Part 7

Besides wedding presents for the bride, Gittel took with her money for wedding expenses, so that she might play her part with becoming lavishness, and people should not think her Moishehle came, bless and preserve us, of a low-born family--to show that he was none so forlorn but he had, God be praised and may it be for a hundred and twenty years to come! a mother, and a sister, and brothers, and came of a well-to-do family. She would show them that she could be as fine a bridegroom's mother as anyone, even, thank God, in Warsaw. Moishehle was her last child, and she grudged him nothing. Were _he_ (may he be a good intercessor!) alive, he would certainly have graced the wedding better, and spent more money, but she would spare nothing to make a good figure on the occasion. She would treat every connection of the bride to a special dance-tune, give the musicians a whole five-ruble-piece for their performance of the Vivat, and two dreierlech for the Kosher-Tanz, beside something for the Rav, the cantor, and the beadle, and alms for the poor--what should she save for? She has no more children to marry off--blessed be His dear Name, who had granted her life to see her Moishehle's wedding!

Thus happily did Gittel start for Warsaw.

One carriage after another drove up to the wedding-reception room in Dluga Street, Warsaw, ladies and their daughters, all in evening dress, and smartly attired gentlemen, alighted and went in.

The room was full, the band played, ladies and gentlemen were dancing, and those who were not, talked of the bride and bridegroom, and said how fortunate they considered Regina, to have secured such a presentable young man, lively, educated, and intelligent, with quite a fortune, which he had made himself, and a good business. Ten thousand rubles dowry with the perfection of a husband was a rare thing nowadays, when a poor professional man, a little doctor without practice, asked fifteen thousand. It was true, they said, that Regina was a pretty girl and a credit to her parents, but how many pretty, bright girls had more money than Regina, and sat waiting?

It was above all the mothers of the young ladies present who talked low in this way among themselves.

The bride sat on a chair at the end of the room, ladies and young girls on either side of her; Gittel, the bridegroom's mother in her watered silk dress, with the large green satin flowers, was seated between two ladies with dresses cut so low that Gittel could not bear to look at them--women with husbands and children daring to show themselves like that at a wedding! Then she could not endure the odor of their bare skin, the powder, pomade, and perfumes with which they were smeared, sprinkled, and wetted, even to their hair. All these strange smells tickled Gittel's nose, and went to her head like a fume. She sat between the two ladies, feeling cramped and shut in, unable to stir, and would gladly have gone away. Only whither? Where should she, the bridegroom's mother, be sitting, if not near the bride, at the upper end of the room? But all the ladies sitting there are half-naked. Should she sit near the door? That would never do. And Gittel remained sitting, in great embarrassment, between the two women, and looked on at the reception, and saw nothing but a room full of _decolletees_, ladies and girls.

Gittel felt more and more uncomfortable, it made her quite faint to look at them.

"One can get over the girls, young things, because a girl has got to please, although no Jewish daughter ought to show herself to everyone like that, but what are you to do with present-day children, especially in a dissolute city like Warsaw? But young women, and women who have husbands and children, and no need, thank God, to please anyone, how are they not ashamed before God and other people and their own children, to come to a wedding half-naked, like loose girls in a public house? Jewish daughters, who ought not to be seen uncovered by the four walls of their room, to come like that to a wedding! To a Jewish wedding!... Tpfu, tpfu, I'd like to spit at this newfangled world, may God not punish me for these words! It is enough to make one faint to see such a display among Jews!"

After the ceremony under the canopy, which was erected in the centre of the room, the company sat down to the table, and Gittel was again seated at the top, between the two women before mentioned, whose perfumes went to her head.

She felt so queer and so ill at ease that she could not partake of the dinner, her mouth seemed locked, and the tears came in her eyes.

When they rose from table, Gittel sought out a place removed from the "upper end," and sat down in a window, but presently the bride's mother, also in _decollete_, caught sight of her, and went and took her by the hand.

"Why are you sitting here, Mechuteneste? Why are you not at the top?"

"I wanted to rest myself a little."

"Oh, no, no, come and sit there," said the lady, led her away by force, and seated her between the two ladies with the perfumes.

