|
Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers (New York, 1975) Chapter 1: Hester Street I had just begun to
peel the potatoes for dinner when my oldest sister Bessie came in, her eyes
far away and very tired. She dropped on the bench by the sink and turned her
head to the wall. One look at her, and I
knew she had not yet found work. I went on peeling the potatoes, but I no
more knew what my hands were doing. I felt only the dark hurt of her weary
eyes. I was about ten years
old then. But from always it was heavy on my heart the worries for the house
as if I was mother. I knew that the landlord came that morning hollering for
the rent. And the whole family were hanging on
Bessie's neck for her wages. Unless she got work soon, we'd be thrown in the
street to shame and to laughter for the whole world. I already saw all our
things kicked out on the sidewalk like a pile of junk. A plate of pennies
like a beggar's hand reaching out of our bunch of rags. Each sigh of pity
from the passers-by, each penny thrown into the plate was another stab into
our burning shame. Laughter and light
footsteps broke in upon my dark thoughts. I heard the door open. "Give a look only
on these roses for my hat," cried Mashah,
running over to the looking glass over the sink. With excited fingers she
pinned pink paper roses under the brim. Then, putting on her hat again, she
stood herself before the cracked, flystained mirror
and turned her head first on this side and then on the other side, laughing
to herself with the pleasure of how grand her hat was. "Like a lady from
Fifth Avenue I look, and for only ten cents, from a pushcart on Hester
Street." Again the door opened,
and with dragging feet my third sister Fania came
in. Bessie roused herself from the bench and asked, "Nu, Any luck with
you?" "Half the shops
are closed," replied Fania. "They say the
work can't start till they got a new president. And in one place, in a shirt
factory, where they had a sign, 'Girls Wanted,' there was such a crowd of us
tearing the clothes from our bodies and scratching out each other's eyes in
the mad pushings to get in first, that they had to
call two fat policemen with thick clubs to make them stand still on a line
for their turn. And after we waited for hours and hours, only two girls were
taken." Mashah looked up from the mirror. "Didn't I tell
you not to be such a yok and kill yourself pushing
on a line a mile long, when the shop itself couldn't hold those that were
already on the doorstep? All the time that you were wasting yourself waiting
to get in, I walled myself through the stores, to look for a trimming for my
hat." "You heartless
thing!" cried Bessie. "No wonder Father named you 'Empty Head.'
Here you go to look for work, and you come back with pink roses for your doll
face." Undisturbed by the
bitter words, Mashah finished the last stitch and
then hung up her hat carefully over the door. "I'm going to
hear the free music in the park tonight," she laughed to herself, with
the pleasure before her, "and these pink roses on my hat to match out my
pink calico will make me look just like the picture on the magazine
cover." Bessie rushed over to Mashah's fancy pink hat as if to tear it to pieces, but
instead, she tore her own old hat from her head, flung it on the floor, and
kicked it under the stove. Mashah pushed up her shoulders and turned back to the mirror, taking
the hairpins carefully from her long golden hair and fixing it in different
ways. "It ain't my fault if the shops are closed. If I take my lunch
money for something pretty that I got to have, it don't hurt you none." Worry or care of any
kind could never get itself into Mashah's empty
head. Although she lived in the same dirt and trouble with us, nothing ever
bothered her. Everywhere Mashah went men followed her with melting looks. And
these melting looks in men's eyes were like something to eat and something to
drink to her. So that she could go without her lunch money to buy pretty
things for herself, and not starve like the rest of
us. She was no more one of
us than the painted lady looking down from the calendar on the wall. Father's
preaching and Mother's cursing no more bothered her than the far-away noise
from the outside street. When Mashah walked in the street in her everyday work dress
that was cut from the same goods and bought from the same pushcart like the
rest of us, it looked different on her. Her clothes were always so new and
fresh, without the least little wrinkle, like the dressed-up doll lady from
the show window of the grandest department store. Like from a born queen it
shined from her. The pride in her beautiful face, in her golden hair, lifted
her head like a diamond crown. Mashah worked when she had work; but the minute she got home, she was
always busy with her beauty, either retrimming her
hat, or pressing her white collar, or washing and brushing her golden hair.
She lived in the pleasure she got from her beautiful face, as Father lived in
his Holy Torah. Mashah kept part of her clothes in a soapbox under the bed. Everything
in it was wrapped around with newspapers to keep the dirt out. She was so
smart in keeping her things in perfect order that she could push out her box
from under the bed in the middle of the dark night and know exactly where to
put her hand to find her thin lace collar, or her handkerchief, or even her
little beauty pin for the neck of her shirtwaist. High up with a hanger,
on a nail nearly to the ceiling, so that nobody's dirty hands should touch
it, hung Mashah's white starched petticoat, and
over it her pink calico; and all around them, an old sheet was tacked about
with safety pins so she could tell if anybody touched it. It was like a law in
the house that nobody dared touch Mashah's things,
no more than they dared touch Father's Hebrew books, or Mother's precious Jar
of jelly which she always kept ready for company, even in the blackest times,
when we ourselves had nothing to eat. Mashah came home with stories that in rich people's homes they had
silver knives and forks, separate, for each person. And new-ironed
tablecloths and napkins every time they ate on them. And rich people had
marble bathtubs in their own houses, with running hot and cold water all day
and night long so they could take a bath any time they felt like it, instead
of having to stand on a line before the public bath-house, as we had to do
when we wanted a bath for the holidays. But these millionaire things were so
far over our heads that they were like fairy tales. That time when Mashah had work hemming towels in an uptown house, she
came home with another new-rich idea, another money-spending thing, which she
said she had to have. She told us that by those Americans, everybody in the
family had a toothbrush and a separate towel for himself, "not like by
us, where we use one torn piece of a shirt for the whole family, wiping the
dirt from one face on to another." "Empty-head!"
cried Mother. "You don't own the dirt under their doorstep and you want
to play the lady." But when the day for
the wages came, Mashah quietly went to the Five and
Ten Cent Store and bought, not only a toothbrush and a separate towel for herself, but even a separate piece of soap. Mother tore her hair
when she found that Mashah made a leak of thirty cents
in wages where every cent had been counted out. But Mashah
went on brushing her teeth with her new brush and wiping her face with her
new towel. And from that day, the sight of her toothbrush on the shelf and
her white, fancy towel by itself on the wall was like a sign to us all, that Mashah had no heart, no feelings, that millionaire things
willed themselves in her empty head, while the rest of us were wearing out
our brains for only a bite in the mouth. As Mother opened the
door and saw all my sisters home, the market basket
fell from her limp arm. "Still yet no
work?" She wrung her hands. "Six hungry mouths to feed and no wages
coming in." She pointed to her empty basket. "They don't want to
trust me any more. Not the grocer, not the butcher.
And the landlady is tearing from me my flesh, hollering for the rent." Hopelessly, she threw
down her shawl and turned to me. "Did you put the potatoes on to
boil?" Then her eyes caught sight of the peelings I had left in the
sink. "Gazlin! Bandit!" her cry broke through the house.
