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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of In Those Days, by Jehudah Steinberg
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: In Those Days
+
+Author: Jehudah Steinberg
+
+Posting Date: August 19, 2012 [EBook #8539]
+Release Date: July, 2005
+First Posted: July 21, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THOSE DAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dan Dyckman
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+              IN THOSE DAYS
+
+         THE STORY OF AN OLD MAN
+
+                    BY
+
+            JEHUDAH STEINBERG
+
+
+
+      TRANSLATED FROM THE HEBREW BY
+
+             GEORGE JESHURUN
+
+
+                  1915
+
+
+
+               IN THOSE DAYS
+
+          THE STORY OF AN OLD MAN
+
+
+
+I
+
+When the time drew near for Samuel the Beadle to let his son begin
+his term of military service, he betook himself to the market,
+purchased a regulation shirt, a knapsack, and a few other things
+needed by a soldier--and he did not forget the main item: he ran and
+fetched a bottle of liquor.  Then he went home.
+
+And there, in the presence of his neighbors, of whom I had the
+privilege of being one, he drank a glassful to "long life," and
+offered another to Rebekah, his good wife.
+
+"Drink, madam," said he, merrily.  At this Rebekah turned up her
+nose, as if ready to blurt out with "How often have you seen me
+drink liquor?"
+
+Indeed, it was an affront which she would not have passed over in
+silence at any other time, but she had no heart for an open quarrel
+just then, when about to part with her son, and was satisfied with a
+silent refusal.
+
+"Woman," said Samuel, angrily, "take it, and do as you are told!"
+But Rebekah was not impressed by his angry tone, for in fact Samuel
+was an easy "lord and master."  As to his loudness, it was but part
+of an old habit of his, dating from the days of his own military
+service, to bully his inferiors and to let those above him in
+authority bully him.
+
+"So are they all of his kind," she would often explain to her
+neighbors.  "They just fuss, to blow off their tempers, and
+then--one may sit on them."
+
+Rebekah persisted in her refusal, and Samuel began in a softer tone:
+
+"But why does it worry you so much?  Woman, woman, it is not to
+Shemad, God forbid, that he is going!"
+
+At the mention of conversion, Rebekah burst into tears, for Samuel
+had unintentionally touched her sore spot: there were rumors in the
+town that her family was not without blemish.
+
+"Now that you are crying," exclaimed Samuel, thoroughly angry, "you
+are not only hard-headed, but also silly, simply silly! 'Long of
+hair but short of sense.'  To cry and cry, and not know wherefore!"
+With this Samuel turned towards us, and began to plead his case.
+
+"Have you ever seen such a cry-baby?  Five times in her life she
+filled the world with a hue and cry, when she bore me a child, and
+every time it was but an empty bubble: five girls she brought me!
+Then, beginning with the sixth birth, she was fortunate enough to
+get boys, the real thing.  Three sons she gave me as my old age was
+approaching.  And now, when she ought to thank Heaven for having
+been found worthy of raising a soldier for the army, she cries!
+Think of it--your son enters the army a free man; but I, in my
+time,--well, well, I was taken by force when a mere youngster!"
+
+Here the old man settled his account with the bottle, and took leave
+of his crying wife and his good neighbors, and in the company of his
+son mounted the coach waiting outside, ready to go to H., the
+capital of the district, where the recruits had to report.
+
+By special good fortune I was going to H. by the same coach, and so
+I came to hear the story of old Samuel's life from the beginning
+till that day.
+
+It was the rainy season; the roads were muddy, and the horses moved
+with difficulty.  The driver made frequent stops, and whenever the
+road showed the slightest inclination to go uphill he would intimate
+that it might be well for us to dismount and walk beside the coach a
+little.
+
+The cold drizzle penetrated to our very skin and made our flesh
+creep.  The warmth we had brought with us from the house was
+evaporating, and with it went the merry humor of the old man.  He
+began to contemplate his son, who sat opposite to him, looking him
+over up and down.
+
+The wise "lord and master," who had tried to instruct his wife at
+home and celebrate the fact of her having reared a soldier for the
+army, he failed himself to stand the trial: he began to feel the
+pangs of longing and lonesomeness.  The imminent parting with his
+son, to take place on the morrow, seemed to depress him greatly.
+
+Bent and silent he sat, and one could see that he was lost in a maze
+of thoughts and emotions, which came crowding in upon him in spite
+of himself.
+
+I took a seat opposite to him, so that I might enter into a
+conversation with him.
+
+"Do you remember all that happened to you in those days?" I asked by
+way of starting the conversation.
+
+He seemed to welcome my question.  In that hour of trial the old man
+was eager to unload his bosom, to share his thoughts with some one,
+and return mentally to all the landmarks of his own life, till he
+reached the period corresponding to that into which he was
+introducing his son.  The old man took out his well-beloved short
+pipe.  According to his story it had been a present from his
+superior officer, and it had served him ever since.  He filled the
+pipe, struck a match, and was enveloped in smoke.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+You ask me whether I remember everything--he began from behind the
+smoke.  Why, I see it all as if it had happened yesterday.  I do not
+know exactly how old I was then.  I remember only that my brother
+Solomon became a Bar-Mitzwah at that time.  Then there was Dovidl,
+another brother, younger than Solomon, but older than myself; but he
+had died before that time.  I must have been about eleven years old.
+
+Just then the mothers fell a-worrying: a Catcher was coming to town.
+ According to some he had already arrived.
+
+At the Heder the boys were telling one another that the Catcher was
+a monster, who caught boys, made soldiers out of them, and turned
+them over to the Government, in place of the Jewish grown-ups that
+were unwilling and unable to serve.  And the boys were divided in
+their opinions: some said that the Catcher was a demon, one of those
+who had been created at twilight on the eve of the Sabbath.  Others
+said that he was simply a "heathen," and some others, that he was an
+"apostate."  Then, there were some who asserted that he was merely a
+bad Jew, though a learned one nevertheless;--that he wore the
+regular Jewish costume, the long coat and the broad waistband, and
+had the Tallis-Koton on his breast, so that the curse of the
+righteous could not hurt him.  According to rumor, he was in the
+habit of distributing nuts and candy among Jewish boys; and if any
+one tasted of them, he could not move from the spot, until the
+Catcher put his hand on him and "caught" him.  I happened to
+overhear a conversation between father and mother, and I gathered
+from it that I need not fear the Catcher.
+
+It was a Saturday night, soon after the death of my elder brother
+Dovidl, within the period of the thirty days' mourning for him.
+Mother would not be consoled, for Dovidl had been her "very best."
+
+Three brothers had I.  The first-born, Simhah, may he rest in peace,
+had been married long before; he was the junior Shohet in town, and
+a candidate for the Rabbinate.  Solomon was more learned in the
+Torah, young though he was, peace be unto him. . . .  Well, they are
+now in the world-of-truth, in the world-to-come, both of them.  But
+Dovidl, had he lived, would have excelled them both.  That is the
+way of the Angel of Death, he chooses the very best.  As to
+myself--why deny it?--I was a dullard.  Somehow my soul was not
+attuned to the Torah.
+
+As I said, mother was uttering complaints against Heaven, always
+crying.  Yes, in the matter of tears they are experts.  I have
+pondered over it, and have found it out: fish were created out of
+the mud-puddle, and woman out of tears.  Father used to scold her
+mightily, but she did not mind it; and she never ceased bemoaning
+Dovidl and crying unto Heaven, "who gave the Angel of Death power
+over him."
+
+On the night after Sabbath, when father had extinguished the taper
+in the dregs of the Havdolah cup, he turned to mother, and said:
+"Now man born of woman is unwise all his life long.  He knows not
+how to thank for the sorrows that have been sweetened by His mercy,
+blessed be He!"
+
+Mother did not understand, and looked at father questioningly.  "The
+Catcher is in town," explained father.
+
+"The Catcher!" shuddered mother.
+
+"But he takes only Fourths and upwards," said father, reassuringly.
+
+Fourths, Fifths, etc., those households were called which had four,
+or five, or more sons.
+
+"And our household has only three sons at present," continued
+father.  "Do you understand, woman?  Three sons were left to us, and
+our household is exempt from military duty.  Now do you see the
+mercy of the Lord, blessed be He?  Do you still murmur against Him,
+blessed be He?"--
+
+So it was in those days.  Every Jewish community had to deliver a
+certain fixed number of recruits to the Government annually.  This
+number was apportioned among the families, and every family taxed
+the households composing it.  But not every household had to supply
+a recruit.  A household with a large number of sons secured the
+exemption of a household with fewer sons.  For instance, a household
+with four sons in it was exempted, if there was a household with
+five sons to levy from in the same family.  And a household of three
+sons was spared when there was, in the same family, a household of
+four sons.  And so forth.--
+
+And as father was speaking--the old man continued--mother
+contemplated us, as one that escapes from a fire contemplates the
+saved remnants; and her eyes overflowed with silent tears.  Those
+were the last tears shed over the grave of Dovidl, and for those
+tears father had no rebuke.  We felt that Dovidl was a saint: he had
+departed this life to save us from the hand of the Catcher.  It
+seemed to me that the soul of Dovidl was flitting about the room,
+listening to everything, and noticing that we were pleased that he
+had died; and I felt ashamed.
+
+The next day I went to the Heder, somewhat proud of myself.  I
+boasted before my mates that I was a Third.  The Fourths envied me;
+the Fifths envied the Fourths, and all of us envied the Seconds and
+the only sons.  So little chaps, youngsters who knew not what their
+life was going to be, came to know early that brothers, sons of one
+father, may at times be a source of trouble to one another.
+
+That was at the beginning of the summer.
+
+The teachers decided that we remain within the walls of the Heder
+most of the time, and show ourselves outside as little as possible
+during the period of danger.  But a decree like that was more than
+boys could stand, especially in those beautiful summer days.
+
+Meanwhile the Catcher came to town, and set his eye on the
+son-in-law of the rich Reb Yossel, peace be unto him.  The name of
+the young man was Avremel Hourvitz--a fine, genteel young man.  He
+had run away from his home in Poland and come to our town, and was
+spending his time at the Klaus studying the Torah.  And Reb Yossel,
+may he rest in peace, had to spend a pile of money before he got
+Avremel for his daughter.  From the same Polish town came the
+Catcher, to take Avremel as the recruit of the family Hourvitz due
+to the Jewish community of his city.  When he laid his hand on
+Avremel, the town was shocked.  The rabbi himself sent for the
+Catcher, and promised to let him have, without any contention, some
+one else instead of Avremel.  Then they began to look for a
+household with the family name of Hourvitz, and they found my
+father's.  Before that happened I had never suspected that my father
+had anything like a family name.  For some time the deal remained a
+deep secret.  But no secret is proof against a mother's intuition,
+and my mother scented the thing.  She caught me by the arm--I do not
+know why she picked me out--rushed with me to the rabbi, and made it
+hot for him.
+
+"Is this justice, rabbi?  Did I bear and rear children, only to give
+up my son for the sake of some Avremel?!"
+
+The rabbi sighed, cast down his eyes, and argued, that said Avremel
+was not simply "an Avremel," but a "veritable jewel," a profound
+Lamdan, a noble-hearted man, destined to become great in Israel.  It
+was unjust to give him away, when there was someone else to take his
+place.  Besides, Avremel was a married man, and the father of an
+infant child.  "Now where is justice?" demanded the rabbi.  But my
+mother persisted.  For all she knew, her own sons might yet grow up
+to become ornaments to israel . . .  And she, too, was observing the
+ordinances of the Hallah and the Sabbath candles, and the rest of
+the laws, no less than Avremel's mother.
+
+More arguments, more tears without arguments--till the rabbi
+softened: he could not resist a woman.  Then mother took me and
+Solomon up to the garret, and ordered us not to venture outside.--
+
+Here the old man interrupted himself by a soft sigh, and
+continued:--
+
+
+
+To a great extent it was my own fault, wild boy that I was.  I broke
+my mother's injunction.  In the alley, near the house of my parents,
+there lived a wine-dealer, Bendet by name.  Good wine was to be
+found in his cellar.  For this reason army officers and other
+persons of rank frequented his place, and he was somewhat of a
+favorite with them.  In short, though he lived in a mean little
+alley, those important personages were not averse to calling at his
+house.  That Bendet had an only child, a daughter.  She was
+considered beautiful and educated.  I had not known her.  In my day
+they spoke ill of her.  Naturally, her father loved her.  Is there a
+father who loves not his offspring?  And how much more such a
+daughter, whom everyone loved.  However that may be, one day
+Bendet's daughter broke away, left her father's house, and renounced
+her faith--may we be spared such a fate!  And many years after her
+father's death she returned to our town, to take possession of her
+portion of the inheritance.  That happened at a time when we were
+hiding in the garret.  The town was all agog: people ran from every
+street to get a look at the renegade, who came to take possession of
+a Jewish inheritance.  I, too, was seized with a wild desire to get
+a look at her, to curse her, to spit in her face . . . .  And I
+forgot all the dangers that surrounded me.
+
+Young as I was, I considered myself as a Jew responsible for the
+wayward one.  I lost control of myself, and ran out.  But after I
+had been in the street for some time, I was seized with fear of the
+Catcher.  Every stranger I met seemed to me to be a Catcher.  I
+shrank into myself, walked unsteadily hither and thither, and did
+not know how to hide myself.  Then a man met me.  His large beard
+and curled side-locks made me think he was a good man.  I looked at
+him imploringly.  "What ails you, my boy?" he asked in a soft tone.
+"I am afraid of the Catcher," said I, tearfully.
+
+"Whose son are you?"
+
+I told him.
+
+"Then come with me, and I shall hide you, my boy.  Don't be afraid.
+I am your uncle.  Don't you recognize me?"
+
+He took me by the arm, and I went after him.  Then I noticed that
+the children of my neighborhood were eyeing me terror-stricken.  The
+womenfolk saw me, wrung their hands, and lamented aloud.
+
+"What are they crying about?" I wondered.
+
+"Do you want some candy?  Your uncle has plenty of it," said he,
+bending over me, as if to protect me.  "Or maybe your feet hurt you?
+ Let your uncle take you on his arms."  As soon as I heard "candy,"
+I felt that the man was the Catcher himself, and I tried to break
+away.  But the "uncle" held me fast.  Then I began to yell.  It was
+near our house, and the people of our alley rushed towards us, some
+yelling, some crying, some armed with sticks.  Pretty soon I
+recognized my mother's voice in the mixture of voices and noises.
+You see, peculiar is the charm of a mother's voice: a knife may be
+held to one's throat, but the mere sound of mother's voice awakens
+new courage and begets new hope.  Mother made a way for herself, and
+fell upon the Catcher like a wild beast.  She struck, she pinched,
+she scratched, she pulled his hair, she bit him.  But what can a
+woman do in the line of beating?  Nothing!  Her neighbors joined
+her, one, two, three; and all tried hard to take me out of the hands
+of the Catcher.  What can a few women do against one able-bodied
+man?  Nothing at all!  That happened during the dinner hour.  One of
+our neighbors got the best of the Catcher, a woman who happened
+rather to dislike me and my mother; they quarreled frequently.
+Perhaps on account of this very dislike she was not over-excited,
+and was able to hit upon the right course to take at the critical
+moment.  She went to our house, took in one hand a potful of roasted
+groats, ready for dinner, and in the other a kettle of boiling
+water.  Unnoticed she approached the Catcher, spilled the hot groats
+upon his hands, and at the same time she poured the boiling water
+over them.  A wild yell escaped from the mouth of the Catcher--and I
+was free.--
+
+
+
+There was no more tobacco in the pipe, and the old man lost his
+speech.  That was the way of Samuel the Beadle; he could tell his
+story only from behind the smoke of his pipe, when he did not see
+his hearers, nor his hearers saw him.  In that way he found it easy
+to put his boyhood before his mind's eye and conjure up the
+reminiscences of those days.  Meanwhile the horses had stopped, and
+let us know that a high and steep hill was ahead of us, and that it
+was our turn to trudge through the mud.  We had to submit to the
+will of the animals, and we dismounted.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+After tramping a while alongside the coach, the old man lit his
+pipe, emitted a cloud of smoke, and continued:--
+
+
+
+I do not know what happened then.  I cannot tell who caught me, nor
+the place I was taken to.  I must have been in a trance all the
+while.
+
+When I awoke, I found myself surrounded by a flock of sheep, in a
+meadow near the woods.  Near me was my brother Solomon; but I hardly
+recognized him.  He wore peasant clothes: a linen shirt turned out
+over linen breeches and gathered in by a broad belt.  I was eyeing
+my brother, and he was eyeing me, both of us equally bewildered, for
+I was disguised like himself.
+
+A little boy, a real peasant boy, was standing near us.  He smiled
+at us in a good-natured, hospitable way.  It was the chore-boy of
+the Jewish quarter.  On the Sabbaths of the winter months he kept up
+the fires in the Jewish houses; that is why he could jabber a few
+words of Yiddish.  During the summer he took care of the flocks of
+the peasants that lived in the neighborhood.
+
+When I awoke, my mother was with us too.  She kissed us amid tears,
+gave us some bread and salt, and, departing, strictly forbade us to
+speak any Yiddish.  "For God's sake, speak no Yiddish," said she,
+"you might be recognized!  Hide here till the Catcher leaves town."
+
+It was easy enough to say, "Speak no Yiddish"; but did we know how
+to speak any other language?
+
+I saw then that I was in a sort of hiding-place--a hiding-place
+under the open sky!  I realized that I had escaped from houses,
+garrets, and cellars, merely to hide in the open field between
+heaven and earth.  I had fled from darkness, to hide in broad
+daylight!
+
+Indeed, it was not light that I had to fear.  Nor was it the sun,
+the moon, or the sheep.  It was only man that I had to avoid.
+
+Mother went away and left us under the protection of the little
+shepherd boy.  And he was a good boy, indeed.  He watched us to the
+best of his ability.  As soon as he saw any one approach our place,
+he called out loudly: "No, no; these are not Jewish boys at all!  On
+my life, they are not!"
+
+As a matter of facet, a stranger did happen to visit our place; but
+he was only a butcher, who came to buy sheep for slaughtering.
+
+Well, the sun had set, and night came.  It was my first night under
+an open sky.  I suffered greatly from fear, for there was no Mezuzah
+anywhere near me.  I put my hand under my Shaatnez clothes, and felt
+my Tzitzis: they, too, seemed to be in hiding, for they shook in my
+hand.
+
+Over us the dark night sky was spread out, and it seemed to me that
+the stars were so many omens whose meaning I could not make out.
+But I felt certain that they meant nothing good so far as I was
+concerned.  All kinds of whispers, sizzling sounds of the night,
+reached my ears, and I knew not where they came from.
+
+Looking down, I saw sparks a-twinkling.  I knew they were stars
+reflected in the near-by stream.  But soon I thought it was not the
+water and the stars: the sheen of the water became the broad smile
+of some giant stretched out flat upon the ground; and the sparks
+were the twinkling of his eyes.  And the sheep were not sheep at
+all, but some strange creatures moving to and fro, spreading out,
+and coming together again in knotted masses.  I imagined they all
+were giants bewitched to appear as sheep by day and to become giants
+again by night.  Then I knew too well that the thick, dark forest
+was behind me; and what doesn't one find in a forest?  Is there an
+unholy spirit that cannot be found there?  Z-z-z---- a sudden
+sizzling whisper reached my ear, and I began to cry.
+
+"Why don't you sleep?" asked the shepherd boy in his broken Yiddish.
+
+"I am afraid!"
+
+"What are you afraid of?"
+
+"Of--of--the woods . . . ."
+
+"Ha--ha--ha--I have good dogs with the flock!"
+
+I wanted a Mezuzah, some talisman, a protection against evil
+spirits, and that fool offered me barking dogs!  All at once he
+whistled loudly, and his dogs set up a barking that nearly made me
+deaf.  The flock was panic-stricken.  I thought at first that the
+earth had opened her mouth, and packs of dogs were breaking out from
+hell.
+
+The noise the dogs made broke the awful hush of the night, and my
+fears were somewhat dispelled.
+
+But there were other reasons why I liked to hear the dogs bark.  I
+was myself the owner of a dog, which I had raised on the sly in my
+father's house.  Imagine the horror of my brother Solomon, who as a
+real Jewish lad was very much afraid of a dog!
+
+In that way we spent a few days, hiding under the open sky,
+disguised in our Shaatnez clothes.  Soon enough the time came when
+my parents _had_ to understand what they would not understand when
+the rabbi wanted to give me up in place of the famous Avremel.  For
+they caught my oldest brother Simhah, may he rest in peace.  And
+Simhah was a privileged person; he was not only the Shohet of the
+community and a great Lamdan, but also a married man, and the father
+of four children to boot.  Only then, it seems, my parents
+understood what the rabbi had understood before: that it was not
+fair to deliver up my brother when I, the ignorant fellow, the lover
+of dogs, might take his place.  A few days later mother came and
+took us home.  As to the rest, others had seen to it.--
+
+
+
+Here the old man stopped for a while.  He was puffing and snorting,
+tired from the hard walk uphill.  Having reached the summit, he
+turned around, looked downhill, straightened up, and took a deep
+breath.  "This is an excellent way of getting rid of your tired
+feeling," said he.  "Turn around and look downhill: then your
+strength will return to you."--
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+We had left the coach far behind, and had to wait till it overtook
+us.  Meanwhile I looked downhill into the valley below: it was a
+veritable sea of slush.  The teams that followed ours sank into it,
+and seemed not to be moving at all.  The oblique rays of the setting
+sun, reflected and radiating in every direction, lent a peculiar
+glitter to the slushy wagons and the broken sheet of mire, as if
+pointing out their beauty to the darkening sky.  So much light
+wasted, I thought.  But on the summit of the hill on which I was
+standing, the direct rays of the sun promised a good hour more of
+daylight.
+
+The old man drew breath, and continued his story:--
+
+
+
+Well, I was caught, and put into prison.  I was not alone.  Many
+young boys had been brought there.  Some were crying bitterly; some
+looked at their companions wonderingly.  We were told that the next
+day we should be taken away to some place, and that the rabbi wished
+to come to see us, but was not permitted to enter our prison.
+
+Yes, a good man was the rabbi, may he rest in peace; yet he was
+compelled to cheat for once.  And when an honest man is compelled to
+cheat he may outdo the cleverest crook.  Do you want to know what
+the rabbi did?  He disguised himself as a peasant, went out, and
+walked the streets with the rolling gait of a drunkard.  The night
+guards stopped him, and asked him what his business was.  "I am a
+thief," said the rabbi.  Then the guards arrested him, and put him
+into the prison with us.
+
+In the darkness of that night the rabbi never ceased talking to us,
+swallowing his own tears all the while.  He told us the story of
+Joseph the righteous.  It had been decreed in Heaven, said the
+rabbi, that his brethren should sell Joseph into slavery.  And it
+was the will of the Almighty that Joseph should come to Egypt, to
+show the Egyptians that there is only one God in Heaven, and that
+the Children of Israel are the chosen people.
+
+Then the rabbi examined us:  Did we know our Modeh-Ani by heart?
+did we know our Shema?
+
+He told us that we should be taken very, very far away, that we
+should be away many, many years, and should become soldiers when
+grown up.  Then he warned us never to eat of any food forbidden by
+the Jewish law, and never to forget the God of Israel and our own
+people, even if they tore our flesh with thorns.  He told us also
+the story of the Ten Martyrs, who sacrificed their lives to sanctify
+the God of Israel.  He told us of the mother and her seven children
+that were killed for having refused to bow before idols; and he told
+us many more such things.  All those saints and martyrs, he said,
+are now in Paradise, enjoying the bliss of the Divine Presence.
+That night I really envied those saints; I longed with all my heart
+to be forced to bow to idols, to have to withstand all sorts of
+trials, so as to enjoy, after my death, the bliss of the Divine
+Presence in Paradise.
