Part 6

"There was a wedding with a dinner to the poor in Lipovietz to-day, too, and they have eaten and drunk all they can, and now they've gone on strike, and declare that unless they are promised a kerbel a head, they won't move from the spot. The strike leaders are the Crooked Man with two crutches, Mekabbel the Long, Feitel the Stammerer, and Yainkel Fonfatch; the others would perhaps have come, but these won't let them. So I didn't know what to do. I argued a whole hour, and got nothing by it, so then I unharnessed a horse, and came at full speed to know what was to be done."

We of the company could not stop laughing, but Reb Yitzchok-Aizik was very angry.

"Well, and you bargained with them? Won't they come for less?" he asked the messenger.

"Yes, I bargained, and they won't take a kopek less."

"Have their prices gone up so high as all that?" exclaimed Reb Yitzchok-Aizik, with a satirical laugh. "Why did you leave the wagons? We shall do without the tramps, that's all!"

"How could I tell? I didn't know what to do. I was afraid you would be displeased. Now I'll go and fetch the wagons back."

"Wait! Don't be in such a hurry, take time!"

Reb Yitzchok-Aizik began consulting with the company and with himself.

"What an idea! Who ever heard of such a thing? Poor people telling me what to do, haggling with me over my wanting to give them a good dinner and a nice present each, and saying they must be paid in rubles, otherwise it's no bargain, ha! ha! For two guldens each it's not worth their while? It cost them too much to stock the ware? Thirty kopeks wouldn't pay them? I like their impertinence! Mischief take them, I shall do without them!

"Let the musicians play! Where is the beadle? They can begin putting the veil on the bride."

But directly afterwards he waved his hands.

"Wait a little longer. It is still early. Why should it happen to _me_, why should my pleasure be spoilt? Now I've got to marry my youngest daughter without a dinner to the poor! I would have given them half a ruble each, it's not the money I mind, but fancy bargaining with me! Well, there, I have done my part, and if they won't come, I'm sure they're not wanted; afterwards they'll be sorry; they don't get a wedding like this every day. We shall do without them."

"Well, can they put the veil on the bride?" the beadle came and inquired.

"Yes, they can.... No, tell them to wait a little longer!"

Nearly all the guests, who were tired of waiting, cried out that the tramps could very well be missed.

Reb Yitzchok-Aizik's face suddenly assumed another expression, the anger vanished, and he turned to me and a couple, of other friends, and asked if we would drive to the town, and parley with the revolted almsgatherers.

"He has no brains, one can't depend on him," he said, referring to the messenger.

A horse was harnessed to a conveyance, and we drove off, followed by the mounted messenger.

"A revolt--a strike of almsgatherers, how do you like that?" we asked one another all the way. We had heard of workmen striking, refusing to work except for a higher wage, and so forth, but a strike of paupers--paupers insisting on larger alms as pay for eating a free dinner, such a thing had never been known.

In twenty minutes time we drove into Lipovietz.

In the market-place, in the centre of the town, stood the three great peasant wagons, furnished with fresh straw. The small horses were standing unharnessed, eating out of their nose-bags; round the wagons were a hundred poor folk, some dumb, others lame, the greater part blind, and half the town urchins with as many men.

All of them were shouting and making a commotion.

The Crooked One sat on a wagon, and banged it with his crutches; Long Mekabbel, with a red plaster on his neck, stood beside him.

These two leaders of the revolt were addressing the people, the meek of the earth.

"Ha, ha!" exclaimed Long Mekabbel, as he caught sight of us and the messenger, "they have come to beg our acceptance!"

"To beg our acceptance!" shouted the Crooked One, and banged his crutch.

"Why won't you come to the wedding, to the dinner?" we inquired. "Everyone will be given alms."

"How much?" they asked all together.

"We don't know, but you will take what they offer."

"Will they give it us in kerblech? Because, if not, we don't go."

"There will be a hole in the sky if you don't go," cried some of the urchins present.

The almsgatherers threw themselves on the urchins with their sticks, and there was a bit of a row.

Mekabbel the Long, standing on the cart, drew himself to his full height, and began to shout:

"Hush, hush, hush! Quiet, you crazy cripples! One can't hear oneself speak! Let us hear what those have to say who are worth listening to!" and he turned to us with the words:

"You must know, dear Jews, that unless they distribute kerblech among us, we shall not budge. Never you fear! Reb Yitzchok-Aizik won't marry his youngest daughter without us, and where is he to get others of us now? To send to Lunetz would cost him more in conveyances, and he would have to put off the marriage."