She picked up the peelings and shook them before my eyes. "You'd think
potatoes grow free in the street. I eat out my heart, running from pushcart
to pushcart, only to bargain down a penny on five pounds, and you cut away my
flesh like a murderer." I felt so guilty for
wasting away so much good eating, I had to do something to show Mother how
sorry I was. It used to be my work to go out early, every morning, while it
was yet dark, and hunt through ash cans for unburned pieces of coal, and
search through empty lots for pieces of wood. But that morning, I had refused
to do it anymore. It made me feel like a beggar and thief when anybody saw
me. "I'd sooner go to
work in a shop," I cried. "Who'll give you
work when you're so thin and small, like a dried-out herring!" "But I'm not
going to let them loon down on me like dirt,
picking people's ashes." And I cried and cried, so that Mother couldn't
make me do it. But now, I quietly
took the pail in my hand and slipped out. I didn't care if the whole world
looked on me. I was going to bring that coal to Mother even if it killed me. "You've got to do
it! You've got to!"" I kept talking to myself as I dug my hand into
the ashes. "I'm not a thief. I'm not a thief. It's only dirt to them.
And it's a fire to us. Let them laugh at me." And I did not return home
till my pail was full of coal. It was now time for
dinner. I was throwing the rags and things from the table to the window, on
the bed, over the chairs, or any place where there was room for them. So much
junk we had in our house that everybody put everything on the table. It was
either to eat on the floor, or for me the job of
cleaning off the junk pile three times a day. The school teacher's rule,
"A place for everything, and everything in its place," was no good
for us because there weren't enough places. As the kitchen was
packed with furniture, so the front room was packed with Father's books. They
were on the shelf, on the table, on the window sill, and in soapboxes lined
up against the wall. When we came to
America, instead of taking along feather beds, and the samovar, and the brass
pots and pans, like other people, Father made us carry his books. When Mother
begged only to take along her pot for gefulte fish,
and the two feather beds that were handed down to her from her grandmother
for her wedding presents, Father wouldn't let her. "Woman""
Father said, laughing into her eyes. "What for will you need old feather
beds? Don't you know it's always summer in America? And in the new golden
country, where milk and honey flows free in the streets, you'll have new
golden dishes to cook in, and not weigh yourself down with your old pots and
pans. But my books, my holy books always were, and always will be, the light
of the world. You'll see yet how all America will come to my feet to
learn." No one was allowed to
put their things in Father's room, any more than they were allowed to use Mashah's hanger. Of course, we all knew
that if God had given Mother a son, Father would have permitted a man child
to share with him his best room in the house. A boy could say prayers after
his father's death— that kept the father's soul alive forever. Always Father
was throwing up to Mother that she had borne him no son to be an honour to his days and to say prayers for him when he
died. The prayers of his
daughters didn't count because God didn't listen to women. Heaven and the
next world were only for men. Women could get into Heaven because they were
wives and daughters of men. Women had no brains for the study of God's Torah,
but they could be the servants of men who studied the Torah. Only if
they cooked for the men, and washed for the men, and didn't nag or curse the
men out of their homes; only if they let the men study the Torah in peace,
then, maybe, they could push themselves into Heaven with the men to wait on
them there. And so, since men were
the only people who counted with God, Father not only had the best room for
himself, for his study and prayers, but also the best eating of the house.
The fat from the soup and the top from the milk went always to him. Mother had just put
the soup pot and plates for dinner on the table, when Father came in. At the first look on
Mother's face he saw how she was boiling, ready to burst, so instead of
waiting for her to begin her hollering, he started: "Woman! when will you stop darkening the house with your worries
?" "When I'll have a
man who does the worrying. Does it ever enter your head that the rent was not
paid the second month? That today we're eating the last loaf of bread that
the grocer trusted me?" Mother tried to squeeze the hard, stale loaf
that nobody would buy for cash. "You're so busy working for Heaven that
I have to suffer here such bitter hell." We sat down to the
table. With watering mouths and glistening eyes we watched Mother skimming
off every bit of fat from the top soup into Father's big plate, leaving for
us only the thin, watery part. We watched Father bite into the sour
pickle which was special for him only; and waited, trembling with hunger, for
our portion. Father made his prayer, thanking God for the food. Then he
said to Mother: "What is there to
worry about, as long as we have enough to keep the breath in our bodies? But
the real food is God's Holy Torah." He shook her gently by the shoulder,
and smiled down at her. At Father's touch Mother's sad face turned into
smiles. His kind look was like the sun shining on' her. "Shenah!" he called her by her first name, to show
her he was feeling good. "I'll tell you a story that will cure you of
all your worldly cares." All faces fumed to
Father. Eyes widened, necks stretched, ears strained not to miss a word. The
meal was forgotten as he began: "Rabbi Chanina Ben Dosa was a
starving, poor man who had to live on next to nothing. Once, his wife
complained: 'We're so good, so pious, you give up
nights and days in the study of the Holy Torah. Then why don't God provide
for you at least enough to eat ?' . . . 'Riches you want ?' said Rabbi Chanina Ben Dosa. 'All right, woman. You shall have your wish.' . . That very evening he went out into the fields
to pray. Soon the heavens opened, and a Hand reached down to him and gave him
a big chunk of gold. He brought it to his wife, and said: 'Go buy with this
all the luxuries of the earth.' . . . She was so happy, as she began planning
all she would buy next day. Then she fell asleep. And in her dream, she saw
herself and her husband sitting with all the saints in Heaven. Each couple
had a golden table between themselves. When the Good Angel put down for them
their wine, their table shook so that half of it was spilled. Then she
noticed that their table had a leg missing, and that is why it was so shaky. And
the Good Angel explained to her that the chunk of gold that her husband had
given her the night before was the missing leg of their table. As soon as she
woke up, she begged her husband to pray to God to take back the gold he had
given them. . . . 'I'll be happy and thankful to live in poverty, as long as
I know that our reward will be complete in Heaven."' Mother licked up
Father's every little word, like honey. Her eyes followed his shining eyes as
he talked. " Nu, Shenah ? " He wagged his head. " Do you want gold on earth, or wine of Heaven?" "I'm only a
sinful woman," Mother breathed, gazing up at him. Her fingers stole a
touch of his hand, as if he were the king of the world. "God be praised
for the little we have. I'm willing to give up all my earthly needs for the
wine of Heaven with you. But, Moisheh"—she
nudged him by the sleeve— "God gave us children. They have a life to
live yet, here, on earth. Girls have to get married. People point their
fingers on me -- a daughter, twenty-five years already, and not married yet.