Long, long did she sit, feeling more and more sick and dizzy. If only she could have poured out her heart to some one person, if she could have exchanged a single word with anybody during that whole evening, it would have been a relief, but there was no one to speak to. The music played, there was dancing, but Gittel could see nothing more. She felt an oppression at her heart, and became covered with perspiration, her head grew heavy, and she fell from her chair.

"The bridegroom's mother has fainted!" was the outcry through the whole room. "Water, water!"

They fetched water, discovered a doctor among the guests, and he led Gittel into another room, and soon brought her round.

The bride, the bridegroom, the bride's mother, and the two ladies ran in:

"What can have caused it? Lie down! How do you feel now? Perhaps you would like a sip of lemonade?" they all asked.

"Thank you, I want nothing, I feel better already, leave me alone for a while. I shall soon recover myself, and be all right."

So Gittel was left alone, and she breathed more easily, her head stopped aching, she felt like one let out of prison, only there was a pain at her heart. The tears which had choked her all day now began to flow, and she wept abundantly. The music never ceased playing, she heard the sound of the dancers' feet and the directions of the master of ceremonies; the floor shook, Gittel wept, and tried with all her might to keep from sobbing, so that people should not hear and come in and disturb her. She had not wept so since the death of her husband, and this was the wedding of her favorite son!

By degrees she ceased to weep altogether, dried her eyes, and sat quietly talking to herself of the many things that passed through her head.

"Better that _he_ (may he enter a lightsome paradise!) should have died than lived to see what I have seen, and the dear delight which I have had, at the wedding of my youngest child! Better that I myself should not have lived to see his marriage canopy. Canopy, indeed! Four sticks stuck up in the middle of the room to make fun with, for people to play at being married, like monkeys! Then at table: no Seven Blessings, not a Jewish word, not a Jewish face, no Minyan to be seen, only shaven Gentiles upon Gentiles, a roomful of naked women and girls that make you sick to look at them. Moishehle had better have married a poor orphan, I shouldn't have been half so ashamed or half so unhappy."

Gittel called to mind the sort of a bridegroom's mother she had been at the marriage of her eldest son, and the satisfaction she had felt. Four hundred women had accompanied her to the Shool when Avremele was called to the Reading of the Law as a bridegroom, and they had scattered nuts, almonds, and raisins down upon him as he walked; then the party before the wedding, and the ceremony of the canopy, and the procession with the bride and bridegroom to the Shool, the merry home-coming, the golden soup, the bridegroom brought at supper time to the sound of music, the cantor and his choir, who sang while they sat at table, the Seven Blessings, the Vivat played for each one separately, the Kosher-Tanz, the dance round the bridegroom--and the whole time it had been Gittel here and Gittel there: "Good luck to you, Gittel, may you be happy in the young couple and in all your other children, and live to dance at the wedding of your youngest" (it was a delight and no mistake!). "Where is Gittel?" she hears them cry. "The uncle, the aunt, a cousin have paid for a dance for the Mechuteneste on the bridegroom's side! Play, musicians all!" The company make way for her, and she dances with the uncle, the aunt, and the cousin, and all the rest clap their hands. She is tired with dancing, but still they call "Gittel"! An old friend sings a merry song in her honor. "Play, musicians all!" And Gittel dances on, the company clap their hands, and wish her all that is good, and she is penetrated with genuine happiness and the joy of the occasion. Then, then, when the guests begin to depart, and the mothers of bridegroom and bride whisper together about the forthcoming Veiling Ceremony, she sees the bride in her wig, already a wife, her daughter-in-law! Her jam pancakes and almond-rolls are praised by all, and what cakes are left over from the Veiling Ceremony are either snatched one by one, or else they are seized wholesale by the young people standing round the table, so that she should not see, and they laugh and tease her. That is the way to become a mother-in-law! And here, of course, the whole of the pancakes and sweet-cakes and almond-rolls which she brought have never so much as been unpacked, and are to be thrown away or taken home again, as you please! A shame! No one came to her for cakes. The wig, too, may be thrown away or carried back--Moishehle told her it was not required, it wouldn't quite do. The bride accepted the silver candlesticks with embarrassment, as though Gittel had done something to make her feel awkward, and some girls who were standing by smiled, "Regina has been given candlesticks for the candle-blessing on Fridays--ha, ha, ha!"

The bridal couple with the girl's parents came in to ask how she felt, and interrupted the current of her thoughts.

