I
I COULD scarcely think of anything but America. I read every letter from there that I could obtain. I was constantly seeking information about the country and the opportunities it held out to a man of my type, and cudgeling my brains for some way of scraping together the formidable sum. I was restless, sleepless, and finally, when I caught a slight cold, my health broke down so completely that I had to be taken to the hospital. Shiphrah visited me every day, calling me poor orphan boy and quarreling with the superintendent over me. One afternoon, after I had been discharged, when she saw me at the synagogue, feeble and emaciated, she gasped
"You're a cruel, heartless man," she flared up, addressing herself to the beadle. "The poor boy needs a good soft bed, fine chicken soup, and real care. Why didn't you let me know at once? Come on, David!"
"Where to?" I inquired, timidly.
"None of your business. Come on. I'm not going to take you to the woods, you may be sure of that. I want you to stay in my house until you are well rested and strong enough to study. Don't you like it?" she added, with a wink to the beadle
It appeared that her husband was away on one of his prolonged business excursions. Otherwise installing in her "modern" home an old-fashioned, ridiculous young creature like a Talmud student would have been out of the question
I followed her with fast-beating heart. I knew that her family was "modern," that her children spoke Russian and "behaved like Gentiles," that there was a grown young woman among them and that her name was Matilda
The case of this young woman had been the talk of the town the year before.
She had been persuaded to marry a man for whom she did not care, and shortly after the wedding and after a sensational passage at arms between his people and hers, she made her father pay him a small fortune for divorcing her
Matilda's family being one of the "upper ten" in our town, its members were frequently the subject of envious gossip, and so I had known a good deal about them even before Shiphrah befriended me. I had heard, for example, that Matilda had received her early education in a boarding-school in Germany (in accordance with a custom that had been in existence among people of her father's class until recently); that she had subsequently studied Russian and other subjects under Russian tutors at home; and that her two brothers, who were younger than she, were at the local Russian gymnasium, or high school. I had heard, also, that Matilda was very pretty. That she was well dressed went without saying
All this both fascinated and cowed me
Suddenly Shiphrah paused, as though bethinking herself of something. "Wait.
Don't stir," she said, rushing back. Ten or fifteen minutes later she returned, saying: "I was not long, was I? I just went to get the beadle's forgiveness. Had insulted him for nothing. But he's a dummy, all the same.
Come on, David."
Arrived at her house, she introduced me to her old servant, in the kitchen
"He'll stay a week with us, perhaps more," she explained. "I want you to build him up. Fatten him up like a Passover goose. Do you hear?"
The servant, a tall, spare woman, with an extremely dark face tinged with blue, began by darting hostile glances at me
"Look at the way she is staring at him!" Shiphrah growled. "He is the son of the woman who was murdered at the Horse-market."
The old servant started. "Is he?" she said, aghast
"Are you pleased now? Will you take good care of him?"
"May the Uppermost give him a good appetite."
As Shiphrah led me from the kitchen into another room she said:
"She took a fancy to you. It will be all right."
She towed me into a vast sitting-room, so crowded with new furniture that it had the appearance of a furniture-store. There were many rooms in the apartment and they all produced a similar impression. I subsequently learned that the superabundance of sofas, chests of drawers, chairs, or bric-à-brac-stands was due to Shiphrah's passion for bargains, a weakness which made her the fair game of tradespeople and artisans. Several of her wardrobes and bureaus were packed full of all sorts of things for which she had no earthly use and many of which she had smuggled in when her husband and the children were out
Ensconced in a corner of an enormous green sofa in the big crowded sitting-room, with a book in her lap, we found a young woman with curly brown hair and sparkling brown eyes set in a small oval face. She looked no more than twenty, but when her mother addressed her as Matilda I knew that I was facing the heroine of the sensational divorce. She was singularly interesting, but pretty she certainly was not. Her Gentile name had a world of charm for my ear
One of the trifles that clung to my memory is the fact that upon seeing her I felt something like amazement at her girlish appearance. I had had a notion that a married woman, no matter how young, must have a married face, something quite distinct from the countenance of a maiden, while this married woman did not begin to look married.
Matilda got up, cast a frowning side-glance at her mother, and walked over to one of the four immense windows illuminating the room. Less than a minute later she turned around and crossed over to her mother's side
She was small, but well made, and her movements were brisk, firm, elastic
"Come on, mother, there's something I want to tell you," she said, a jerk of her curly head indicating the adjoining room
"I have no secrets," Shiphrah growled. "What do you want?"