And no dowry to help her get married." "Woman! Stay in
your place!" His strong hand pushed her away from him. "You're
smart enough to bargain with the fish-peddler. But I'm the head of this
family. I give my daughters brains enough to marry when their time comes,
without the worries of a 'dowry." "Nu, you're the
head of the family." Mother's voice rose in anger. "But what will
you do if your books are thrown in the street?" At the mention of his
books, Father looked up quickly. "What do you want
me to do?" "Take your things
out from the front room to the kitchen, so I could rent your room to
boarders. If we don't pay up the rent very soon, we'll all be in the
street." "I have to have a
room for my books. Where will I put them?" "I'll push my
things out from under the bed. And you can pile up your books in the window
to the top, because nothing but darkness comes through that window, anyway.
I'll do anything, work the nails off my fingers,
only to be free from the worry for rent.' " But where will I have quiet for my studies in this crowded kitchen?
I have to be alone in a room to think with God." "Only
millionaires can be alone in America. By Zalmon the
fish-peddler, they're squeezed together, twelve people, in one kitchen. The
bedroom and the front room his wife rents out to boarders. If I could cook
their suppers for them, I could even earn yet a few cents from their
eating." "Woman, have your
way. Take in your boarders, only to have peace in the house." The next day, Mother
and I moved Father's table and his chair with a back, and a cushion to sit
on, into the kitchen. We scrubbed the front
room as for a holiday. Even the windows were washed. We pasted down the
floppy wall paper, and on the worst part of the wall, where the plaster was
cracked and full of holes, we hung up calendars and pictures from the Sunday
newspapers. Mother sent me to Muhmenkeh, the herring woman on the corner, for the loan
of a feather bed. She came along to help me carry it. "Long years on
you" cried Mother, as she took the feather bed from Muhmenkeh's
arm. "Long years and
good luck on us all!" Muhmenkeh answered. Muhmenkeh worked as hard for the pennies as anybody on the block. But her
heart was big with giving all the time from the little she had. She didn't
have the scared, worried look that pinched and squeezed the blood out of the
faces of the poor. It breathed from her the feeling of plenty, as if she had
Rockefeller's millions to give away. "You could charge
your boarders twice as much for the sleeping, if you give them a bed with
springs, instead of putting the feather bed on the floor," said Muhmenkeh. "Don't I know
that a bed with a spring is a good thing? But you have to have money for
it." "I got an old
spring in the basement. I'll give it to you." "But the spring
needs a bed with feet." "Do as I done.
Put the spring over four empty herring pails and you'll have a bed fit for
the president. Now put a board over the potato barrel, and a clean newspaper
over that, and you'll have a table. All you need yet
is a soapbox for a chair, and you'll have a furnished room complete." Muhmenkeh's bent old body tottered around on her lame foot, as she helped
us. Even Mother forgot for a while her worries, so like a healing medicine
was Muhmenkeh's sunshine. "Ach!" sighed Mother, looking about the furnished room complete,
"God should only send a man for Bessie, to marry herself in good
luck." "Here's your
chance to get a man for her without the worry for a dowry. If God is good, he
might yet send you a rich boarder—" From the kitchen came
Father's voice chanting: " When the poor seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I, the Lord, will hear them. I, the
God of Israel, will not forsake them." Mother put her hand
over Muhmenkeh's mouth to stop her talking. Silent,
breathless, we peeked in through the open crack in the door. The black satin
skullcap tipped on the side of his head set off his red hair and his long red
beard. And his ragged satin coat from Europe made him look as if he just stepped
out of the Bible. His eyes were raised to God. His two white hands on either
side of the book, his whole body swaying with his song: "And I will bring
the blind by a way that they know not; I will lead them in paths that they hare not known; I will make darkness light before them,
and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them and not forsake
them." Mother's face lost all
earthly worries. Forgotten were beds, mattresses, boarders, and dowries.
Father's holiness filled her eyes with light. "Is there any
music on earth like this?" Mother whispered to Muhmenkeh. "Who would ever
dream that in America, where everything is only business and business, in
such a lost corner as Hester Street lives such a fine, such a pure, silken
soul as Reb Smolinsky?" "If he was only
so fit for this world, like he is fit for Heaven, then I wouldn't have to
dry, out the marrow from my head worrying for the rent." His voice flowed into
us deeper and deeper. We couldn't help ourselves. We were singing with him: "Sing, O heavens;
and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains; for the
Lord hath comforted his people!" Suddenly, it grew dark
before our eyes. The collector lady from the landlord! We did not hear her
till she banged open the door. Her hard eyes glared at Father. "My
rent!"" she cried, waving her thick diamond fingers before Father's
face. But he didn't see her or hear her. He went on chanting: "Awake! Awake!
Put on strength, O arm of the Lord: Awake, as in ancient days, in the
generations of old. Art thou not he that hath cut Rahab
and wounded the dragon?" "Schnorrer!" shrieked the landlady, her fat face red
with rage. "My rent!"" Father blinked his
eyes and stared at the woman with a far-off look..
"What is it? What do you went?" "Don't you know
me? Haven't I come often enough? My rent! My rent! My rent I
want!"" "Oh-h, your
rent?" Father met her angry glare with an innocent smile of surprise.
"Your rent? As soon as the girls get work, we'll pay you out, little by
little." "Pay me out, little
by littler! The cheek of those dirty immigrants! A
fool I was, giving them a chance another month." "But we haven't
the money." His voice was kind and gentle, as hers was rough and loud. "Why haven't you
the money for rent?" she shouted. "The girls have
been out of work." Father's innocent look was not of this earth.
Little red threads
burned out of Father's eyes. He rose slowly, but quicker than lightning
flashed his hand. A scream broke through the air. Before we had breath
enough to stop him, Father slapped the landlady on one cheek, then on the other,
till the blood rushed from her nose. "You painted
piece of flesh!" cried Father. "I'll teach you respect for the Holy
Torah!" Screaming, the
landlady rushed out, her face dripping blood as she ran. Before we knew what
or where, she came back with two policemen. In front of our dumb eyes we saw
Father handcuffed, like a thief, and taken away to the station house. Bessie and Fania came home still without work. When they heard that
Father was arrested it was as though their heads were knocked off. Into this thick
sadness, Mashah came, beautiful and smiling, like a
doll from a show window. She hung up her hat with its pink roses on her nail
on the wall, and before she had time to give a look at her things in the box,
to see that nobody had touched them, she rushed over to the mirror, and with
her smile of pleasure in herself, she said: "A man in the
place where I was looking for work asked to take me home. And when I wouldn't
let him, still he followed me. The freshness of these men! I can't walk the
street without a million eyes after me." Silence and gloom were
her only answer. Mashah stopped talking;
turning from the mirror, for the first time gave a look at us. "What happened?
It's like a funeral in the house." "The landlord's
collector lady was here and " "Well? What of
it?" "She was
hollering for the rent." "Then why didn't
they pay her the rent?" asked the innocent doll face. "
Don't everybody pay rent ? Mother began to scream
and knock her head with her fists. "A stone !
