Rav unfolded his whole plan to the people, and placed before them the happiness that would result from the whole world if it were to be realized. But first of all he must journey to a large town in which there were a great many unfortunate rich people, preferably Vilna, and he demanded of his flock that they should furnish him with the necessary means for getting there. The audience did not take long to reflect. They agreed to the Rav's proposal, collected a few rubles, for who would not give their last farthing for such an important object. And on Sunday morning early they hired him a peasants' cart and horse, and the Rav drove away to Vilna. The Rav passed the drive marshalling his arguments, settling on what he should say, and how he should explain himself, and he was delighted to see how the more deeply he pondered his plan, the more he thought it out, the more efficient and appropriate it appeared, and the clearer he saw what happiness it would bestow on men all the world over. The small cart arrived at Vilna. Wither are we to drive? asked the peasants. Wither to a Jew, answered the Rav. For where is the Jew who will not give me a night's lodging? And I, with my cart and horse, the Rav sat perplexed, but a Jew passing by heard the conversation and explained to him that Vilna is not Pumpian, and that they would have to drive to a post house or an inn. Be it so, said the Rav, and the Jew gave him the address of a place to which they should drive. Vilna, it is certainly not the same thing as Pumpian. Now for the first time in his life the Rav saw whole streets of tall houses of two and three stories, all as it were under one roof, and how fine they are, thought he with their decorated exteriors. I there live the unfortunate people, said Rav Nochuntsi to himself. I never saw anything like them before. How can they bear such a misfortune? I shall come to them as an angel of deliverance. He had made up his mind to go to the principal Jewish citizen in Vilna. Only he must be a good scholar so as to understand what Rav Nochuntsi had to say to him. They advised him to go to the president of the congregation. Every street along which he passed astonished him separately. The houses, the pavements, the droshkis and carriages, and especially the people so beautifully got up with gold watchchains and rings. He was quite bewildered so that he was afraid he might lose his senses and forget all his judgments and his reasonings. At last he arrived at the president's house. He lives on the first floor. Another surprise. Rav Nochuntsi was unused to stairs. There was no storied house in all Pumpian. But when you must, you must. One way or another he managed to arrive at the first floor landing where he opened the door and said all in one breath, I am the Pumpian Rav and I have something to say to the president. The president, a handsome old man, very busy just then with some merchants who had come on business, stood up, greeted him politely, and opening the door of the reception room said to him, please rabbi, come in here and wait a little. I shall soon have finished, and then I will come to you here. Expensive furniture, large mirrors, pictures, softly upholstered chairs, tables, cupboards with shelves full of great silver candlesticks, cups, knives and forks, a beautiful lamp, and many other small objects, all of solid silver, wardrobes with carving and different designs, then painted walls, a great silver chandelier decorated with cut glass, fascinating to behold. Reb Nakhumpsi actually had tears in his eyes, to think of any one's being so unfortunate and have to bear it. What can I do for you, Pumpian Rav, inquired the president, and Reb Nakhumpsi, overcome by amazement and enthusiasm, nearly shouted, you are so unfortunate. The president stared at him, shrugged his shoulders, and was silent. Then Reb Nakhumpsi laid his whole plan before him, the object of his coming. I will be frank with you, he said in concluding his long speech. I had no idea of the extent of the misfortune. To the rescue men, save yourselves, take it to heart, think of what it means to have houses like these and all these riches, it is a most terrible misfortune. Now I see what a reform of the whole world my plan amounts to, what deliverance it will bring to all men. The president looked him straight in the face. He saw the man was not mad, but that he had the limited horizon of one born and bred in a small provincial town and in the atmosphere of the House of Study. He also saw that it would be impossible to convince him by proofs that his idea was a mistaken one. For a little while he pitted him in silence. Then he hid it upon an expedient and said, You are quite right, Rabbi, your plan is really a very good one, but I am only one of many, Vilna is full of such unfortunate people. Every one of them must be talked to and have the thing explained to him. Then the other party must be spoken to as well. I mean the poor people, so that they shall be willing to take their share of the misfortune. That's not such an easy matter as giving a thing away and getting rid of it. Of course, of course, agreed Reb Nochumsi. Look here, Rava Pumpian, I will undertake the more difficult part. Let us work together. You shall persuade the rich to give away their misfortune, and I will persuade the poor to take it. Your share of the work will be the easier, because, after all, everybody wants to be rid of his misfortune. Do your part, and as soon as you have finished with the rich, I will arrange for you to be met half way by the poor. History does not tell how far the Rava Pumpian succeeded in Vilna. Only this much is certain. The President never saw him again. And of Section 2. Section 3 of Yiddish Tales. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Yiddish Tales, translated by Helena Frank and read by Adrian Pretzelis. Section 3. Pen name of Judah Loeb Loewen, born 1845 in Minsk, Lithuania, White Russia. Tuta, treasurer to the Brodsky flour mills and their sugar refinery at Tomashkpole, Podolia, later in Kiev, began to riot in 1860, translator of Beaconfield's Tank Red into Hebrew, Talmudist, Mystic, first socialist writer in Hebrew, writer, chiefly in Hebrew, of prose and poetry, contributor to Sholomolechim's Yiddish Vox Bidliotek, Hasha'a, Hamelits, Hazefira and other periodicals. Earth of Palestine. As my readers know, I wanted to do a little stroke of business, to sell the world to come. I must tell you that I came out of it very badly and might have fallen into some misfortune if I had had the wear in stock. It fell on this wise. Nowadays everyone is squeezed and stifled. Parnosa, a living, is gone to rack and ruin, and there is no business. I mean, there is business, only not for us Jews. In such bitter times people snatch the bread out of each other's mouths. If it is known that someone has made a fine and started a business, they quickly imitate him. If that one opens a shop, a second does it likewise and a third at a fourth. If this one makes a contract, the other runs and will do it for less. Even if I earn nothing, no more will you. When I gave out that I had the world to come to sell, lots of people gave a start. Aha, a business! And before they knew what sort of where it was and where it was to be had, they began thinking about a shop, and there was still greater interest shown on the part of certain philanthropists, party leaders, public workers, and such like. They knew that when I set up trading in the world to come, I had announced that my business was only with the poor. Well, they understood