Part 14 (2/2)
To ill.u.s.trate Smolenskin's way of writing, and all the peculiarity of the social life he depicts, we cannot do better than translate a few pa.s.sages from his novel dealing with characteristic phases of ghetto life.
Joseph is narrating his adventures and the impressions of his daily routine. The following is his striking description of the _Heder_, the well-known primary school of the ghetto, when his uncle first enters him there as a pupil:
”When I say house, let not the reader imagine a stone structure.
What he would see is a small, low building, somewhat like a dog's kennel, built of thin boards, rotten at that. The thatch that covers it by way of roof hangs down to the ground, and yet it cannot keep off the rain, for the goats browsing in the neighborhood have munched off half of it to satisfy their appet.i.te. Within there is a single room covered with black soot, the four walls garnished with spider-webs, and the floor paved with mortar. On the eastern wall hangs a large sheet of paper with the inscription, 'Hence blows the breath of life', which not many visitors will believe, because, instead of a quickening breath, pestilential odors enter by the window and offend the nostrils of those whose olfactory nerve has not lost all sensitiveness.... On the opposite wall, to the west, appear the words, 'A memorial unto the destruction of the Temple'. To this day I do not know what there was to commemorate the fall of the Holy Place. The rickety rafters? Or were the little creatures swarming all over the walls to remind one of 'the foxes that walk upon the mountain of Zion'?
”A huge stove occupies one-fourth of the room-s.p.a.ce. Between the stove and the wall, to the right, is a bed made up ready for use, and on the other side a smaller one full of straw and hay, and without bed-covers. Opposite to it stands a large deal table tattoed with marks that are the handiwork of the _Melammed_.
With his little penknife, which was never out of his hands, he would cut them into the wood all the time he was teaching us-- figures of beasts and fowl, and queer words....
”Around this table about ten boys were sitting, some conning the Talmud and others the Bible. One of the latter, seated at the right of the teacher, was reading aloud, in a sing-song voice, the section of the Pentateuch a.s.signed for the following Sabbath in the synagogue, and his cantillation blended with the crooning of the teacher's wife as she sat by her baby's bed, ... but every now and then the master's voice rose and drowned the sounds of both, as the growl of the thunder stifles the roar of the waves.
”... The teacher was hideous to behold. He was short of stature and thin, his cheeks were withered looking, his nose long and aquiline. His two _Peot_ [1] were raven black and hung down like ropes by the side of his face. Old as he was, his cheeks showed only tufts of beard here and there, on account of his habit of plucking the hairs out one by one when he was absorbed in thought, not to mention those plucked out by his wife without the excuse of thinking. His black cap shone like a b.u.t.tered roll, his linen s.h.i.+rt was neither an Egyptian nor a Swiss fabric, and his chest, overgrown with long black hair, always showed bare through the slit of his unb.u.t.toned s.h.i.+rt. His linen trousers had been white once upon a time, but now they were picturesquely variegated from the dust and soot clinging to them, and by the stains added by his young hopeful, when he sat and played on his knees, by way of contributing his share to the glory in which his father was resplendently arrayed.... His _Zizzit_ hung down to his bare feet. When my uncle entered the house, the teacher jumped up and ran hither and thither, seeking his shoes, but he could not find them. My uncle relieved him from his embarra.s.sment by presenting me, with the words, 'Here is a new pupil for you!'
Calming down, the teacher resumed his seat, and when we approached him, he tapped me on my cheek, saying, 'What hast thou learnt, my son?' All the pupils opened their mouth and eyes in amazement, and looked at me with envy. These many days, since they themselves were entered as new pupils in the school, they had not heard such gentle words issue from the mouth of the teacher....”
[Footnote 1: See Lev. XIX, 27.]
This odd school prepared the child of the ghetto in very deed for the life and the struggle for existence awaiting him. In the next higher school, the Yes.h.i.+bah, the _alma mater_ of the Rabbinical student, the happenings were no less curious.