An empty-headed, brainless stone I had for a child. My own daughter, living
in the same house with us, asking, 'Why did the landlady come? Why don't they
pay her the rent [. . .]" Not listening to Mother's cursing and
screaming, Mashah looked about for something to
eat. The stove was cold. No food was on the table. "Why ain't there
something to eat ? I'm starved." Then Mashah caught sight of two quarters on the table that Muhmenkeh had left when she came to comfort us. "What should I
buy for supper?" Mashah asked, reaching for
the money. "Mammeh!" I begged. "Let me only go out to peddle
with something. I got to bring in money if nobody is working." "Woe is me!"
Mother cried. "How can I stand it? An empty-head on one side and a craziness on the other side." "Nobody is
working and we got to eat," I kept begging. "If I could only peddle
with something I could bring in money." "Let me alone.
Crazy-head. No wonder your father named you 'Blut-und-Eisen.' When she begins to want a thing, there is no
rest, no let-up till she gets it. It wills itself in you to play peddler and
waste away the last few cents we got." "As long as we're
not working," said Bessie, "whatever Sara will earn will be
something. Even only a few cents will buy a loaf of bread." Without waiting for
Mother to say yes, I ran out with the quarter in my hand. I saw Mashah go to a pushcart of frankfurters. But I, with my
quarter, ran straight to Muhmenkeh. "I got to do
something," I yelled like a fire engine. "Nobody is working by us.
Nobody! Nobody! What should I buy to sell quick to
earn money?" Muhmenkeh thought for a minute, then said,
"I got some old herring left in the bottom of this barrel. They're a
little bit squashed, but they ain't spoiled yet, and you'll be able to sell
them cheap because I'll give them to you for nothing." "No—no! I'm no
beggar!" I cried. "I want to go into business like a person. I must
buy what I got to sell." And I held up the same quarter that Muhmenkeh had given Mother. "Good luck on
you, little heart!" Muhmenkeh's old eyes
smiled into mine. "Go, make yourself for a person. Pick yourself out twenty-five
herring at a penny apiece. You can easy sell them at two cents, and maybe the
ones that ain't squeezed for three cents. On the corner of the
most crowded part of Hester Street I stood myself with my pail of herring. "Herring!
Herring! A bargain in the world! Pick them out yourself. Two cents
apiece." My voice was like
dynamite. Louder than all the pushcart peddlers, louder than all the
hollering noises of bargaining and selling, I cried out my herring with all
the burning fire of my ten old years. So loud was my yelling, for my
little size, that people stopped to look at me. And more came to see what the
others were looking at. "Give only a look
on the saleslady," laughed a big fat woman with a full basket. "Also a
person," laughed another, "also fighting already for the bite in
the mouth." "How old are you,
little skinny bones ? Ain't your father working ? " I didn't hear. I
couldn't listen to their smartness. I was burning up inside me with my
herring to sell. Nothing was before me but the hunger in our house, and no
bread for the next meal if I didn't sell the herring. No longer like a fire
engine, but like a houseful of hungry mouths my heart cried, " Herring
—herring! Two cents apiece!" First one woman bought.
And then another and another. Some women didn't even stop to pick out the
herring, but let me wrap it up for them in the newspaper, without even a look
if it was squashed or not. And before the day was over my last herring was
sold. I counted my greasy fifty pennies. Twenty-five cents profit.
Richer than Rockefeller, I felt. I was always saying to
myself, if I ever had a quarter or a half dollar in my hand, I'd run away
from home and never look on our dirty house again. But now I was so happy
with my money, I didn't think of running away, I only wanted to show them
what I could do and give it away to them. It began singing in my
heart, the music of the whole Hester Street. The pushcart peddlers yelling
their goods, the noisy playing of children in the gutter, the women pushing
and shoving each other with their market baskets—all that was only hollering
noise before melted over me like a new beautiful song. It began dancing
before my eyes, the twenty-five herring that earned me my twenty-five cents.
It lifted me in the air, my happiness. I couldn't help it. It began
dancing under my feet. And I couldn't stop myself. I danced into our kitchen.
And throwing the fifty pennies, like a shower of gold, into my mother's lap,
I cried, "Now, will you yet call me crazy-head? Give only a look what
'Blood-and-iron' has done." Chapter 20: Hugo Seelig The windows of my
classroom faced the same crowded street where seventeen years ago I started
out my career selling herring. The same tenements with fire escapes full of
pillows and feather beds. The same wizened, tawny-faced organ-grinder
mechanically turning out songs that were all the music I knew of in my
childhood. How intoxicating were those old tunes of the hurdy-gurdy! I'd
leave my basket of herring in the middle of the sidewalk, forget all my
cares, and leap into the dance with that wild abandon of the children of the
poor. But more even than the
music of the hurdy-gurdy was the inspiring sight of the teacher as she passed
the street. How thrilled I felt if I could brush by Teacher's skirt and look
up into her face as she passed me. If I was lucky enough to win a glance or a
smile from that superior creature, how happy I felt for the rest of the day!
I had it ingrained in me from my father, this exalted reverence for the
teacher. Now I was the teacher.
Why didn't I feel as I had supposed this superior creature felt? Why had I
not the wings to fly with ? Where was the vision lost ? The goal was here. Why was I so silent, so
empty! All labour now—and so far from the light. I longed for the close,
human touch of life again. My job was to teach—to feed hungry children. How
could I give them milk when my own breasts were empty? Maybe after all my
puffing myself up that I was smarter, more self-sufficient than the rest of the
world —wasn't Father right ? He always preached, a woman alone couldn't enter Heaven. "It says in
the Torah: A woman without a man is less than nothing. No life on earth, no
hope of Heaven." Not one of the
teachers around me had kept the glamour. They were just peddling their little
bit of education for a living, the same as any pushcart peddler. But no. There was one
in this school who was what I had dreamed a teacher to be -- the principal,
Mr. Hugo Seelig. He had kept that living thing,
that flame, that I used to worship as a child. And
yet he had none of the aloof dignity of a superior. He was just plain human.
When he entered a classroom sunlight filled the place. How had he created
that big spirit around him? What a long way I had to go yet before I could
become so wholly absorbed in my work as he. The youngest, dirtiest child in
the lowest grade he treated with the same courtesy and serious attention as
he gave to the head of the department. One of Mr. Seelig's special hobbies was English pronunciation, and
since I was new to the work, he would come in sometimes to see how I was
getting on. My children used to murder the language as I did when I was
a child of Hester Street. And I wanted to give them that better speech that
the teachers in college had tried to knock into me. Sometimes my task
seemed almost hopeless. There was Aby Zuker, the brightest eleven-year-old boy in my class of
fifty. He had the neighbourhood habit of ending
almost every sentence with "ain't it." For his special home work I had given him a sentence with the words
"isn't it" to be written a hundred times. The next morning he
brought it back and with a shining face declared, "I got it all right
now, Teacher! Ain't it ? " "Oh, Aby!" I cried. "And you want to be a lawyer!