"What do they suppose? That because we are poor people they can do what they please with us?" and a new striker hitched himself up by the wheel, blind of one eye, with a tied-up jaw. "No one can oblige us to go, even the chief of police and the governor cannot force us--either it's kerblech, or we stay where we are."

"K-ke-kkerb-kkerb-lech!!" came from Feitel the Stammerer.

"Nienblech!" put in Yainkel Fonfatch, speaking through his small nose. "No, more!" called out a couple of merry paupers.

"Kerblech, kerblech!" shouted the rest in concert.

And through their shouting and their speeches sounded such a note of anger and of triumph, it seemed as though they were pouring out all the bitterness of soul collected in the course of their sad and luckless lives.

They had always kept silence, had _had_ to keep silence, _had_ to swallow the insults offered them along with the farthings, and the dry bread, and the scraped bones, and this was the first time they had been able to retaliate, the first time they had known how it felt to be entreated by the fortunate in all things, and they were determined to use their opportunity of asserting themselves to the full, to take their revenge. In the word kerblech lay the whole sting of their resentment.

And while we talked and reasoned with them, came a second messenger from Reb Yitzchok-Aizik, to say that the paupers were to come at once, and they would be given a ruble each.

There was a great noise and scrambling, the three wagons filled with almsgatherers, one crying out, "O my bad hand!" another, "O my foot!" and a third, "O my poor bones!" The merry ones made antics, and sang in their places, while the horses were put in, and the procession started at a cheerful trot. The urchins gave a great hurrah, and threw little stones after it, with squeals and whistles.

The poor folks must have fancied they were being pelted with flowers and sent off with songs, they looked so happy in the consciousness of their victory.

For the first and perhaps the last time in their lives, they had spoken out, and got their own way.

After the "canopy" and the chicken soup, that is, at "supper," tables were spread for the friends of the family and separate ones for the almsgatherers.

Reb Yitzchok-Aizik and the members of his own household served the poor with their own hands, pressing them to eat and drink.

"Le-Chayyim to you, Reb Yitzchok-Aizik! May you have pleasure in your children, and be a great man, a great rich man!" desired the poor.

"Long life, long life to all of you, brethren! Drink in health, God help All-Israel, and you among them!" replied Reb Yitzchok-Aizik.

After supper the band played, and the almsgatherers, with Reb Yitzchok-Aizik, danced merrily in a ring round the bridegroom.

Then who was so happy as Reb Yitzchok-Aizik? He danced in the ring, the silk skirts of his long coat flapped and flew like eagles' wings, tears of joy fell from his shining eyes, and his spirits rose to the seventh heaven.

He laughed and cried like a child, and exchanged embraces with the almsgatherers.

"Brothers!" he exclaimed as he danced, "let us be merry, let us be Jews! Musicians, give us something cheerful--something gayer, livelier, louder!"

"This is what you call a Jewish wedding!"

"This is how a Jew makes merry!"

So the guests and the almsgatherers clapped their hands in time to the music.

Yes, dear readers, it _was_ what I call a Jewish Wedding!

A GLOOMY WEDDING

They handed Gittel a letter that had come by post, she put on her spectacles, sat down by the window, and began to read.

She read, and her face began to shine, and the wrinkled skin took on a little color. It was plain that what she read delighted her beyond measure, she devoured the words, caught her breath, and wept aloud in the fulness of her joy.

"At last, at last! Blessed be His dear Name, whom I am not worthy to mention! I do not know, Gottinyu, how to thank Thee for the mercy Thou hast shown me. Beile! Where is Beile? Where is Yossel? Children! Come, make haste and wish me joy, a great joy has befallen us! Send for Avremele, tell him to come with Zlatke and all the children."

Thus Gittel, while she read the letter, never ceased calling every one into the room, never ceased reading and calling, calling and reading, and devouring the words as she read.

Every soul who happened to be at home came running.

"Good luck to you! Good luck to us all! Moishehle has become engaged in Warsaw, and invites us all to the wedding," Gittel explained. "There, read the letter, Lord of the World, may it be in a propitious hour, may we all have comfort in one another, may we hear nothing but good news of one another and of All-Israel! Read it, read it, children! He writes that he has a very beautiful bride, well-favored, with a large dowry. Lord of the World, I am not worthy of the mercy Thou hast shown me!" repeated Gittel over and over, as she paced the room with uplifted hands, while her daughter Beile took up the letter in her turn. The children and everyone in the house, including the maid from the kitchen, with rolled-up sleeves and wet hands, encircled Beile as she read aloud.