it was likely to be profitable and might give them the chance of licking a bone or two. There was very soon a great terrorum in our little world. People began inquiring where my goods came from. They surrounded me with spies, who were to find out what I did at night, what I did on Sabbath. They questioned the cook, the market woman, but in vain they could not find out how I came by the world to come. And there blazed up a fire of jealousy and hatred, and they began to inform to write letters to the authorities about me. Laban the yellow and Balaam the blind, you know them, made my boss believe that I do business that is, that I have capital that is, that is, but my employer investigated the matter and seeing that my stock in trade was the world to come. He laughed and let me alone. The townspeople among whom it was my lot to dwell, those good people who are a great hand at fishing in troubled waters, so soon as they saw the mud rise, snatched up their implements and set to work, informing by letter that I was dealing in contraband. There appeared a red official and swept out a few corners in my house, but without finding a single specimen bit of the world to come, and went away. But I had no peace even then. Every day came a fresh letter informing against me. My good brothers never ceased work. The pious, orthodox Jews, the Gomorrah Copleh informed and said I was a swindler because the world to come is a thing that isn't there, that is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good-red herring, and the whole thing was a delusion. The half-civilized people with long trousers and short earlocks said, on the contrary, that I was making a game of religion, so that before long I had had enough of it from every side and made the following resolutions. First, that I would have nothing to do with the world to come and such like things which Jews do not understand, although they held them very precious. Secondly, that I would not let myself in for selling anything. One of my good friends, an experienced merchant, advised me rather to buy than to sell. There are so many to sell. They will compete with you, inform against you, and behave as no one should. Buying, on the other hand, if you want to buy you will be esteemed and respected. Everyone will flatter you and be ready to sell to you on credit. Everyone is ready to take money. And with very little capital you can buy the best and most expensive wear. The great thing was to get a good name, and then, little by little, by means of credit, one might rise very high. So it was settled that I should buy. I had a little money on hand for a couple of newspaper articles, for which nowadays they pay. I had a bit of reputation earned by a great many articles in Hebrew, for which I received quite nice complimentary letters. And in case of need, there is a little money owing to me from certain Jewish booksellers of the masculine for books bought on commission. Well, I am resolved to buy. But what shall I buy? I look around and take note of all the things a man can buy, and see that I, as a Jew, may not have them. That which I may buy, no matter where, isn't worth a half penny. A thing that is of any value I can't have. And I determined to take to the old wear which my great grandfather's bought, and made a fortune in. My parents and the whole family wish for it every day. I resolve to buy, you understand me, earth of Palestine. And I announce both verbally and in writing to all my good and bad brothers that I wish to become a purchaser of the wear. Oh, what a commotion it made! Hardly was it known that I wished to buy Palestinian earth, than there pounced upon me people of whom I had never thought it possible that they should talk to me, and be in the room with me. The first to come was a kind of Jew with a green shawl, with white shoes, a pale face with a red nose, dark eyes and yellow earlocks. He commenced unpacking paper and linen bags, out of which he shook a little sand, and he said to me, That is from Mother Rachel's grave, and from the Shulamite's grave, from the graves of Hul Da, the prophetess, and Dabora. Then he shook out the other bags, and mentioned a whole list of men, from the grave of Enoch, Moses our teacher, Eliyahu the prophet, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, Yonah, authors of the Talmud, and holy men as many as there be. He assured me that each kind of sand had its own precious distinction, and had, of course, its special price. I had not had time to examine all the bags of sand, when, aha! I got a letter written on blue paper in rushy script, in which an unknown well-wisher earnestly warned me against buying of that Jew, for neither he nor his father before him had ever been in Palestine, and he had got the sand in Kay, from the Andrayaf Hills yonder. And that, if I wished for it, he had real Palestinian earth from the Mount of Olives, with a document from the Palestinian Viscarente, the Brisk Rebitzen, to the effect that she had given of this earth even to the eaters of swine's flesh, of whom it is said, for their worms shall not die, and they also were saved from worms. My Palestinian Jew, after reading the letter, called down all bad dreams upon the head of the Brisk Rebitzen, and declared among other things that she herself was a dreadful worm who, etc. He assured me that I ought not to send money to the Brisk Rebitzen. My heaven defend you, it will be thrown away as it has been a hundred times before, and began once again to praise his wares, his earth, saying that it was a marvel. I answered him that I wanted real earth of Palestine, earth, not sand out of little bags. Earth? It is earth, he repeated, and became very angry. What do you mean by earth? Am I offering you mud? But that is the way with people nowadays, when they want something Jewish, there is no pleasing them. Only a thought struck him. If you want another salt, perhaps from the field of Machpala, I can bring you some Palestinian earth that is earth. Meantime give me something in advance, for besides everything else I am a Palestinian Jew. I pushed a coin into his hand, and he went away. Meanwhile the news had spread. My intention to purchase earth of Palestine had been noised abroad, and the little town echoed with my name. In the streets, lanes and marketplace, the talk was all of me, and how there was no putting a final value on a Jewish soul, one thought he was one of them, and now he wants to buy earth of Palestine. Many of those who met me looked at me as scant, the same and not the same. In the synagogue they gave me the best turn at the reading of the law. Jews in shoes and socks wished me a good Sabbath, with great heartiness and a friendly smile. We understand you are a deep one. You are one of us after all. In short, they surrounded me, and nearly carried me on their shoulders, so that I really became something of a celebrity. Udel, the living orphan, worked the hardest. Udel is already a man in years, but everyone calls him the orphan, on account of what befell him on a time. His history is very long and interesting. I will tell it to you in brief. He has a very distinguished father, and a very noble mother, and he is an only child of a very frolicsome disposition, on account of which his father and his mother frequently disagreed. The father used to punish him and beat him, but the boy hid with his mother. In a word it came to this, that his father gave him into the hands of strangers to be educated and put into shape. The mother could not do without him, and fell sick of grief. She