Don't you know the judges will laugh you out of court if you plead your case
with 'ain't it'?" Poor Aby! His little fingers scratched his mop of red curls in
puzzlement. From his drooping figure I turned, laughing, to the class. "Now, children,
let's see how perfectly we can pronounce the words we went over
yesterday." On the board I wrote,
S-I-N-G. "Aby! Pronounce this word." "Sing-gha," said Aby. "Sing," I
corrected. "Sing-gha," came from Aby again. " Rosy Stein, you can do better. Show our lawyer how to speak. Make a
sentence with the word 'sing."' "The boids sing-gha." "Rosy, say
bird." "Boid," repeated small Rosy with great distinctness. " Boid." "Wrong
still," I laughed. "Children, how do you pronounce this ?" And I wrote hastily on the board, OIL. "Earl,"
cried the class, triumphantly. "You know how to
make the right sounds for these words, but you put them in the opposite
places." And I began to drill them in pronunciation. In the middle of
the chorus, I heard a little chuckle. I turned to see Mr. Seelig
himself, who had quietly entered the room and stood enjoying the performance.
I returned his smile and went right on. "You try it
again, Rosy. The birds sing-gg." "Sing,"
corrected Mr. Seelig, softly. There it was. I was
slipping back into the vernacular myself. In my embarrassment, I tried again
and failed. He watched me as I blundered on. The next moment he was close
beside me, the tips of his cool fingers on my throat. "Keep those
muscles still until you have stopped. Now say it again," he commanded.
And I turned pupil myself and pronounced the word correctly. As he was leaving the
room he turned to me with great gentleness and said, "When you dismiss
the class, will you step into my office? I must see you." The door closed. I
tried to go on with the work, but my mind kept going round and round the one thought,
"I'm going to see him at three. What has he to say to me? Was something
wrong with my work? And yet he seemed pleased and so gentle." His face. The features
-- all fineness and strength. The keen, kind, gray eyes. A Jewish face, and
yet none of the greedy eagerness of Hester Street any more. It was the face
of a dreamer, set free in the new air of America. Not like Father with his
eyes on the past, but a dreamer who had found his work among us of the East
Side. For the next hour I
was more rattle-brained than my worst children. How could I come down to
geography and spelling ? I kept looking at the
clock, counting the minutes to three. The bell rang. Thank God! It was
time to dismiss the class. I took a quick look at myself in the mirror,
powdered my face, straightened my hair, and hurried to Mr. Seelig's office. The moment I stepped
into the room I was brought to my senses by the cold, business-like
atmosphere. Mr. Seelig rose from his chair. Gravely,
without even a word of greeting, he handed me an opened letter. "Perhaps
you had better read this." And this is what I read: To the Mr. Principal,
school for the public. I want you to know
about Sara Smolinsky who lets her own father starve
and no rent. So he should be thrown in the street to shame and to laughter
for the whole world. Is it not a disgrace for the schools from America that
you have a teacher learning the children who is such a mean stingy to her own
blood? If you have the fear of God in your heart, you will yourself see that
at least half her wages should go to her poor old father who is a smarter man
as she is a teacher. Every drop of blood
seemed to leave my heart. My first impulse was to cry out to him, "It's
falser. All falser" and pour out to him the whole story of my wretched
life. But I simply stood there trembling like a guilty thing. How could I
ever make clear to him my father? The blackness upon me was like the
last gasp of drowning. . . . It's the end. He despises me. He'll send me from
his school. Mr. Seelig must have seen how I stood crushed with shame. For
when I looked up, his head was turned. He was busy reading papers on his
desk, as if he had forgotten that I was there. I fled from the room.
Did he call me? I thought he spoke my name. But I had no strength to turn and
look at him. My hate for Father, which Mother's death had softened,
boiled up in me like poison. Never would I look at him or his wife again. A
blackmailer—a blood-sucker—that's what she was! This disgrace which they had
heaped on me was the bottom end. I wanted to tear the roots of my father out
of my flesh and bones, force my heart and brain to blot him out of my soul.
But through that night of suffering, even hate bled out of me. I was a ruined
thing without purpose -- without hope. I was no more. The next day was lead.
Mechanically, I dragged my feet to school. Mechanically, I went through the
routine of the class work. But the children were so much dead wood in front
of me. What I was saying to them, or what they were answering, made no
difference. I was so tired, I saw nothing, heard nothing, and yet what was
left of me was waiting for the worst to happen—condemned to lose my job -- my
life condemned by him. Three o'clock came.
The blow had not yet fallen. Today, at least, I could get back to my little
place and hide myself from my shame. The children seemed to crawl out of the
room instead of running as usual. Aby Zucker and Rosy Stein lingered with questions about their
home work. It was as if they were trying to spite
my misery. At last they were all
out. And yet I had no energy to move. I stood paralyzed, waiting. . . .
Suddenly, my breath stopped! There! Mr. Seelig. I
felt him come in and I couldn't look up.... Let him dismiss me. I was dead
anyway. . .. After a moment, I dared lift my eyes.
Why, he was smiling! "I have a
compliment for you. Mrs. Stein says that Rosy is a changed girl since she has
been in your class." I just couldn't speak.
It was all I could do to meet his eyes. That dreadful letter! He seemed to
have forgotten all about it. He was still my friend. We walked out of the
building together. At the street corner he turned to me. "Do you take the
L or car?" he asked. "I usually walk
home." "So do I,"
he smiled. "I think we go in the same direction." We fell into step and
for many blocks not a word passed between us. I only felt an enveloping
friendliness going out of his heart to mine. A sudden commotion! Wild shrieks
jerked us out of ourselves to the street around us. A little boy who ran
madly into the middle of the street for his rolling marble was caught in the
crowding traffic. Mr. Seelig and I rushed over in
one breath and dragged him almost from under the wheels of a racing truck.Before we could get to the curb, a woman, weeping
and laughing hysterically, snatched the child from us. "Gazlin !