"Read louder, Beiletshke, so that I can hear, so that we can all hear," begged Gittel, and there were tears of happiness in her eyes.

The children jumped for joy to see Grandmother so happy. The word "wedding," which Beile read out of the letter, contained a promise of all delightful things: musicians, pancakes, new frocks and suits, and they could not keep themselves from dancing. The maid, too, was heartily pleased, she kept on singing out, "Oi, what a bride, beautiful as gold!" and did not know what to be doing next--should she go and finish cooking the dinner, or should she pull down her sleeves and make holiday?

The hiss of a pot boiling over in the kitchen interrupted the letter-reading, and she was requested to go and attend to it forthwith.

"The bride sends us a separate greeting, long life to her, may she live when my bones are dust. Let us go to the provisor, he shall read it; it is written in French."

The provisor, the apothecary's foreman, who lived in the same house, said the bride's letter was not written in French, but in Polish, that she called Gittel her second mother, that she loved her son Moses as her life, that he was her world, that she held herself to be the most fortunate of girls, since God had given her Moses, that Gittel (once more!) was her second mother, and she felt like a dutiful daughter towards her, and hoped that Gittel would love her as her own child.

The bride declared further that she kissed her new sister, Beile, a thousand times, together with Zlatke and their husbands and children, and she signed herself "Your forever devoted and loving daughter Regina."

An hour later all Gittel's children were assembled round her, her eldest son Avremel with his wife, Zlatke and her little ones, Beile's husband, and her son-in-law Yossel. All read the letter with eager curiosity, brandy and spice-cakes were placed on the table, wine was sent for, they drank healths, wished each other joy, and began to talk of going to the wedding.

Gittel, very tired with all she had gone through this day, went to lie down for a while to rest her head, which was all in a whirl, but the others remained sitting at the table, and never stopped talking of Moisheh.

"I can imagine the sort of engagement Moisheh has made, begging his pardon," remarked the daughter-in-law, and wiped her pale lips.

"I should think so, a man who's been a bachelor up to thirty! It's easy to fancy the sort of bride, and the sort of family she has, if they accepted Moisheh as a suitor," agreed the daughter.

"God helping, this ought to make a man of him," sighed Moisheh's elder brother, "he's cost us trouble and worry enough."

"It's your fault," Yossel told him. "If I'd been his elder brother, he would have turned out differently! I should have directed him like a father, and taken him well in hand."

"You think so, but when God wishes to punish a man through his own child going astray, nothing is of any use; these are not the old times, when young people feared a Rebbe, and respected their elders. Nowadays the world is topsyturvy, and no sooner has a boy outgrown his childhood than he does what he pleases, and parents are nowhere. What have I left undone to make something out of him, so that he should be a credit to his family? Then, he was left an orphan very early; perhaps he would have obeyed his father (may he enter a lightsome paradise!), but for a brother and his mother, he paid them as much attention as last year's snow, and, if you said anything to him, he answered rudely, and neither coaxing nor scolding was any good. Now, please God, he'll make a fresh start, and give up his antics before it's too late. His poor mother! She's had trouble enough on his account, as we all know."

Beile let fall a tear and said:

"If our father (may he be our kind advocate!) were alive, Moishehle would never have made an engagement like this. Who knows what sort of connections they will be! I can see them, begging his pardon, from here! Is he likely to have asked anyone's advice? He always had a will of his own--did what he wanted to do, never asked his mother, or his sister, or his brother, beforehand. Now he's a bridegroom at thirty if he's a day, and we are all asked to the wedding, are we really? And we shall soon all be running to see the fine sight, such as never was seen before. We are no such fools! He thinks _himself_ the clever one now! So he wants us to be at the wedding? Only says it out of politeness."

"We must go, all the same," said Avremel.

"Go and welcome, if you want to--you won't catch _me_ there," answered his sister.

There was a deal more discussion and disputing about not going to the wedding, and only congratulating by telegram, for good manners' sake. Since he had asked no one's advice, and engaged himself without them, let him get married without them, too!

Gittel, up in her bedroom, could not so soon compose herself after the events of the day. What she had experienced was no trifle. Moishehle engaged to be married! She had been through so much on his account in the course of her life, she had loved him, her youngest born, so dearly! He was such a beautiful child that the light of his countenance dazzled you, and bright as the day, so that people opened ears and mouth to hear him talk, and God and men alike envied her the possession of such a boy.