+
+Many more stories the rabbi told us; many more words of warning,
+encouragement, and praise came from his lips, till I really believed
+I was the one whom God had picked out from among my equals, to be
+put through great trials and temptations. . . .
+
+Morning came, and the guard entered the prison.  Then the rabbi
+turned towards us, and said: "Lambs of the God of Israel, we have to
+part now:  I am going to be lashed and imprisoned for having entered
+this place by a trick, and you will be taken into exile, to undergo
+your trials!  I may hardly expect to be found worthy of surviving
+till you return.  But there, in the world-of-truth, we shall surely
+meet.  May it be the will of God that I may have no reason to be
+ashamed of you there, before Him and His angels, in Heaven!"
+
+We parted, and the words of the rabbi sank deep into my heart.
+
+Then they began dumping us into wagons.  The obstreperous boys, who
+tried to run away, were many of them bound with ropes and thrown
+into the wagon.  Of course, we all howled.
+
+I did not hear my own voice, nor the voice of my neighbor.  It was
+all one great howl.  A crowd of men and women followed our
+wagon--the parents of the boys.  Very likely they cried, too; but we
+could not hear their voices.  The town, the fields, heaven and
+earth, seemed to cry with us.
+
+I caught sight of my parents, and my heart was filled with something
+like anger and hatred.  I felt that I had been sacrificed for my
+brother.
+
+My mother, among many other mothers, approached the wagon, looked at
+me, and apparently read my thoughts: she fainted away, and fell to
+the ground.  The accident held up the crowd, which busied itself
+with reviving my mother, while our wagon rolled away.
+
+My heart was filled with a mixture of anger, pity, and terror.  In
+that mood of mixed feelings I parted from my parents.
+
+We cried and cried, got tired, and finally became still from sheer
+exhaustion.  Presently a noise reached our ears, something like the
+yelling of children.  We thought it was another wagonload of boys
+like ourselves.  But soon we found out our mistake: it was but a
+wagonload of sheep that were being taken to slaughter. . . .
+
+Of course, we ate nothing the whole of that day, though the mothers
+had not failed to provide us with food.  Meanwhile the sun had set;
+it got dark, and the boys who had been bound with ropes were
+released by the guard: he knew they would not attempt to escape at
+that time.  We fell asleep, but every now and then one of the boys
+would wake up, crying, quietly at first, then louder and louder.
+Then another would join him; one more, and yet one more, till we all
+were yelling in chorus, filling the night air with our bitter cries.
+ Even the guard could not stand it; he scolded us, and belabored us
+with his whip.  That crying of ours reminds me of what we read in
+lamentations: "Weeping she hath wept in the night. . . ."
+
+Morning came, and found us all awake: we were waiting for daylight.
+We believed it would bring us freedom, that angels would descend
+from Heaven, just as they had descended to our father Jacob, to
+smite our guard and set us free.  At the same time, the rising sun
+brought us all a feeling of hunger.  We began to sigh, each and
+every one of us separately.  But the noise we made did not amount
+even to the barking of a few dogs or the cawing of a few crows.
+That is what hunger can do.  And when the guard had distributed
+among us some of the food we had brought with us, we ate it with
+relish, and felt satisfied.  At the same time we began to feel the
+discomfort we were causing one another, cooped up as we were in the
+wagon.  I began to complain of my neighbor, who was sitting on my
+legs.  He claimed that I was pressing against him with my shoulder.
+We all began to look up to the guard, as if expecting that he could
+or would prevent us from torturing one another.
+
+Still I had some fun even on that day of weeping.  I happened to
+turn around, and I noticed that Barker, my dog, was running after
+our wagon.
+
+"Too bad, foolish Barker," said I, laughing at him in spite of my
+heartache.  "Do you think I am going to a feast?  It is into exile
+that I am going; and what do you run after me for?"--
+
+
+
+This made old Samuel laugh; he laughed like a child, as if the thing
+had just happened before his eyes, and as if it were really comical.
+ Meanwhile our coach had reached the top of the hill; we jumped into
+our seats, and proceeded to make one another uncomfortable.
+
+The old man glanced at his son, who was sitting opposite to him.  It
+was a loving and tender look, issuing from under long shaggy
+eyebrows, a beautiful, gentle, almost motherly look, out of accord
+with the hard-set face of an irritable and stern father.
+
+The old man made his son's seat comfortable for him, and then fell
+silent.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+I am going to pass over a long time--resumed the old man later.
+There was much traveling and many stops; much tramping on foot, with
+legs swollen; but all that has nothing to do with the subject.
+
+Once in a while our guard would get angry at us, curse us bitterly,
+and strike us with his whip.  "You cursed Jews," he would say, "do I
+owe you anything that I should suffer so much on your account, and
+undergo all the hardships of travel?"
+
+Indeed, there was a good deal of truth in what he said.  For,
+willingly or unwillingly, we did give him much trouble.  Had we
+died, say the year before, or even at that very moment, he would not
+have been put to the necessity of leading a crowd of half-dumb boys.
+ He would not have had to stand the hardships of travel, and would
+not have been compelled to listen to the wailings of children torn
+from the arms of their parents.  Or do you think it is agreeable to
+feel that little children consider you a hard and cruel man?  When I
+grew up and served in the army myself, and had people below me in
+age and position under my command, I came to understand the troubles
+of our guard; so that now, after having gone through many
+experiences, after I have passed, as they say, through fire and
+water, I may confess that I bear no malice towards all those at
+whose hands I suffered.  There are many ex-Cantonists who cannot
+forget the birch-rod, for instance.  Well, so much is true: for
+every misstep, for every sign of disobedience a whipping was due.
+If one of us refused to kneel in prayer before the crucifix; if one
+of us refused to eat pork; if one of us was caught mumbling a Hebrew
+prayer or speaking Yiddish, he was sure to get a flogging.  Twenty,
+thirty, forty, or even full fifty lashes were the punishment.  But,
+then, is it conceivable that they could have treated us any other
+way?  Why, hundreds of Jewish children that did not understand a
+word of Russian had been delivered into the hands of a Russian
+official that did not understand a word of Yiddish.  He would say,
+Take off my boots, and the boy would wash his hands.  He would say,
+Sit down, and the boy would stand up.  Were we not like dumb cattle?
+ It was only the rod that we understood well.  And the rod taught us
+to understand our master's orders by the mere expression of his
+eyes.
+
+Then many of the ex-Cantonists still remember with horror the
+steam-bath they were compelled to take.  "The chamber of hell," they
+called the bath.  At first blush, it would really seem to have been
+an awful thing.  They would pick out all the Cantonists that had so
+much as a scratch on their bodies or the smallest sign of an
+eruption, paint the wounds with tar, and put the boys, stripped, on
+the highest shelf in the steam-bath.  And below was a row of
+attendants armed with birch-rods.  The kettle was boiling fiercely,
+the stones were red-hot, and the attendants emptied jars of boiling
+water ceaselessly upon the stones.  The steam would rise, penetrate
+every pore of the skin, and--sting! sting!--enter into the very
+flesh.  The pain was horrible; it pricked, and pricked, and there
+was no air to breathe.  It was simply choking.  If the boy happened
+to roll down, those below stood ready to meet him with the rods.
+
+All this is true.  At the same time, was it mere cruelty?  It is
+very simple: we were a lot of Jewish lads snatched from the arms of
+our mothers.  On the eve of every Sabbath our mothers would take us
+in hand, wash us, comb our hair, change our underwear, and dress us
+in our Sabbath clothes.  All at once we were taken into exile.
+Days, weeks, nay, months, we passed in the dust of the roads, in
+perspiration and dirt, and sleeping on the ground.  Our underwear
+had not been changed.  No water had touched our bodies.  So we
+became afflicted with all kinds of eruptions.  That is why we had to
+pass through what we called "the chamber of hell."  And this will
+give you an idea of the rest.
+
+To make a long story short: there were many of us, and we were
+distributed in various places.  Many of the boys had taken ill; many
+died on the road.  The survivors were distributed among peasants, to
+be brought up by them till they reached the age of entering the
+army.  I was among the latter.  Many months, maybe even years, I
+passed in knocking about from village to village, from town to town,
+till, at last, I came into the joint possession of a certain Peter
+Semionovich Khlopov and his wife Anna Petrovna.  My master was
+neither old nor young; he was neither a plain peasant nor a
+nobleman.  He was the clerk of the village.  In those days that was
+considered a genteel occupation, honorable and well-paid.  He had no
+sons, but he and one daughter, Marusya by name.  She was then about
+fourteen years old, very good-looking, gay, and rather wild.
+
+According to the regulations, all the Cantonists in the village had
+to report daily for military drill and exercise on the drill grounds
+before the house of the sergeant.  He lived in the same village.  At
+the request of my patron Khlopov I was excused from the daily drill,
+and had to report but once a week.  You see, Peter expected to
+derive some benefit from me by employing me about the house and in
+the field.
+
+Now it was surely through the merits of my ancestors that I happened
+to be placed in the household of Peter Khlopov.  Peter himself spent
+but little of his time at home.  Most of the time he was at the
+office, and his free moments he liked to spend at the tavern, which
+was owned by the only Jew in the village, "our Moshko" the Klopovs
+used to call him.  But whenever he happened to be at home, Peter was
+very kind to me, especially when he was just a little tipsy.
+Perhaps he dreamt of adopting me as his son: he had no sons of his
+own.  And he tried to make me like military service.  "When you grow
+up," he sued to say, "you will become an officer, and wear a sword.
+Soldiers will stand at attention before you, and salute you.  You
+will win distinction in battle, and be found worthy of being
+presented to the Czar."  He also told me stories of Russian military
+life.  By that time I had learned some Russian.  They were really
+nice stories, as far as I could understand them; but they were made
+nicer yet by what I could not understand of them.  For then I was
+free to add something to the stories myself, or change them
+according to my own fancy.  If you are a lover of stories, take the
+advice of a plain old man like myself.  Never pay any attention to
+stories in which everything has been prepared from the very start,
+and you can tell the end as soon as you begin to read them or listen
+to them.  Such stories make one yawn and fall asleep.  Stories of
+this kind my daughter reads to me once in a while, and I always fall
+asleep over them.  Stories are good only when told the way Khlopov
+used to tell them to me.
+
+But that is all irrelevant.  In short, Khlopov was kind to me.
+
+As to Anna, she was entirely different.  She was close-mouthed,
+ill-tempered, and a great stay-at-home.  She never visited her
+neighbors, and they, in turn, called on her very rarely.  In the
+village she was spoken of as a snob and a hypocrite.  Peter was
+afraid of her as of the plague, especially in his sober hours.  All
+her power lay in her eyes.  When that strong man--he who had the
+whole village in the palm of his hand--felt her eye fixed on him,
+his strength left him.  It seemed as if some devil were ready to
+jump out of that eye and turn the house topsyturvy.  You fellows are
+mere youngsters, you have seen nothing of the world yet; but take it
+from me, there are eyes that seem quite harmless when you first look
+into them, but just try to arouse their temper: you will see a
+hellish fire spring up in them.  Have you ever looked into my
+Rebekah's eyes?  Well, beware of the eyes.
+
+The look Anna gave me when I first entered her house promised me
+nothing good.  She hated me heartily.  She never called me by my own
+name.  She called me "Zhid" all the time, in a tone of deep hatred
+and contempt.
+
+Among the orders the Cantonists had to obey were the following: to
+speak no Yiddish; to say no Jewish prayer; to recite daily a certain
+prayer before the image of the Virgin and before the crucifix, and
+not to abstain from non-kosher food.
+
+With regard to all injunctions except the last, Anna was very strict
+with me.  But she was not very particular as to the last injunction.
+ Out of sheer stinginess she fed me on bread and vegetables, and
+that in the kitchen.  Once she did offer me some meat, and I refused
+to touch it.  Then she got very angry, flew into a temper, and
+decided to complain to the sergeant.  But Peter did not let her be
+so cruel.  "Let him grow up, he will know better," said Peter,
+waving his hand at me.
+
+Then Anna made up her mind to force me to eat forbidden meat.  But I
+was obstinate.  And she decided once more to complain to the
+sergeant.  Just at that time another Cantonist had been found guilty
+of some offense.  He belonged to the same village; his name was
+Jacob.  I did not know him at that time.  His patron complained that
+Jacob had persisted in reciting Hebrew prayers, and that he
+abstained from meat.  Jacob was condemned to twenty lashes with
+rods.  An order was issued that all Cantonists should assemble to
+witness the flogging of the offender.
+
+In the course of time we got used to such sights; but the first time
+we were terribly shocked.  Just imagine: a lad of about fifteen is
+stripped, put on the ground face downwards; one man sits on his
+head, and another on his feet.  Two men are put on either side of
+him, each with a bundle of birch-rods in his hand.  Ten times each
+of them has to strike him with the rods, to make up the twenty
+lashes.  I looked at the face of the culprit; it was as white as
+chalk.  His lips were moving.  I thought he was reciting the prayer:
+"And He, the Merciful, will forgive sin, and will not destroy.
+. . ."  Up went the rods, down they went: a piercing cry . . . .
+blood . . . . flaps of loose skin . . . . cries . . . . "one, two,
+three" . . . . again cries . . . . sudden silence . . . . more cries
+. . . . again silence . . . . "four, five" . . . . "stop!"
+
+Because the culprit fainted, the sergeant in the goodness of his
+heart divided the punishment into two parts.  Jacob was carried off
+to the hospital, and it was put down in the book that he was to get
+ten more lashes after his recover.
+
+I went home.
+
+Had Anna given me a piece of pork to eat that evening, I do not know
+what I should have done.
+
+That night I saw the old rabbi in my dream.  He was standing before
+me, with bowed head and tears dropping from his eyes. . . . .
+
+I do not remember the way Marusya treated me at first.  But I do
+remember the look she gave me when I first entered her father's
+house.  There are trifling matters that one remembers forever.  Hers
+was a telltale look, wild and merry.  It is hard to describe it in
+words--as if she wanted to say, "Welcome, friend!  You did well in
+coming here.  I need just you to pass my leisure hours with me!"
+And she really needed someone like myself, for she never associated
+with the children of the village.  The beautiful lively girl used to
+have her fits of the blues.  Then it was impossible to look at her
+face without pitying her.  At such times her mother could not get a
+word out of her, and the whole expression of her face was changed to
+such an extent that she seemed to have aged suddenly.  She would
+look the very image of her mother then.  And a peculiar expression
+would steal over her face, which estranged her from other people,
+and perhaps brought her nearer to me.  During those fits of
+despondency she was sure to follow me if I happened to leave the
+room and go outside.  She would join me and spend hour after hour in
+childish prattle with me, and her merriment and wildness knew no
+limits.  Little by little I got used to her, and fell, in turn, a
+longing for her company during my own fits of lonesomeness.
+
+The day after I had witnessed Jacob's punishment I felt miserable.
+I was restless and excitable, and did not know what to do with
+myself.  I thought my heart would burst within me.  I asked myself
+all kinds of questions:  What am I doing here?  What did I come here
+for?  What are all those people to me?  As if I had come there only
+the day before, and of my own free will. . . .
+
+Marusya looked sharply at me.  Very likely she recognized that
+something was worrying me.  I felt a desire to share my feelings
+with her.  I got up and walked out into the garden behind the house.
+ In a moment she followed me.  I made a clean breast of it, and told
+her all I had to witness the day before.
+
+She listened, shivering, and asked in a tremulous voice:
+
+"And what did they beat him for?"
+
+"He said a Hebrew prayer, and refused to eat meat."
+
+"And why did he refuse to eat meat?"
+
+"It is forbidden."
+
+"Forbidden?  Why?"
+
+I was silent.
+
+She also became silent; then she laid her hand on me, and said with
+her usual merriment:
+
+"They will not beat you."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"The sergeant is a good friend of ours."
+
+"But if your mother should complain about me?"
+
+"Then I shall go in your stead, if they should decide to switch
+you."
+
+She laughed heartily at her own suggestion.  Her laughter made me
+laugh too; we both laughed, and laughed without knowing why.  And in
+a mood completely changed I returned to the house.  After that I
+felt very near to the girl.
+
+Well, time passed, months and years: I lost track of them.  But I do
+remember that the time had come when I knew enough Russian to make
+myself understood, and fit for any kind of work about the house and
+in the field, and could give my patron entire satisfaction.
+
+One day, I remember, I tried very hard to have my work well and
+promptly done, so as to earn, for once, the good-will of Anna
+herself.  I felt a longing for the friendly smile of a mother.  But
+Anna kept going in and out, and did not pay the least attention to
+me.  I was sitting on the bench outside the house alone.  My dog was
+lying at my feet, looking at me very intently.  His eyes seemed to
+be full of tears.  And let me tell you by the way, his lot in the
+house was entirely different from mine.  When he first entered
+Peter's courtyard, the dogs met him with howls.  He tried to find
+shelter in the kitchen, but was chased out with sticks.  "Where did
+that tramp come from?" wondered the people.  Then my Barker saw that
+he could expect no charity from the people, and he put his trust in
+his own teeth.  He stood up bravely, and fought all the dogs of the
+household till blood flowed.  Then only did the masters of the house
+appreciate his doggish virtues and accomplishments.  They befriended
+him, and allowed him his rations.  So my Barker saved his skin.  Yet
+his lot did not seem to please him.  He recognized, by some peculiar
+dog-sense, that I, his fellow in exile, was unhappy myself and sorry
+for him too.  He felt that somehow his own days of prosperity would
+not last long.  Whenever I sat about lonely and moping, he would
+stretch himself at my feet, and look straight into my eyes, with an
+expression of earnestness and wonderment, as if he wanted to ask me,
+How is that, why don't you fight for your rights the way I did?
+
+Presently Anna came out, shot a glance at me, and said:
+
+"Well, now, there is the lazy Zhid sitting idle, and I have to work
+and prepare meals for him, so that he may find everything ready!"  I
+got up, and began to look around for something to do.
+
+"Go, catch the little pig and bring it over here," ordered Anna.
+
+The day before I had overheard her say that it was time to kill the
+little pig.  I did not relish the job by any means.  I felt sorry
+for the porkling: mere pig though it was, it had after all grown up
+in our house.  And it was hard on me to have a hand in the affair.
+But one angry word of Anna's set me a-going.  In a moment my hand
+was on the animal, which trusted me and believed in me implicitly.
+Then Anna handed me a rope to bind it.  I did as she wanted; the pig
+started to squeal and squeak horribly.  To me it sounded like "Zhid,
+Zhid, is that the way to treat _me?"_
+
+Then Anna handed me a knife, and showed me where to make the cut.
+. . .  The pig began to bleed fearfully, gurgling, and choking with
+his own blood.  Forthwith Anna ordered wood to be brought, a fire to
+be kindled, and the pig to be put upon it.  I did all as I had been
+ordered.  My dog was watching me intently, greatly bewildered; the
+pig groaned and groaned; the flames licked his body and embraced
+it--and my dog was barking and yelping away up into the sky.
+
+That night I dreamt that my brother the Shohet and I were on trial
+in Heaven before the seat of judgment, with various animals
+complaining against us.  Only clean fowl, such as geese, pigeons,
+and the like were complaining against my brother, and they all
+pleaded in clear, good Hebrew, saying, "Was it for your own
+consumption that you killed us all?" . . . .  But it was only the
+pig that complained against me, and it pleaded in screeches and
+grunts that nobody could understand. . . .
+
+The next morning Anna got up early, and made me stand before the
+ikon of the Virgin and recite a certain prayer.  At dinner she
+seated me alongside of Peter, gave me some roast pork, and looked
+sharply at me.  I guess, while making all those preparations, Anna
+had only one thing in mind: to put Peter up against me while he was
+drunk.  I took fright, and began to chew away at the pork.  But then
+the screeches and the grunts of the pig rang in my ears, and I
+thought they came right from within my insides; I wondered how they
+could listen to all that, and yet eat the pork in perfect comfort.
+Suddenly a lump in my throat began to choke me. . . . Nausea,
+retching . . . . and something happened to me: I vomited everything
+out, right on the table.  Everybody jumped away from the table in
+disgust and anger.  I met Marusya's eye, and was ashamed to look
+into it.  Anna got up, boiling with rage, and took me by the ear,
+and pulled me outside: "Get out of here, you dirty Zhid; and don't
+you dare enter my house any more!"
+
+Well, she chased me out.  Peter and Marusya kept quiet.  Thoroughly
+miserable, I dropped down on the bench behind the house; my dog
+stretched himself out on the ground at my feet and looked into my
+eyes.  Then I began to talk to my fellow in misfortune:  "Do you
+hear, doggie, we have been chased out. . . .  What does that mean?
+did we come here of our own free will?  It is by force that we were
+brought here; so what sense is there in chasing us out?"
+
+And I thought my dog understood me; a sound came from the depths of
+his throat, and died away there.  Then a thought began to haunt me:
+Maybe it is really time to run away.  If they run after me and
+overtake me, I shall simply say that my patron chased me out of his
+house.  And the thought, Home! to your parents! took possession of
+me, and tortured me ceaselessly.  Said I to myself: "If they chase
+me out, I am certainly free!"  But then, just see the power of the
+birch-rod:  I knew well that much time would pass before my patron
+would notice my absence; and before the sergeant was informed, and
+people were dispatched to pursue me, more time would pass.  Then I
+should be far away from the place.  By that time I was quite
+hardened;  I was not afraid to hide in the woods; devils and evil
+spirits I did not fear any more.  I had learned well enough that no
+devil will ever trouble a man as much as one human being can trouble
+another.  And yet, when I remembered the swish of the rods over the
+naked flesh, the spurting blood, the loose flaps of skin, and the
+futile outcries, I was paralyzed with fear.  No, it was not really
+fear: it was a sort of submissive adoration.  Had a birch-rod been
+lying near me, I should have kissed it with fear and respect.  It is
+hard for me to explain to you.  You youngsters are not capable of
+understanding.
+
+And as I was sitting there, full of gloomy thoughts, I did not
+notice that the sun had set, and night had come.  It got so dark
+that I could not see my dog lying at my feet.  Suddenly I felt
+something touch me and pass lightly over my hair.  I thought it was
+an ant or a night moth, and I raised my hand to chase it away.  Then
+it changed its place, and I felt it at the nape of my neck.  I tried
+to catch the thing that was making my neck itch, and caught a hand,
+soft and warm.  I shuddered and started back: before me was Marusya,
+bending over me.  I wanted to get up, but she put her hands on me
+heavily, sat down at my side, all the while pressing my hand between
+hers.
+
+"Why are you sitting here?" she asked.
+
+"Didn't your mother chase me out?"
+
+"That is nothing.  Don't you know her temper?  That is her way."
+
+"She keeps nagging at me all the time, and calls me nothing but
+Zhid, Zhid."
+
+"And what of it?  Aren't you a Jew?  Should I feel insulted if some
+one were to call me Christian?!"
+
+I had nothing to say.  And it dawned upon me at that moment that I
+was really insulting myself by objecting to being called Zhid.
+True, Anna meant to jeer at me and insult me; but did it depend on
+her alone?
+
+"And what are you going to do now?" asked Marusya.
+
+"I want to run away."
+
+"Without telling me?"
+
+She peered into my face, and I felt as if two streams of warmth had
+emptied themselves into me.  My eyes had become somewhat accustomed
+to the darkness, and I could discern every movement of her body.  A
+delicate smile was playing around her mouth, and my feeling of
+despondency was giving way before it.  I felt that after all I had a
+friend in the house, a good, loving, and beautiful friend.
+
+I shuddered and broke out into tears.  Then she began to play
+caressingly with my hair and pat me on my neck and face.  She did
+well to let me have my cry out.  By and by I felt relieved.  She
+wanted to withdraw her hand, but then I held it fast.
+
+"So you were going to run away, and that without my knowledge?" said
+she.