Murderer! How you blacken me my days!" she cried, shaking and cuffing
him. "Tatter-iu! Only to get rid of this devil
once for all!" It was some moments before we could rescue the child from
the animal fury of the mother. And afterwards we
became aware that we had gripped each other's hands fiercely. Something in
what happened had drawn us suddenly together. We were too filled for small
talk the rest of the way, and before we knew it we had reached Thirtieth
Street and stood before my house. "We've arrived. I
think both of us deserve some tea after our exciting adventure." I fairly ran in my joy
and rushed to my room a whole flight of stairs ahead of him to see that
everything was in order. I snatched up the stockings and wash I had drying on
the radiator and threw them in the basket. All excitement, I opened the
door and showed off my room for the first time. My plain room that I loved,
how would it look to another? Anxiously, I watched him as he looked slowly
around. "How beautiful and empty!" he cried. I sighed with
happiness. "Years ago, I vowed to myself that if I could ever tear
myself out of the dirt I'd have only clean emptiness." He nodded
understandingly. How great it felt to break my long loneliness and warm up my
home with another presence. I lit the lamp under the tea kettle for the first
time for two instead of one. "I like your nice
dishes," he said, as we sat down. "Because I live
alone, I must have my table beautiful. It's company." We got to talking
about ourselves, our families, the Old World from which we came. To our
surprise we found that our beginnings were the same. We came from the same
government in Poland, from villages only a few miles apart. Our families had
uprooted themselves from the same land and adventured out to the New World. For a moment we looked
at each other, breathless with the wonderful discovery. "Landsleute countrymen" we cried, in one voice, our
hands reaching out to each other. "What do you
remember of Poland?" he asked, in a low voice. "Nothing—nothing
at all. Back of me, it's like black night." "I remember a
little," he said. "The mud hut where we lived, the cows, the
chickens, and all of us living in one room. I remember the dark, rainy
morning we started on our journey, how the whole village, old and young,
turned out to say good-bye. When we came to the seaport, I couldn't eat their
bread, because it had no salt. We thought we should starve going to America.
But as soon as we got on the ship, they gave us so much that first meal that
we couldn't touch another bite for days." After that, all
differences dropped away We talked one language. We had sprung from one soil. "How strangely
things work out," I said, with a new feeling of familiarity. "You
got this blackmailing letter. And yet here we are born friends." "Why shouldn't we
be? You and I, we are of one blood." We fell into a silence.
All the secret places of my heart opened at the moment. And then the whole
story of my life poured itself out of me to him. Father, Mother, my sisters.
And Father's wife' with her greed for diamond earrings. As I talked my whole
dark past dropped away from me. Such a sense of release! Now I could go on
and on—I could never again be lonely. "I understood
everything the moment I read that letter," he said. "It's queer,
how people get to know one another. That mean letter, instead of turning me
against you, drew me to you. I knew you weren't that kind. As for your
father, I know just the kind of an old Jew he is. After all, it's from him
that you got the iron for the fight you had to make to be what you are
now." I looked at him in
wide wonder. "What a mind reader you are! You understand not only me but
even my father whom you've never yet seen. He used to call me 'Blut-und-Eisen."' And then I told him of
the hard heart. How I had to cut out everything soft in my life only to
survive. He took hold of both my hands. "You hard! You've got the fibre of a strong, live spruce tree that grows in
strength the more it's knocked about by the wind. When men go to sea they set
the spruce for their mast." We had lost all sense
of time and it was dusk when he rose to go. "Next time when
we are together we must spend it outdoors," he said, "and try to
remember more about Poland." Next time! So there
was going to be a next time, my heart rejoiced! I stood looking at his
chair feeling him still in the room for hours after, and my last feeling as I
closed my eyes was: I'm no longer alone. I'm no longer alone! Chapter 21: Man Born
of Woman One day, three months
later, I walked out of school. It was a cold, drizzling rain, but my heart
sang with the gladness of sunshine. That night Hugo was coming to have dinner
with me. Why were my years of lonely struggle unlit by the hope that I
might some day be as happy as I was now ? Why did I ever feel cheated and robbed of the life
that more fortunate girls seemed to have ? And here
I had so much more than my heart could hold! But as I walked along
through Hester Street toward the Third Avenue L, my joy hurt like guilt.
Lines upon lines of pushcart peddlers were crouching in the rain. Backs bent,
hands in their sleeves, ears under their collars, grimy faces squeezed into
frozen masks. They were like animals helpless against the cold, pitiless
weather. Wasn't there some way
that I could divide my joy with these shivering pushcart peddlers, grubbing
for pennies in the rain? I felt like Carnegie and Rockefeller trying to give
away the millions they could not spend. Why was my happiness so hard to be
enjoyed? I felt like one sitting down to a meal while all the people around
him were howling hungry. I felt as if all the beauty of the world
that ever was ached in me to pour itself out on the people around. I felt
like the sun so afire with life that it can't help but shine on the whole
world—the just and the unjust alike. A longing to see
Father came over me. What had happened to him in all those months? I could
stifle my conscience no longer. Wife or no wife, I had to see what I could do
for him. Even his wife I could not hate any more. For after all, it was her
blackmailing letter that had opened Hugo's eyes to me. Poor women! Poor
people of Hester Street ! With new pity I looked at
them. I hurried on, but the verve of my winged walk was dulled by the thick,
shuffling tread of those who walked beside me. My own shoulders, that I
always held so straight, sagged because of the bowed backs that hemmed me in. The sadness of it
chilled the glow I usually felt when I got to my peaceful room. Hugo's red
roses on my table almost I could have wept for them. So full and rich with
lovely colour, so heartlessly perfect, so shamelessly beautiful that it hurt
to look at them. I didn't want them if they were only for me. I leaned
out of the open window and saw the city as it lay below me, sharp and black
and grimy. The smoke of those houses kept rising sullenly, until I couldn't
help but breathe the soot of that far-reaching tragedy below. Ach! You—with your
always guilty conscience! Why can 't you be happy
when you're lucky enough to have a little respite of happiness? Why do you
have to make yourself so miserable because for the first time in your life
you know a little bit of love? Fool! Get yourself dressed. I threw off my dark
school dress and put on my new challis. I turned to the mirror. How becoming
was that soft green with that touch of rose embroidery. How well it suited my
pale skin and dark hair that I learned to braid so becomingly around my head!
I hope Hugo will like it. The telephone rang. It
was Hugo, telling me that he was held up by the Board of Education meeting
and asking me to join him at Orloff's Cafe on East
Broadway. So happy I was in a
moment. Forgotten were the sorrows of the world. How could I most quickly get
to him? I ran to the car. But when I got off at Grand Street, I was blocked
by the usual jam of evening traffic. I stood impatiently on the corner with a
crowd of people, waiting for the policeman to stop the stream of trucks and taxis.
As his whistle sounded and we rushed for the other side, I was shoved against
an old man with a tray of chewing gum. The sudden impact knocked his wares
out of his hands. In spite of my excited haste to get to Hugo, I stopped to
help the old man pick up the rolling packages. With my fresh handkerchief, I
wiped the mud from each piece and dropped it back into his tray. "Thank you,
lady!"
" Father! You—you—here ? " He fell back against
the door and stared at me, the sorrows of the whole world in his tragic eyes "Well—well,"
he jerked out, his teeth clacking together with the cold. "Let the world
see the shame —the shame that my daughters heaped on me. What's an old father
to heartless American children? Have they any religion? Any fear of God?
Do they know what it means, 'Honour thy father'?
What else can I do to support myself and her? She drove me out to bring her
in money." "You let
that woman boss you?" I burst out, furiously. "Have I children
like other people's children who carry their father like a crown on their
heads? Have they provided for me as God-fearing children provide for an old
father? With all I have done for my daughters—the morals I soaked into them,
the religion I preached into them from the day they were born —yet they leave
me in my old age, as they left King Lear—broken—forgotten.... God! What have
I sinned to come to this? I, Reb Smolinsky—down among the pushcarts." How changed he was!