became a wreck. Her beautiful house was burnt long ago, through the boy's doing. One day, when a child, he played with fire, and there was a conflagration, and the neighbours came and built on the site of her palace, and she, the invalid, lies neglected in a corner. The father, who has left the house, often wished to rejoin her, but by no manner of means can they live together without the son, and so the cast-off child became a living orphan. And when he has stayed there a little while, they drive him out, because wherever he comes, he stirs up a commotion. It is the way with all orphans. He has many fathers, and everyone directs him, hits him, lectures him. He is always in the way, blamed for everything. It's always his fault, so that he has got into the habit of cowering, and shrinking, at the mere sight of a stick. Wondering about, as he does, he has copied the manners and customs of strange people in every place where he has been. His very character is hardly his own. His father has tried both to threaten and to persuade him into coming back, saying that they would then all live together as before. But Yudl has got to like living from home. He enjoys the scrapes he gets into, and even the blows they earn for him. No matter how people knock him about, pull his hair and draw his blood, the moment they want him to make friendly advances, there he is again, alert and smiling, turns the world topsy-turvy, and won't hear of going home. It is remarkable that Yudl, who is no fool and has a head for business, the instant people look kindly on him imagines they like him, although he has a thousand proofs to the contrary. He has lately been of such consequence in the eyes of the world that they have begun to treat him in a new way, and they drive him out of every place at once. The poor boy has tried his best to please, but it was no good. They knocked him about till he was covered with blood, took every single thing he had, and empty-handed, naked, hungry and beaten as he is, they shout at him, Be off from every side. Now he lives in narrow streets in the small towns, hidden away in holes and corners. He often hasn't enough to eat, but he goes on in his old way, creeps into tight places, dances at all the weddings, loves to meddle, and everything concerns him, and when two come together, he is the third. I have known him a long time, ever since he was a little boy. He always struck me as being very wild, but I saw that he was of a noble disposition, only that he had grown rough from living among strangers. I loved him very much, but in later years he treated me too hot and cold by turns. I must tell you that when Yudel had eaten his fill he was always very merry and minded nothing, but when he had been kicked out by his landlord and went hungry, then he was angry and grew violent over every trifle. He would attack me for nothing at all. We quarreled and parted company. That is, I loved him at a distance. When he wasn't just in my sight, I felt a great pity for him and a wish to go to him, but hardly had I met him that he was at the old game again and I had to leave him. Now that I was together with him in my native place I found him very badly off. He hadn't enough to eat. The town was small and poor and he had no means of supporting himself. When I saw him in his bitter and dark distress my heart went out to him, but at such times as I said before he is very wild and fanatical. One day on the ninth of Arb I felt obliged to speak out and tell him that sitting in socks with his forehead on the ground reciting lamentations would do no good. Ural misunderstood me and thought I was laughing at Jerusalem. He began to fire up and he spread reports of me in the town and when he saw me in the distance he would spit out before me. His anger dated from some time past because one day I turned him out of my house. He declared that I was the cause of all his misfortunes and now that I was his neighbour I had resolved to ruin him. He believed that I hated him and played him false. Why should Ural think that? I don't know. Perhaps he feels one ought to dislike him or else he is so embittered that he cannot believe in the kindly feelings of others. However that may be Ural continued to speak ill of me and throw mud at me through the town, crying out all the while that I hadn't a scrap of Jewishness in me. Now that he heard I was buying Palestinian earth he began by refusing to believe it and declared that it was a take-in and a trick of an apostate. For how could a person who laughed at socks on the ninth of Arb really want to buy earth of Palestine? But when he saw the green shawls and the little bags of earth he went over, a way he has, to the opposite, the exact opposite. He began to worship me, couldn't praise me enough and talked of me in the back streets so that the women blessed me aloud. Ural was now much given to my company and often came in to see me and was most intimate, although there was no special piousness about me. I was just the same as before, but Ural took this as the best of signs and thought it proved me to be of an extravagant hidden piety. There's a Jew for you, he would cry aloud in the street, earth of Palestine, there's a Jew. In short he filled the place with my Jewishness and my hidden orthodoxy. He looked on with indifference, I looked on with indifference, but after a while the affair began to cost me, both in time and money. The Palestinian beggars and above all Yudel and the townsfolk obtained for me the reputation of piety, and there came to me orthodox Jews, treasurers, carbolists, beggar students, and especially the rebels' followers. They came about me like bees, they were never in the habit of avoiding me, but this was another thing all the same. Before this, when one of the rebels' disciples came, he would enter with a respectful demeanour, take off his hat and sitting in his cap, would fix his gaze on my mouth with a sweet smile. We both felt the one and the only link between us lay in the money that I gave and he took. He would take it gracefully, put it into his purse as it might be for someone else, and thank me as though he appreciated my kindness. When I went to see him, he would place a chair for me and give me preserve. But now he came to me with a free and easy manner, asked for a sip of brandy with a smack to eat, sat in my room as if it were his own, and looked at me as if I were an underling, and he had authority over me. I am the penitent sinner, it is said, and that signifies for him the key to the door of repentance. I have entered into his domain, and he is my lord and master. He drinks my health as heartily as though it were his own, and when I press a coin into his hand he looks at it well to make sure it is worth his while accepting it. If I happen to visit him I am on a footing with all his followers, the Hasidim. His trustees and all his other hangers on are my brothers, and come to me when they please with all the mud on their boots, put their hand into my bosom and take out my tobacco pouch and give it as their opinion that the brandy is weak. Not to talk of holidays, especially purim and rejoicing of the law, when they troop in with a great noise and vociferation and drink and dance and pay as much attention to me as to the cat. In fact all the townsfolk took the same liberties with me. Before they asked nothing of me and took me as they found me. Now they began to demand things of me and to inquire why I didn't do this and why I did that and not the other. Shmulky the Bather asked me why I was never seen at the bath on Sabbath. Calman the Butcher wanted to know why among the scapefals there wasn't a white one of mine, and even the beetle of the class who speaks through his nose and who had never dared approached me came and insisted on giving me the 39 stripes on the eve of the Day of Atonement. If you are a Jew like other Jews come and lie down and you shall be given stripes. And the Palestinian Jews never ceased coming with their bags of earth and I never ceased rejecting. One day there came a broad-shouldered Jew from over there with his bag of Palestinian earth. The earth pleased me and a conversation took place between us on this wise. How much do you want for your earth? For my earth from anyone else I wouldn't take less than 30 rubles, but from you, knowing you, and all of you as I do, and as your parents did so much for Palestine, I will take a 25 rubles piece. You must know that a person buys this once and for all. I don't understand you, I answered. 