+
+"No," I said with a deep sigh.
+
+"And if I should ever call you Zhid, will you be angry with me?"
+
+"No," answered I, thoroughly vanquished.
+
+"Well, then you are a dear boy, and I like you!"
+
+I felt the touch of soft, warm lips on my neck . . . .  I closed my
+eyes, that the dark night sky and the shining stars might not see
+me.  And when I recognized what had happened to me, I felt ashamed.
+Marusya disappeared, and soon returned with a bag in her hand.
+
+"Papa said you should go out with the horses for the night.  Here is
+some food in the bag.  Take it and go out."
+
+This she shot out quickly, and in a tone of authority, as befits the
+daughter of the patron, and as if what had passed between us were
+nothing but a dream.
+
+"Going out for the night" was a peculiar custom.  You can have no
+idea of what it meant.  The logic of it was this:  The cattle that
+had been worked the whole of the day were, to be sure, earning their
+fodder for the day.  And the owners felt under obligation and
+necessity to feed them during their working hours.  But how about
+the night, when the animals rested, and did no work?  Where should
+the fodder for the night time come from?  So the custom developed of
+letting the animals browse in some neighbor's meadow during the
+night.  That was cheaper.  But that neighbor also had cattle; he,
+too, had horses that did not earn their feed during the night.  Do
+you know what the neighbor did?  He did the same.  He, too, sent out
+his horses stealthily, into his neighbor's meadow.  So, in the long
+run, every one had his cattle browse secretly in some neighbor's
+meadow, and all were happy.  But when the trespassing shepherd
+happened to be caught poaching, he got a whipping.  And yet,
+strictly speaking, it was not stealing; it was a mere usage.  The
+land-owners seemed to have agreed beforehand:  "If you happen to
+catch my shepherd poaching, you may whip him, provided you do not
+object if I give a whipping to your shepherd on a similar occasion."
+ In spite of all this I rather liked "going out for the night."  I
+loved those nights in the open field.  When the moon gave but little
+light, and one could see but a few steps away, I forgot my immediate
+surroundings, and my imagination was free!  I would peer into the
+open sky, would bring before my mind's eye father and mother and all
+who were dear to me, and would feel near to them; for the sky that
+spread over all of us was the very same.  I could imagine my father
+celebrating the new moon with a prayer.  I could imagine my mother
+watching for the same star I was looking at; I could imagine that we
+were really looking at the same spot. . . .  Then tears would come
+into my eyes.  My mother, I would think, was crying, too.  And the
+night listened to me, and the stars listened to me. . . .  The
+crickets chirped, and if I chose, I could believe they shared my
+sorrows with me, and were sighing over my fate. . . .
+
+Idle fancy, nonsense, you think; but when one has nothing real to
+look up to, dreams are very sweet.  A light breeze would steal over
+me, refresh me, and bring me new hope; and I trusted I should not be
+a prisoner always, the day of my release would surely come.  At such
+happy moments I would fall asleep gazing at the stars.  And if the
+sudden whip of the landowner did not put an end to my dreams, I
+would dream away, and see things no language could describe.
+
+Well, I took the bag and led the horses out into the open field.
+But that time, out of sheer spite or for some other reason, I did
+not go into our neighbor's field, but descended right into the
+valley that my patron had left lying fallow, and stretched myself
+upon the soft grass of the hospitable turf.
+
+That night I longed to bring father and mother before my mind's eye
+and have an imaginary talk with them.  But I did not succeed.
+Instead, the figure of the old rabbi hovered before my eyes.  It
+seemed to me that he was looking at me angrily, and telling me the
+story of Joseph the righteous: how he lived in the house of
+Potiphar, and ate nothing but vegetables.
+
+But when I reminded myself of Joseph the righteous, I felt my heart
+sink at the thought of what Marusya had done to me.  I could not
+deny that the good looks of the Gentile girl were endearing her to
+me, that out of her hands I would eat pork ten times a day, and that
+in fact I myself was trying to put up a defense of her.  I took all
+the responsibility on myself.  I was ready to believe that she did
+not seek my company, but that it was I who called her to myself.  I
+was a sinner in my own estimation, and I could not even cry.  Then
+it seemed to me that the sky was much darker than usual, and the
+stars did not shine at all.  With such thought in my mind I fell
+asleep.
+
+I awoke at the sound of voices.  Some one is crying, I thought.  The
+sound seemed near enough.  It rose and rose and filled the valley.
+It made me shudder.  The soft, plaintive chant swelled and grew
+louder, as if addressed to me.  It gripped my very heart.  I stood
+up all in a shiver, and started to walk in the direction of the
+sound.  But around me, up and down, on every side, was total
+darkness.  The moon had set long ago.  I moved away only a few steps
+from the horses, and could not make them out any more.  By and by I
+could distinguish some words, and I recognized the heart-gripping
+chant of a Hebrew Psalm. . . .
+
+  "For the Lord knoweth the path of the righteous,
+   And the path of the wicked shall perish." . . .
+
+My fears vanished, and gave place to a feeling of surprise.
+
+"Where can that chanting come from," thought I, "and here in exile,
+too?"
+
+Then I began to doubt it all, thinking it was but a dream.
+
+   "Why do the nations rage,
+    And the peoples imagine a vain thing?"
+
+The voices were drawing me forward irresistibly, and I decided to
+join the chorus, come what might.  And I continued the Psalm in a
+loud voice:
+
+   "The kings of the earth stood up . . . ."
+
+The chanting ceased; I heard steps approaching me.
+
+"Who is there?" asked a voice in Yiddish.
+
+"It is I," answered I, "and who are you?"
+
+"It is we!" shouted many voices in chorus.
+
+"Cantonists?"
+
+"A Cantonist, too?"
+
+Thus exchanging questions, we met.  They turned out to be three
+Cantonists, who lived in a village at some distance from Peter's
+house.  I had never met them before.  They, too, had "gone out for
+the night," and we had happened to use the same valley.
+
+I love to mention their names.  The oldest of them was Jacob, whom
+you remember from the punishment he underwent.  The others were
+Simeon and Reuben.  But there in the valley they introduced
+themselves to me with the names they were called by at home: Yekil,
+Shimele, and Ruvek.  I found out later that the valley was their
+meeting-place.  It was a sort of Klaus, "Rabbi Yekil's Klaus" the
+boys called it.  Yekil was a boy of about fifteen, who was
+well-equipped with knowledge of the Torah when he was taken away
+from his home.
+
+In the long years of our exile we had forgotten the Jewish calendar
+completely.  But Yekil prided himself on being able to distinguish
+the days "by their color and smell," especially Fridays; and his
+friends confirmed his statements.  He used to boast that he could
+keep track of every day of the year, and never miss a single day of
+the Jewish holidays.  Every Jewish holiday they met in the valley on
+Peter's estate.  According to Yekil's calendar, the eve of the Fast
+of the Ninth of Av fell on that very day.  That is why they had
+gathered in the valley that night.  "If so," said I, "what is the
+use of reciting that Psalm?  Were it not more proper to recite
+Lamentations?"
+
+"We do not know Lamentations by heart," explained Yekil, with the
+authority of a rabbi, "but we do know some Psalms, and these we
+recite on every holiday.  For, at bottom, are mere words the main
+thing?  Your real prayer is not what you say with your lips, but
+what you feel with the whole of your heart.  As long as the words
+are in the holy tongue, it all depends on the feelings you wish to
+put into them.  As my father, may he rest in peace, used to instruct
+me, the second Psalm is the same as the festival hymn, 'Thou hast
+chosen us from among the nations,' if you feel that way; or it may
+be the same as Lamentations.  It all depends on the feelings in our
+heart, and on the meaning we wish to put into the words!"
+
+Yekil's talk and the sounds of Yiddish speech, which I had not heard
+since I left home, impressed me in a wonderful way.  Here I found
+myself all at once in the company of Jews like father and mother.
+But I felt very much below that wonderful boy who could decide
+questions of Jewish law like some great rabbi.  Indeed, he seemed to
+me little short of a rabbi in our small congregation.  Then I began
+to feel more despondent than ever.  I considered myself the sinner
+of our little community.  I knew I was guilty of eating pork and of
+other grave trespasses, and I felt quite unworthy of being a member
+of the pious congregation.
+
+Meanwhile little Reuben discovered the contents of my bag.
+
+"Boys, grub!" exclaimed he, excitedly.  At the word "grub" the
+congregation was thrown into a flutter.  That was the way of the
+Cantonists.  They could not help getting excited at the sight of any
+article of food, even when they were not hungry at all.  In the long
+run our patrons fed us well enough, and on the whole we could not
+complain of lack of food.  But we were fed according to the
+calculations of our patrons, and not according to our own appetites.
+ So it became our habit to eat whenever victuals were put before us,
+even on a full stomach.  "Eat whenever you have something to eat, so
+as not to go hungry when there may be no rations."  That was a
+standing rule among the Cantonists.  They began fumbling in my bag,
+and I was dying with shame at the thought that soon they would
+discover the piece of pork, and that my sin would become known to
+the pious congregation.  Then I broke down, and with tears began to
+confess my sins.
+
+"I have sinned," said I, sobbing, "it is pork.  I could not
+withstand the temptation."
+
+At that moment it seemed to me that Yekil was the judge, and the
+boys who had found the pork were the witnesses against me.  Yekil
+listened to my partial confession, and the two "witnesses" hung
+their heads, and hid their faces in shame, as if they were the
+accused.  But I sobbed and cried bitterly.
+
+"Now, listen, little one," Yekil turned to me.  "I do not know
+whether you have suffered the horrors of hell that we have suffered.
+ Did they paint your body with tar, and put you up on the highest
+shelf in the steam-bath, and choke you with burning steam?  Did they
+flog you with birch-rods for having been caught mumbling a Hebrew
+prayer?  Did they make you kneel for hours on sharp stones for
+having refused to kiss the ikon and the crucifix?  Did they discover
+you secretly kissing the Arba-Kanfos, and give you as many lashes as
+there are treads in the Tzitzis?  If you have not passed through all
+that, uncover our backs, and count the welts that still mark them!
+And to this you must add the number of blows I have still to get,
+simply because my little body could not take in at once all it was
+expected to take in.  And yet, not a day passed without our having
+recited our Modeh-Ani.  As to eating pork, we abstained from it in
+spite of the rods.  Then they gave up flogging us; but, instead of
+that punishment, they gave us nothing but pork to eat.  Two days we
+held out; we did not touch any food.  We did not get even a drink of
+water.  Do you see little Simeon?  Well, he tried to eat the grass
+in the courtyard. . . .  On the third day of our fast I saw my
+father in my dream.  He was dressed in his holiday clothes, and
+holding the Bible in his hands he quoted the passage, 'Be ye mindful
+of your lives.'  Suddenly, the earth burst open, and the Angel of
+Death appeared.  He had rods in one hand and a piece of swine's
+flesh in the other.  He put the piece of pork into my mouth.  I
+looked up, terror-stricken, to my father, but he smiled.  His smile
+filled the place with light.  He said to me, 'Eatest thou this of
+thy own free will?'  Then he began to soar upwards, and called out
+to me from afar:  'Tell all thy comrades, the Cantonists:  Your
+reward is great.  Every sigh of yours is a prayer, every good
+thought of yours is a good action!  Only beware, lest you die of
+hunger; then surely you will merit eternal punishment!'
+
+"I awoke.  Since then we eat all kinds of forbidden food.  The main
+thing is that we have remained Jews, and that as Jews we shall
+return home to our parents.  It is clear to me now that the Holy
+One, blessed by He, will not consider all that a sin on our part!"
+
+I felt as if a heavy load had been taken off my shoulders.  My eyes
+began to flow with tears of gladness.  Then, having once started my
+confession, I decided to confess to my second sin also.  Meanwhile
+Simeon had pulled the bread and the meat out of my bag.
+
+"Glutton!" exclaimed Yekil, angrily.  "Have you forgotten that it is
+the night of the Fast of the Ninth of Av?"
+
+The boy, ashamed, returned the things to the bag, and moved away a
+few steps.  Then I told Yekil all that had passed between me and
+Marusya, and tried unconsciously to defend her in every way.  I
+think I exaggerated a good deal when I tried to show that Marusya
+liked the Jews very much, indeed.
+
+"And what was the end of it?" asked Yekil, with some fear.  "Did she
+really kiss you?"  The other boys echoed the question.  I looked
+down, and said nothing.
+
+"Is she good-looking?"
+
+I still gave no answer.
+
+"I have forgotten your name.  What is it?"
+
+"Samuel."
+
+"Now listen, Samuel, this is a very serious affair.  It is much
+worse than what is told of Joseph the righteous.  Do you understand?
+ I do not really know how to make it clear to you.  It is very
+dangerous to find good and true friends right here in exile, in the
+very ranks of our enemies."
+
+"Why?" wondered I.
+
+"I cannot tell you, but this is how I feel.  Insulted and outraged
+we have been brought here; insulted and outraged we should depart
+from here.  Ours is the right of the oppressed; and that right we
+must cherish till we return home."
+
+"I do not understand!"
+
+Jacob looked at me sharply, and said: "Well, I have warned you; keep
+away from her."
+
+His words entered into the depths of my heart.  I bowed my head
+before Yekil, and submitted to his authority.  That was the way we
+all felt:  Yekil had only to look at us to subject us to his will.
+It was hard to resist him.
+
+I felt a great change in myself:  I had been relieved of the weight
+of two sins.  Of one I had been absolved completely, and the other I
+had confessed in public and repented of.  I gladly joined the little
+congregation, and we returned to our Psalms, which we recited
+instead of Lamentations.  At the conclusion I proposed that we chant
+the Psalm "By the rivers of Babylon," which we all knew by heart.
+
+And we, a congregation of four little Jews, stood up in the valley
+on the estate of Peter Khlopov, concealed by steep hills and by the
+darkness of the night: thieves for the benefit of our masters, and
+mourners of Zion on our own account. . . .  And we chanted out of
+the depths of our hearts:
+
+"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, remembering Zion."
+. . .
+
+We chanted the whole of it, sat down and wept, remembering at the
+same time all we had gone through ourselves, and also the position
+we were in at that time.--
+
+
+
+Here old Samuel shuddered and stopped abruptly.  The sun had set,
+and he reminded himself that he had forgotten to say his afternoon
+prayer.  He jumped down hastily, washed his hands in a near-by pool,
+returned to his seat, and became absorbed in his devotion.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+By and by the streaks of light disappeared in the twilight sky, and
+the wintry night threw the mantle of thick and misty blackness over
+us.
+
+Presently I heard the old man conclude his prayer: "When the world
+will be reclaimed through the kingship of the Almighty; when all
+mortals will acknowledge Thy name. . . . on that day the Lord will
+be One, and His name will be One!"
+
+Out of the darkness came the devout words; they seemed to take wing,
+as though to pierce the shrouding mist and scatter it; but they
+themselves were finally dissolved in the triumph and blackness.
+. . .
+
+I did not have to urge the old man to continue his tale.  His
+prayers over, he picked up the thread of his narrative, as if
+something were driving him to give a full account of what he had
+passed through.--
+
+
+
+The day I became acquainted with Jacob--continued the old man--I
+consider the beginning of a new period in my life.  I became
+accustomed to consider him my superior, whose behavior had to be
+taken as an example.  Jacob spoke as an authority whenever he did
+speak, and he never wavered in his decisions.  Whenever he happened
+to be in doubt, his father would "instruct" him in his dreams.  Thus
+we lived according to Jacob's decisions and dreams.  I got used to
+eating forbidden food, to breaking the Sabbath, and trespassing
+against all the ordinances of the ritual without compunction.  And
+yet Jacob used to preach to us, to bear floggings and all kinds of
+punishments rather than turn traitor to our faith.  So I got the
+notion that our faith is neither prayers, nor a collection of
+ordinances of varying importance, but something I could not name,
+nor point to with my finger.  Jacob, I thought, certainly knows all
+about it; but I do not.  All I could was to _feel_ it; so could
+Anna.  Otherwise she would not have called me Zhid, and would not
+have hated me so much, in spite of seeing me break all the
+ordinances of the Jewish ritual.
+
+At times I thought that I and my comrades were captains in God's
+army, that all His ordinances were not meant for us, but for the
+plain soldiers of the line.  They, the rank and file, must be
+subjected to discipline, must know how to submit to authority; all
+of which does not apply to the commanding officers.  It seemed to me
+that this was what the Holy One, blessed be He, had deigned to
+reveal to us through the dreams of Jacob: there is another religion
+for you, the elect.  _You_ will surely know what is forbidden, and
+what is permitted. . . .
+
+Sometimes, again, I imagined that I might best prove true to my
+faith if I set my heart against the temptation that Satan had put
+before me in the person of Marusya.  If I turned away from her, I
+thought, I might at once gain my share in the future world.  So I
+armed myself against Marusya's influence in every possible way.  I
+firmly resolved to throw back at her any food she might offer me.
+If she laid her hand on me, I would push it away from me, and tell
+her plainly that I was a Jew, and she--a nobody.
+
+So I fought with her shadow, and, indeed, got the best of it as long
+as she herself was away.  But the moment she appeared, all my
+weapons became useless.  She made me feel like one drunk.  I could
+not withstand the wild-fire of her eye, nor the charm of her merry
+talk, nor the wonderful attraction of her whole person.  At the same
+time there was not a trace of deviltry about her: it was simply an
+attraction which I could not resist.  And when she laid her soft
+hand on me, I bent under it, and gave myself up entirely.  And she
+did what she wanted: where buttons were missing, she sewed them on;
+and where a patch was needed, she put it in.  She was a little
+mother to me.  She used to bring me all kinds of delicacies and
+order me to eat them; and I could not disobey her.  In short, she
+made me forget Jacob and his teachings.  But the moment I met Jacob
+I forgot Marusya's charms, and reminded myself that it was sinful to
+accept favors in exile.  Then I would repent of my past actions from
+the very depths of my heart--till I again was face to face with
+Marusya.  I was between the hammer and the anvil.
+
+My meetings with Jacob were regular and frequent.  After what
+according to Jacob's calendar was the Ninth of Av, we met nightly in
+the valley on Peter's estate, till a disagreement broke out among
+us.  I would not permit the cattle of the whole neighborhood to
+browse on the estate of my patron, and Simeon and Reuben would not
+agree to let my patron's horses be brought to the meadows of their
+patrons.  Our congregation nearly broke up.  But here Jacob
+intervened with his expert decision.
+
+"Boys," said he, "you must know that 'going out for the night' is
+really a form of stealing.  True, we do not steal for our own
+benefit.  Yet, as long as we have a hand in it, we must manage it in
+a fair way.  So let us figure out how many horses every one of our
+patrons possesses.  And let us arrange the nights according to the
+number of horses each of the patrons has.  According to this
+calculation we shall change places.  We shall spend more nights in
+the meadows of those who have more horses.  That will make 'fair
+stealing.'"
+
+The plan of Jacob was accepted, not as a proposition, but as an
+order.  Since that time we began to "steal with justice."  And our
+patrons slept peacefully, delighted with their unpunished thievery,
+till a Gentile boy, one Serge Ivanovich, joined us on one of his own
+"nights."  He was the son of the village elder, and a cousin of
+Peter Khlopov.  He was compelled to obey Jacob, but the next morning
+he blabbed about it all over the village.
+
+Of course, our patrons were angry.  Jacob took the whole blame on
+himself, and suffered punishment for all of us.  Then "Jacob's
+Klaus" was closed, because our patrons gave up sending us out "for
+the night."
+
+Well, if you please, their dissatisfaction was not entirely
+groundless: they found themselves fooled by us, and cheated in a
+way.  For every one of them had been thinking that his horse would
+bring him some profit every night, equal to the value of the horse's
+browsing.  Seven nights, seven times that profit; thirty nights,
+thirty times that profit. . . .  All at once these "profits" had
+vanished: it turned out that every horse had been browsing at the
+expense of his own master; so the expected profits became a total
+loss.  Of course, stealing is stealing.  But then, they argued, had
+the Zhid youngsters any right to meddle with their affairs?  Was it
+their property that was being stolen?  As one of my Gentile
+acquaintances told me once: "The trouble with the Jews is that they
+are always pushing themselves in where they are not wanted at all."
+
+Indeed, it was this fault of ours that Serge kept pointing out to me
+and berating us for.  Well, Jacob's Klaus had been closed.  But we
+managed to get together in different places.  Once in a while we
+came to see one another at our patron's houses, and they did not
+object.
+
+I do not know who told Marusya what kind of a chap Jacob was, and
+what he thought of her; but she hated him from the moment she first
+saw him, when he came to visit me.
+
+"He is a real savage," she would say.  "I never saw such a Jew.  I
+am simply afraid of him.  I am afraid of those wild eyes of his.  I
+detest him, anyway."  That is what she used to tell me.
+
+Whenever Jacob came to see me, and Marusya happened to be in the
+room, she would walk out immediately, and would not return before he
+was out of the house.  I rather liked it.  I could not be giving in
+to both of them at the same time.
+
+Such were the surroundings that shaped my life during those days.
+Peter befriended me; but Anna kept on worrying me and making me
+miserable.  Marusya loved me as a sister loves a brother, and the
+fire of her eyes ate into my heart.  Jacob kept preaching to me that
+it was wrong to accept favors from Gentiles, and that we had to
+fight for our faith.  Serge became my bitter enemy from the time he
+betrayed our scheme of "honest stealing."
+
+To top it all, my sergeant tried to put me through the paces of the
+military drill, and succeeded.
+
+But my own self seemed to have been totally forgotten and left out
+of the account.
+
+By and by the summer passed, and most of the following winter; and
+in the Khlopov household preparations were made for some holiday, I
+forget which.  Those days of preparation were our most miserable
+days in exile.  When Anna was busy on the eve of a holiday, I could
+not help remembering our own Sabbath eves at home, the Sabbath days
+in the Klaus, as well as the other holidays, and all the things that
+are so dear to the heart of the Jewish boy.  That was the time when
+I felt especially lonely and homesick; it was as though a fever were
+burning within me.  Then neither tears nor even Marusya's company
+did me any good.  I felt as if red-hot coals had been packed up
+right here in my breast.  Did you ever feel that way?  I felt like
+rolling on the ground and pressing my chest against something hard.
+I felt I was going mad.  I felt like jumping, crying, singing, and
+fighting all at once.  I felt as if even lashes would be welcome,
+simply to get rid of that horrible heartache.
+
+On that particular day Khlopov was late in coming home.  Marusya
+remarked that she had seen her father enter the tavern.  Then Anna
+began to curse "our Moshko," the tavern keeper.  Marusya objected:
+
+"Tut, tut, mother, is it any of Moshko's fault?  Does he compel papa
+to go there?  Does he compel him to drink?"
+
+Then Anna few into a temper, and poured out a torrent of curses and
+insults on Marusya.  I don't know what happened to me then.  My
+blood was up; my fists tightened.  It was a dangerous moment; I was
+ready to pounce upon Anna.  I did not know that Marusya had been
+watching me all the while from behind, and understood all that was
+passing within me.  Presently the door opened, and Khlopov entered,
+rather tipsy, hopping and jigging.  That was his way when in his
+cups.  When he was under the influence of liquor, his soul seemed to
+spread beyond its usual limits and light up his face with smiles.
+At such moments he would be ready to hug, to kiss, or to cry; or
+else to curse, to fight, and to laugh at the same time.
+
+Right here you can see the difference between the Jew and the
+Gentile.  The finer soul of the Jew may contract and settle on the
+very point of his nose.  But the grosser soul of the Gentile needs,
+as it were, more space to spread over.  This, I believe, is why
+Khlopov never failed to get a clean shave on the eve of every
+holiday.
+
+As soon as Khlopov had entered the room, he began to play with me
+and Marusya.  He gave us candy, and insisted on dancing a jig with
+us.