How old and suffering! He, the master—with the stoop of poverty on his back!
And I had been so happy! He began to cough,
shivering with the cold. "His days are counted," my heart cried.
Who would nurse him and watch over him? That woman? Mother's dying eyes rose
before me. Her last words, " Be good to Father.
I leave him in his old age, when he needs me most. Helpless as a child he
is." I looked at Father with Mother's eyes. I saw in him only the child
who needed mothering—who must be protected from the hard cruelties of the
world. "Come," I
said, fighting back the tears. "It's raining hard. Let's better
go." "Where? Where
shall I go? In your house shall I got" "I'll take you
home. I'll see that you get what you need." I took his arm and led
him away. He trembled against me as we trudged along. When I looked into his
face, his eyes were half closed and his lips blue. He did not speak. He
walked on, in silence, proud as ever. At his door I stopped.
All visions of doing things for him were checked by that door. That woman!
How I dreaded facing her! But he needs me! To hell with my feelings. He needs
me! I opened the door with
determination and walked in. Thank God! She was not around! I could help him.
He sank back weakly in his chair, and he let me take off his wet shoes and
the torn rags of stockings that clung to his old feet. Supporting himself on
me, he staggered to the bed. As I tucked the covers around him, I felt the
shrunken bones where once the rounded flesh had been. How he had wasted since
Mother had died! How neglected he looked! How helpless! He's like a poor
orphan with a stepmother. I had hated him. But where was that hate now? Whom else had he in this world if not me? How could I
leave him in his need ? Tears strained in my
throat as I bent over him, offering him some hot tea. But he pushed away the
glass, muttering deliriously. In a panic, I left him and ran for the doctor.
. . . How could I have hated him and tried to blot him out of my life? Can I
hate my arm, my hand that is part of me? Can a tree hate the roots from which
it sprang? Deeper than love, deeper than pity, is that oneness of the flesh
that's in him and in me. Who gave me the fire, the passion, to push myself up
from the dirt? If I grow, if I rise, if I ever amount to something, is it not
his spirit burning in me? . . . When I returned, the
woman was there. She met me with hostile daggers in her eyes and a shower of
reproaches. "Now, when your
father is already dying. Now you come to him," she shouted. "When
weeks and months passed and we were starving, you did not come near.
Now, when he has only a few hours to live, now you come, dear, kind,
good-hearted, dutiful daughter." I paid no attention to
her but went to Father's bedside. He was burning with fever, groaning end
gasping for breath. "And what'll
become of me now that he's dying?" she began to howl at the top of her
voice. The doctor came and
examined him. As I saw him sitting by the bed, I realized that he was the
same doctor who had attended to Mother. I recalled the day when he had
advised her to have her foot amputated. Mother's dying eyes. The gray, cold
face in the coffin. Through fogs of fear I struggled to think how best to
take care of Father. Should I hire a nurse or get a leave of absence from school ? But the woman's howling lamentations would not
let me think. "What has God
against me?" she wailed. "What sin have I done? Haven't I always
been a good woman, an honest woman, a virtuous woman ?
Haven't I nursed my first husband to his grave? Haven't I done all my duties
to him, my second husband ? God! My God! Why is it
coming to me to be a widow the second time?" The doctor stopped her
impatiently. "This is no time for noise," he said. " If you want your husband to get well, give him
quiet." It was not necessary
to get a nurse, he thought, or even for me to be absent from school. The
woman could wait on him the first part of
the day, and I could take my turn in the afternoon and evening. The
minute school was over, next day, I rushed back. "Your father is
worse," his wife greeted me. "He refuses to take his medicine.
Maybe he can't swallow anymore. He's an old man. And it's his end." In her eyes I seemed
to see a look of secret triumph. "Soon," those eyes said,
"he'll die and I'll have his lodge money to marry again."
Shuddering, I turned from her and hurried over to Father. Yes. He was worse. His
eyes were closed. His cheeks burning. "Father!" I
stroked his hot hand, gently. "You must take this medicine. It will take
away your fever and stop your cough." His dull eyes opened
and gazed up at me pitifully. "I'll take it
from you. Only stay with me," he begged. "I'm afraid to take the
medicine from her. She might do something." His fingers closed on my arm
to pull me nearer to him. But the strength had gone from that dominating
hand. In weakness and helplessness the poor flesh clung desperately to me.
"I'm all alone," he whispered. "She isn't like Mother. She's
only waiting for my death." A cough shook him. He
groaned with pain. At the sound of his voice, she hurried out of the kitchen."Where does it hurt you? Are you feeling
worse?" she asked. "No. No. I'm
better." In her presence he
tried to control his groans and hide his pain. He even struggled to sit up.
His hand clutched at the bosom of my dress. "Bring me my book," he
whispered. I brought it to him. His feeble fingers caressed the worn,
yellowed pages of his beloved book of Job. With his last strength, his faded
eyes strained to drink in the words that were his life. Anxiety and lack of
sleep had exhausted me. And in spite of myself, I dozed off at the foot of
his bed. Then through the haze of semi-consciousness, I heard the woman
pleading, slyly, "Tell me only, where do you keep your lodge papers? Is
there any one who owes you money? Maybe you got yet
insurance on your life? " "Leave me
alone," his faint voice reached me. "I breathe yet." "But you're in
God's hands. You can't tell what may happen to you the next minute. Don't
forget it, you're a very sick man, and very old. You haven't the strength to
fight a sickness like a younger man." In a flash I was awake
and on my feet. Never again while Father was alive would I leave him alone
with her. Hugo quickly got me a leave of absence from school. Night and
day, until he was well, I stayed in that house with my father. Day by
day, I won his confidence and a sort of dependent affection. His old
talkativeness returned. He told me legends of the Bible and explained the wisdom
of the Torah. In more intimate moments he told me of his unhappiness with his
wife. "The sages of the
Talmud said, a man has a right to divorce his wife if she don't
salt him his soup to his taste. And mine is guilty of worse offences. She's
selfish and wants to live for herself, instead of living only for her
husband.... I thought if I'd marry a young one, she'd have strength to work
for me," he went on. " But she only wants
pleasure and luxuries of the flesh. So maybe it would be better for me to go
to an Old Men's Home where I could spend my last days in peace instead of
living with a false wife who reminds me always that I'm old." To please him, I went
next day to the Old Men's Home. It was a beautiful building, but the moment I
entered, the loveless, inhuman, institutional atmosphere struck me like a
blow. They showed me the place. Clean. Cold. Choking with orderliness. Beds
all in a row, spotless, creaseless, like beds in an orphan asylum. I saw
groups of old men sitting lifelessly on hard, wooden benches. "How much better
off they are here than living by themselves," said the official, rubbing
his hands "They eat only food that's best for them, and their meals and
their sleep are at regular hours. It's like a sanitarium for their last
days." But the very things
the man praised up to me made me shudder. No. This institutional prison
was not for my Father. Never would I allow him to have his will broken in such a place. He who all his life had his own
way must continue to have it to the end of his days. If he wanted to leave
his wife, let him go to board somewhere where he can have his own room, his
books around him, free to come and go as he wishes. Here, in this prison,
were rules and regulations that he could never endure. My father would never
stoop to ask permission to go out and to report when he got back. He would
never obey the iron rule not to upset his bed all day long. He would want to
go to bed or get up at any time of day or night, as he pleased. He should
have a place that suited him. And not with his wife. I came back to
Father's house. As I opened the door, I could not believe my eyes. There was
his wife on her knees, putting on his shoes for him. She was lacing them patiently and making the double knots, just
as he dictated. I watched her with wide eyes. This was something new. It took
me a minute or two to take it all in. I suddenly realized that this woman I
hated was necessary to him. He could not live alone in a boarding house any
more than in the Old Men's Home. He needed a wife to wait on him. It came to
me that if we tried not to hate her, to be a little kind to her, maybe she
would be more faithful to Father. I followed her into
the kitchen and put ten dollars into her hand. "I'm going to give you
this each week, and I'll see that my sisters should give you Her eyes glowed with
gladness as she seized the bills. "Sure," she said. "If I only
get enough money in my hands, I know how to live good.