"We shall drive home now, people are leaving," they said.

"The wedding is over," they told her, "everything in life comes to a speedy end."

Gittel remembered that when Avremel was married, the festivities had lasted a whole week, till over the second cheerful Sabbath, when the bride, the new daughter-in-law, was led to the Shool!

The day after the wedding Gittel drove home, sad, broken in spirit, as people return from the cemetery where they have buried a child, where they have laid a fragment of their own heart, of their own life, under the earth.

Driving home in the carriage, she consoled herself with this at least:

"A good thing that Beile and Zlatke, Avremel and Yossel were not there. The shame will be less, there will be less talk, nobody will know what I am suffering."

Gittel arrived the picture of gloom.

When she left for the wedding, she had looked suddenly twenty years younger, and now she looked twenty years older than before!

POVERTY

I was living in Mezkez at the time, and Seinwill Bookbinder lived there too.

But Heaven only knows where he is now! Even then his continual pallor augured no long residence in Mezkez, and he was a Yadeschlever Jew with a wife and six small children, and he lived by binding books.

Who knows what has become of him! But that is not the question--I only want to prove that Seinwill was a great liar.

If he is already in the other world, may he forgive me--and not be very angry with me, if he is still living in Mezkez!

He was an orthodox and pious Jew, but when you gave him a book to bind, he never kept his word.

When he took a book and even the whole of his pay in advance, he would swear by beard and earlocks, by wife and children, and by the Messiah, that he would bring it back to you by Sabbath, but you had to be at him for weeks before the work was finished and sent in.

Once, on a certain Friday, I remembered that next day, Sabbath, I should have a few hours to myself for reading.

A fortnight before I had given Seinwill a new book to bind for me. It was just a question whether or not he would return it in time, so I set out for his home, with the intention of bringing back the book, finished or not. I had paid him his twenty kopeks in advance, so what excuses could he possibly make? Once for all, I would give him a bit of my mind, and take away the work unfinished--it will be a lesson for him for the next time!

Thus it was, walking along and deciding on what I should say to Seinwill, that I turned into the street to which I had been directed. Once in the said street, I had no need to ask questions, for I was at once shown a little, low house, roofed with mouldered slate.

I stooped a little by way of precaution, and entered Seinwill's house, which consisted of a large kitchen.

Here he lived with his wife and children, and here he worked.

In the great stove that took up one-third of the kitchen there was a cheerful crackling, as in every Jewish home on a Friday.

In the forepart of the oven, on either hand, stood a variety of pots and pipkins, and gossipped together in their several tones. An elder child stood beside them holding a wooden spoon, with which she stirred or skimmed as the case required.

Seinwill's wife, very much occupied, stood by the one four-post bed, which was spread with a clean white sheet, and on which she had laid out various kinds of cakes, of unbaked dough, in honor of Sabbath. Beside her stood a child, its little face red with crying, and hindered her in her work.

"Seinwill, take Chatzkele away! How can I get on with the cakes? Don't you know it's Friday?" she kept calling out, and Seinwill, sitting at his work beside a large table covered with books, repeated every time like an echo:

"Chatzkele, let mother alone!"

And Chatzkele, for all the notice he took, might have been as deaf as the bedpost.

The minute Seinwill saw me, he ran to meet me in a shamefaced way, like a sinner caught in the act; and before I was able to say a word, that is, tell him angrily and with decision that he must give me my book finished or not--never mind about the twenty kopeks, and so on--and thus revenge myself on him, he began to answer, and he showed me that my book was done, it was already in the press, and there only remained the lettering to be done on the back. Just a few minutes more, and he would bring it to my house.

"No, I will wait and take it myself," I said, rather vexed.

Besides, I knew that to stamp a few letters on a book-cover could not take more than a few minutes at most.

"Well, if you are so good as to wait, it will not take long. There is a fire in the oven, I have only just got to heat the screw."

And so saying, he placed a chair for me, dusted it with the flap of his coat, and I sat down to wait. Seinwill really took my book out of the press quite finished except for the lettering on the cover, and began to hurry. Now he is by the oven--from the oven to the corner--and once more to the oven and back to the corner--and so on ten times over, saying to me every time:

"There, directly, directly, in another minute," and back once more across the room.