The young people in those strange colleges, for the most part precocious urchins, fall into cla.s.ses, which, however, are not sharply divided off from one another. Day and night they sit bent over the huge folios of the Rabbis, occupied constantly with the study of the Law. Their meals are furnished them by the humble people of the town, often under deplorable conditions, and, on the whole, the life they lead is misery not untinged with humiliation. Such are the student years of the future Rabbis. And yet this bohemian existence is not dest.i.tute of picturesque elements and attractive features. Frequently it is at the Yes.h.i.+bah that the young man for the first time finds sincere friends for whom he forms a lasting attachment, and they become his trusted advisers. It is a mob of young people, enthusiastic and impetuous, yet among them is found the aristocracy of the ghetto, those endowed with extraordinary intellectual gifts, and the devotion displayed by some of them to Talmudic knowledge is absolutely sublime.
Smolenskin paints a characteristic Yes.h.i.+bah scene enacted by these embryonic Talmudists:
”It is a strange spectacle that meets the eye of the observer on his first visit to the women's gallery in the Yes.h.i.+bah [at nightfall]. He finds it suddenly transformed into a gathering- place for merchants. The boys who have bread or money, try their hands at trafficking, and those who have neither bread nor money, try theirs at theft, and a large group of those who loathe the one pursuit as well as the other, sit apart and entertain each other with the wonderful exploits of brigands, and giants, and witches, and devils, and evil spirits, who are abroad at night to affright human beings, and the dead who leave their graves to terrify the wicked or cure the sick with gra.s.s of the field, and many more such tales that delight the heart and soul of the listeners. Such things have I myself seen even while the afternoon and the evening prayers were going on below. I heard confused sounds. One would cry out, 'Who wants bread?' And another would sing out in reply, 'Who has bread to sell? Who has bread to sell?'--'Here is bread!'--'Will you take a penny for it?'--'Two pennies, and no less!'--'Some one has stolen my bread!
Who stole my bread?'--' My bread is first-cla.s.s! Come and buy!'-- 'But I haven't a red copper!'--'All right, give me a pledge!'-- 'You may have my troubles as a pledge, you old curmudgeon!'-- 'Here are two pennies, give me the bread!'--'Get out, I was ahead of you!'--'I insist upon my rights, I was the first.'--'Why, I handed my money over long ago, it is my bread.'--'You stole my bread.'--'You lie, it's my bread!'--'You're a liar, a thief, a robber!'--'The devil take you, you hound!'--'Wait a moment, and I'll show you my teeth, if I'm a hound!'
”And so the words fly from mouth to mouth in the women's gallery, and cuffs and blows are not rare things, either, and not one of the boys remembers that the congregation below is at prayers.
They go on trafficking and telling tales undisturbed, until the end of the service, and then they return to their seats, every boy to his own at the long tables, which are lighted each of them by a single candle for its whole length. A dispute breaks out as to where the candle is to stand. First one draws it up to himself, and then another wrests it from his hand and sets it next to his own book, and finally all decide to measure the table. One of the boys takes off his belt, and ascertains the breadth of the table and its length, and the candle is put in the exact centre. The quarrel is settled, and the students begin to drawl the text before them, and what they did the whole livelong day, they continue to do at night.
”Then one of them says, 'I sold my bread for two pennies'.-- 'And I bought an apple for one penny and a cake for half a penny', returns another.--'Darkness swallow up the monitor! He doesn't give us enough candles to light up the dark!'--'The devil take him!'--'A plague on him!'--'I am going on a visit home at Pa.s.sover.'--'Sarah the widow lent me three pennies.'
”While the boys talk thus over their open books, their bodies are swaying to and fro like reeds in a pond, and their voices rise and fall in the same sing-song in which they con their texts, all to deceive the monitor, who, hearing the usual drawl and seeing the rocking bodies, believes the students to be busy at their tasks. But little by little, they forget and drop out of their recitative into the ordinary conversational tone.--'Tell me, Zabualean [the pupils are called by their native town in the Yes.h.i.+bah], don't you think it's about time for the angel of death to come and carry off our monitor? Or is he going to live forever?'--'I pray to G.o.d to afflict his body with such ills that he cannot come to the Yes.h.i.+bah. Then we should have rest. I take good care not to ask for his death. Another would take his place, and there's no telling whether he would not be worse. If pain keeps him abed, we shall have a respite.'--'But aren't you committing a sin, cursing a deaf man?' interposes one of the boys, indignantly.--'Look at that Azubian! A saint, isn't he?