You think I want him to die? Is it nice for me to bury already my second
husband? But how could we live, if you children had no hearts"" She became a new
person, as the money came to her regularly. In a very few months the coveted
earrings appeared in her thick ears. She got what she wanted in this world. A
gloating look of smiling satisfaction came into her face. As she waddled with
her basket to the market, she tossed her head coquettishly from side to side,
showing off the glittering earrings to the passers-by. Soon we all began to
visit Father's house and met his wife without hostility. We tried to make up
with presents for the lack of real, warm friendliness that we could not feel.Once I brought her a box of fruit for the New Year
holiday. And in return, she made me taste her apple strudel. At that moment
most of the old hostility vanished from my heart. Next time I came with Hugo. "Father, this is
Mr. Seelig," I said, watching to see how the two
would take to each other. Father shook hands and
scrutinized him inquisitively. "Mr. Seelig?
From where do you comet" "Warsher Gubernic a long time
ago," Hugo added, with a smile. "And your parents
with you here? By what do you work?" "Mr. Seelig is a principal of a school," I interposed. "So—a
principal!" Father shook hands again with new respect. "Do they pay
you good?" "Well,"
sighed Hugo, getting into Father's spirit, "I make a living. But I'm not
smart enough yet. And I came to ask you, would you care to teach me
Hebrew?" "Hebrew? An
American young man, a principal, and wants to learn Hebrew? And you want me
to teach you?" "If a learned man
like you would care to take a beginner like me." Father leaned back in
his chair. The old dream look came back into his glowing eyes. "Listen
to me, Mr. Seelig—young man! I want you to know I
don't trust much American young men. They're all deniers of God. One day is
the same to them as another. Ask them the difference between a plain Monday
and the Sabbath and they'll gape at you." His eyes grew soft and
moist. He looked most gratefully from Hugo toward me. "I thought that in
America we were all lost. Jewishness is no Jewishness. Children are no
children. Respect for fathers does not exist. And yet my own daughter who is
not a Jewess and not a gentile brings me a His old eyes widened
with a glance of sudden understanding and he looked from Hugo to me and from
me back to Hugo. "Even my daughter with the hard heart has come to
learn that the words of our Holy Torah are the only words of life. These
words were true ages and ages ago and will yet be true for ages and ages to
come. Our forefathers have said, 'A woman without a man is less than nothing.
A woman without a man can never enter Heaven."' The old pride flamed
up in his face. "Woman!" he called, ecstatically, to his wife.
"Show only this American young man all my holy books in the
bedroom." Hugo's eyes sought
mine. With a look of awe, he followed the woman to the other room. Delighted with the
outcome I turned to Father. "Aren't you glad," I whispered,
"that you didn't go to a home, or a lonely room in a boarding house?
Here you have your books, and all the comforts of your own house, and her,
ready to wait on you." He wagged his head for
a silent moment; then, an unbeaten fierceness came into his eyes.
"Yes," he sighed, ruefully. "It's like living in a beautiful
garden with a snake in it. Never will I finish out my days with that woman!
Can fire and water live together? Neither can a man of God live with a cow,
an Ishah Rah." With his every word my
high spirits sank. My breathing spell of happiness was over. Just as I was
beginning to feel safe and free to go on to a new life with Hugo, the old
burden dragged me back by the hair. Was there no place in the whole world for
Father? My home, must I give it up to him? But with him there, it would not
be home for me. I suddenly realized that I had come back to where I had
started twenty years ago when I began my fight for freedom. But in my
rebellious youth, I thought I could escape by running away. And now I realized
that the shadow of the burden was always following me, and here I stood face
to face with it again. "Father!" I
ventured, hesitatingly. "Would you care to live with me?" He looked at me, and
in that look I felt the full force of his unbending spirit. "Can a Jew
and a Christian live under one roof? Have you forgotten your sacrilege, your
contempt for God's law, even on the day of your mother's death? I must keep
my Sabbath holy. I cannot have my eating contaminated with your
carelessness." He paused. "But if you'll promise to keep sacred all
that is sacred to me," he went on, in an attempt to be tolerant,
"then, maybe, I'll see. I'll think it over." I almost hated him
again as I felt his tyranny— the tyranny with which he tried to crush me as a child. Then suddenly the pathos of this lonely
old man pierced me. In a world where all is changed, he alone remained
unchanged—as tragically isolate as the rocks. All that he had left of life
was his fanatical adherence to his traditions. It was within my power to keep
lighted the flickering candle of his life for him. Could I deny him this poor
service? Unconsciously, my hand reached out for his. The look of
bitterness faded from his face and he opened the Bible, his eternal
consolation. Instantly he was transported to his other world. Hugo returned. And
Father glanced up with stern absent-mindedness from his book to bid us
good-bye. I could hardly wait till we got out of the room to tell Hugo
about Father. "Of course, the
old man must come with us," he exclaimed. "Do you realize
what you're saying? If he lives with us we'll lose our home." "Not at all. Our home will the richer if your father comes with us." I laughed at his easy
enthusiasm. He talked like a Tolstoyan. So
there it was, the problem before us—the pro" bleary of Father—still
unsolved. In the hall, we paused, held by the sorrowfuI
cadences of Father's voice. "Man born of
woman is of few days and full of trouble." The voice lowered and
grew fainter till we could not hear the words any more. Still we
lingered for the mere music of the fading chant. Then Hugo's grip tightened
on my arm and we walked on. But I felt the shadow still there, over me. It
wasn't just my father, but the generations who made my father whose weight
was still upon me. |