25 rubles? How much earth have you there? How much earth have I? About half a quart. There will be enough to cover the eyes and the face. Perhaps you want to cover the whole body, or have it underneath and on the top and at the sides. Oh, I can bring you some more, but it will cost you two or three hundred rubles because since the good for nothings took to coming to Palestine, the earth has got very expensive. Believe me, I don't make much by it, it costs me nearly. I don't understand you, my friend. What's this about bestowing the body? What do you mean by it? How do you mean? What do you mean by it? Bestowing the body like that of all honest Jews after death. Ha! After death? To preserve it? Yes, what else? I don't want it for that. I don't mind what happens to my body after death. I want to buy Palestinian earth for my lifetime. What do you mean? What good can it do you while you're alive? You are not talking to the point, or else you are making a game of a poor Palestinian Jew. I'm speaking seriously, I want it now while I live. What is it that you don't understand? My Palestinian Jew was greatly perplexed, but he quickly collected himself and took in the situation. I saw by his artful smile that he had detected a strain of madness in me, and what should he gain by leading me into the piles of reason? Rather let him profit by it, and this he proceeded to do, saying with winning conviction, Yes, of course, you are right. How right you are. May I ever see the like? People are not wrong when they say the apple falls close to the tree. You are drawn to the root, and you love the soil of Palestine only in a different way, like your holy forefathers. May they be good advocates. You are young, and I am old, and I have heard how they used to bestrew their headdress with it in their lifetime so as to fulfill the Scripture verse, and have pity on Zion's dust, and honest Jews shake earth of Palestine into their shoes on the eve of the 9th of Arb, and at the kneel before the fast they dip an egg into Palestinian earth. New feign. I never expected so much of you, and I can say with truth, there's a Jew for you. Well, in that case, you will require two pots of the earth, but it will cost you a deal. We are evidently at crossed purposes, I said to him. What are two potfills? What is all this about bestrewing the body? I want to buy Palestinian earth, earth in Palestine. Do you understand? I want to buy in Palestine a little bit of earth, a few desiatines. Huh? I didn't quite catch it. What did you say? And my Palestinian Jew seized hold of his right ear, as though considering what he should do, then he said cheerfully. Aha! You mean to secure for yourself a burial place also for after death. Oh, yes indeed, you are a holy man and no mistake. Well, you can get that through me too. Give me something in advance, and I shall manage it for you all right at a bargain. Why do you go on at me with your after death? I cried angrily. I want a bit of earth in Palestine. I want to dig it and sow it and plant it. Huh? What, sow it and plant it? That is, that is, you only mean, may all bad dreams. And stammering thus he scraped up all the scattered earth little by little into his bag, gradually got nearer the door and was gone. It was not long before the town was seething and bubbling like a kettle on the boil. Everyone was upset, as though by some misfortune angry with me and still more with himself. How could we be so mistaken? He doesn't want to buy Palestinian earth at all. He doesn't care what happens to him when he's dead. He laughs. He only wants to buy earth in Palestine and set up villages there. Eh, eh, eh, he remains one of them. He is what he is, a skeptic. So they said in all the streets, all the householders in the town, the women in the marketplace, at the bath they went about abstracted, and as furious as though I had insulted them, made fools of them, taken them in, and all of a sudden they became cold and distant to me. The pious Jews were seen no more at my house. I received packages from Palestine one after the other. One had a black seal on which was scratched a black ram's horn, and inside in large characters was a ban from the Brisk Rebbetson because of my wishing to make all Jews unhappy. Other packets were from different Palestinian beggars who tried to compel me with fair words and foul to send them money for their travelling expenses and for the samples of earth they enclosed. My fellow townspeople also got packages from over there warning them against me. I was a dangerous man, a missionary, and it was a mitzvah to be revenged on me. There was an uproar, and no wonder, a letter from Palestine written in Rashi with large seals. In short I was to be put to shame and confusion. Everyone avoided me. Nobody came near me. When people were obliged to come to me in money matters or to beg and arms, they entered with deference, and spoke respectfully in a gentle voice as to one of them, took the arms or the money, and were out of the door behind which they abused me as usual. Only Yudl did not forsake me. Yudl, the living orphan, was bewildered and beplexed. He had plenty of work, flew from one house to the other, listening, begging, and tailbearing, answering and asking questions. But he could not settle the matter in his own mind. Now he looked at me angrily and again with pity. He seemed to wish not to meet me, and yet he sought occasion to do so, and would look earnestly into my face. The excitement of my neighbours and their behaviour to me interested me very little, but I wanted very much to know the reason why I had suddenly become apparent to them. I could by no means understand it. Once there came a wild, dark night. The sky was covered with black clouds. There was a drenching rain and hail and a stormy wind. It was pitch dark, and it lightened and thundered, as though the world were turning upside down. The great thunder-claps and hail broke a good many people's windows. The wind tore at the roofs, and everyone hid inside his house, or wherever he found a corner. In that dreadful dark night, my door opened, and in came Yudl, the living orphan. He looked as though someone were pushing him from behind, driving him along. He was as white as the wall, cowering, beaten about, helpless as a leaf. He came in and stood by the door, holding his hand. He couldn't decide, did not know, if he should take it off or not. I had never seen him so miserable, so despairing all the time I had known him. I asked him to sit down, and he seemed a little quieted. I saw that he was soaking wet and shivering with cold, and I gave him