+
+Anna met him with a frown:  "Drunk again?"  But this time her eyes
+seemed to have no power over Khlopov.  He could not stand it any
+longer, and gave tit for tat.  "Zhidovka!" he shouted.  I looked at
+Anna: she turned red.  Marusya blushed.  Khlopov sobered up, and his
+soul shrank to its usual size.  Anna went to her room.  The spell
+was broken.
+
+The word "Zhidovka" hurled at Anna made me start back.  What could
+it mean, I wondered.  I felt sorry for Khlopov, for Marusya, for
+Anna, and for the holiday mood that had been spoilt by a single
+word.  And it seemed to me it was my fault to some extent.  Who, I
+thought, had anything in common with Zhidovka if not myself?  Or was
+it Khlopov?--
+
+
+
+Here the old man was interrupted by the neighing of the horses.
+
+The forward horse seemed to be getting proud of the comparative
+freedom he enjoyed, and bit his neighbor, only to remind him of it.
+The latter, unable to turn around in the harness, resented the
+insult by kicking.  But then the driver plied the whip, and there
+was peace again.
+
+"Would you take the trouble to dismount?  Just walk up that hill: it
+will do you good to warm yourselves up a little after sitting so
+long in one place."
+
+That was the driver's suggestion; and as no one refuses obedience to
+drivers on the road, we dismounted.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+The next day--resumed the old man--the situation became a little
+clearer to me.  Marusya told me that according to the gossip of the
+village her mother was a converted Jewess.  She, Marusya, was not so
+sure of it.  Her father would call her mother a Jewess once in a
+while, but that happened only when he was drunk.  So she did not
+know whether he merely repeated the village gossip, or had his own
+information in the matter.  And when she asked her mother, the
+latter would fly into a temper.
+
+"Papa himself," said Marusya, "likes Jews; but mother hates them.  I
+like papa more than mamma; I also like Jews; I often play with
+Moshko's girls when mother is not around.  I do not understand why
+mother dislikes Jews so much."
+
+Then Marusya insisted I should tell her the real truth about the
+Jews, as they are at home: were they like myself, or like Jacob, the
+wild one?  But I stopped listening to her chatter, and began to
+think of what she had told me about her mother.  For in case it was
+true that Anna was a convert, then--why, then Marusya herself was
+half a Jewess.  I decided to solve the mystery.
+
+Now let me tell you that as a result of our Cantonist training we
+were not only as bold as eagles, as courageous as lions, as swift as
+the deer in doing the will of our patrons, but also as sly as foxes
+in finding a way out of a difficulty.  And, by the way, that was
+also the opinion of our late commander, Colonel Pavel Akimovich.  A
+keen-eyed commander and a kind-hearted master was he, may his lot be
+in Paradise among the godly men of the Gentile tribes.  Yes, if he
+was an eagle, we were his chicks; if he was a lion, we were his
+whelps!  This is what he used to say:  "In time of need, you have no
+better soldier than the Jew.  But then you must know how to use him.
+ Do not give him too many instructions, and do not try to explain it
+all to him from beginning to end.  If you instruct him too much, he
+will be afraid to do any scheming on his own hook, and you will be
+the loser.  Just give him your order, and tell him what the order is
+for.  Then you may be sure he will get it for you, even if he should
+have to go to hell for it!"  This is what Colonel Pavel Akimovich
+used to say of us.
+
+Now, once I decided to find out Anna's secret, I thought it all out
+beforehand, as a Cantonist should; and I hit upon a plan.
+
+That was at the beginning of spring.  One day Khlopov left on a
+journey to the neighboring villages to collect the taxes.  He had to
+stay away some time.  The whole of that day Anna kept worrying me as
+usual.  She sent me on unnecessary errands, she wanted me to be in
+two places at the same time.  She yelled, she cursed, she shook me,
+and mauled me, she pulled me by the ears.  She knew well how to make
+one miserable.  When night came, I went to sleep in the anteroom;
+that was my bedroom.  Anna was abed, but not asleep.  Marusya had
+long been asleep.  Then Anna remembered that she had forgotten to
+close the door leading to the anteroom, and she ordered me to get up
+and close it.  I made believe I was sleeping soundly, and began to
+snore loudly.  She kept on calling me, but I kept on snoring.
+Suddenly I began to cry, as if from the sleep:  "O mother, leave
+Anna alone.  She too is a mother!  Pity her family!"
+
+Anna became silent.  I half opened my eyes and looked at her through
+the open door.  A candle was burning on the table near her bed, and
+I could see that she was frightened, and was listening intently.
+then I continued, somewhat differently:  "I beg of you, mother, is
+it her fault?  Doesn't she feed me?  Isn't she a mother too?"
+
+Then I began to cry as if in my sleep.  "What?"  I asked suddenly,
+"Anna?!  Anna--a Jewess too?!"
+
+Then I noticed that Anna was watching Marusya's bed.  I saw she was
+afraid Marusya might overhear what was not intended for her ears.
+She put on her night robe, came to my bed, and began in a whisper:
+"Are you sleeping?  Get up, my boy, wake up!"
+
+I did "wake up," and put on a frightened appearance.  "What did you
+cry about?" she asked.  "I dreamt something terrible."  "What did
+you dream about"  I kept silent.  "Tell me, tell me!" she insisted.
+"I saw my mother in a dream."  "Is she alive yet?"  I told a lie.  I
+said my mother was long dead.  "And what did she tell you?"  "She
+said that . . . ."  "Tell me, tell me!"  "I cannot repeat that in
+Russian."  "Then say it in Yiddish."  I looked with make-believe
+surprise at Anna.  "She said: 'I shall come to Anna at night and
+choke her, if she doesn't give up abusing you.'"  At this Anna
+turned red.  I continued:  "And she said also, 'Anna ought to have
+pity on Jewish children, because she is a Jewess herself.'" . . . .
+
+My scheme worked well.  Anna began to treat me in an entirely
+different way, and my position in the house not only improved, but
+became the opposite of what it had been.  At times, when no one was
+around, she even spoke Yiddish to me.  Apparently she liked to
+remain alone in the house with me and chat with me.  You must know,
+her position in the village was all but agreeable.  She had very few
+acquaintances; and she would have been better off without any.  When
+she happened to have visitors, a mutual suspicion at once became
+apparent, in their behavior and their talk.  There was much more
+flattery, much more sweetness of speech than is common among people.
+ One could see that each spoke only to hide her innermost thoughts.
+Every conversation ended as it began: with gossip about women who
+were not zealous enough in matters of church attendance.  And when
+it came to that, Anna invariably blushed, simply because she was
+afraid she might blush.  Then, feeling the blood coming to her face,
+she would try to hide her confusion, and would chatter away
+ceaselessly, to show how punctual she was herself in church matters.
+ On taking leave, Anna's friends would exchange significant glances,
+and Anna would have been either too stupid or else too wise not to
+notice the sting of those sly looks.
+
+As to Peter, he treated Anna fairly well; and when they happened to
+quarrel, it was mostly her own fault.  One night--it was long after
+I had found out Anna's secret--I happened to be sleepless, and I
+overheard Anna talking angrily to Peter.  She was scolding him for
+having forgotten to prepare oil for the lamp before the ikon of some
+saint.  It was that saint's day, and Khlopov had either forgotten or
+neglected it.  He was very careless in church matters, and Anna
+never got tired of taking him to task for it.  This time she didn't
+leave off nagging him, till he lost patience, and said:  "Were I
+really as religious as you want me to be, I should have taken to
+wife a woman who--well, who is a real Christian herself."  Perhaps
+Peter never meant to insult Anna by reminding her of that which she
+wished to forget.  Or perhaps Peter thought he had offered a valid
+excuse.  But Anna was offended and turned around crying.
+
+The trouble with Anna was that she was very sensitive.  That was a
+trait of hers.  When she heard something said about herself, she
+never was satisfied with the plain meaning of what was said, but
+tried to give the words every other possible meaning.  Every chance
+remark she happened to overhear she took to be meant for herself.
+Well, this same sensitiveness one may find in most of the
+Cantonists.  For instance, in the regiment of General Luders, in
+which I served once, we had many Tatars, some Karaites, and a goodly
+number of Jews.  To all appearances there was no trouble; but let
+one soldier call another "Antichrist," and every Jew in the regiment
+would get excited.  The Tatars and the Karaites rather liked to call
+their comrades Antichrist, even if they happened to be Christians.
+But it was only the Jews whom the word set a-shivering.  It is as I
+tell you--the Jew is painfully sensitive.  Well, to cut my story
+short, Anna did not have a happy time of it.  She was all alone,
+surrounded though she was by many people.  She became taciturn in
+spite of herself.  And this is a great misfortune when it happens
+with womenfolk.  Women are naturally great talkers, and you may do
+them much harm, if you do not give them a chance to talk.  So I
+became her crony as soon as I discovered her secret.  Then she tried
+to make up for the many years of silence by chattering incessantly.
+In her long talks she often said things she had denied before.  Once
+she told me that she felt a longing to see her relations and
+townspeople.  But the next time she said that she hated them
+mightily.  Very likely she did not hate them.  We all dislike that
+which has caused us pain and harm.  So Anna disliked her relations
+for having caused her remorse, homesickness, and perhaps shame.
+Once her tongue was loosed, she did not stop until she had poured
+out the proverbial nine measures given to woman as her share of the
+ten measures of speech in the world.  She spoke Yiddish even in the
+presence of Marusya and of Jacob, who used to visit me once in a
+while.  By and by Anna began to treat him in a very friendly way.
+Only Marusya avoided him, and never spoke a word to him.  She simply
+hated him.
+
+Thus in time the house of Anna became something like a Jewish
+settlement, or rather like some sort of a Klaus, especially when
+Pater was away from home.  We all used to gather there, and talk
+Yiddish, just as in a Klaus.  For under Anna's roof we felt
+perfectly free.  She became a mother to the homeless Cantonists.
+Even marusya took to jabbering a little Yiddish.  Jacob began to
+feel that the leadership of our little community was passing into
+the hands of Anna, and he became jealous.  He did not see that the
+very fact that he too was falling under her spell was influencing
+our community greatly, and that thus he was stamping it with his own
+character.
+
+Anna liked him more than she did any one of us.  Moreover, she
+respected him.  At times it looked as if she were somewhat afraid of
+him.
+
+Now you must know that at bottom Anna had never deserted her
+religion.  Instead, she carried the burdens of both religions; to
+the fear of the Jewish hell she seemed to have added the fear of the
+Christian hell.  I suspect that she was still in the habit of
+reciting her Hebrew prayer before going to sleep.  She also believed
+in dreams.  In this respect all women are the same.  Of course, she
+had her dreams, and Jacob thought himself able to interpret them; he
+used to seek her company for that purpose.
+
+So we all began to feel very much at home in Anna's house.
+
+Once it happened that Peter entered the house at a moment when we
+were all so much absorbed in our Yiddish conversation that we did
+not notice his presence.  He sat down quietly among us and took part
+in our talk, smiling in his usual manner.  He asked us some
+questions, and we answered him.  Then we asked him something, and he
+answered us in pure, good Yiddish, as if there were nothing new or
+surprising about it.  At last Marusya awoke, and exclaimed with glad
+surprise:  "Papa, can you speak Yiddish too?"  We all shuddered, as
+if caught stealing.  Peter's smile broadened, covering the whole of
+his face.
+
+"Did you imagine that I do not know it?  I wish you could speak it
+as well as I do."
+
+That made me suspect that Peter might have been himself a convert
+from Judaism, and I decided to ask Anna bout it.  She cleared up my
+doubts very soon.  She told me that Peter had been brought up in an
+exclusively Jewish town; he had been employed there as a clerk in
+the Town Hall.  As he always had to deal with jews, he finally
+learned their language.  She told me at the same time that Peter
+rather liked Jews, and that he was a man of more than ordinary
+ability; otherwise, she said, it would have been very foolish on her
+part to leave the religion of her father for the sake of Peter.
+
+"What did you say was the name of your native town?" I asked out of
+sheer curiosity.  She named my native town.  I felt a shiver go
+through me.  "And what was your father's name?" I asked again,
+trembling.
+
+"Bendet."
+
+"Was he a wine-dealer?"
+
+"Yes; and how do you know it?  Are you of the same town?"
+
+I told her my father's name, and we clasped hands in surprise.--
+
+
+
+While the old man was telling his tale, the clouds dispersed.  I
+looked upwards: the dark sky spread vaultlike above us studded with
+stars, some in groups, some far apart.  Then I remembered what the
+Lord had promised to our father Abraham:  "And I shall multiply thy
+seed as the stars in heaven."  And I thought I saw in the sky naught
+but so many groups of Jews: some kept in exile, some confined within
+the nebulae of the Milky Way. . . .  But even then, it seemed to me,
+there was a strong attraction, a deep sympathy between them all, far
+apart and scattered though they were.  Even so they formed
+aggregations of shining stars--far apart, yet near. . . .
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+The wind began to grow cold; we pressed close to one another to keep
+warm.  The old man drew his old coat tightly about him, and
+continued his story:--
+
+
+
+Well, we of our little community threw off the yoke of the old
+Torah, yet refused to accept the yoke of the new Torah.
+Nevertheless our lives were far from being barren.  Our longing for
+the things we were forbidden to practise prompted us to invent a
+good many new usages.  For instance, long before we had the freedom
+of Anna's house, we managed to meet every Saturday to exchange a few
+words in Yiddish; two or three words were sufficient to satisfy our
+sense of duty.  Those meetings were among the things for the sake of
+which we were ready to run any risk of discovery.  Of course, we
+dared not recite our Modeh-Ani: our patrons might have overheard us,
+and that meant a sure flogging.  But we practised repeating the
+prayer mentally, and we always managed to do it with our faces
+turned in the direction from which we thought we had come, and where
+our native towns were situated.  Jacob had a little piece of cloth,
+a remnant of an Arba-Kanfos.  The Tzitzis had long been torn away,
+to prevent discovery and avoid punishment; but what was left of it
+we kept secretly, and we used to kiss it at opportune moments, as if
+it were a scroll of the Torah.
+
+Then we made a point of abstaining from work at least one hour every
+Saturday and on the days that were the Jewish holidays according to
+Jacob's calendar.  On the other hand, work was considered obligatory
+on Sundays and on Christian holidays.  Tearing up some papers or
+starting a fire was thought sufficient.
+
+These and many other usages we invented, slowly, one after another.
+In time we got into the habit of observing them very punctiliously,
+even after we had made ourselves at home in Anna's house.  But over
+and above all Jacob never gave up preaching to me that it was wrong
+on the part of an oppressed Jew to accept favors from a non-Jew.
+And this he preached without ever noticing that he was himself
+giving in to temptation when he accepted favors and kindnesses from
+Anna.  As to Marusya, he always found a pretext to separate us
+whenever he met me in her company.  I was very angry with him for
+that, but I could not tell him so openly.  At last it came to such a
+pass that Marusya lost all patience, and made me the scapegoat.  She
+stopped having anything to do with me.
+
+Now that was a real misfortune as far as I was concerned.  For only
+then did I come to realize how much I was attached to the girl.  I
+felt an utter emptiness in my heart; I began to feel myself a total
+stranger in the house.  When everybody was talking merrily, I kept
+quiet, as if I were a mourner.  I was always looking for Marusya, I
+was always trying to catch her eye.  I hoped that our eyes would
+meet, that she would at least look at me.  But she kept on avoiding
+me.  No, she did not avoid me: she simply did not seem to know that
+I was in the house.  I was exasperated; and when once I came face to
+face with Jacob, I lost my temper, and berated him roundly,
+attacking him on his weakest side:
+
+"Is it on me that you are spying?  How many favors, if you please,
+have you accepted yourself from Anna?  Perhaps your father gave you
+a special dispensation in your dreams?"
+
+To all of this Jacob replied very calmly: "First of all, your
+analogy does not hold, for you and Marusya are both youngsters.
+And, second, even supposing I were sinning, it is your fault then,
+too; for it is clearly your duty to warn me.  At the same time, you
+can imagine how much the whole thing grieves me."
+
+Well, after all, I was ready to forgive him his sins, provided he
+overlooked mine. . . . .
+
+Yes, that happened on a Saturday.  We were all standing in line on
+the drill grounds.  I was in the first line, and Jacob was directly
+behind me in the second line.  We were going through the paces of
+the so-called three-step exercise.  It was this way: the soldier had
+to stretch his left leg forward on a somewhat oblique line, so that
+the sole of his foot touched the ground without resting on it.  That
+was the first pace, the hardest of all, as we had to stand on one
+leg, with the other a dead weight.  In this position we had to keep
+standing till the command was given for the second pace.  At that
+moment we had to shift to our left leg, and quickly bend the right
+leg at the knee-joint at a right angle.  Thus we had to stand till
+the command was given for the third pace, when we had to unbend the
+right leg and bring it forward.  On that day we were kept at the
+first pace unusually long.  My muscles began to twitch, and I felt
+as if needles were pricking me from under the skin.  Suddenly I felt
+as if I had lost my footing, and was suspended in the air.  Then I
+fell.  This was my first mishap on that day.  The sergeant made
+believe that he did not notice it, and I congratulated myself,
+hoping it would pass unremarked.
+
+The sergeant was busy with the last of our line: somehow he did not
+like the way he was standing.  Just then, in a crazy fit of
+contrariness, I felt a sudden desire to fulfil my duty of talking a
+few words of Yiddish on Saturday.  I turned my head and whispered to
+Jacob in Yiddish:  "He is going to keep us here the whole day!  When
+shall we have our hour's rest?"  At that moment the sergeant passed
+between the lines, and overheard me speaking Yiddish.  O yes, they
+have sharp ears, those drill-masters.  As you know, speaking Yiddish
+was considered a great breach of discipline, which never passed
+unpunished.  It always meant a whipping.  So I had made myself
+guilty of two offenses.  On that day I did not go home empty-handed:
+ I got an order to report the next morning to receive my twenty
+lashes.  I received my order like a soldier, saluted, and seemed
+cool about it--for the time being.  That pleased the sergeant
+greatly; he was a thorough soldier himself, and heartily hated
+tenderfeet and cowards.  He looked at me approvingly, and said:
+"Because you have always been a good soldier, I shall make the
+punishment easier for you.  You have the privilege of dividing the
+number of lashes in two: ten you get to-morrow, and ten you may put
+off for some other time."  That was the customary way of making the
+punishment easier in the cases when the Cantonist was either too
+weak to take in the whole number of lashes at once, or was thought
+to deserve consideration otherwise.  A temporary relief it certainly
+was; but in the end the relief was worse than the punishment itself.
+ Between the first half of the punishment and the other half, life
+was a burden to the culprit: he could neither eat, nor drink, nor
+sleep in peace.  Every moment he felt as if his back were not his
+own, that he merely had borrowed it for a while, and sooner or later
+he would have to stretch himself on the ground, to bear the weight
+of a rider on his neck and of another on his feet, and have the rods
+fall on him with a swish: one, two, three. . . .
+
+And the pain was awful.  It felt as if the skin were being torn away
+in strips.  A new lash on the fresh cut, and another strip was torn
+out; then another strip across the two.  One felt like yelling, but
+the throat was dry.  One felt like scratching the ground, but the
+finger nails had long become soft.  One felt like biting one's own
+flesh, but one had no power over himself so long as a man was
+sitting on his neck and pinning it tight to the ground.  It was hard
+enough to stand the ordeal itself, as hard as hell.  But it was
+still harder to bear in mind that such a punishment was coming.  It
+felt as if one was being flogged every moment.  So, in the stress of
+the moment, I found my speech.  "Sir," said I, saluting, "I would
+rather stand twenty-five lashes at once than have the twenty lashes
+divided in two parts."
+
+"Why?" asked the sergeant.
+
+"Because a Russian soldier has no time to keep accounts that concern
+only his own back.  He has no right to forget his military duties
+even for a single moment."
+
+Here the sergeant gave me an approving smile, and reduced the twenty
+lashes to ten.  Then Jacob stepped forward, stood at attention,
+saluted, and said:
+
+"Sir, it is not his fault, but mine.  It was I who spoke to him.  He
+was silent.  As to his falling during the drill, that was also my
+fault:  I made him stumble.  I am ready to stand the punishment,
+because I am the guilty one."
+
+The sergeant threw a quick, admiring glance at Jacob, and said:
+
+"Your intentions are certainly good, because you wish to sacrifice
+yourself for your friend.  You might serve as a model for all the
+young soldiers.  Boys, do you hear?  Love one another as Jacob loves
+his guilty friend!  But you must know that your sergeant is not to
+be fooled; his eyes are everywhere, and he certainly knows the
+guilty one!"
+
+When I went home, I felt neither glad nor despondent; I felt as if I
+did not exist at all--as if my very body did not belong to me, but
+had been borrowed for a few hours.  That night I woke up many times;
+I felt as if snakes were crawling over my flesh.  I got up early the
+next morning.  Marusya was yet in bed, half awake.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Anna, standing in my way.  I kept
+silent for a while, then I made a clean breast of it all.  Anna
+shook her head at me, and said with tears glistening in her eyes:
+"Poor fellow, and where are you going to?"
+
+"I am going to the sergeant's; if it has been decreed, let it be
+done quickly."
+
+"Why should you go hungry?"
+
+"That does not matter."  I waved my hand, and walked away slowly.
+One the way I met some people, but I did not greet them; some people
+overtook me, but I did not even notice them pass.  I had nothing in
+my mind except my own shoulders and the stinging rods.  And for a
+moment I really lost heart; I acted like a tenderfoot instead of a
+Cantonist.  I was ready to cry; my tears were choking me, as if I
+were mamma's only darling.  It was about a two hours' walk to the
+sergeant's.  When I arrived there, I stood outside and waited for
+him.  Then I thought I heard the sound of some not unfamiliar voice:
+arguments, expostulations, again arguments.  Somebody was talking
+earnestly behind the closed door.  I could not make out what was
+said.  Neither did I have any desire to know what it was all about.
+I was very impatient.  I longed for the sergeant to come out and do
+the thing he had to do to me.  I wished for all to be over and done
+with--that I had already been carried to the hospital and been
+bandaged; that the days in the hospital had gone; that I had
+recovered and had been dismissed.  But at the same time I hoped the
+sergeant might be a little slow in coming out, and that my pain
+might be postponed for a little while.  In short, I was divided
+against myself: I had two wishes, one excluding the other.  Suddenly
+the door opened, and on the threshold was standing--do you know who?
+ Marusya!  Yes, dear God, it was Marusya.  She was standing at the
+right of the sergeant.  With one hand he was playing with her locks,
+and in the other he was holding both her hands.  Then he turned to
+me:
+
+"Hourvitz, this young lady has interceded in your favor.  And a
+soldier is in honor bound to respect the request of such a nice
+girl.  So, for her sake, all is forgiven this time.  Go home!"
+
+At that moment I was ready to take forty lashes, if only I might
+remove the sergeant's hands from off Marusya.  I went home at a very
+slow pace, so that Marusya might overtake me on the road.  I thought
+she might talk to me then.  I meant to ask her how she had gotten
+ahead of me without my noticing her.  The minutes seemed hours; I
+thought she would never come out of the house.  Then a crazy idea
+struck me--to return to the sergeant's house and see what had
+happened to Marusya.  After all, I thought, what can the sergeant do
+to me more than have me whipped?  At that moment I thought little of
+the rods; it seemed to me just then that the rods did not hurt so
+much after all, and the pain they caused was only temporary; it was
+hardly worth while giving the matter much thought.  And, I am sure,
+for the moment I had lost all sense of pain.  Had they flogged me
+then, I should not have felt any pain.  I turned back.  Luckily I
+did not have to go as far as the sergeant's house; I met Marusya on
+the way.  She passed me, looking right and left, as if I were a mere
+stone lying on the roadside.