So it went on for about ten minutes, and I began to take quite an interest in this running of his from one place to another, with empty hands, and doing nothing but repeat "Directly, directly, this minute!"

Most of all I wonder why he keeps on looking into the corner--he never takes his eyes off that corner. What is he looking for, what does he expect to see there? I watch his face growing sadder--he must be suffering from something or other--and all the while he talks to himself, "Directly, directly, in one little minute." He turns to me: "I must ask you to wait a little longer. It will be very soon now--in another minute's time. Just because we want it so badly, you'd think she'd rather burst," he said, and he went back to the corner, stooped, and looked into it.

"What are you looking for there every minute?" I ask him.

"Nothing. But directly--Take my advice: why should you sit there waiting? I will bring the book to you myself. When one wants her to, she won't!"

"All right, it's Friday, so I need not hurry. Why should you have the trouble, as I am already here?" I reply, and ask him who is the "she who won't."

"You see, my wife, who is making cakes, is kept waiting by her too, and I, with the lettering to do on the book, I also wait."

"But _what_ are you waiting for?"

"You see, if the cakes are to take on a nice glaze while baking, they must be brushed over with a yolk."

"Well, and what has that to do with stamping the letters on the cover of the book?"

"What has that to do with it? Don't you know that the glaze-gold which is used for the letters will not stick to the cover without some white of egg?"

"Yes, I have seen them smearing the cover with white of egg before putting on the letters. Then what?"

"How 'what?' That is why we are waiting for the egg."

"So you have sent out to buy an egg?"

"No, but it will be there directly." He points out to me the corner which he has been running to look into the whole time, and there, on the ground, I see an overturned sieve, and under the sieve, a hen turning round and round and cackling.

"As if she'd rather burst!" continued Seinwill. "Just because we want it so badly, she won't lay. She lays an egg for me nearly every time, and now--just as if she'd rather burst!" he said, and began to scratch his head.

And the hen? The hen went on turning round and round like a prisoner in a dungeon, and cackled louder than ever.

To tell the truth, I had inferred at once that Seinwill was persuaded I should wait for my book till the hen had laid an egg, and as I watched Seinwill's wife, and saw with what anxiety she waited for the hen to lay, I knew that I was right, that Seinwill was indeed so persuaded, for his wife called to him:

"Ask the young man for a kopek and send the child to buy an egg in the market. The cakes are getting cold."

"The young man owes me nothing, a few weeks ago he paid me for the whole job. There is no one to borrow from, nobody will lend me anything, I owe money all around, my very hair is not my own."

When Seinwill had answered his wife, he took another peep into the corner, and said:

"She will not keep us waiting much longer now. She can't cackle forever. Another two minutes!"

But the hen went on puffing out her feathers, pecking and cackling for a good deal more than two minutes. It seemed as if she could not bear to see her master and mistress in trouble, as if she really wished to do them a kindness by laying an egg. But no egg appeared.

I _lent_ Seinwill two or three kopeks, which he was to pay me back in work, because Seinwill has never once asked for, or accepted, charity, and the child was sent to the market.

A few minutes later, when the child had come back with an egg, Seinwill's wife had the glistening Sabbath cakes on a shovel, and was placing them gaily in the oven; my book was finished, and the unfortunate hen, released at last from her prison, the sieve, ceased to cackle and to ruffle out her plumage.

SHOLOM-ALECHEM

Pen name of Shalom Rabinovitz; born, 1859, in Pereyaslav, Government of Poltava, Little Russia; Government Rabbi, at twenty-one, in Lubni, near his native place; has spent the greater part of his life in Kieff; in Odessa from 1890 to 1893, and in America from 1905 to 1907; Hebrew, Russian, and Yiddish poet, novelist, humorous short story writer, critic, and playwright; prolific contributor to Hebrew and Yiddish periodicals; founder of Die juedische Volksbibliothek; novels: Stempenyu, Yosele Solovei, etc.; collected works: first series, Alle Werk, 4 vols., Cracow, 1903-1904; second series, Neueste Werk, 8 vols., Warsaw, 1909-1911.

THE CLOCK

The clock struck thirteen!

Don't imagine I am joking, I am telling you in all seriousness what happened in Mazepevke, in our house, and I myself was there at the time.