hot tea, one glass after the other. He sipped it with great enjoyment, and the sight of him sitting there sipping and warming himself would have been very comic, only it was so very sad. The tears came into my eyes. Yudl began to brighten up, and was soon Yudl his old self again. I asked him how it was that he had come to see me in such a state of gloom and bewilderment. He told me the thunder and the hail had broken all the window-pains in his lodging, and the wind had carried away the roof. There was nowhere he could go for shelter. No one would let him in at night. There was not a soul he could turn to. There remained nothing for him to do but to lie down in the street and die. And so, he said, having known you so long, I hoped you would take me in, though you are one of them and not at all pious, and so they say full of evil intentions against Jews and Jewishness, but I know you are a good man and will have compassion on me. I forgave Yudl his rudeness, because I knew him for an outspoken man, that he was fond of talking, but never did any harm. Seeing him depressed, I offered him a glass of wine, but he refused it. I understood the reason of his refusal, and started a conversation with him. Tell me, Yudl Hart, how is it that I have fallen to such bad repute among you, that you will not even drink a drop of wine in my house, and why do you say that I am one of them and not pious? A little while ago you spoke differently of me. Yet it just slipped from my tongue, and the truth is you may be what you please. You are a good man. No, Yudl, don't try to get out of it. Tell me openly. It doesn't concern me, but I am curious to know why this sudden revulsion of feeling about me, this change of opinion. Tell me, Yudl, I beg of you. Speak freely. My gentle words and my friendliness gave Yudl great encouragement. The poor fellow with whom not one of them has, as yet, spoken kindly. When he saw that I meant it, he began to scratch his head. It seemed as if, in that minute, he forgave me all my heresies, and he looked at me kindly, and as if with pity. Then, seeing that I awaited an answer, he gave a twist to his earlock and said, gently and sincerely, You wish me to tell you the truth? You insist upon it? You will not be offended? You know that I never take offence at anything you say. Say anything you like, Yudl Hart. Only speak. Then I will tell you. The town and everyone else is very angry with you on account of your Palestinian earth. You want to do something new. Buy earth and plow it and sow. And where? In our land of Israel. In our holy land of Israel. But why, Yudl dear, when they thought I was buying Palestinian earth to bestrew me after death, was I looked upon almost like a saint? Eh, that's another thing. That showed that you held Palestine holy for a land whose soil preserves one against being eaten of worms, like any other honest Jew. Well, I asked you, Yudl, what does this mean? When they thought I was buying sand for after my death, I was a holy man, a lover of Palestine, and because I want to buy earth and till it, earth in your holy land, our holy earth in the holy land in which our best and greatest counted it a privilege to live, I'm a blot on Israel. Tell me, Yudl, I ask you, why? Because one wants to bestrew himself with Palestinian earth after death is one an orthodox Jew, and when one desires to give oneself holy to Palestine in life, should one be one of them? Now I ask you, all those Palestinian Jews who came to me with their bags of sand and were my very good friends and full of anxiety to preserve my body after death, why have they turned against me on hearing that I wished for a bit of Palestinian earth while I live? Why are they all so interested and such good brothers to the dead, and such bloodthirsty enemies to the living? Why, because I wish to provide for my sad existence, have they noised abroad that I'm a missionary and make up tales against me? Why, I ask you, why Yudl, why? You ask me, how should I know? I only know that ever since Palestine was Palestine, people have gone there to die, that I know, but all this plowing, sowing and planting the earth, I never heard of it in my life before. Yes, Yudl, you are right, because it has been so for a long time, you think so it has to be. That is the real answer to your questions. But why not think back a little? Why should one only go to Palestine to die? Is not Palestinian earth fit to live on? On the contrary, it is some of the very best soil, and when we till it and plant it, we fulfil the precept to restore the holy land, and we also work for ourselves toward the realisation of an honest and peaceable life. I won't discuss the matter at length with you today, it seems that you have quite forgotten what all the holy books say about Palestine and what a precept it is to till the soil. And another question, touching what you said about Palestine being only there to go to die in. Tell me, those Palestinian Jews who were so interested in my death and brought earth from over there to bestrew me, tell me, are they also only there to die? Did you notice how broad and stout they were? Huh? And they, they too, when they heard I wanted to live there, fell upon me like wild animals, filling the world with their cries, and made up the most dreadful stories about me. Well, what do you say, Yudl? I ask you. Do I know? said Yudl, with a wave of the hand. Is my head there to think out things like that? But tell me, I beg, what is the good to you of buying land in Palestine and getting into trouble all round? You ask, what is the good to me? I want to live, do you hear? I want to live. If you can't live with our Palestinian earth, why did you not go to get some before? Did you never want to live till now? Oh, Yudl, you are right there. I confess that until now I have lived in a delusion. I thought I was living, but what is the saying? So long as the thunder is silent, some thunder has struck you, interrupted Yudl, looking compassionately into my face. I will put it briefly. You must know, Yudl, that I have been in business here for quite a long time. I worked faithfully and my chief was pleased with me. I was esteemed and looked up to, and it never occurred to me that things would change. But bad men could not bear to see me doing so well, and they worked hard against me till one day the business was taken over by my employer's son, and my enemies profited by the opportunity to cover me with columnaries from head to foot, spreading reports about me which it makes one shudder to hear. This went on till the chief began to look a scance at me. At first I got pinpricks, malicious hints. Then things got worse and worse, and at last they began to push me about, and one day they turned me out of the house and threw me into a hedge. Presently when I had reviewed the whole situation I saw that they could do what they pleased with me. I had no one to rely on. My one-time good friends kept a loop from me. I had lost all worth in their eyes, with some because, as is the way with people, they took no trouble to inquire into the reason of my downfall, but, hearing all that was said against me, concluded that I was in the wrong. Others again because they wished to be agreeable to my enemies. The rest for reasons without number. In short, reflecting on all this, I saw the game was lost, and there was no saying what might not happen to me. Here the two I had borne my troubles patiently, with the courage that is natural to me, but now I feel my courage giving way, and I am in fear lest I should fall in my own eyes