+
+"Marusya!" I called after her.  But she kept on walking ahead, as if
+she had not heard me.  "Marusya," I cried again, "is that the way
+you are going to treat me?!  Why, then, did you save me from the
+rods?"
+
+She stopped for a moment, as though thinking of something.  Her
+handkerchief fell from her hand.  She sighed deeply, picked up the
+handkerchief, and resumed her walk.  I returned to the village
+alone.  Anna met me with tears of joy in her eyes.  I broke out into
+tears myself, without really knowing why.  I caught Marusya's eye,
+but her look was a puzzle to me.--
+
+
+
+Presently our horses began to trot at a lively pace; they felt the
+road sloping downhill.  The driver, who had long been nodding in his
+seat, was suddenly shaken out of his slumbers.  He woke up with a
+start, and flourished his whip; which is a habit acquired in his
+trade.  Uphill or downhill, your coach-drive is bound to work with
+his whip.  Let him be disturbed, no matter when,--even when he drops
+into a doze in his Klaus on a Yom-Kippur night--he will invariably
+shake his hand at the intruder as if swinging his whip.
+
+As the horses increased their speed, the baying of dogs became
+audible; a village was not far off.  Cheering and inviting as the
+distant chorus sounded, it resolved itself by and by into single
+barks, and every bark seemed to say, "Away with you,"  "Stand back,"
+ "No strangers admitted," and the like.  A gust of wind brought to
+our nostrils warmish air laden with all kinds of smells: smells of
+smouldering dung, of garbage, and of humanity in general.  Soon
+lights began to twinkle from huddled shanties and from broad-faced
+houses, as if welcoming our arrival.  It looked as if the village
+were priding itself on its lights, and boasting before Heaven:  "See
+how much stronger I am: sunk in the deep slush of a dirty valley, I
+have my own lights, and my own stars within myself."
+
+The village seemed to have shrunk within the limits of its own nest,
+glad that it need not know the ills and the hardships of travel.
+
+The driver ordered an hour's rest.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+After we had warmed ourselves a little in the village inn, we
+returned to our seats in the coach, and the drive continued his
+"talk" with the horses.  The old man resumed his story:--
+
+
+Well, I had fallen into debt; and my two creditors were very hard to
+satisfy.  Jacob had offered, though vainly, to sacrifice his skin
+for mine and suffer the lashes intended for me.  Marusya took the
+trouble to walk all the way to the sergeant's house and talk with
+him, to save me from punishment.  Thus I was indebted to both of
+them, but with a difference.  While trying to belittle the good
+intentions of jacob, I tried at the same time to belittle my
+obligation to him, whose authority was fast becoming irksome.
+Marusya, on the other hand, refused to accept my thanks. . . . .
+
+Well, by that time I had long considered myself a good young
+soldier.  I knew I was growing in the favor of my superiors.  The
+sergeant had praised me repeatedly, in my presence and in my
+absence.  I began to feel my own worth, to cherish military
+aspirations, and to burn with the ambition of a soldier.  Many a
+time I dreamt I was promoted from the ranks, had become a colonel,
+and was promoted to a higher rank still. . . .  I fought in battles,
+performed wonderful feats. . . .
+
+About that time they began to talk in the army about the Turks.
+Jacob and I had our differences with respect to them.  He tried to
+prove to me that the Turks, being the sons of Ishmael, were our
+cousins.  But I did not believe it.  I did not wish to believe it,
+in spite of everything.  He claimed that the children of Ishmael
+were heroes, brave as lions.  But I used to say, "Just give me ten
+Turks, and I shall put them out of business with one shot!"
+
+On account of these talks Jacob and I began to avoid one another's
+company.  He was too hard on me, with his endless contradictions,
+admonitions, and warnings.
+
+One day we went out target shooting.  Jacob fired twelve shots in
+succession, at long range, and every shot was a bull's eye.  He
+outdid all his comrades on that day.  Then the sergeant put his hand
+on Jacob's shoulder, and said:  "Bravo, Jacob!  I see a coming
+officer in you!  Have you a petition to make of me for something I
+can grant?"  Then Jacob saluted, and asked to be permitted to recite
+his Hebrew prayers daily and rest on Saturdays.  The sergeant
+smiled, and granted Jacob's request.
+
+I may just as well tell you now that long before this incident the
+authorities had lost all hope of getting us converted to the ruling
+faith.  They became convinced that we did not budge so much as an
+inch, in spite of all the pressure and tortures we had to stand.
+they realized at last that only compulsion could make us say certain
+prayers before the crucifix every morning.  So by and by they gave
+it up.  And Jacob's request was not so hard to grant after all.
+
+From that moment Jacob became a bitter enemy of the Turks.  He
+pictured them as midgets, and named his patron's dog "Turk."  Aside
+from all this there was a general change in Jacob's disposition; it
+was something that one could only feel, but not exactly see.
+
+We had a very hard winter that year, quite different from what we
+have now.  Nowadays the very seasons of the year seem to have
+softened: new generations--new people; new times--new winters.  Why,
+only last mid-winter I saw the rabbi's daughter-in-law pass through
+the streets bareheaded.  In the mid-summer she drank hot tea, and
+caught a cold in her teeth.  It is all the way I am telling you: the
+word is turned topsyturvy.  In olden times a married woman would not
+dare uncover her hair even in the presence of her husband; it was
+also thought dangerous even for a man to go out bareheaded in winter
+time; and nobody ever caught a cold in midsummer.  Nowadays things
+are different: only last winter I saw soldiers shiver with cold,
+while in our time a soldier was ashamed to show he was afraid of the
+cold.  Yes, new generations, new soldiers; new times, new seasons.
+. . .
+
+In short, that winter was a very hard one: heavy snowfalls,
+snow-storms, and no roads.  The peasants could not go outside of the
+village; they had to stay home, and being idle and lonesome, they
+celebrated their weddings at that convenient season.  Many people
+used to go to their weddings merely as sight-seers, I among them,
+for my sergeant gave me plenty of freedom.  I had been excused from
+a large part of the drill; it was really superfluous as far as I was
+concerned.  I had long learned all there was to learn.  So I had
+much leisure to knock about in.  Well, my sergeant rather liked us
+grown-up Cantonists.  We were, with hardly an exception, very good
+soldiers indeed.  And, after all, what was the hope of the sergeant,
+if not the praise of his superior, "Bravo, sergeant!"  He liked to
+hear it, just as we ourselves liked to hear his "Bravo, boys, well
+done!"
+
+One of the weddings of that season happened to take place in the
+house of the richest peasant of the village, one of those peasants
+who try to rise above their class.  It goes without saying that
+among the invited guests was the very cream of the village society:
+the few Government officials, the village elder, the clerk of the
+village, our sergeant, etc.  Yes, as to our sergeant, he was a jolly
+sort of fellow.  He enjoyed a good laugh himself, and liked to hear
+others laugh.  He liked to pass jokes with his soldiers, too.  But
+then he was always the first to laugh at his own jokes; it seemed as
+if he might laugh himself to death.  Of course, his hearty laughter
+made one laugh with him, joke or no joke.  Yes, he was a good
+fellow; may he, too, have his place among the righteous in Paradise.
+ True, he had us switched once in a while; but that was the way of
+the world in those days.  For he, too, grew up and had been promoted
+from under the birch-rods.  You know what all this reminds me of?
+take this driver, for instance: he is used to belabor his horses
+with the whip; and yet he likes them, you may be sure.  Of course,
+our sergeant would scold us once in a while, too.  But then his
+scolding seemed to hurt him more than us: he looked as if he had
+gotten the scolding himself.  The jokers of our company used to say
+of him, that he stood up every morning before his own uniform, and
+saluted it as it hung on the wall. . . .
+
+In short, he liked to mingle with people and to make merry; then he
+was always the happiest of all.
+
+Of course, he also had been invited to that wedding.
+
+Marusya, too, was there, and that was against her habit.  She kept
+away from all kinds of public gatherings and festivities.  And right
+she was, too, in staying away.  For it was in the company of other
+girls that her brooding, melancholy disposition showed itself most
+clearly.  Did I say melancholy?  No it was not exactly melancholy.
+It was rather the feeling of total isolation, which one could not
+help reading on her face.  And a total stranger she certainly was in
+that throng.  When she kept quiet, her very silence betrayed her
+presence among the chattering girls.  One could almost hear her
+silence.  And when she did take part in the conversation, her voice
+somehow sounded strange and far away in the chorus of voices.  Her
+very dress seemed different, though she was dressed just like any
+other of the village girls.  It was in her gait, her deportment, in
+her very being that she differed from the rest of the girls.  From
+the moment she entered the house she had to run the gauntlet of
+inquisitive looks, which seemed to pierce her very body and made her
+look like a sieve, as it were.  I looked at Marusya, and it seemed
+to me that her face had become longer and her lips more compressed;
+her eyes seemed wider open and lying deeper in her sockets.  She
+looked shrunken and contracted, very much like my mother on the eve
+of the Ninth of Av, when she read aloud the Lamentations for the
+benefit of her illiterate women-friends.
+
+Well, that evening the sergeant danced with Marusya, neglecting the
+other girls entirely.  They kept on refusing the invitations of the
+cavaliers, in the hope that they might yet have a chance to dance
+with the sergeant.  The result was that the cavaliers were angry
+with the girls; the girls, with Marusya; and I, with the sergeant.
+
+And when a recess was called, something happened: one of the
+bachelors, Serge Ivanovich, my old enemy, stood up behind Marusya,
+and shouted with all his might, "Zhidovka!"  Then the envious girls
+broke out into a malicious giggle.
+
+Marusya turned crimson.  She looked first at the sergeant: he was
+curling his mustache, and tried to look angry.  Then Marusya turned
+away from him, and I caught her eye.  Well, that was too much for
+me.  I could not stand it any longer.  I sprang at Serge and dragged
+him to Marusya.  I struck him once and twice, got him by the neck,
+and belabored him with the hilt of my sword.
+
+"Apologize!" said I.
+
+Now, no one is obedient as your Gentile once you have him down.  And
+Serge Ivanovich did not balk.  He apologized in the very words that
+I dictated to him.  Then I let him go.  The sergeant looked at me
+approvingly, as if wishing to say, "Well done!"  This prevented the
+young men from attacking me.
+
+Marusya left the house, and I followed her.  Once outside, she broke
+into tears.  She said something between sobs, but I could not make
+out what she meant.  I thought she was complaining of someone,
+probably her mother.  I wished very much to comfort her, but I did
+not know how.  So we walked on in silence.  The hard, crisp snow was
+squeaking rhythmically under our feet, as if we were trying to play
+a tune.  And from the house snatches of music reached us, mixed with
+sounds of quarreling and merry-making.  It seemed as if all those
+sounds were pursuing us:  "Zhid!  Zhid!"  Suddenly a sense of
+resentment overtook me, as if I had been called upon to defend the
+Jews.  And I blurted out:
+
+"If it is so hard to be insulted once by a youngster who cannot
+count his own years yet, how much harder is it to hear insults day
+in and day out, year in and year out?"
+
+Marusya looked at me with sparkling eyes.  She thought I was angry
+with her and meant her.  Then she wanted to soothe my feelings, and
+she said wonderingly:
+
+"Years?  What, pray, did I do to you?  I only wanted you not to
+listen to Jacob.  He is a bad man.  He hates me.  He is forever on
+the lookout to separate us!"
+
+"He is afraid," said I, "I might yet get converted."
+
+At this Marusya gave me an irresistible look, the look of a mother,
+of a loving sister.
+
+"No," she said decidedly, "I shall not let you do that.  You and
+your daughters will be unhappy forever.  You know what I have
+decided?  I have decided never to get married.  For I know that my
+own daughters will always be called Zhidovka."  At this point I
+became sorry for the turn our conversation had taken, and I cared no
+more for the defense of the Jews.  After a brief silence Marusya
+turned to me:
+
+"Why does mother dislike Jews so much?  She surely knows them better
+than papa does."
+
+"Very likely she fears being called Zhidovka, as they called you."
+
+"But, then, why did she get herself into that trouble?"
+
+"Ask yourself; she may tell you." . . . .
+
+Never mind what passed between us afterwards.  It does not suit a
+man of my age to go into particulars, the way the story-writers do.
+Suffice it to tell you that our relations became very much
+complicated.  Marusya attached herself to me; she became a sister to
+me.
+
+So, after all, Jacob's fears had been well founded from the very
+beginning.  I felt I had gotten myself into a tangle, but I did
+nothing to escape from it; on the contrary, I was getting myself
+deeper and deeper into it.--
+
+
+
+Here the old man's eyes flashed with a fire that fairly penetrated
+the darkness, and for a moment I thought it was but a youth of
+eighteen who was sitting opposite me.  I was glad that the dark hid
+the whiteness of the old man's beard from my view.  The white beard
+was entirely out of harmony with the youthful ardor of its owner's
+speech.
+
+There was a silence of a few minutes, and the old man continued his
+story:--
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+Hard as Anna's lot was, Peter himself was not very happy either.  I
+do not know how things are managed nowadays.  As I told you before,
+new times bring new people with new ways.  It never happened in our
+day that a Jewish maiden, no matter what class she belonged to,
+should throw herself at a young Gentile, and tell him, "Now, I am
+ready to leave my faith and my people, if you will marry me."  In
+our day there never was a case of apostasy except after a good deal
+of courting.  No Jewish girl ever left her faith, unless there was a
+proposal of marriage accompanied by much coaxing.  It required a
+great deal of coaxing and enticing on the part of the man.  Only
+extravagant promises and assurances, which never could be made good,
+could prompt a Jewish maiden to leave her faith.  And such had been
+the case with Khlopov, as Anna told me afterwards.
+
+Anna, or, as she had been called as a Jewess, Hannah, had spent her
+girlhood under the rule of a stepmother.  Peter was a young man
+earning a fair salary as a clerk at the Town Hall.  He was a
+frequent visitor at Bendet's wine-shop.  And Peter was an expert
+judge of the comeliness of Jewish maidens in general and of Anna's
+beauty in particular.  So, when Pater did come, he came as a
+veritable angel-protector.  He came to save her from the yoke of a
+stepmother and make her his wife.  He promised her "golden castles"
+and a "paradise on earth."  All that would be hers but for one
+obstacle: she had to renounce her faith.  At first Anna was
+unwilling.  But the stepmother made Anna as miserable as only human
+beings know how.  Then Bendet's business began to go from bad to
+worse, so that Anna had very slim prospects of ever exchanging the
+yoke of a stepmother for that of a husband.  At the same time Peter
+urged his suit, coaxing her more and more.  Anna warned Peter, that
+in her new life she might find misery instead of happiness.  She was
+sure she would be a stranger to the people with whom she would have
+to come in contact.  Should she happen to be below the other women,
+they would despise her.  Should she happen to be above them, they
+would envy and hate her.  Here she certainly spoke like a
+prophetess.  But Peter kept on assuring her that she was the very
+best of all women, and that he would be her protector in all
+possible troubles.  Then she argued that he might not be happy
+himself; that he would have to fight many a battle.  His parents
+would surely not agree with him.  His relations would shun him.  In
+short, he would be isolated.  Peter laughed at her, and told her
+that all her fears were nothing but the imagination of an unhappy
+maiden who did not believe in the possibility of ever being happy.
+He told her also that not all the women in the world were as bad as
+her stepmother.  Still Hannah was unwilling.  Then Peter attacked
+her with a new weapon.  He made believe he was ill, and let her know
+that if he should die, it would be her fault; and if he did not die,
+he would commit suicide, and his last thought would be that the Jews
+are cruel, and rejoice in the misfortune of a Christian.  Then Hanna
+gave in, did as she was urged, and was renamed Anna.
+
+Now what Anna found in actual life far exceeded what Hannah had
+prophesied.  The women of the village kept aloof from her, and for
+many reasons.  The first reason was that she never visited the
+village tavern.  She never drank any liquor herself, nor treated her
+visitors with it.  And nothing in the world brings such people
+together as liquor does.  Then the men hated her for the purity and
+chastity which she brought from her father's house.  Besides, men
+and women alike envied the prosperity of Khlopov's household, which
+was due only to Anna's thrift.  All those reasons, as well as many
+others, were included in the one word "Zhidovka."  So that word may
+stand for anything you choose.  As to Peter's brothers and
+relatives, they not only kept away from him but also became his open
+or secret enemies.
+
+By and by Peter recognized that Hannah's fears were not the result
+of mere imagination, but the true prophecy of a mature young woman,
+who had foreseen her own future, and he could not help feeling hurt.
+ That bitter thought was possibly the only reason why he frequented
+the establishment of "our Moshko."  He wanted to get rid of the
+accursed thought; but he did not succeed.  He pined for the time
+when he lived among Jews; but Anna could not possibly return to live
+among them.  In the meantime Peter sickened, and took to bed.  Anna
+knew there was still some litigation pending between Khlopov and his
+relations, and his title to the property he held by inheritance was
+disputed.  And she always feared the worst: should she survive
+Peter, his relations would start proceedings against her, dispossess
+her and Marusya, and let them shift for themselves.  Many a time did
+Anna mention the matter to Peter in a casual, off-hand way; but he
+merely smiled his usual smile, listened, and forgot all about it the
+next morning.
+
+Well, that was a weakness of Peter's.  Writing official papers had
+been his lifework, and when he had to do writing in his own behalf,
+he felt disgusted.  He could not touch the pen when his own affairs
+were involved.  Even the writing of a simple letter he used to put
+off from day to day.  And when it came to clear up the title to his
+holding, he would have had to write papers and fill out documents
+enough to load two pack-donkeys.  Small wonder, then, that he kept
+putting it off.
+
+But the time came when it was necessary that Anna should speak to
+him about the matter; and yet she could not muster up enough courage
+to do it.  For at times she thought herself nothing but a stranger
+in the place.  Who was she anyway, to inherit the property left by
+old Simeon Khlopov, deceased?  On one occasion she asked me to call
+Peter's attention to the matter of his title to the property.  I
+entered the sick-room and began to discuss the matter cautiously, in
+a roundabout way, so as not to excite the patient by implying that
+his end might be near.  But my precautions were unnecessary.  He
+spoke very cooly of the possibility of his end coming at any moment,
+but at the same time he insisted that there was really no need to
+hurry, a proper time to settle the matter would be found.
+
+Now here you see one more difference between Jews and Gentiles.  To
+look at the Gentiles, would you ever think them all fools?  Why, you
+may find many a shrewd man among them, many a man who could get me
+and you into his net, as the spider the fly.  But when it comes to
+taking care of the next day, the future, they are rather foolish.
+They do not foresee things as clearly as the Jew does.  For
+instance, do I not work hard to save up money for my daughter's
+dowry, even though I hardly expect her to get married for two years
+at least?  Do I not try hard to pay off the mortgage on my house, so
+as to leave it to my children free and clear?  Say what you will, I
+hold to my opinion, that Gentile-folk do not feel the "to-morrow" as
+keenly as we do.  If you like, the whole life of a Jew is nothing
+but an anticipation of "to-morrow."  Many a time I went without a
+meal simply because I forgot to eat, or thought I had eaten already.
+ But I never forget anything that concerns the coming day.  I can
+hardly explain it to you, but many a time I thought, dull as my
+brains were made by my soldier's grub, that the Jew is altogether a
+creature of "to-morrow."
+
+Well, Peter listened to me; he saw there was reason in what I told
+him; and yet he did not feel that way.  He did not feel the
+necessity of acting immediately, and he put it off.
+
+Now, it seems to me that when things come to such a pass between a
+Gentile husband and his Jewish wife, the results are bound to be
+strange, unusual, and anything but agreeable.  It is all something
+like--let me see--something like what is written in the Bible about
+the confusion of tongues, when one could not understand the speech
+of his fellow.  Indeed, had Peter known that it was Anna who sent me
+to him, he would have resented it surely, and would have thought
+that she cared more for his inheritance than she cared for him.
+
+And Peter died, after a long illness.
+
+Then Anna had to go through an ordeal she had not yet experienced in
+her life of apostasy: she had to go through the ceremony of mourning
+according to the prescribed rules.  And her fears regarding the
+house turned out to have been but too well founded.  The village
+elder, in the name of the rest of the relatives, disputed Peter's
+title to the property.  Anna was given a small sum of money, and the
+whole piece of property was deeded over to Serge Ivanovich.  As to
+Anna and Marusya, they had to be satisfied with the little money
+they received.
+
+In the end it turned out that there was a deeper purpose at the
+bottom of the whole affair.  That scamp, Serge Ivanovich, understood
+very well that in every respect Marusya was above the rest of the
+village girls, and he made up his mind to marry her.  To be sure, he
+hated the Jews: they always managed to intrude where they were least
+wanted; and he never missed an opportunity of insulting Anna and her
+daughter.  But that is just the way they all are: they will spit
+to-day, to lick it off to-morrow.  At the same time he knew well
+enough that Marusya would not be willing to have him.  Yet, in spite
+of it all, he sent some friends with the formal message of a
+proposal.  As an inducement he promised to deed the whole property
+to Anna and Marusya.  Anna seemed willing enough to accept the
+offer.  Then Marusya turned to me.  I began to side with Anna.
+
+"You are a liar!" shouted Marusya, turning to me.  And she was
+right.  Indeed, I did not wish at all to see Marusya marry Serve.
+But I cannot tell why I had said the opposite.  Then Marusya curtly
+dismissed the representatives of the suitor.
+
+I decided not to part from the two unhappy women just then and leave
+them alone with their misfortune.  But Heaven willed otherwise.  The
+Crimean War had been decided upon, and our regiment was the first to
+be sent to the front.  So I was taken from my dear friends just when
+they needed me most.--
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+A mixture of light and darkness appeared in a corner of the eastern
+sky, something like the reflection of a distant conflagration.  The
+light spread farther and farther, and swallowed many a star.  It
+looked as if some half-extinguished firebrand of a world had blazed
+up again, and was burning brightly once more.  But no! that was
+neither a world-catastrophe nor a conflagration: some mysterious new
+creation was struggling into existence.  And after the noiseless
+storm and battle of lights, the moon appeared, angry-looking, and
+ragged-edged.  In the light of the moon the speaker too looked
+strange and fantastic, like a relic of a world that is no more.
+
+The old man continued:--
+
+
+
+Well, on that day we turned a new leaf in our lives.  Till then we
+had been like people who live against their own will, without aim or
+object.  We had to get up in the morning, because we had gone to bed
+the night before.  We ate, because we were hungry.  We went to our
+drills, because we were ordered to go.  And we went to sleep at
+night, because we felt tired.  All our existence seemed to be only
+for the sake of discipline; and that discipline, again, seemed a
+thing in itself.  But the moment they told us of mobilization and
+war, our riddle was solved.  It suddenly became clear to us why we
+had been caught and brought to where we were, and why we had been
+suffering all the time.  It looked as if year in, year out, we had
+been walking in the darkness of some cave, and all of a sudden our
+path became light.  And we were happy.
+
+I saw Jacob: he, too, looked happy, which had not been his way for
+the last few years.  From the moment he had received permission to
+pray in Hebrew and observe the Sabbath, his mood had changed for the
+worse: he looked as if he were "possessed."  He complained that his
+prayers were not so sweet to him any more as they had been before;
+and the Sabbath rest was a real burden upon him.  Then, his father
+did not appear in his dreams any more.  Besides, he confessed that
+he forgot his prayers many a time, and was not very strict as to the
+Sabbath.  He feared his prayers were no longer acceptable in Heaven.
+ No, said he, that was not his destiny: the Jewishness of a
+Cantonist lay only in suffering martyrdom.  But with the news of the
+coming war, a change came over him.  He became gay as a child.
+
+One morning, when we were assembled on the drill grounds before the
+house of the sergeant, I was called into the house.  "Hourvitz,"
+said my good sergeant, turning to me, "three beautiful creatures ask
+me not to send you to the fighting line but to appoint you to some
+auxiliary company.  Ask, and I shall do so."
