Part 23 (2/2)

”Well,” inquired Savitzki, in Polish, ”no cholera?”

Yossil had once driven out with the town Dayan to a mill to guard wheat for Pa.s.sover, and had there learned a few Polish words. He understood Savitzki's question; the word ”cholera,” in spite of the fact that it represented all his hopes, gave him a pang ”in the seventh rib,” his face twitched, but he composed himself and replied: ”None, honored sir, none!” And without his being conscious of it, the answer rang sadly.

They soon parted. The day following they met again, advancing toward one another.

Yossil stood aside like a soldier saluting, but without putting his hand to his cap; Savitzki stopped a moment to ask:

”Well, not yet?”

”Not yet, honored sir, not yet!” was Yossil's reply.

The third day they met again and remained longer together.

Savitzki questioned him as to whether there was no talk anywhere of diarrhoea and sickness, cholereen, etc., or any other intestinal trouble.

Yossil could not understand everything Savitzki said, but he made a good shot, concluding that he was being asked about sicknesses of a suspicious nature.

”Nothing, honored sir, nothing!” he kept answering. He knew that so far all was quiet in the town.

”Nothing yet, but it will come!” was Savitzki's consoling observation as he walked away.

A little time pa.s.sed, and they had got into the habit, when they met, of walking a few steps together; Savitzki continued to question and to receive the same reply: ”Nothing, sir, nothing,” and still he consoled himself and Yossil with: ”It will come!”

”It must come!” he declared with a.s.surance, and Yossil translated it into Hebrew: ”And although it tarry, I expect it,”[46] and his heart expanded.

He wished the town no harm. Savitzki might wish for a great outbreak of the pestilence, he only desired a little one, a little tiny one. No one was to die, heaven forbid! A few householders should fall ill--nothing more would be necessary. That is all he asks. He does not wish that his greatest enemy should die.

This lasted a month. Savitzki even began to lose patience, and made Yossil a proposal. He felt sure something must be happening, only that people kept it hid. They were afraid of making it known--Jews are so nervous. So he proposed that Yossil should pry, find out, and tell him of only one hidden case, tell him of anything. He would be grateful to him.

Savitzki talked too quick for Yossil and too ”high Polish,” but he understood that Savitzki wished to make a spy of him and have him betray the Jewish sick.

”No,” he thought, ”no, Yossil is not going to turn informer!” He is resolved not to let out a word to Savitzki, and yet, in spite of himself, and for politeness' sake, he nodded in affirmation, and Savitzki walked away.

Yossil's determination not to tell tales strengthened, but there was no reason why he should not find out for himself if they were not concealing something, and he began to go in and out among the people a.s.sembled for daily prayer, to see if no one were missing; if he remarked any one's absence, he tried to discover the reason, but it came to nothing. It always turned out to be that the person had risked his life going out into a village to buy stores; or else he had quarrelled with his wife, and was ashamed to come to the house-of-study with a swollen cheek, or he had been to the Rofeh to have a tooth out and they couldn't stop the bleeding; and other such trifles that had no connection with the object of his interest. And every day he was able to report honestly to Savitzki: ”Nothing, honored sir, nothing!”

Every day now they waited one for the other, and every day they talked longer together.

Yossil endeavored with all his might to make himself intelligible to Savitzki; he worked his hands and his feet, and Savitzki, who had learnt to understand the gestures, had often to save himself from Yossil's too energetic demonstrations.

Savitzki could not make out what Yossil was after, why he kept at a distance from Kohol, and why, as was clearly to be seen, he also wished for the pestilence--but he had no time to busy himself with the problem--to fathom the mind of a Jew. It was probably a matter of business--perhaps he dealt in linen for winding-sheets. Perhaps he made coffins. But when he remarked that Yossil was growing depressed, that he was less sure than Savitzki that it must come to-morrow, he talked to him freely, gave him courage, and made him confident once more that the community would not escape.

To Savitzki it was clear as daylight that it would come. It was getting nearer and nearer--was it not in all the papers?

Six weeks pa.s.sed. The sharp frosts, for which the community was hoping, had not been, but the pestilence desired by Savitzki and Yossil delayed equally. Even Savitzki began to have his doubts, but encouraging Yossil, he encouraged himself in the matter. It was simply impossible that it should not come. Was there a less clean town anywhere? Where else did people eat so many gherkins, so much raw fruit, and as many onions?

Where were they less well provided with cold water? There were perhaps two or three well-to-do people in the place with metal samovars; three to four houses where they made tea; in the rest they drank pear-drink after the Sholent[47] and old, putrid fish was sold galore.

It must come!

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