in my own estimation, and get to believe that I am worth nothing, and all this because I must need resort to them, and take all the insults they choose to fling at me, and every outcast has me at his enemy. That is why I want to collect my remaining strength, and buy a parcel of land in Palestine, and, God helping, I will become a bit of a householder. Do you understand? Why must it be just in Palestine? Because I may not, and I cannot, buy in anywhere else. I have tried to find a place elsewhere, but they were afraid I was going to get the upper hand, so down they came and made a wreck of it. Over there I shall be a proprietor myself. That is firstly, and secondly, a great many of relations of mine are buried there in the country where they lived and died, and although you count me as one of them, I tell you I think a great deal of the merits of the fathers, and that it is very pleasant to me to think of living in the land that will remind me of such dear forefathers, and although it will be hard at first, the recollection of my ancestors, and the thought of providing my children with a corner of their own, and honestly earned bread, will give me strength, till I shall work my way up to something, and I hope I will get to something. Remember, Yudl, I believe, and I hope. You see, Yudl, you know that our brothers consider Palestinian earth a charm against being eaten by worms, and you think that I laugh at it. No, I believe in it. It is quite, quite true, that my Palestinian earth will preserve me from worms, only not after death. No, but alive, from such worms as devour and gnaw at and poison the whole of life. Yudl scratched his nose, gave a rub to the cap on his head, and uttered a deep sigh. Yes, Yudl, you sigh. Now, do you know what I wanted to say to you? Et, and Yudl made a gesture with his hand. What have you to say to me, et? Oi, that et of yours, Yudl, I know it. When you have nothing to answer, and you ought to think, and think something out, you take refuge in et. Just consider for once, Yudl, I have a plan for you too. Remember what you were, and what has become of you. You have been knocking about driven hither and thither since childhood. You haven't a house, not a corner. You have become a beggar, a tramp, and nobody, despised and avoided with unpleasing habits, and living a dog's life. You have very good qualities, a clear head, and acute intelligence. But to what purpose do you put them? You waste your whole intelligence on getting in at back doors, and coaxing a bit of bread out of the maid's servant, and the mistress is not to know. Can you not devise a means with that clever brain of yours, how to earn it for yourself? See here, I am going to buy a bit of ground in Palestine. Come with me, Yudl, and you shall work, and be a man, like other men. You are what they call a living orphan, because you have many fathers, and don't forget that you have one father who lives, and who is only waiting for you to grow better. Well, how much longer are you going to live among strangers? Till now you haven't thought, and the life suited you, and you have grown used to blows, and you have grown used, you have grown used to blows and contumely. But now that, that none will let you in. Your eyes must have been opened to see your condition, and you must have begun to wish to be different. Only begin to wish. You see, I have enough to eat, and yet my position has become hateful to me, because I have lost my value, and I am in danger of losing my humanity. But you are hungry, and one of these days you will die of starvation out in the street. Yudl, do just think it over, for if I am right, you will get to be like other people. Your father will see that you have turned into a man. He will be reconciled with your mother. You will be a father's child, as you were before. Rather, Yudl, think it over. I talked to my Yudl a long, long time. In the meanwhile, the night had passed. My Yudl gave a start, as though walking out of a deep slumber, and went away, full of thought. On opening the window, I was greeted by a friendly smile from the rising, morning star, as it peeped out between the clouds, and it began to dawn. End of Section 3. Section 4 of Yiddish Tales. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Yiddish Tales, translated by Helena Frank, and read by Adrian Pretzelis. Section 4. Isaac Loeb Perez, born 1851 in Samoscha, government of Lublin, Russian Poland, Jewish philosophical and general literary education, practice law in Samoscha, a Hasidic town, clerk to the Jewish congregation in Warsaw, and as such collector of statistics on Jewish life, began to write at 25, contributor to Zedenbaum's Yudishe Voxblatt, publisher and editor of the Yudishe Bibliotech, four volumes, in which he conducted the scientific department, and wrote all the editorials and book reviews of Literature and Laban, and of Yom Tov Bletlech. Now, 1812, co-editor of Defroined, Warsaw, Hebrew and Yiddish prose writer and poet, Allegorist, collected Hebrew works, 1899 to 1901, collected Yiddish works, seven volumes, Warsaw and New York, 1909 to 1912, in course of publication. A Woman's Wrath by Isaac Loeb Perez The small room is dingy as the poverty that clings to its walls. There is a hook fastened to the crumbling ceiling, relic of a departed hanging lamp. The old peeling stove is girded about with a coarse sack, and leans sideways towards its gloomy neighbor, the black, empty fireplace, in which stands an inverted cooking pot with a chipped rim. Beside it lies a broken spoon, which met its fate in an unequal contest with the scrapings of cold, stale porridge. The room is choked with furniture. There is a four-post bed with torn curtains. The pillows visible through their holes have no covers. There is a cradle with the large yellow head of a sleeping child. A chest with metal fittings and an open padlock. Nothing very precious left in there, evidently. Further, a table and three chairs, originally painted red. A cupboard now somewhat damaged. Add to these a pail of clean water and one of dirty water. An oven raked with a shovel, and you will understand that a pin could hardly drop onto the floor. And yet the room contains him and her beside. She, a middle-aged duess, sits on the chest that fills the space between the bed and the cradle. To her right is one grimy little window. To her left the table. She is knitting a sock, rocking the cradle with her foot, and listens to him, reading the Talmud at the table, with a tearful, Wallachian singing intonation, and swaying to and fro with a series of nervous jerks. Some of the words he swallows, others he draws out. Now he snaps at a word, now he skips it. Some he accentuates, and dwells on lovingly. Others he rattles out with indifference, like dried peas out of a bag, and never quiet for a moment. First he draws from his pocket a once red and whole handkerchief, and wipes his nose and brow. Then he lets it fall into his lap, and begins twisting his earlocks, or pulling at his thin, pointed, faintly grizzled beard. Again he lays a pulled-out hair from the same between the leaves of his book, and slaps his knees. His fingers coming into contact with the handkerchief, they seize it, and throw a corner in between his teeth. He bites it, lays one foot across the other, and continually shuffles with both feet. All the while his pale forehead wrinkles. Now in a perpendicular, now in a horizontal direction, when the long eyebrows are nearly lost below the folds of skin. At times, apparently, he has a sting in the chest, for he beats his