+
+"Sir," said I, "if this be your order, I have but to obey; but if my
+wish counts for anything, I should prefer to stay with the colors
+and go to the fighting line.  Otherwise what was our preparation for
+and our training of many years?"
+
+A smile of satisfaction appeared on the face of the sergeant.
+
+"And if you fall in battle?"
+
+"I shall not fall, sir, before I make others fall."
+
+"What makes you feel so sure of it?"
+
+"I cannot tell, sir; but it is enough if I am sure of it."
+
+"Well, I agree with you.  Now let us hear what your fair advocates
+have to say."
+
+He opened the door of an adjoining room, and Anna, Marusya, and the
+sergeant's wife appeared.  Then a dispute began.  They insisted on
+their opinion, and I on mine.
+
+"Let us count votes," said the sergeant.  "I grant you two votes;
+together with my own vote it makes three against tree."
+
+Then I looked at Marusya.  She thought a little, and added her vote
+to mine.  So the majority prevailed.  When I went outside, Marusya
+followed me, and handed me a small parcel.  What I found there,
+among other things, was a small Hebrew prayer book, which Marusya
+must have gotten at Moshko's, and a small silver cross which she had
+always worn around her neck.  We looked at each other and kept
+silent: was there anything to be said?
+
+After she had walked away a few steps, she turned around, as if she
+had forgotten something.
+
+"And if you return . . .?"
+
+"Then to you I return," was my answer.  She went on, and I turned to
+look back in her direction: she also looked back at me.  Later I
+turned again to look at her, and she, too, kept looking back, until
+we lost sight of each other.
+
+Before Anna could be dispossessed, Heaven wrought a miracle:  Serge
+Ivanovich was drafted into the army.  He was attached to our
+regiment, and we served in the same company.  In the meantime Anna
+remained in possession of the house.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+So, after all, they had not been mere sport, those years of
+drilling, of exercising, of training to "stand up," to "lie down,"
+to "run," etc., etc. . . .
+
+It had been all for the sake of war, and it was to war that we were
+going.  My companion in exile, I mean my Barker, did not wish to
+part from me.  Ashamed though I am, I must yet call him "my true
+friend."  Human beings as a rule forget favors rendered.  This is
+the way God has made them.  In very truth, it is only your soldier,
+your fellow in exile, and your dog that are able to serve you and
+love you at the risk of their own lives.  I chased Barker away, but
+he kept on following me.  I struck him: he took the blows, and
+licked my hands.  I struck him over the legs with the stock of my
+gun.  He broke out in a whine, and ran after me, limping.  Marusya
+caught him and locked him up in the stable.  I thought I had gotten
+rid of him.  But some hours later I saw him limping after me.  Then
+I realized that the dog was fated to share all the troubles of
+campaign life with me.  And my Barker became a highly respectable
+dog.  The first day he eyed everybody with a look of suspicion.  The
+bright buttons and the blue uniforms scared him; possibly because
+buttons and uniforms went with stocks of guns like the one that had
+given him the lame leg.  By and by Barker picked me and Jacob out
+from among the soldiers, and kept near us.  They used to say in our
+company that Barker was a particular friend of jews, and he knew a
+Jew when he saw one.  Very likely that was so.  But then they never
+knew how many slices of bread and meat Barker had gotten from Jewish
+hands before he knew the difference.
+
+Just about that time we got other new companions.  One of them was a
+certain Pole, Vassil Stefanovich Zagrubsky, blessed be his memory,
+Jew-hater though he was.
+
+The beginning of our acquaintance promised no good.  That particular
+Pole was poor but proud--a poor fellow with many wants.  Then he was
+a smoker, too.  I also enjoyed a smoke when I had an extra copper in
+my pocket.  But Zagrubsky had a passion for smoking, and when he had
+no tobacco of his own, he demanded it of others.  That was his way:
+he could not beg; he could only demand.  Three of us shared one
+tent: Zagrubsky, Serge, and myself.  Serge was a soldier in
+comfortable circumstances.  He had taken some money with him from
+home, and received a monthly allowance from his parents.  He always
+had excellent tobacco.  Once, when he happened to open his tobacco
+pouch to roll a cigarette, Zagrubsky took notice of it, and put
+forth his hand to take some tobacco.  That was his way: whenever he
+saw a tobacco pouch open, he would try to help himself to some of
+its contents.  But Serge was one of those peasants whose ambition
+extends beyond their class.  He was painfully proud, prouder than
+any of the nobles.  Before entering the service he had made up his
+mind to "rise."  He wanted to become an officer, so that the
+villagers would have to stand at attention before him, when he
+returned home.  Therefore he gave Zagrubsky a supercilious look of
+contempt, and unceremoniously closed the pouch when the Pole wanted
+to take some tobacco.  I was sorry for the Pole, and offered him
+some of my own tobacco.  He did not fail to take it, but at the same
+time I heard him sizzle out "Zhid" from between his tightly closed
+lips.  I looked at him in amazement: how on earth could he guess I
+was a Jew, when I spoke my Russian with the right accent and
+inflection, while his was lame, broken, and half mixed with Polish?
+That was a riddle to me.  But I had no time to puzzle it out, and I
+forgot it on the spot.
+
+We had long been occupying the same position, waiting for a merry
+beginning.  All that time seemed to us something like a preparation
+for a holiday; but the long tiresome wait was disgusting.  In the
+meantime something extraordinary happened in our camp.  Our camp was
+surrounded by a cordon of sentries.  At some distance from the
+cordon was the camp of the purveyors, the merchants who supplied the
+soldiers with all kinds of necessaries.  Without a special permit no
+purveyor could pass the line of sentries and enter the camp.
+
+It happened that one of those purveyors excited the suspicion of
+Jacob.  Without really knowing why, Jacob came to consider him a
+suspicious character.  Even Barker, timid dog that he was, once
+viciously attacked that particular man, as if to tear him to pieces.
+ And it was with great difficulty that Jacob saved him from Barker's
+teeth.  But from that time on Jacob began to watch the man closely.
+That very day we were told that General Luders was going to visit
+our camp.  Jacob was doing sentry duty.  Just then the suspicious
+purveyor appeared suddenly, as if he had sprung out of the ground.
+Jacob had his eye on him.  Presently Jacob noticed that the fellow
+was hiding behind a bank of earth; he saw him take out a pistol from
+his pocket and aim it somewhere into space.  That very moment
+General Luders appeared on the grounds.  Without thinking much,
+Jacob aimed his gun at the purveyor and shot him dead.  On
+investigation, it turned out that the purveyor was a Pole, who had
+smuggled himself into the camp in order to assassinate the General.
+
+Then they began to gossip in the regiment about Jacob's "rising."
+General Luders patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Bravo,
+officer!"
+
+A few days later I met Jacob: he looked pale and worn out.  His
+smile was more like the frozen smile of the agony of death.  I told
+him I had dreamt he was drowning in a river of oil.  Then he told me
+confidentially that he had promised his superiors to renounce his
+faith.
+
+Well, in the long run, it appeared that there was much truth in
+Jacob's idea, that a Jew in exile must not accept favors from
+Gentiles.  And the temptation to which Jacob had been exposed was
+certainly much harder to stand than a thousand lashes, or even, for
+that matter, the whole bitter life of a Cantonist.  The pity of it!
+
+A few days later Zagrubsky was appointed to serve Jacob.  But when
+Zagrubsky reported for duty, Jacob dismissed him.  It was against
+Jacob's nature to have others do for him what he could do himself.
+
+Zagrubsky departed, hissing "Zhid" under his breath.  It was the way
+he had treated me.  My patience was gone.  I put myself in his way,
+stopped him and asked him: "Now listen, you Pollack, how do you come
+to find out so quickly who is a Jew, and who is not?  As far as I
+can see, you cannot speak Russian correctly yourself: why, then, do
+you spy on others?  I have not yet forgotten that it was on account
+of my tobacco that you recognized I was a Zhid, too."
+
+"O, that is all very simple," said he.  "I never saw such
+lickspittles as the Jews are.  They are always ready to oblige
+others with their favors and refuse honors due to themselves.  That
+is why the authorities favor them so much.  Do you wish to know what
+a Jew is?  A Jew is a spendthrift, a liar, a whip-kisser, a sneak.
+He likes to be trampled on much more than others like to trample on
+him.  He makes a slave of himself in order to be able to enslave
+everybody else.  I hate the Jews, especially those from whom I ever
+get any favors."
+
+Well, by this time I am ready almost to agree with many of the
+Pole's assertions.  The Jew is very lavish in his dealings with
+Gentiles.  He is subservient, and always ready to give up what is
+his due.  All that is a puzzle to the Gentiles, and every Jew who
+has been brought up and educated among them knows that as well as I
+do.  Sometimes they have a queer explanation for it.  A gentile who
+has ever tasted of Jewish kindness and unselfishness will say to
+himself, "Very likely the Jew feels that he owes me much more."
+
+To be brief: Zagrubsky and I became very much attached to each
+other.  But we never tried to disguise our feelings.  I knew he was
+my enemy, and he knew that I was repaying him in kind, with open
+enmity.  That was just what Zagrubsky liked.  We loved our mutual
+cordial hatred.  When one feels like giving vent to his feelings,
+like hating, cursing, or detesting somebody or something, one's
+enemy becomes dearer than a hundred friends.
+
+Then there came a certain day, and that day brought us closer
+together for a moment, closer than we should ever be again.  It
+happened at night . . . . cursed be that night! swallowed up the
+following day! . . . .
+
+We soldiers had long become tired of our drill and our manoeuvres;
+we got tired of "attacking" under the feint of a "retreat," and of
+"retreating" under the feint of an "attack."  We were disgusted with
+standing in line and discharging our guns into the air, without ever
+seeing the enemy.  In our days a soldier hated feints and
+make-believes.  "Get at your enemy and crush his head, or lie down
+yourself a crushed 'cadaver'"--that was our way of fighting, and
+that was the way we won victories.  As our general used to say: "The
+bullet is a blind fool, but the bayonet is the real thing."
+
+At last, at last, we heard the quick, nervous notes of the bugle,
+and the hurried beats of the drum, the same we used to hear year in,
+year out.  But till that moment it was all "make-believe" drill.  It
+was like what we mean by the passage in the Passover Haggodah: "Any
+one who is in need may come, and partake of the Passah-lamb. . . ."
+Till that moment we used to attack the air with our bayonets and
+pierce space right and left, "as if" the enemy had been before us,
+ready for our steel.  We were accustomed to pierce and to vanquish
+the air and spirits, and that is all.  At the same time there was
+something wonderful, sweet, and terrible in those blasts of the
+bugle, something that was the very secret of soldiery, something
+that went right into our souls when we returned home from our drill.
+. . .
+
+But on that day it was not drill any more, and not make-believe any
+more, no!  Before us was the real enemy, looking into our very eyes
+and thirsting for our blood.
+
+Then, just for a moment I thought of myself, of my own flesh, which
+was not made proof against the sharp steel.  I remembered that I had
+many an account to settle in this world; that I had started many a
+thing and had not finished it; and that there was much more to
+start.  I thought of my own enemies, whom I had not harmed as yet.
+I thought of my friends, to whom I had so far done no good.  In
+short, I thought I was just in the middle of my lifework, and that
+the proper moment to die had not yet come.  But all that came as a
+mere flash.  For in the line of battle my own self was dissolved, as
+it were, and was lost, just like the selves of all who were there.
+I became a new creature with new feelings and a new consciousness.
+But the thing cannot be described: one has to be a soldier and stand
+in the line of battle to feel it.  You may say, if you like, that I
+believe that the angel-protectors of warring nations descend from on
+high, and in the hour of battle enter as new souls into the soldiers
+of the line.
+
+Then and there an end came also to the vicissitudes of my Barker.  I
+found him dead, stretched out at full length on a bank of earth,
+which was the monument over the grave of the heroes of the first
+day's fighting.  In the morning they all went to battle in the full
+flowering of strength and thirsty for victory, only to be dragged
+down at night into that hole, to be buried there.  Well, the earth
+knows no distinction between one race and another; its worms feed
+alike on Jew and Gentile.  But there, in Heaven, they surely know
+the difference between one soul and another, and each one is sent to
+its appointed place.
+
+I was told that Jacob was among those buried in the common grave.
+Quite likely.  I whispered a Kaddish over the grave, giving it the
+benefit of the doubt.
+
+Of course, I was not foolish enough to cry over the cadaver of a
+dog; and yet it was a pity.  After all, it was a living creature,
+too; it had shared all kinds of things with me: exile, hunger,
+rations, blows.  And it had loved me, too. . . .
+
+The next morning we were out again.  In a moment line faced line,
+man faced man, enemy faced enemy.  It was a mutual murderous
+attraction, a bloodthirsty love, a desire to embrace and to kill.
+
+It was very much like the pull I felt towards Marusya.
+
+. . . . Lightening. . . . shots. . . . thunder. . . .  The talk of
+the angel-protectors it is. . . . Snakes of fire flying upward,
+spreading out . . . . shrapnel . . . . bombs a-bursting . . . .
+soldiers standing . . . . reeling . . . . falling . . . . crushed,
+or lapping their own blood. . . .  Thinning lines . . . . breast to
+breast. . . .  Hellish howls over the field. . . .
+
+Crashing comes the Russian music, drowning all that hellish chorus,
+pouring vigor, might, and hope into the hearts of men. . . .
+
+Alas, the music breaks off. . . .  Where is the bugle? . . . .  The
+trumpet is silenced. . . .  The trombone breaks off in the middle of
+a note. . . .  Only one horn is left. . . .  Higher and higher rise
+its ringing blasts, chanting, as it were, "Yea, thought I walk
+through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for
+Thou art with me!"
+
+In mighty embrace men clasp one another. . . .  Stabbing, being
+stabbed . . . . killing, being killed. . . . .
+
+I work away right and left, I expect my death-blow at every moment,
+but I seem to be charmed: swords and bayonets surround me, but never
+touch me. . . .
+
+Yes, it was a critical moment; it could not last much longer; one
+side had to give way.
+
+But the Russians could not retreat, because in their very midst the
+priest was standing, the ikon of the Virgin in one hand and the
+crucifix in the other.
+
+The soldiers looked at the images, got up new courage, and did
+wonders.
+
+Do you remember the Biblical story of the brazen serpent?  That was
+just like it.
+
+Well, a bullet came flying, whistling, through the air, and the
+priest fell.  Then the ikon and the crucifix began to wobble this
+way and that way, and fell down, too.  The soldiers saw it, lost
+heart, and wanted to run.
+
+At that moment I felt as if I were made of three different men.
+
+Just imagine:  Samuel the individual, Samuel the soldier, and Samuel
+the Jew.
+
+Says Samuel the individual:  "You have done well enough, and it is
+all over for now.  Run for dear life."
+
+Says Samuel the soldier:  "Shame on you, where is your bravery?  The
+regimental images are falling.  Try, perhaps they may be saved yet."
+
+Says Samuel the Jew:  "Of course, save; for a Jew must ever do more
+than is expected of him."
+
+But Samuel the individual replies:  "Do you remember how many lashes
+you have suffered on account of these very images?"
+
+Says Samuel the Jew again:  "Do you know what these images are, and
+to what race they belong?"
+
+Many such thoughts flashed through my brain; but it was all in a
+moment.  And in a moment I was at the side of the priest.  He was
+alive; he was only wounded in his hand.  I raised him to his feet,
+put the images into his hands, lifted them up, and supported them.
+
+"This way, Russians!"
+
+I do not know who shouted these words.  Perhaps I did; perhaps some
+one else; perhaps it was from Heaven.
+
+However, the victory was ours.
+
+But I did not remain on my feet a long time; a bullet struck me, and
+I fell. . . . .
+
+What happened then, I cannot tell.  All I know is that I dreamt
+something very agreeable:  I was a little boy again, hanging on to
+my father's coat-tails, and standing beside him in the Klaus on a
+Yom-Kippur even, during the most tearful prayers, and a mischievous
+little boy began to play with me, pricking my leg with a needle
+every now and then. . . .
+
+When I came to my senses, I found myself in a sea of howls, groans,
+and cries, which seemed to be issuing from the very depths of the
+earth.  For a moment I thought I was in purgatory, among the sinners
+who undergo punishment.  But pretty soon I recognized everything.  I
+turned my head, and saw Zagrubsky lying near me, wounded and
+groaning.  He looked at me, and there was love and hatred mixed in
+that look.  "Zhid," said he, with his last breath, and gave up the
+ghost.
+
+Rest in peace, thou beloved enemy of mine!
+
+From behind I heard someone groaning and moaning; but the voice
+sounded full and strong.  I turned my head in the direction of the
+voice, and I saw that Serge Ivanovich was lying on his side and
+moaning.  He looked around, stood up for a while, and lay down
+again.  This manoeuvre he repeated several times in succession.  You
+see, the rascal was scheming to his own advantage.  He knew very
+well that in the end he would have to fall down and groan for good.
+So he thought it was much cheaper and wiser to do it of his own free
+will, than to wait for something to throw him down.  The scamp had
+seen what I had done before I fell.  A thought came to him.  He
+helped me to my feet, bandaged my wound, and said:
+
+"Now listen, Samuel: you have certainly done a very great thing; but
+it is worth nothing to you personally.  Nay, worse: they might again
+try to make you renounce your faith.  So it is really a danger to
+you.  But, if you wish, just say that I have done it, and I shall
+repay you handsomely for it.  The priest will not know the
+difference."
+
+Well, it is this way:  I always hated get-rich-quick schemes.  I
+never cared a rap for a penny I had not expected and was not ready
+to earn.  Take, for instance, what I did with the priest:  Did I
+ever expect any honors or profits out of it?  Such possible honors
+and profits I certainly did not like, and did not look for.
+Besides, who could assure me that they would not try again to coax
+me into renouncing my faith?  Why, then, should I put myself into
+such trouble?  And I said to Serge:
+
+"You want it badly, Serge, do you?  You'd like to see yourself
+promoted, to be an officer?  Is that so?  Very well, then.  Make out
+a paper assigning the house to Marusya."
+
+"I promise faithfully."
+
+"I believe no promises."
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+"You have paper and pencil in your pocket?"
+
+"Certainly!"
+
+I turned around, supported myself on both my arms and one knee, and
+made a sort of a rickety table of myself.  And on my back Serge
+wrote out his paper, and signed it.  But all that was really
+unnecessary.  He would have kept his word anyway.  For he was always
+afraid I might blurt out the whole story.  Not I, though.  May I
+never have anything in common with those who profit by falsehoods!
+
+As to what happened later, I cannot tell you exactly.  For I was
+taken away, first to a temporary hospital, and then to a permanent
+one.  I fell into a fever and lost consciousness.  I do not know how
+many days or weeks passed by:  I was in a different world all that
+time.  How can I describe it to you?  Well, it was a world of chaos.
+ It was all jumbled together: father, mother, military service,
+ikons, lashes, lambs slaughtered, Peter, bullets, etc., etc.
+
+It was all in a jumble, all topsyturvy.  And in the midst of that
+chaos I felt as if I were a thing apart from myself.  My head ached,
+and yet it felt as if it did not belong to me. . . .  Finally I
+thought I felt mother bathing me; a delicious feeling of moisture
+spread over my flesh, and my headache disappeared.  Then I felt a
+warm, soft hand pass over my forehead, cheeks, and neck. . . .
+
+I opened my eyes, the first time since I lost consciousness, and I
+exclaimed:
+
+"Marusya!?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said she, with a smile, while her eyes brimmed with
+tears, "it is I."  And behind her was another face:
+
+"Anna?!"
+
+"Rest, rest," said they, warningly.  "Thanks to God, the crisis is
+over."
+
+I doubted, I thought it was all a dream.  But it was no dream.  It
+was all very simple:  Anna and Marusya had enlisted and were serving
+as volunteer nurses at the military hospital, and I had known
+nothing of it.
+
+"Marusya," said I, "please tell me how do I happen to be here?"
+
+Then she began to tell me how they brought me there, and took me
+down from the wagon as insensible as a log.  But she could not
+finish her story; she began to choke with tears, and Anna finished
+what Marusya wanted to tell me.
+
+I turned to Marusya:
+
+"Where are my clothes?"
+
+"What do you want them for?"
+
+"There is a paper there."
+
+I insisted, and she brought the paper.
+
+"Read the paper, Marusya," said I.  She read the document in which
+Serge assigned the house to Marusya.  The two women looked at me
+with glad surprise.
+
+"How did you ever get it?"
+
+But I had decided to keep the thing a secret from them, and I did.
+
+When I was discharged from the hospital, the war was long over, and
+a treaty of peace had been signed.  Had they asked me, I should not
+have signed it.--
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+Here the old man stopped for a while.  Apparently he skipped many an
+incident, and omitted many a thing that he did not care to mention.
+I saw he was touching upon them mentally.  Her resumed:--
+
+
+
+Just so, just so. . . .  Many, many a thing may take place within
+us, without our ever knowing it.  I never suspected that I had been
+longing to see my parents.  I never wrote to them, simply because I
+had never learned to write my Jewish well enough.  Of course, had my
+brother Solomon been taken, he would surely have written regularly,
+for he was a great penman, may he rest in peace.  As to Russian, I
+certainly might have written in that language; but then it would
+have been very much like offering salt water to a thirsty person.
+And that is why I did not write.  I thought I had forgotten my
+parents.  But no!  Even that was merely a matter of habit.  I had
+gotten so used to my feeling of longing that I was not aware of
+having it.  That is the way I explain it to myself.  By and by there
+opened in my heart a dark little corner that had been closed for
+many a year.  That was the longing for my parents, for my home,
+mixed with just a trace of anger and resentment.  I began to picture
+to myself how my folks would meet me: there would be kisses,
+embraces, tears, neighbors. . . .  For, like a silly child, I
+imagined they were all alive and well yet, and that the Angel of
+Death would wait till I came and repaid them for all the worry I had
+caused them. . . .  And, indeed, would they not have been greatly
+wronged, had they been allowed to die unconsoled, after they had
+rent Heaven with their prayers and lamentations?
+
+But the nearer I came to my native town, the less grew my desire to
+see it.  A feeling of estrangement crept over me at the sight of the
+neighborhood.  No, it was not exactly a feeling of estrangement, but
+some other feeling, something akin to what we feel at the
+recollection of the pain caused by long-forgotten troubles.  I can
+hardly make it clear to you; it was not unlike what an old man feels
+after a bad dream of the days of his youth.
+
+It was about this time of the year.  The roads were just as bad as
+now, the slush just as deep.  And it was as nauseating to sit in the
+coach only to watch the glittering mud and count the slow steps of
+the horses.  In a season like this it is certainly much more
+agreeable to dismount and walk.  That was just what I did.  My
+native town was not far away: only once uphill, once downhill, and
+there was the inevitable cemetery, which must be passed when one
+enters a Jewish village.  The horses could hardly move, and I
+overtook them very soon, as I took a short cut, and struck into a
+path across the peasants' fields.  I allowed myself that privilege,
+because at that time I was still wearing my uniform with the brass
+buttons shining brightly.  When I descended into the valley, I
+decided to cross the cemetery, and so shorten my way.  The coach was
+far behind, and I was walking very slowly, that it might reach me at
+the other side of the cemetery.  My path lay among the gravestones,
+some of them gray with age, dilapidated, bent forward, as if trying
+to overhear the talk of the nether world: some clean and upright, as
+if gazing proudly heavenwards.  It was a world of silence I was in;
+and heavy indeed is the silence I was in; it is really a speaking
+silence.  I think there is something real in the belief that the
+dead talk in their graves.  To me it seemed as if the gravestones
+were casting evil glances at me for my having disturbed the silent
+place with the glitter of my buttons.  And it was with difficulty
+that I could decipher the inscriptions on the stones.  I do not know
+why it was so: either my Hebrew had got rusty, or else graveyard
+inscriptions make hard reading in general.