A snappish whispered conference ensued, the trend of which was at once betrayed in an acrimonious retort by Shiphrah: "Just keep your foolish nose out of my affairs, will you? When I say he is going to stay here for some time I mean it. Don't you mind her, David."
"Mother! Mother! Mother!" Matilda trilled with a gesture of disgust, and flounced out of the room
I felt my face turning all colors, and at the same time her "Mother! Mother! Mother!" (instead of "Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!") was echoing in my brain enchantingly
Presently a fair-complexioned youth of eighteen or nineteen came in, apparently attracted by his mother's angry voice. He wore a blue coat with silver lace and silver buttons, the uniform of a Russian high school, which sent a flutter of mixed envy and awe through me. He threw a frowning glance at me, and withdrew. Two smaller children, a uniformed boy and a little girl, made their appearance, talking in Russian noisily. At sight of me they fell silent, looked me over, from my side-locks to the edge of my long-skirted coat, and then took to whispering and giggling
"Clear out, you devils!" Shiphrah shouted, stamping her foot. "Shoo!" A young chambermaid passed through the room, and Shiphrah stopped her long enough to introduce me and to command her to look after me as if I were one of the family—"even better."
II
THE spacious sitting-room was used as a breakfast-room as well. It was in this room, on the enormous green sofa, that my bed was made for the night.
It was by far the most comfortable bed I had ever slept in
Early the next morning, after I finished my long prayer and had put away my phylacteries, the young chambermaid removed the bedding and the swarthy old servant served me my breakfast
"Go wash your hands and eat in good health. Eat hearty, and may it well agree with you," she said, with a compound of deep commiseration, reverence, and disdain. I went to the kitchen, where I washed my hands, and, while wiping them, muttered the brief prayer which one offers before eating. As I returned to the sitting-room I found Matilda there. She was seated at some distance from the table upon which my breakfast was spread. She wore a sort of white kimono. One did not have to stand on ceremony with a fellow who did not even wear a stiff collar and a necktie. Nor did I know enough to resent her costume. She did not order anything to eat for herself, not even a glass of tea. It seemed as though she had come in for the express purpose of eying me out of countenance. If she had, she succeeded but too well. Her silent glances fell on me like splashes of hot water. I was so disconcerted I could not swallow my food. There were centuries of difference between her and myself, not to speak of the economic chasm that separated us. To me she was an aristocrat, while I was a poor, wretched "day" eater, a cross between a beggar and a recluse. I dared not even look at her. Talmud students were expected to be the shyest creatures under the sun. On this occasion I certainly was
The other children entered the room. They were dressing themselves, eating and studying their Gentile lessons all at once. Matilda had a mild altercation with Yeffim, her eighteen-year-old brother, ordered breakfast for herself, and seemed to have forgotten my existence. Her mother came in and took to cloying me with food
At about 4 o'clock in the afternoon I was alone in the drawing-room. I stood at the piano—the first I had ever laid eyes on—timidly sounding some of the keys, when I heard approaching voices. With my heart in my mouth, I rushed over to the nearest window, where I paused, feigning interest in some passing peasant teams. Presently Matilda made her appearance. accompanied by two girl friends
The three young women were chattering in Russian, a language of which I understood scarcely three dozen words. I could conjecture, however, that the subject of their talk was no other than my own quailing personality
Suddenly Matilda addressed herself to me in Yiddish: "Look here, young man! Don't you know it is bad manners for a gentleman to stand with his back to ladies?"
I faced about, all flushed and scared
"That's better," she said, gaily. "Never mind staring at the floor.
Give us a look, will you? Don't act as a shy bridegroom."
I made no answer. The room seemed to be in a whirl
"Why don't you speak?" Matilda insisted, concealing her quizzical purpose under a well-acted air of gravity
Her two friends roared, and, spurred on by their merriment, she continued to make game of me.
"Won't you give us one look, at least? Do, please! Come, my mother will never find out you have been guilty of a great sin like that."
I was dying to get up and fling out of the room, but I felt glued to the spot. Their cruel sport, which made me faint with embarrassment and misery, had something inexpressibly alluring in it
One of the two girls said something in Russian of which I caught the word "kiss" and which was greeted by a new outburst of laughter. I was terror-stricken
"Well, pious Jew!" Matilda resumed. "Suppose a girl were to give you a kiss.