"I counted on making a match for him, as I did with Avremel before him. He was offered the best connections, with the families of the greatest Rabbis. But, no--no--he wanted to go on studying. 'Study here, study there,' said I, 'sixteen years old and a bachelor! If you want to study, can't you study at your father-in-law's, eating Koest? There are books in plenty, thank Heaven, of your father's.' No, no, he wanted to go and study elsewhere, asked nobody's advice, and made off, and for two months I never had a line. I nearly went out of my mind. Then, suddenly, there came a letter, begging my pardon for not having said good-by, and would I forgive him, and send him some money, because he had nothing to eat. It tore my heart to think my Moishehle, who used to make me happy whenever he enjoyed a meal, should hunger. I sent him some money, I went on sending him money for three years, after that he stopped asking for it. I begged him to come home, he made no reply. 'I don't wish to quarrel with Avremel, my sister, and her husband,' he wrote later, 'we cannot live together in peace.' Why? I don't know! Then, for a time, he left off writing altogether, and the messages we got from him sounded very sad. Now he was in Kieff, now in Odessa, now in Charkoff, and they told us he was living like any Gentile, had not the look of a Jew at all. Some said he was living with a Gentile woman, a countess, and would never marry in his life."

Five years ago he had suddenly appeared at home, "to see his mother," as he said. Gittel did not recognize him, he was so changed. The rest found him quite the stranger: he had a "goyish" shaven face, with a twisted moustache, and was got up like a rich Gentile, with a purse full of bank-notes. His family were ashamed to walk abroad with him, Gittel never ceased weeping and imploring him to give up the countess, remain a Jew, stay with his mother, and she, with God's help, would make an excellent match for him, if he would only alter his appearance and ways just a little. Moishehle solemnly assured his mother that he was a Jew, that there was no countess, but that he wouldn't remain at home for a million rubles, first, because he had business elsewhere, and secondly, he had no fancy for his native town, there was nothing there for him to do, and to dispute with his brother and sister about religious piety was not worth his while.

So Moishehle departed, and Gittel wept, wondering why he was different from the other children, seeing they all had the same mother, and she had lived and suffered for all alike. Why would he not stay with her at home? What would he have wanted for there? God be praised, not to sin with her tongue, thanks to God first, and then to _him_ (a lightsome paradise be his!), they were provided for, with a house and a few thousand rubles, all that was necessary for their comfort, and a little ready money besides. The house alone, not to sin with her tongue, would bring in enough to make a living. Other people envy us, but it doesn't happen to please him, and he goes wandering about the world--without a wife and without a home--a man twenty and odd years old, and without a home!

The rest of the family were secretly well content to be free of such a poor creature--"the further off, the better--the shame is less."

A letter from him came very seldom after this, and for the last two years he had dropped out altogether. Nobody was surprised, for everyone was convinced that Moisheh would never come to anything. Some told that he was in prison, others knew that he had gone abroad and was being pursued, others, that he had hung himself because he was tired of life, and that before his death he had repented of all his sins, only it was too late.

His relations heard all these reports, and were careful to keep them from his mother, because they were not sure that the bad news was true.

Gittel bore the pain at her heart in silence, weeping at times over her Moishehle, who had got into bad ways--and now, suddenly, this precious letter with its precious news: Her Moishehle is about to marry, and invites them to the wedding!

Thus Gittel, lying in bed in her own room, recalled everything she had suffered through her undutiful son, only now--now everything was forgotten and forgiven, and her mother's heart was full of love for her Moishehle, just as in the days when he toddled about at her apron, and pleased his mother and everyone else.

All her thoughts were now taken up with getting ready to attend the wedding; the time was so short--there were only three weeks left. When her other children were married, Gittel began her preparations three months ahead, and now there were only three weeks.

Next day she took out her watered silk dress, with the green satin flowers, and hung it up to air, examined it, lest there should be a hook missing. After that she polished her long ear-rings with chalk, her pearls, her rings, and all her other ornaments, and bought a new yellow silk kerchief for her head, with a large flowery pattern in a lighter shade.

A week before the journey to Warsaw they baked spice-cakes, pancakes, and almond-rolls to take with her, "from the bridegroom's side," and ordered a wig for the bride. When her eldest son was married, Gittel had also given the bride silver candlesticks for Friday evenings, and presented her with a wig for the Veiling Ceremony.

And before she left, Gittel went to her husband's grave, and asked him to be present at the wedding as a good advocate for the newly-married pair.

Gittel started for Warsaw in grand style, and cheerful and happy, as befits a mother going to the wedding of her favorite son. All those who accompanied her to the station declared that she looked younger and prettier by twenty years, and made a beautiful bridegroom's mother.