+
+"Here lieth . . . . the righteous man . . . . modest, pious . . . .
+Rabbi Simhah . . . . Shohet. . . ."
+
+I read it all, and shuddered: why, under that very stone lay the
+remains of my own brother Simhah!
+
+I wanted to shed tears, but my tears did not obey me.  I read it
+again and again, and when I came to the words "modest," "pious," I
+mumbled something to myself, something angry and envious.  Then I
+thought I felt the tombstone move, the ground shake under me, as if
+a shiver were passing through the air. . .
+
+"Forgive me, forgive me!"
+
+It was not my ears that caught those words; it was my heart.  I
+understood that it was the soul of my brother apologizing to me for
+the action of my parents.  Tears began to flow from my eyes.  I did
+not care to read any further, from fear of finding something I did
+not wish to find.  I was thinking of my parents.
+
+And when I entered the house of my parents, I could hardly recognize
+them.  Wrinkled, bent, with sunken cheeks, they had changed entirely
+in appearance.
+
+Father looked at my buttons, removed his cap, and stood bent before
+me.  Mother was busying herself at the oven, and began to speak to
+father in a mixture of Hebrew and Yiddish:  "Sure enough, some sort
+of taxes again. . . .  Much do we need it now. . . ."  Then, in a
+fit of spitefulness, I made believe I was a stranger.
+
+"Old people," said I, "I have brought you news from your son
+Samuel."  As soon as father heard me speak Yiddish, he ran to the
+window, rubbed his hands against the moist pane, by way of washing
+them, and shook hands with me.
+
+"Peace be with you, young man," said he.  Mother left her corner and
+stood up before me.  Father began fumbling for his glasses, and
+asked me: "News from my son, you say?  Where did you see him last?"
+
+"And when did you see him?" asked mother, shivering.
+
+I mentioned some imaginary place and date.
+
+"How does he feel?  Was he in the war?  Is he well?  Does he expect
+to come home?"
+
+Many such questions followed one another in quick succession.
+Meanwhile father took me aside, and whispered into my ear: "How
+about . . . . how about religion?"  Out of sheer spitefulness I
+wanted to worry the poor old folks a little; may the Lord not
+consider it a sin on my part.
+
+I said:  "Had Rabbi Simhah the Shohet been in his place, he surely
+would have withstood all temptations!" . . . .
+
+"What, converted?!"
+
+I kept silent, and the old people took it as a sign of affirmation.
+
+They hung their heads despondently, and kept silent, too.  Then
+father asked me once more:
+
+"Married a Gentile?  Has children?"  I still kept silent.  My old
+mother wept silently.  My heart melted within me, but I braced
+myself up and kept silent.  I felt as if a lump in my throat was
+choking me, but I swallowed it.  I heard mother talking to herself:
+"O Master of the Universe, Father who art in Heaven, Thou Merciful
+and Righteous!" . . . .  As she said it, she shook her head, as if
+accepting God's verdict and complaining at the same time.
+
+The old man stood up, his beard a-quiver.  His hand shook nervously,
+and he said in a tone of dry, cold despair:
+
+"Ett. . . .  Blessed be the righteous Judge!" as though I had told
+him the news of his son's death.  With that he took out a pocket
+knife, and wanted to make the "mourning cut."  At that moment my ear
+caught the sound of the heartrending singsong of the Psalms.  The
+voice was old and tremulous.  It was an old man, evidently a lodger,
+who was reading his Psalter in an adjoining room:
+
+"For the Lord knoweth the path of the righteous. . . ."
+
+The memories of the long past overtook me, and I told my parents who
+I was. . . . .
+
+And yet--continued Samuel after some thought--and yet they were not
+at peace, fearing I had deceived them.  And they never rested till
+they got me married to my Rebekah, "according to the laws of Moses
+and Israel."
+
+Well, two years passed after my wedding, and troubles began; I got a
+toothache, may you be spared the pain!  That is the way of the Jew:
+no sooner does he wed a woman and beget children, than all kinds of
+ills come upon him.
+
+Some one told me, there was a nurse at the city hospital who knew
+how to treat aching teeth and all kinds of ills better than a
+full-fledged doctor.
+
+I went to the hospital, and asked for the nurse.
+
+A young woman came out. . . .
+
+"Marusya?!"
+
+"Samuel?!"
+
+We were both taken aback.
+
+"And where is your husband, Marusya?" asked I, after I had caught my
+breath.
+
+"And you, Samuel, are you married?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But I am single yet."
+
+Yes, yes, she was a good soul!  She died long ago. . . .  May it
+please the Lord to give her a goodly portion in Paradise!--
+
+
+
+Here the old man broke off his story with a deep sigh escaping from
+his breast.
+
+We waved his hand at the son, who was dozing away unconcerned,
+lurching from side to side.  The old man looked at his son, shook
+his head, and said:
+
+"Yes, yes, those were times, those were soldiers. . . .  It is all
+different now: new times, new people, new soldiers. . . .
+
+"It is all make-believe nowadays! . . . ."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                 NOTES
+          BY THE TRANSLATOR
+
+Av.
+    The month in the Jewish calendar corresponding to July-August.
+    On the ninth day of Av the Temple was taken and destroyed by
+    Titus.
+
+Arba-Kanfos.
+    Literally "four corners."  A rectangular piece of cloth about
+    one foot wide and three feet long, with an aperture in the
+    middle large enough to pass it over the head.  The front part of
+    the garment falls over the chest, the other part covers the
+    shoulders. To its four corners "Tzitzis," or fringes, are
+    attached in prescribed manner.  When made of wool, the
+    Arba-Kanfos is usually called TALLIS-KOTON (which see).
+
+
+
+Bar-Mitzwah.
+    Literally "man of duty."  A Jewish boy who has passed his
+    thirteenth birthday, and has thus attained his religious
+    majority.
+
+Beadle.
+    The functions of this officer in a Jewish community were
+    somewhat similar to those of the constable in some American
+    villages.
+
+
+
+Candles.
+    The Sabbath is ushered in by lighting the Sabbath candles,
+    accompanied by a short prayer.
+
+Cantonists.
+    A term applied to Jewish boys drafted into military service
+    during the reign of Nicholas I of Russia (1825-1855).  Every
+    Jewish community had to supply its quota; but as parents did not
+    surrender their children willingly, they were secured by
+    kidnappers specially appointed by the Community for the purpose.
+    See CATCHER.  The same term was applied to the children of
+    Russian soldiers who were educated for the army in the so-called
+    District, or Canton, Schools. Hence the name.
+
+Catcher.
+    An agent of the Jewish community prior to the introduction, in
+    1874, of general military duty in Russia.
+
+
+
+Havdolah.
+    Ceremonial with wine, candles, and spices, accompanied by a
+    prayer, at the end of the Sabbath.
+
+Haggodah.
+    The ritual used at the Passover eve home service.
+
+Hallah.
+    In commemoration of the priest's tithe at the time of the
+    Temple.  The ceremonial consists of taking a piece of the bread
+    dough before it is baked and throwing it into the fire; a prayer
+    is recited at the same time.
+
+Heder.
+    Literally, "a room."  Specifically, a school in which Bible and
+    Talmud are taught.
+
+
+
+Kaddish.
+    Literally, "sanctification."  A prayer recited in commemoration
+    of the dead.
+
+Karaites.
+    Members of a Jewish sect that does not recognize the authority
+    of the Talmud.
+
+Kosher.
+    Literally, "right," "fit."  Specifically applied to food
+    prepared in accordance with the Jewish dietary laws.
+
+Klaus.
+    A synagogue to which students of the Talmud resort for study and
+    discussion.
+
+
+
+Lamdan.
+    A scholar learned in the Torah.
+
+
+
+Mezuzah.
+    Literally, "door-post."  A piece of parchment, inscribed with
+    the SHEMA (which see), together with Deut. 11:13-21, rolled up,
+    and enclosed in an oblong box, which is attached in a prescribed
+    way to the door-post of a dwelling.
+
+Modeh-Ani.
+    Literally "I affirm."  The opening words of a brief confession
+    of faith.
+
+
+
+Shaatnez.
+    Cloth or a garment made of linen and wool woven together; or a
+    wool garment sewed with linen thread; or a linen garment sewed
+    with wool.
+
+Shema.
+    Literally, "listen,"  The opening words of Deut. 6:4-9.
+
+Shemad.
+    Literally, "extermination."  Applied figuratively to
+    renunciation of the Jewish faith, whether forced or voluntary.
+
+Shohet.
+    A slaughterer of cattle licensed by a rabbi.  He must examine
+    the viscera of cattle according to the rules laid down in the
+    Talmud.
+
+
+
+Tallis-koton.
+    Literally, "the little Tallis," or prayer shawl.  Worn by some
+    Jews.  See ARBA-KANFOS.
+
+Torah.
+    Literally, "doctrine."  A term applied to the Pentateuch, and to
+    the Talmud with its commentaries.
+
+Tzitzis.  See ARBA-KANFOS.
+
+
+
+Yom-Kippur.
+    Day of Atonement.
+
+
+
+Zhid (fem. Zhidovka: zh sounded like z in azure).
+    Literally, "Judean."  Russian equivalent of English "sheeny."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+__________________________
+  TRANSCRIBER'S DISCUSSION
+
+The book presents a softer side of Cantonist life than history
+records.  The abducted children (as young as eight) were usually
+raised in barracks ('Cantonments') under brutal conditions designed
+to break their Jewishness.  Speaking Yiddish, or any sign of
+Jewishness or religious practice, was punished by starvation,
+beatings, and if that failed outright tortures, resulting in many
+deaths, as well as suicides.  At age 18, the lads began a 25 year
+term in the army.  Reversion to Judaism at any time thereafter was a
+crime.  At its height, in 1854, official records show 7,515
+Cantonists conscripted into the Russian army.  The Cantonist laws
+were ended in 1856 by Tsar Alexander II, almost as soon as he came
+to power.
+
+Alexander II created a general draft in 1874, affecting all
+Russians.  One message of the book is clear; whatever worries Jewish
+parents may have regarding their drafted child's ability to maintain
+their religion, this modern draft was vastly preferable to the
+Cantonist system, and might even be welcomed for its fairness.
+
+In retrospect, Steinberg was really using the Cantonist topic as a
+backdrop for a cultural study.  He presents us with several
+characters, each at a different place in the gray zone between
+Jewish and Christian cultures: two Cantonists, one clinging to the
+Jewish side (Jacob); one closer to the non-Jewish side (Samuel, the
+narrator); as well as a Jewish convert unhappy with her lot (Anna,
+whose abuse of Samuel we later understand as the 'self-disdain'
+often seen among those who had left Judaism); her daughter Marusya,
+who although fully Christian is ostracized as being a Jewess, and
+struggles unsuccessfully to find her place in life; and Peter
+Khlopov, a full Christian who finds Jewish culture agreeable.
+Steinberg's portrayal of Samuel makes it clear, even in the first
+few pages, that Samuel, although Jewish, thinks very much like a
+Russian peasant; in a very real way he straddles that fringe zone
+between the two distinct societies.
+
+
+
+=====================
+
+  TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+Serge Ivanovich
+     acute accent over the a, throughout the text
+
+At such moments he would be ready to hug
+     "be" was erroneously "he" in source text
+
+Zhidovka
+     acute accent over the o, throughout the text
+
+nebulae
+     ae written as a ligature
+
+Vassil Stefanovich Zagrubsky
+     acute accent over the u, throughout the text
+
+manoeuvres
+     oe written as a ligature
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In Those Days, by Jehudah Steinberg
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of In Those Days, by Jehudah Steinberg
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+
+
+Title: In Those Days
+       The Story of an Old Man
+
+Author: Jehudah Steinberg
+
+Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8539]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on July 21, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THOSE DAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dan Dyckman
+
+
+
+
+              IN THOSE DAYS
+
+         THE STORY OF AN OLD MAN
+
+                    BY
+
+            JEHUDAH STEINBERG
+
+
+
+      TRANSLATED FROM THE HEBREW BY
+
+             GEORGE JESHURUN
+
+
+                  1915
+
+
+
+               IN THOSE DAYS
+
+          THE STORY OF AN OLD MAN
+
+
+
+I
+
+When the time drew near for Samuel the Beadle to let his son begin
+his term of military service, he betook himself to the market,
+purchased a regulation shirt, a knapsack, and a few other things
+needed by a soldier--and he did not forget the main item: he ran and
+fetched a bottle of liquor.  Then he went home.
+
+And there, in the presence of his neighbors, of whom I had the
+privilege of being one, he drank a glassful to "long life," and
+offered another to Rebekah, his good wife.
+
+"Drink, madam," said he, merrily.  At this Rebekah turned up her
+nose, as if ready to blurt out with "How often have you seen me
+drink liquor?"
+
+Indeed, it was an affront which she would not have passed over in
+silence at any other time, but she had no heart for an open quarrel
+just then, when about to part with her son, and was satisfied with a
+silent refusal.
+
+"Woman," said Samuel, angrily, "take it, and do as you are told!"
+But Rebekah was not impressed by his angry tone, for in fact Samuel
+was an easy "lord and master."  As to his loudness, it was but part
+of an old habit of his, dating from the days of his own military
+service, to bully his inferiors and to let those above him in
+authority bully him.
+
+"So are they all of his kind," she would often explain to her
+neighbors.  "They just fuss, to blow off their tempers, and
+then--one may sit on them."
+
+Rebekah persisted in her refusal, and Samuel began in a softer tone:
+
+"But why does it worry you so much?  Woman, woman, it is not to
+Shemad, God forbid, that he is going!"
+
+At the mention of conversion, Rebekah burst into tears, for Samuel
+had unintentionally touched her sore spot: there were rumors in the
+town that her family was not without blemish.
+
+"Now that you are crying," exclaimed Samuel, thoroughly angry, "you
+are not only hard-headed, but also silly, simply silly! 'Long of
+hair but short of sense.'  To cry and cry, and not know wherefore!"
+With this Samuel turned towards us, and began to plead his case.
+
+"Have you ever seen such a cry-baby?  Five times in her life she
+filled the world with a hue and cry, when she bore me a child, and
+every time it was but an empty bubble: five girls she brought me!
+Then, beginning with the sixth birth, she was fortunate enough to
+get boys, the real thing.  Three sons she gave me as my old age was
+approaching.  And now, when she ought to thank Heaven for having
+been found worthy of raising a soldier for the army, she cries!
+Think of it--your son enters the army a free man; but I, in my
+time,--well, well, I was taken by force when a mere youngster!"
+
+Here the old man settled his account with the bottle, and took leave
+of his crying wife and his good neighbors, and in the company of his
+son mounted the coach waiting outside, ready to go to H., the
+capital of the district, where the recruits had to report.
+
+By special good fortune I was going to H. by the same coach, and so
+I came to hear the story of old Samuel's life from the beginning
+till that day.
+
+It was the rainy season; the roads were muddy, and the horses moved
+with difficulty.  The driver made frequent stops, and whenever the
+road showed the slightest inclination to go uphill he would intimate
+that it might be well for us to dismount and walk beside the coach a
+little.
+
+The cold drizzle penetrated to our very skin and made our flesh
+creep.  The warmth we had brought with us from the house was
+evaporating, and with it went the merry humor of the old man.  He
+began to contemplate his son, who sat opposite to him, looking him
+over up and down.
+
+The wise "lord and master," who had tried to instruct his wife at
+home and celebrate the fact of her having reared a soldier for the
+army, he failed himself to stand the trial: he began to feel the
+pangs of longing and lonesomeness.  The imminent parting with his
+son, to take place on the morrow, seemed to depress him greatly.
+
+Bent and silent he sat, and one could see that he was lost in a maze
+of thoughts and emotions, which came crowding in upon him in spite
+of himself.
+
+I took a seat opposite to him, so that I might enter into a
+conversation with him.
+
+"Do you remember all that happened to you in those days?" I asked by
+way of starting the conversation.
+
+He seemed to welcome my question.  In that hour of trial the old man
+was eager to unload his bosom, to share his thoughts with some one,
+and return mentally to all the landmarks of his own life, till he
+reached the period corresponding to that into which he was
+introducing his son.  The old man took out his well-beloved short
+pipe.  According to his story it had been a present from his
+superior officer, and it had served him ever since.  He filled the
+pipe, struck a match, and was enveloped in smoke.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+You ask me whether I remember everything--he began from behind the
+smoke.  Why, I see it all as if it had happened yesterday.  I do not
+know exactly how old I was then.  I remember only that my brother
+Solomon became a Bar-Mitzwah at that time.  Then there was Dovidl,
+another brother, younger than Solomon, but older than myself; but he
+had died before that time.  I must have been about eleven years old.
+
+Just then the mothers fell a-worrying: a Catcher was coming to town.
+ According to some he had already arrived.
+
+At the Heder the boys were telling one another that the Catcher was
+a monster, who caught boys, made soldiers out of them, and turned
+them over to the Government, in place of the Jewish grown-ups that
+were unwilling and unable to serve.  And the boys were divided in
+their opinions: some said that the Catcher was a demon, one of those
+who had been created at twilight on the eve of the Sabbath.  Others
+said that he was simply a "heathen," and some others, that he was an
+"apostate."  Then, there were some who asserted that he was merely a
+bad Jew, though a learned one nevertheless;--that he wore the
+regular Jewish costume, the long coat and the broad waistband, and
+had the Tallis-Koton on his breast, so that the curse of the
+righteous could not hurt him.  According to rumor, he was in the
+habit of distributing nuts and candy among Jewish boys; and if any
+one tasted of them, he could not move from the spot, until the
+Catcher put his hand on him and "caught" him.  I happened to
+overhear a conversation between father and mother, and I gathered
+from it that I need not fear the Catcher.
+
+It was a Saturday night, soon after the death of my elder brother
+Dovidl, within the period of the thirty days' mourning for him.
+Mother would not be consoled, for Dovidl had been her "very best."
+
+Three brothers had I.  The first-born, Simhah, may he rest in peace,
+had been married long before; he was the junior Shohet in town, and
+a candidate for the Rabbinate.  Solomon was more learned in the
+Torah, young though he was, peace be unto him. . . .  Well, they are
+now in the world-of-truth, in the world-to-come, both of them.  But
+Dovidl, had he lived, would have excelled them both.  That is the
+way of the Angel of Death, he chooses the very best.  As to
+myself--why deny it?--I was a dullard.  Somehow my soul was not
+attuned to the Torah.
+
+As I said, mother was uttering complaints against Heaven, always
+crying.  Yes, in the matter of tears they are experts.  I have
+pondered over it, and have found it out: fish were created out of
+the mud-puddle, and woman out of tears.  Father used to scold her
+mightily, but she did not mind it; and she never ceased bemoaning
+Dovidl and crying unto Heaven, "who gave the Angel of Death power
+over him."
+
+On the night after Sabbath, when father had extinguished the taper
+in the dregs of the Havdolah cup, he turned to mother, and said:
+"Now man born of woman is unwise all his life long.  He knows not
+how to thank for the sorrows that have been sweetened by His mercy,
+blessed be He!"
+
+Mother did not understand, and looked at father questioningly.  "The
+Catcher is in town," explained father.
+
+"The Catcher!" shuddered mother.
+
+"But he takes only Fourths and upwards," said father, reassuringly.
+
+Fourths, Fifths, etc., those households were called which had four,
+or five, or more sons.
+
+"And our household has only three sons at present," continued
+father.  "Do you understand, woman?  Three sons were left to us, and
+our household is exempt from military duty.  Now do you see the
+mercy of the Lord, blessed be He?  Do you still murmur against Him,
+blessed be He?"--
+
+So it was in those days.  Every Jewish community had to deliver a
+certain fixed number of recruits to the Government annually.  This
+number was apportioned among the families, and every family taxed
+the households composing it.  But not every household had to supply
+a recruit.  A household with a large number of sons secured the
+exemption of a household with fewer sons.  For instance, a household
+with four sons in it was exempted, if there was a household with
+five sons to levy from in the same family.  And a household of three
+sons was spared when there was, in the same family, a household of
+four sons.  And so forth.--
+
+And as father was speaking--the old man continued--mother
+contemplated us, as one that escapes from a fire contemplates the
+saved remnants; and her eyes overflowed with silent tears.  Those
+were the last tears shed over the grave of Dovidl, and for those
+tears father had no rebuke.  We felt that Dovidl was a saint: he had
+departed this life to save us from the hand of the Catcher.  It
+seemed to me that the soul of Dovidl was flitting about the room,
+listening to everything, and noticing that we were pleased that he
+had died; and I felt ashamed.
+
+The next day I went to the Heder, somewhat proud of myself.  I
+boasted before my mates that I was a Third.  The Fourths envied me;
+the Fifths envied the Fourths, and all of us envied the Seconds and
+the only sons.  So little chaps, youngsters who knew not what their
+life was going to be, came to know early that brothers, sons of one
+father, may at times be a source of trouble to one another.
+
+That was at the beginning of the summer.
+
+The teachers decided that we remain within the walls of the Heder
+most of the time, and show ourselves outside as little as possible
+during the period of danger.  But a decree like that was more than
+boys could stand, especially in those beautiful summer days.
+
+Meanwhile the Catcher came to town, and set his eye on the
+son-in-law of the rich Reb Yossel, peace be unto him.  The name of
+the young man was Avremel Hourvitz--a fine, genteel young man.  He
+had run away from his home in Poland and come to our town, and was
+spending his time at the Klaus studying the Torah.  And Reb Yossel,
+may he rest in peace, had to spend a pile of money before he got
+Avremel for his daughter.  From the same Polish town came the
+Catcher, to take Avremel as the recruit of the family Hourvitz due
+to the Jewish community of his city.  When he laid his hand on
+Avremel, the town was shocked.  The rabbi himself sent for the
+Catcher, and promised to let him have, without any contention, some
+one else instead of Avremel.  Then they began to look for a
+household with the family name of Hourvitz, and they found my
+father's.  Before that happened I had never suspected that my father
+had anything like a family name.  For some time the deal remained a
+deep secret.  But no secret is proof against a mother's intuition,
+and my mother scented the thing.  She caught me by the arm--I do not
+know why she picked me out--rushed with me to the rabbi, and made it
+hot for him.
+
+"Is this justice, rabbi?  Did I bear and rear children, only to give
+up my son for the sake of some Avremel?!"
+
+The rabbi sighed, cast down his eyes, and argued, that said Avremel
+was not simply "an Avremel," but a "veritable jewel," a profound
+Lamdan, a noble-hearted man, destined to become great in Israel.  It
+was unjust to give him away, when there was someone else to take his
+place.  Besides, Avremel was a married man, and the father of an
+infant child.  "Now where is justice?" demanded the rabbi.  But my
+mother persisted.  For all she knew, her own sons might yet grow up
+to become ornaments to israel . . .  And she, too, was observing the
+ordinances of the Hallah and the Sabbath candles, and the rest of
+the laws, no less than Avremel's mother.
+
+More arguments, more tears without arguments--till the rabbi
+softened: he could not resist a woman.  Then mother took me and
+Solomon up to the garret, and ordered us not to venture outside.--
+
+Here the old man interrupted himself by a soft sigh, and
+continued:--
+
+
+
+To a great extent it was my own fault, wild boy that I was.  I broke
+my mother's injunction.  In the alley, near the house of my parents,
+there lived a wine-dealer, Bendet by name.  Good wine was to be
+found in his cellar.  For this reason army officers and other
+persons of rank frequented his place, and he was somewhat of a
+favorite with them.  In short, though he lived in a mean little
+alley, those important personages were not averse to calling at his
+house.  That Bendet had an only child, a daughter.  She was
+considered beautiful and educated.  I had not known her.  In my day
+they spoke ill of her.  Naturally, her father loved her.  Is there a
+father who loves not his offspring?  And how much more such a
+daughter, whom everyone loved.  However that may be, one day
+Bendet's daughter broke away, left her father's house, and renounced
+her faith--may we be spared such a fate!  And many years after her
+father's death she returned to our town, to take possession of her
+portion of the inheritance.  That happened at a time when we were
+hiding in the garret.  The town was all agog: people ran from every
+street to get a look at the renegade, who came to take possession of
+a Jewish inheritance.  I, too, was seized with a wild desire to get
+a look at her, to curse her, to spit in her face . . . .  And I
+forgot all the dangers that surrounded me.