left side as though he was saying the al-khaitz. Suddenly he leans his head to the left, presses a finger against his left nostril, and emits an artificial sneeze, leans his head to the right, and the proceeding is repeated. In between he takes a pinch of snuff, pulls himself together. His voice rings louder, the chair creaks, the table wobbles. The child does not wake. The sounds are too familiar to disturb it. And she, the wife, shriveled and shrunk before her time, sits and drinks in delight. She never takes her eye off her husband. Her ear lets no inflection of his voice escape. Now and then, it is true, she sighs. Were he as fit for this world as he is for the other world, she would have a good time of it here too, here too. Ma, she consoles herself, who talks of honour? Not everyone is worthy of both tables. She listens. Her shriveled face alters from minute to minute. She is nervous too. A moment ago it was eloquent of delight. Now, she remembers it is Thursday, there isn't a derailleur to spend in preparation for sabbath. The light in her face goes out by degrees. The smile fades. Then she takes a look through the grimy window, glances at the sun. It must be getting late, and there isn't a spoonful of hot water in the house. The needles pause in her hand. A shadow has overspread her face. She looks at the child. It is sleeping less quietly, and will soon wake. The child is poorly, and there is not a drop of milk for it. The shadow on her face deepens into gloom. The needles tremble and move convulsively. And when she remembers that it is near Pesach, Passover, that her earrings and the festal candlesticks are at the pawn shop. The chest empty, the lamp sold. Then the needles perform murderous antics in her fingers. The gloom on her brow is that of a gathering thunderstorm. Lightnings play in her small gray sunken eyes. He sits and learns unconscious of the changed atmosphere. Does not see her let the sock fall and begin ringing her finger joints. Does not see that her forehead is puckered with misery. One eye closed, and the other fixed on him her learned husband with a look fit to send a chill through his every limb. Does not see her dry lips tremble and her jaw quiver. She controls herself with all her might, but the storm is gathering fury within her the least thing and it will explode. That least thing has happened. He was just translating a Talmudic phrase with quiet delight. And thence we derive that. He was going on with three, but the word derive was enough. It was the lighted spark, and her heart was the gunpowder. It was a blaze in an instant. Her determination gave way. The unlucky word opened the floodgates and the waters poured through, carrying all before them. Derived, you say? Derived? Oh, derived may you be? Reboiner shall oil him. Lord of the world. She exclaimed, horse with anger. Derived may you be? Yes, you. She hissed like a snake. Pass over coming Thursday and the child ill and not a drop of milk is there, huh? Her breath gives out. Her sunken breast heaves, her eyes flash. He sits like one turned to stone. Then pale and breathless too from fright he gets up and edges toward the door. At the door he turns and faces her and sees that hand and tongue are equally helpless from passion. His eyes grow smaller. He catches a bit of handkerchief between his teeth, retreats a little further, takes a deeper breath and mutters, listen woman, do you know what Bittletaure means? And not letting a husband study in peace to be always worrying about panosa, livelihood, huh? And who feeds the little birds, tell me? Always this want of faith in God, this giving way to temptation and taking thought for this world. Foolish, ill-natured woman, not to let a husband study. If you don't take care, you will go to Gehenna. Receiving no answer, he grows bolder. Her face gets paler and paler. She trembles more and more violently and the paler she becomes and the more she trembles, the steadier his voice as he goes on. Gehenna, fire hanging by the tongue, four death penalties inflicted by the court. She is silent. Her face is white as chalk. He feels that he is doing wrong, that he has no call to be cruel, that he is taking a mean advantage, but he has risen as it were to the top and is boiling over. He cannot help himself. Do you know, he threatens her, what's it called means? It means stoning to throw into a ditch and cover up with stones. Srefo burning, that is pouring a spoonful of boiling lead into the inside. Her egg beheading, that means they cut off your head with a sword like this and he passes a hand across his neck. Then Khanok, strangling, do you hear to strangle? Do you understand? And all for making light of the Torah, for betel Torah. His heart is already sore for his victim, that he is feeling his power over her for the first time and it has gone to his head. Silly woman, he had never known how easy it was to frighten her. That comes of making light of the Torah, he shouts and breaks off. After all, she might come to her senses at any moment and take up the broom. He springs back to the table, closes the Gomorrah and hurries out of the room. I'm going to the Besmedgesh, he calls out over his shoulder in a milder tone and shuts the door after him. The loud voice and the noise of the closing door have waked the sick child. The heavy-lidded eyes open. The waxen face puckers and there is a peevish wail. But she, beside herself, stands rooted to the spot and does not hear. Ha! comes coarsely at last out of her narrow chest. So that's it, is it? Neither this world nor the other? Hanging, he says, stoning, burning, beheading, strangling, hanging by the tongue, boiling lead poured into the inside, he says, for making light of the Torah. Hanging, ha! ha! ha! in desperation. Yes, I'll hang, but here, here, and soon. What is there to wait for? The child begins to cry louder. Still, she does not hear. A rope, a rope! She screams and stares wildly into every corner. Where is there a rope? I wish he may find a bone of me left. Let me be rid of one Gehenna at any rate. Let him try it. Let him be a mother for once. See how he likes it? I've had enough of it. Let it be an atonement, an end, an end, a rope, a rope! Her last exclamation is like a cry for help from out of a conflagration. She remembers that they have a rope somewhere. Yes, under the stove, the stove was to have been tied round against the winter. The rope must be there still. She runs and finds the rope, the treasure, looks up at the ceiling, the hook that held the lamp, she need only climb onto the table. She climbs. But she sees from the table that the startled child, weak as it is, has sat up in the cradle and is reaching over the side, is trying to get out. Mama, mama! It sobs feebly. A fresh paroxysm of anger seizes her. She flings away the rope, jumps off the table, runs to the child, and forces its head back into the pillow, exclaiming, Mother the child, it won't even let me hang myself. I can't even hang myself in peace. It wants to suck. What is the good? You will suck nothing but poison, poison out of me, I tell you. There, then, greedy. She critics in the same breath and stuffs her dried up breast into his mouth. There, then, suck away, bite. End of Section 4. Section 5 of Yiddish Tales. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Yiddish Tales translated by Helena Frank and read by Adrian Pretzelis. Section 5. The Treasure by Isaac Loeb Perez To sleep, in summertime, in a room four yards square, together with a wife and eight children, is anything but a pleasure, even on a Friday night. And Schmarrow the woodcutter rises from his bed, though only half through with the night, heart and gasping, hastily pours some water over his fingertips, flings on his dressing gown, and escapes barefoot from the parched Gehenna of his dwelling. He steps into the street, all quiet, all the shutters closed, and over the sleeping town is a distant serene and starry sky. He feels as if he were all alone with God, blessed is he, and he says, looking up at the sky, Now, rebuena, shello, ilam, lord of the universe, now is the time to hear me, and to bless me with a treasure out of thy treasure house. As he says this, he sees something like a little flame coming along out of the town, and he knows that is it. He is about to pursue it when he remembers it is sabbath, when one mustn't turn. So he goes after it, walking, and as he walks slowly along, the little flame begins to move slowly too, so that the distance between them does not increase, though it does not shorten either. He walks on, now and then an inward voice calls to him, Schmerl, don't be a fool, take off the dressing gown, give a jump, and throw it over the flame. But he knows it's the Yatsehara, the evil inclination speaking. He throws off the dressing gown onto his arm, but despite the evil inclination, he takes still smaller steps, and rejoices to see that as soon as he takes these smaller steps, the little flame moves more slowly too. Thus he follows the flame, and follows it, till he gradually finds himself outside the town. The road twists and turns across fields and meadows, and the distance between him and the flame grows no longer, no shorter. Were he to throw the dressing gown, it would not reach the flame. Meanwhile the thought revolves in his mind. Were he indeed to become possessed of the treasure, he need no longer be a woodcutter, now in his later years. He has no longer the strength for the work he had once. He would rent a seat for his wife in the woman's shawl, so that her sabbaths and holidays should not be spoiled by them not allowing her to sit here or to sit there. On New Year's Day and the Day of Atonement, it is all she can do to stand through the service. Her many children have exhausted her, and he would order her a new dress, and buy her a few strings of pearls. The children should be sent to Betahedurim, and he would cast about for a match for his eldest girl. As it is the poor child carries her mother's fruit baskets, and never has time so much as to comb her hair thoroughly, and she has long, long plates and eyes like a deer. It would be a meritorious act to pounce upon the treasure, the evil inclination again he thinks. If it is not to be, well then it isn't. If it were in the week he would soon know what to do, or if his yankle was there he would have had something to say. Children nowadays who knows what they won't do on sabbath as it is, and the younger one is no better. He makes fun of the teacher in Haida. When the teacher is about to administer a blow they pull his beard, and who's going to find time to see after them, chopping and sawing a whole day through. He sighs, and walks on and on, now and then glancing up into the sky. It seems to him that the flame proceeds more slowly, but at this very moment he hears a dog bark, and it has a bark he knows. That is the dog in Visoki. Visoki is the first village you come to on leaving the town, and he sees white patches twinkle in the dewy morning atmosphere. Those are the Visoki peasant cottages. Then it occurs to him that he has gone a sabbath day journey, and he stops short. Yes, I have got a sabbath day journey, he thinks, and says, speaking into the air, you won't lead me astray. It is not, a god said. God does not make sport of us. It is the work of a demon. And he feels a little angry with the thing, and turns and hurries toward the town thinking, I won't say anything about it at home, because first they won't believe me, and if they do, they'll laugh at me. And what have I done to be proud of? The creator knows how it was, and that is enough for me. Besides, she might be angry. Who can tell? The children are certainly naked and barefoot, poor little things. Why should they be made to transgress the commander on a one's father? No, he won't breathe a word. He won't even ever remind the almighty of it. If he really has been good, the almighty will remember without being told. And suddenly, he is conscious of a strange, lightsome, inward calm. And there is a delicious sensation in his limbs. Money is, after all, dross. Riches may even lead a man from the right way, and he feels inclined to thank God for not having brought him into temptation by granting him his wish. He would like, if only, to sing a song. Alvino Marcano, our father, our king, is one he remembers from his early years, but he feels ashamed before himself and breaks off. He tries to remember one of the cantor's melodies, a Sinai tune, when suddenly he sees that the identical little flame which he left behind him is once more preceding him, and moving slowly townward, townward, and the distance between them neither increases nor diminishes, as though the flame were taking a walk, and he were taking a walk just taking a little walk in honor of Sabbath. He is glad in his heart and watches it. The sky pales. The stars begin to go out, the east flushes. A narrow pink stream flows lengthward over his head, and still the flame flickers onward into the town, enters his own street. There is his house. The door he sees is open. Apparently he forgot to shut it, and lo and behold, the flame goes in. The flame goes in at his own house door. He follows and sees it disappear beneath the bed. All are asleep. He goes softly up to the bed, stoops down, and sees the flame spinning round underneath it, like a top, always in the same place, takes his dressing gown, and throws it down under the bed, and covers up the flame. No one hears him, and now a golden morning beam steals in through the chink in the shutter. He sits down on the bed, and makes a vow not to say a word to anyone till Sabbath is over, not half a word, lest it cause desecration of the Sabbath. She could never hold her tongue, and the children certainly not. They would at once want to count the treasure, to know how much there was, and very soon the secret would be out of the house and into the shawl, the Besmederes, the house of study, and all the streets, and people would talk about his treasure, about luck, and people would not say their prayers, or wash their hands, or say grace as they should, and he would have led his household, and half the town, into sin. No, not a whisper, and he stretches himself out on the bed, and pretends to be asleep. And this is his reward, when, after concluding the Sabbath, he stooped down, and lifted up the dressing gown under the bed. There lay a sack, with a million of golden, an almost endless number. The bed was a large one, and he became one of the richest men in the place, and he lived happily all the years of his life. Only his wife was continually bringing up against him, Rubina Shiloylam, Lord of the world, how could a man have such a heart of stone as to sit a whole summer day, and not say a word, not a word, not to his own wife, not one single word? And there was I, she remembers, crying over my prayer, as I said, God finnavam, God of Abraham, and crying so, for there wasn't a dryer left in the house. Then he consoles her, and says with a smile, who knows, perhaps it was all thanks to your God of Abraham, that it went off so well. End of section 5