Proof enough that he has seven sins hidden in his heart!' retorts the Zabualean.--'No need of any such proof! Why, this very Azubian could not resist the tempter, and is hard at work studying Russian. That's as bad as bad can be, you don't have to search out hidden sins.'--'I at least am not perverting the right,' the Azubian flings out, 'because the Talmud itself says that the law of the land is law, but you are committing an actual sin against the Torah in cursing....' The sentence was never finished, for the monitor had been standing behind the table observing the boys for some time, and when he saw the excitement of the Azubian,--being deaf, he could not hear what he said,--he threw himself upon him, and, seizing him by the ear, shook him as violently as his strength permitted, crying, 'You wretches, you rebels, there, that's for you!' and he beat another boy with his fists, and struck a third upon his cheeks.--'The monitor has rained profuse kisses upon the Azubian for defending him!' one of the boys paraphrased Proverbs, [1] drawling in the approved sing- song, and keeping his eyes fixed upon his book. The others burst into loud laughter at the sally. Even those who were still smarting from the monitor's blows could not restrain themselves and joined in. 'Are you making fun of me? You're not afraid?'
thundered the monitor, in towering rage, turning this way and that, uncertain whom to select as the first victim of his heavy hand. Before he could collect his wits, one of the boys yelled, 'Rabbi Isaac, Rabbi Isaac, the candles!'--It worked like a conjurer's charm upon a serpent. In an instant the monitor turned and ran to his room and searched it. Seeing no one there, he sank into his chair, and groaned: 'Wicked, depraved children! Those gallows-birds, I'll mangle their flesh, and flay the skin from their bones!' and he kept on mumbling to himself in this strain, until sleep fell upon his eyelids shaded by long eyebrows white as snow, and his head dropped into his hands resting upon the table.
”As soon as he slept, the boys resumed their talk, and my friend continued to tell me about life in the Yes.h.i.+bah.... 'Do you think that the Yes.h.i.+bah students are guileless youths who have never dropped their mother's ap.r.o.n strings? If you do, you are vastly mistaken. They are up to all the tricks, and the dullest among them can show a thing or two to the best of the rich boys. You will do well to observe their ways and learn from them.'--'I shall try to walk in their footsteps.'....
”Then I went out to get my supper. On returning I found the greater part of the boys had gone to sleep, and almost all the candles were out. Only a few of the students were sitting together and talking. I sought out my friend, and discovered him lying upon one of the tables in the women's gallery, but he was still awake. 'Why don't you look for a place to lie down in?' he asked me.--'I shall lie here next to you,' I replied.--' No, you can't do that. Here each boy has a place in which he always sleeps; he never changes about. Go down to the men's hall and look for an unoccupied spot. If you find a table, so much the better. If not, you must be satisfied with a bench.'--I did as he advised. I found a long table in the men's hall, but hardly was I stretched out upon it when a boy took me by the scruff of my neck and shook me, saying: 'Get out, this is my place! And all the tables here are taken by boys who came to the Yes.h.i.+bah long ahead of you. You must look for another place.'
”Not very much pleased, I slipped down from the table, and lay on the bench. But I could not go to sleep. I was not accustomed to the narrow board, nor to sleep without a bed-cover, and the little and big insects that swarmed in the cracks of the wood came forth from their nests and tickled me all over my body. But there was nothing to do, and I lay there in discomfort until all the lights were extinguished. Only one light of all burnt the whole night, the _Ner tamid_, and under it sat two students, the 'watchers' [whose duty it was to continue at their task until morning, so that the study of the Law might not be interrupted day or night].”
[Footnote 1: XXVII, 6.]
A life full of excitement, of which the above is a specimen, was not likely to displease so adventurous a spirit as Joseph's. When all is said, the Yes.h.i.+bah provided a living for the young people, not overabundant, it is true, but at least they were relieved of material cares. The pious middle cla.s.s Jews, and even the poor, considered it their duty to supply the needs of the young Talmudists, and the ambition of the latter was satisfied by the general good feeling that prevailed in their favor. For the aristocracy among the Jews, whose minds had not yet been stimulated by the new ideas, the Yes.h.i.+bah was the home of all the virtues, the school in which the ideal was pursued, and lofty dreams were dreamed.
In another novel, ”The Joy of the Hypocrite,” which appeared in Vienna, in 1872, Smolenskin extols the idealism of his hero Simon, a product of the Yes.h.i.+bah:
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