What would you do? Commit suicide, would you? Well, never fear; we won't be as cruel as all that. I tell you what, though. I'll hide your side-locks behind your ears. I just want to see how you would look without them." At this she stepped up close to me and reached out her hands for my two appendages
I pushed her off. "Please, let me alone," I protested
"At last we have heard his voice. Bravo! We're making headway, aren't we?"
At this point her mother's angry voice made itself heard. Matilda desisted, with a merry remark to her friends
The next morning when she and I were alone she tantalized me again. She made another attempt to tuck my side-locks behind my ears. As we were alone I had more courage
"If you don't stop I'll go away from here," I said, in a rage. "What do you want of me?"
As I thus gave vent to my resentment I instinctively felt that, so far from causing her to avoid me, it would quicken her rompish interest in me. And I hoped it would
"'S-sh! don't yell," she said, startled. "Can't you take a joke?"
"A nice joke, that."
"Very well, I won't do it again. I didn't know you were a touch-me-not." After a pause she resumed, in grave, friendly accents: "Come, don't be angry. I want to talk to you. Look here. Is there any sense in your wasting your life the way you do? Look at the way you are dressed, the way you live generally. Besides, the idea of a young man like you not being able to speak a word of Russian! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Why, mother says you are remarkably bright. Isn't it a pity that you should throw it all away? Why don't you try to study Russian, geography, history? Why don't you try to become an educated man?"
"The idea!" I said, with a laugh.
My confusion was gone, partly, at least. I looked her full in the face
She flared up. "The idea!" she mocked me. "Rather say, 'The idea of a bright young fellow being so ignorant!' Did you ever hear of a provoking thing like that?" There was a good deal of her mother's helter-skelter explosiveness in her
Now, that I had scanned her features in the light of the fact that she was a married woman, I read that fact into them. She did look married, I remarked to myself. Her exposed hair gave her an effect of "aristocratic" wickedness and wantonness which repelled and drew me at once. She was a girl, and yet she was a married woman. This duality of hers deepened the fascinating mystery of the distance between us
She proceeded to draw me out. She made me tell her the story of my young life, and I obeyed her but too willingly. I told her my whole tale of woe, reveling in my own rehearsal of my sufferings and more especially in the expressions of horror and heartfelt pity which it elicited from her.
"My God! My God!" she cried, gasping and wringing her hands. "Poor boy!" or, "Oh, I can't hear it! I can't hear it! It is enough to drive one crazy."
At one point, as I described the pangs of hunger which I had often borne, there were tears in her interesting eyes
When I had finished my story, flushed with a sense of my histrionic success, she ordered tea and preserves, as though to indemnify me for my past sufferings
"All the more reason for you to study Russian and to become an educated man," she said, as she put sugar into my glass. She cited the cases of former Talmudists, poor and friendless like myself, who had studied at the universities, fighting every inch of their way, till they had achieved success as physicians, lawyers, writers. She spoke passionately, often with the absurd acerbity of her mother. "It's a crime for a young man like you to throw himself away on that idiotic Talmud of yours," she said, pacing up and down the room fiercely
All this sounded shockingly wicked, and yet it did not shock me in the least
"I have a plan," I said
When she heard what I wanted to do she shook her head and frowned. She said, in substance, that America was a land of dollars, not of education, and that she wanted me to be an educated man. I assured her that I should study English in America and, after I had laid up some money, prepare for college there (she could have made me promise anything). But colleges in which the instruction was not in Russian failed to appeal to her imagination
Still, when she saw that my heart was set on the project, she yielded. She seemed to like the fervor with which I defended my cause, and the notion of my going to a far-away land was apparently beginning to have its effect. I was the hero of an adventure. Gradually she became quite enthusiastic about my plan
"I tell you what. I can raise the money for you," she said, with a gesture of sudden resolution. "How much is it?"
When I said, forlornly, that it would come to about eighty rubles, she declared, gravely: "That's all right. I shall get it for you. Only, say nothing to mother about it." I thought myself in a flurry of joy over this windfall, but a little later, when I was left to myself, I became aware that the flurry I was in was of quite a different nature. When I tried to think of America I found that my ambition in that direction had lost its former vitality
I was deeply in love with Matilda