+
+Young as I was, I considered myself as a Jew responsible for the
+wayward one.  I lost control of myself, and ran out.  But after I
+had been in the street for some time, I was seized with fear of the
+Catcher.  Every stranger I met seemed to me to be a Catcher.  I
+shrank into myself, walked unsteadily hither and thither, and did
+not know how to hide myself.  Then a man met me.  His large beard
+and curled side-locks made me think he was a good man.  I looked at
+him imploringly.  "What ails you, my boy?" he asked in a soft tone.
+"I am afraid of the Catcher," said I, tearfully.
+
+"Whose son are you?"
+
+I told him.
+
+"Then come with me, and I shall hide you, my boy.  Don't be afraid.
+I am your uncle.  Don't you recognize me?"
+
+He took me by the arm, and I went after him.  Then I noticed that
+the children of my neighborhood were eyeing me terror-stricken.  The
+womenfolk saw me, wrung their hands, and lamented aloud.
+
+"What are they crying about?" I wondered.
+
+"Do you want some candy?  Your uncle has plenty of it," said he,
+bending over me, as if to protect me.  "Or maybe your feet hurt you?
+ Let your uncle take you on his arms."  As soon as I heard "candy,"
+I felt that the man was the Catcher himself, and I tried to break
+away.  But the "uncle" held me fast.  Then I began to yell.  It was
+near our house, and the people of our alley rushed towards us, some
+yelling, some crying, some armed with sticks.  Pretty soon I
+recognized my mother's voice in the mixture of voices and noises.
+You see, peculiar is the charm of a mother's voice: a knife may be
+held to one's throat, but the mere sound of mother's voice awakens
+new courage and begets new hope.  Mother made a way for herself, and
+fell upon the Catcher like a wild beast.  She struck, she pinched,
+she scratched, she pulled his hair, she bit him.  But what can a
+woman do in the line of beating?  Nothing!  Her neighbors joined
+her, one, two, three; and all tried hard to take me out of the hands
+of the Catcher.  What can a few women do against one able-bodied
+man?  Nothing at all!  That happened during the dinner hour.  One of
+our neighbors got the best of the Catcher, a woman who happened
+rather to dislike me and my mother; they quarreled frequently.
+Perhaps on account of this very dislike she was not over-excited,
+and was able to hit upon the right course to take at the critical
+moment.  She went to our house, took in one hand a potful of roasted
+groats, ready for dinner, and in the other a kettle of boiling
+water.  Unnoticed she approached the Catcher, spilled the hot groats
+upon his hands, and at the same time she poured the boiling water
+over them.  A wild yell escaped from the mouth of the Catcher--and I
+was free.--
+
+
+
+There was no more tobacco in the pipe, and the old man lost his
+speech.  That was the way of Samuel the Beadle; he could tell his
+story only from behind the smoke of his pipe, when he did not see
+his hearers, nor his hearers saw him.  In that way he found it easy
+to put his boyhood before his mind's eye and conjure up the
+reminiscences of those days.  Meanwhile the horses had stopped, and
+let us know that a high and steep hill was ahead of us, and that it
+was our turn to trudge through the mud.  We had to submit to the
+will of the animals, and we dismounted.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+After tramping a while alongside the coach, the old man lit his
+pipe, emitted a cloud of smoke, and continued:--
+
+
+
+I do not know what happened then.  I cannot tell who caught me, nor
+the place I was taken to.  I must have been in a trance all the
+while.
+
+When I awoke, I found myself surrounded by a flock of sheep, in a
+meadow near the woods.  Near me was my brother Solomon; but I hardly
+recognized him.  He wore peasant clothes: a linen shirt turned out
+over linen breeches and gathered in by a broad belt.  I was eyeing
+my brother, and he was eyeing me, both of us equally bewildered, for
+I was disguised like himself.
+
+A little boy, a real peasant boy, was standing near us.  He smiled
+at us in a good-natured, hospitable way.  It was the chore-boy of
+the Jewish quarter.  On the Sabbaths of the winter months he kept up
+the fires in the Jewish houses; that is why he could jabber a few
+words of Yiddish.  During the summer he took care of the flocks of
+the peasants that lived in the neighborhood.
+
+When I awoke, my mother was with us too.  She kissed us amid tears,
+gave us some bread and salt, and, departing, strictly forbade us to
+speak any Yiddish.  "For God's sake, speak no Yiddish," said she,
+"you might be recognized!  Hide here till the Catcher leaves town."
+
+It was easy enough to say, "Speak no Yiddish"; but did we know how
+to speak any other language?
+
+I saw then that I was in a sort of hiding-place--a hiding-place
+under the open sky!  I realized that I had escaped from houses,
+garrets, and cellars, merely to hide in the open field between
+heaven and earth.  I had fled from darkness, to hide in broad
+daylight!
+
+Indeed, it was not light that I had to fear.  Nor was it the sun,
+the moon, or the sheep.  It was only man that I had to avoid.
+
+Mother went away and left us under the protection of the little
+shepherd boy.  And he was a good boy, indeed.  He watched us to the
+best of his ability.  As soon as he saw any one approach our place,
+he called out loudly: "No, no; these are not Jewish boys at all!  On
+my life, they are not!"
+
+As a matter of facet, a stranger did happen to visit our place; but
+he was only a butcher, who came to buy sheep for slaughtering.
+
+Well, the sun had set, and night came.  It was my first night under
+an open sky.  I suffered greatly from fear, for there was no Mezuzah
+anywhere near me.  I put my hand under my Shaatnez clothes, and felt
+my Tzitzis: they, too, seemed to be in hiding, for they shook in my
+hand.
+
+Over us the dark night sky was spread out, and it seemed to me that
+the stars were so many omens whose meaning I could not make out.
+But I felt certain that they meant nothing good so far as I was
+concerned.  All kinds of whispers, sizzling sounds of the night,
+reached my ears, and I knew not where they came from.
+
+Looking down, I saw sparks a-twinkling.  I knew they were stars
+reflected in the near-by stream.  But soon I thought it was not the
+water and the stars: the sheen of the water became the broad smile
+of some giant stretched out flat upon the ground; and the sparks
+were the twinkling of his eyes.  And the sheep were not sheep at
+all, but some strange creatures moving to and fro, spreading out,
+and coming together again in knotted masses.  I imagined they all
+were giants bewitched to appear as sheep by day and to become giants
+again by night.  Then I knew too well that the thick, dark forest
+was behind me; and what doesn't one find in a forest?  Is there an
+unholy spirit that cannot be found there?  Z-z-z- - - - a sudden
+sizzling whisper reached my ear, and I began to cry.
+
+"Why don't you sleep?" asked the shepherd boy in his broken Yiddish.
+
+"I am afraid!"
+
+"What are you afraid of?"
+
+"Of--of--the woods . . . ."
+
+"Ha--ha--ha--I have good dogs with the flock!"
+
+I wanted a Mezuzah, some talisman, a protection against evil
+spirits, and that fool offered me barking dogs!  All at once he
+whistled loudly, and his dogs set up a barking that nearly made me
+deaf.  The flock was panic-stricken.  I thought at first that the
+earth had opened her mouth, and packs of dogs were breaking out from
+hell.
+
+The noise the dogs made broke the awful hush of the night, and my
+fears were somewhat dispelled.
+
+But there were other reasons why I liked to hear the dogs bark.  I
+was myself the owner of a dog, which I had raised on the sly in my
+father's house.  Imagine the horror of my brother Solomon, who as a
+real Jewish lad was very much afraid of a dog!
+
+In that way we spent a few days, hiding under the open sky,
+disguised in our Shaatnez clothes.  Soon enough the time came when
+my parents _had_ to understand what they would not understand when
+the rabbi wanted to give me up in place of the famous Avremel.  For
+they caught my oldest brother Simhah, may he rest in peace.  And
+Simhah was a privileged person; he was not only the Shohet of the
+community and a great Lamdan, but also a married man, and the father
+of four children to boot.  Only then, it seems, my parents
+understood what the rabbi had understood before: that it was not
+fair to deliver up my brother when I, the ignorant fellow, the lover
+of dogs, might take his place.  A few days later mother came and
+took us home.  As to the rest, others had seen to it.--
+
+
+
+Here the old man stopped for a while.  He was puffing and snorting,
+tired from the hard walk uphill.  Having reached the summit, he
+turned around, looked downhill, straightened up, and took a deep
+breath.  "This is an excellent way of getting rid of your tired
+feeling," said he.  "Turn around and look downhill: then your
+strength will return to you."--
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+We had left the coach far behind, and had to wait till it overtook
+us.  Meanwhile I looked downhill into the valley below: it was a
+veritable sea of slush.  The teams that followed ours sank into it,
+and seemed not to be moving at all.  The oblique rays of the setting
+sun, reflected and radiating in every direction, lent a peculiar
+glitter to the slushy wagons and the broken sheet of mire, as if
+pointing out their beauty to the darkening sky.  So much light
+wasted, I thought.  But on the summit of the hill on which I was
+standing, the direct rays of the sun promised a good hour more of
+daylight.
+
+The old man drew breath, and continued his story:--
+
+
+
+Well, I was caught, and put into prison.  I was not alone.  Many
+young boys had been brought there.  Some were crying bitterly; some
+looked at their companions wonderingly.  We were told that the next
+day we should be taken away to some place, and that the rabbi wished
+to come to see us, but was not permitted to enter our prison.
+
+Yes, a good man was the rabbi, may he rest in peace; yet he was
+compelled to cheat for once.  And when an honest man is compelled to
+cheat he may outdo the cleverest crook.  Do you want to know what
+the rabbi did?  He disguised himself as a peasant, went out, and
+walked the streets with the rolling gait of a drunkard.  The night
+guards stopped him, and asked him what his business was.  "I am a
+thief," said the rabbi.  Then the guards arrested him, and put him
+into the prison with us.
+
+In the darkness of that night the rabbi never ceased talking to us,
+swallowing his own tears all the while.  He told us the story of
+Joseph the righteous.  It had been decreed in Heaven, said the
+rabbi, that his brethren should sell Joseph into slavery.  And it
+was the will of the Almighty that Joseph should come to Egypt, to
+show the Egyptians that there is only one God in Heaven, and that
+the Children of Israel are the chosen people.
+
+Then the rabbi examined us:  Did we know our Modeh-Ani by heart?
+did we know our Shema?
+
+He told us that we should be taken very, very far away, that we
+should be away many, many years, and should become soldiers when
+grown up.  Then he warned us never to eat of any food forbidden by
+the Jewish law, and never to forget the God of Israel and our own
+people, even if they tore our flesh with thorns.  He told us also
+the story of the Ten Martyrs, who sacrificed their lives to sanctify
+the God of Israel.  He told us of the mother and her seven children
+that were killed for having refused to bow before idols; and he told
+us many more such things.  All those saints and martyrs, he said,
+are now in Paradise, enjoying the bliss of the Divine Presence.
+That night I really envied those saints; I longed with all my heart
+to be forced to bow to idols, to have to withstand all sorts of
+trials, so as to enjoy, after my death, the bliss of the Divine
+Presence in Paradise.
+
+Many more stories the rabbi told us; many more words of warning,
+encouragement, and praise came from his lips, till I really believed
+I was the one whom God had picked out from among my equals, to be
+put through great trials and temptations. . . .
+
+Morning came, and the guard entered the prison.  Then the rabbi
+turned towards us, and said: "Lambs of the God of Israel, we have to
+part now:  I am going to be lashed and imprisoned for having entered
+this place by a trick, and you will be taken into exile, to undergo
+your trials!  I may hardly expect to be found worthy of surviving
+till you return.  But there, in the world-of-truth, we shall surely
+meet.  May it be the will of God that I may have no reason to be
+ashamed of you there, before Him and His angels, in Heaven!"
+
+We parted, and the words of the rabbi sank deep into my heart.
+
+Then they began dumping us into wagons.  The obstreperous boys, who
+tried to run away, were many of them bound with ropes and thrown
+into the wagon.  Of course, we all howled.
+
+I did not hear my own voice, nor the voice of my neighbor.  It was
+all one great howl.  A crowd of men and women followed our
+wagon--the parents of the boys.  Very likely they cried, too; but we
+could not hear their voices.  The town, the fields, heaven and
+earth, seemed to cry with us.
+
+I caught sight of my parents, and my heart was filled with something
+like anger and hatred.  I felt that I had been sacrificed for my
+brother.
+
+My mother, among many other mothers, approached the wagon, looked at
+me, and apparently read my thoughts: she fainted away, and fell to
+the ground.  The accident held up the crowd, which busied itself
+with reviving my mother, while our wagon rolled away.
+
+My heart was filled with a mixture of anger, pity, and terror.  In
+that mood of mixed feelings I parted from my parents.
+
+We cried and cried, got tired, and finally became still from sheer
+exhaustion.  Presently a noise reached our ears, something like the
+yelling of children.  We thought it was another wagonload of boys
+like ourselves.  But soon we found out our mistake: it was but a
+wagonload of sheep that were being taken to slaughter. . . .
+
+Of course, we ate nothing the whole of that day, though the mothers
+had not failed to provide us with food.  Meanwhile the sun had set;
+it got dark, and the boys who had been bound with ropes were
+released by the guard: he knew they would not attempt to escape at
+that time.  We fell asleep, but every now and then one of the boys
+would wake up, crying, quietly at first, then louder and louder.
+Then another would join him; one more, and yet one more, till we all
+were yelling in chorus, filling the night air with our bitter cries.
+ Even the guard could not stand it; he scolded us, and belabored us
+with his whip.  That crying of ours reminds me of what we read in
+lamentations: "Weeping she hath wept in the night. . . ."
+
+Morning came, and found us all awake: we were waiting for daylight.
+We believed it would bring us freedom, that angels would descend
+from Heaven, just as they had descended to our father Jacob, to
+smite our guard and set us free.  At the same time, the rising sun
+brought us all a feeling of hunger.  We began to sigh, each and
+every one of us separately.  But the noise we made did not amount
+even to the barking of a few dogs or the cawing of a few crows.
+That is what hunger can do.  And when the guard had distributed
+among us some of the food we had brought with us, we ate it with
+relish, and felt satisfied.  At the same time we began to feel the
+discomfort we were causing one another, cooped up as we were in the
+wagon.  I began to complain of my neighbor, who was sitting on my
+legs.  He claimed that I was pressing against him with my shoulder.
+We all began to look up to the guard, as if expecting that he could
+or would prevent us from torturing one another.
+
+Still I had some fun even on that day of weeping.  I happened to
+turn around, and I noticed that Barker, my dog, was running after
+our wagon.
+
+"Too bad, foolish Barker," said I, laughing at him in spite of my
+heartache.  "Do you think I am going to a feast?  It is into exile
+that I am going; and what do you run after me for?"--
+
+
+
+This made old Samuel laugh; he laughed like a child, as if the thing
+had just happened before his eyes, and as if it were really comical.
+ Meanwhile our coach had reached the top of the hill; we jumped into
+our seats, and proceeded to make one another uncomfortable.
+
+The old man glanced at his son, who was sitting opposite to him.  It
+was a loving and tender look, issuing from under long shaggy
+eyebrows, a beautiful, gentle, almost motherly look, out of accord
+with the hard-set face of an irritable and stern father.
+
+The old man made his son's seat comfortable for him, and then fell
+silent.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+I am going to pass over a long time--resumed the old man later.
+There was much traveling and many stops; much tramping on foot, with
+legs swollen; but all that has nothing to do with the subject.
+
+Once in a while our guard would get angry at us, curse us bitterly,
+and strike us with his whip.  "You cursed Jews," he would say, "do I
+owe you anything that I should suffer so much on your account, and
+undergo all the hardships of travel?"
+
+Indeed, there was a good deal of truth in what he said.  For,
+willingly or unwillingly, we did give him much trouble.  Had we
+died, say the year before, or even at that very moment, he would not
+have been put to the necessity of leading a crowd of half-dumb boys.
+ He would not have had to stand the hardships of travel, and would
+not have been compelled to listen to the wailings of children torn
+from the arms of their parents.  Or do you think it is agreeable to
+feel that little children consider you a hard and cruel man?  When I
+grew up and served in the army myself, and had people below me in
+age and position under my command, I came to understand the troubles
+of our guard; so that now, after having gone through many
+experiences, after I have passed, as they say, through fire and
+water, I may confess that I bear no malice towards all those at
+whose hands I suffered.  There are many ex-Cantonists who cannot
+forget the birch-rod, for instance.  Well, so much is true: for
+every misstep, for every sign of disobedience a whipping was due.
+If one of us refused to kneel in prayer before the crucifix; if one
+of us refused to eat pork; if one of us was caught mumbling a Hebrew
+prayer or speaking Yiddish, he was sure to get a flogging.  Twenty,
+thirty, forty, or even full fifty lashes were the punishment.  But,
+then, is it conceivable that they could have treated us any other
+way?  Why, hundreds of Jewish children that did not understand a
+word of Russian had been delivered into the hands of a Russian
+official that did not understand a word of Yiddish.  He would say,
+Take off my boots, and the boy would wash his hands.  He would say,
+Sit down, and the boy would stand up.  Were we not like dumb cattle?
+ It was only the rod that we understood well.  And the rod taught us
+to understand our master's orders by the mere expression of his
+eyes.
+
+Then many of the ex-Cantonists still remember with horror the
+steam-bath they were compelled to take.  "The chamber of hell," they
+called the bath.  At first blush, it would really seem to have been
+an awful thing.  They would pick out all the Cantonists that had so
+much as a scratch on their bodies or the smallest sign of an
+eruption, paint the wounds with tar, and put the boys, stripped, on
+the highest shelf in the steam-bath.  And below was a row of
+attendants armed with birch-rods.  The kettle was boiling fiercely,
+the stones were red-hot, and the attendants emptied jars of boiling
+water ceaselessly upon the stones.  The steam would rise, penetrate
+every pore of the skin, and--sting! sting!--enter into the very
+flesh.  The pain was horrible; it pricked, and pricked, and there
+was no air to breathe.  It was simply choking.  If the boy happened
+to roll down, those below stood ready to meet him with the rods.
+
+All this is true.  At the same time, was it mere cruelty?  It is
+very simple: we were a lot of Jewish lads snatched from the arms of
+our mothers.  On the eve of every Sabbath our mothers would take us
+in hand, wash us, comb our hair, change our underwear, and dress us
+in our Sabbath clothes.  All at once we were taken into exile.
+Days, weeks, nay, months, we passed in the dust of the roads, in
+perspiration and dirt, and sleeping on the ground.  Our underwear
+had not been changed.  No water had touched our bodies.  So we
+became afflicted with all kinds of eruptions.  That is why we had to
+pass through what we called "the chamber of hell."  And this will
+give you an idea of the rest.
+
+To make a long story short: there were many of us, and we were
+distributed in various places.  Many of the boys had taken ill; many
+died on the road.  The survivors were distributed among peasants, to
+be brought up by them till they reached the age of entering the
+army.  I was among the latter.  Many months, maybe even years, I
+passed in knocking about from village to village, from town to town,
+till, at last, I came into the joint possession of a certain Peter
+Semionovich Khlopov and his wife Anna Petrovna.  My master was
+neither old nor young; he was neither a plain peasant nor a
+nobleman.  He was the clerk of the village.  In those days that was
+considered a genteel occupation, honorable and well-paid.  He had no
+sons, but he and one daughter, Marusya by name.  She was then about
+fourteen years old, very good-looking, gay, and rather wild.
+
+According to the regulations, all the Cantonists in the village had
+to report daily for military drill and exercise on the drill grounds
+before the house of the sergeant.  He lived in the same village.  At
+the request of my patron Khlopov I was excused from the daily drill,
+and had to report but once a week.  You see, Peter expected to
+derive some benefit from me by employing me about the house and in
+the field.
+
+Now it was surely through the merits of my ancestors that I happened
+to be placed in the household of Peter Khlopov.  Peter himself spent
+but little of his time at home.  Most of the time he was at the
+office, and his free moments he liked to spend at the tavern, which
+was owned by the only Jew in the village, "our Moshko" the Klopovs
+used to call him.  But whenever he happened to be at home, Peter was
+very kind to me, especially when he was just a little tipsy.
+Perhaps he dreamt of adopting me as his son: he had no sons of his
+own.  And he tried to make me like military service.  "When you grow
+up," he sued to say, "you will become an officer, and wear a sword.
+Soldiers will stand at attention before you, and salute you.  You
+will win distinction in battle, and be found worthy of being
+presented to the Czar."  He also told me stories of Russian military
+life.  By that time I had learned some Russian.  They were really
+nice stories, as far as I could understand them; but they were made
+nicer yet by what I could not understand of them.  For then I was
+free to add something to the stories myself, or change them
+according to my own fancy.  If you are a lover of stories, take the
+advice of a plain old man like myself.  Never pay any attention to
+stories in which everything has been prepared from the very start,
+and you can tell the end as soon as you begin to read them or listen
+to them.  Such stories make one yawn and fall asleep.  Stories of
+this kind my daughter reads to me once in a while, and I always fall
+asleep over them.  Stories are good only when told the way Khlopov
+used to tell them to me.
+
+But that is all irrelevant.  In short, Khlopov was kind to me.
+
+As to Anna, she was entirely different.  She was close-mouthed,
+ill-tempered, and a great stay-at-home.  She never visited her
+neighbors, and they, in turn, called on her very rarely.  In the
+village she was spoken of as a snob and a hypocrite.  Peter was
+afraid of her as of the plague, especially in his sober hours.  All
+her power lay in her eyes.  When that strong man--he who had the
+whole village in the palm of his hand--felt her eye fixed on him,
+his strength left him.  It seemed as if some devil were ready to
+jump out of that eye and turn the house topsyturvy.  You fellows are
+mere youngsters, you have seen nothing of the world yet; but take it
+from me, there are eyes that seem quite harmless when you first look
+into them, but just try to arouse their temper: you will see a
+hellish fire spring up in them.  Have you ever looked into my
+Rebekah's eyes?  Well, beware of the eyes.
+
+The look Anna gave me when I first entered her house promised me
+nothing good.  She hated me heartily.  She never called me by my own
+name.  She called me "Zhid" all the time, in a tone of deep hatred
+and contempt.
+
+Among the orders the Cantonists had to obey were the following: to
+speak no Yiddish; to say no Jewish prayer; to recite daily a certain
+prayer before the image of the Virgin and before the crucifix, and
+not to abstain from non-kosher food.
+
+With regard to all injunctions except the last, Anna was very strict
+with me.  But she was not very particular as to the last injunction.
+ Out of sheer stinginess she fed me on bread and vegetables, and
+that in the kitchen.  Once she did offer me some meat, and I refused
+to touch it.  Then she got very angry, flew into a temper, and
+decided to complain to the sergeant.  But Peter did not let her be
+so cruel.  "Let him grow up, he will know better," said Peter,
+waving his hand at me.
+
+Then Anna made up her mind to force me to eat forbidden meat.  But I
+was obstinate.  And she decided once more to complain to the
+sergeant.  Just at that time another Cantonist had been found guilty
+of some offense.  He belonged to the same village; his name was
+Jacob.  I did not know him at that time.  His patron complained that
+Jacob had persisted in reciting Hebrew prayers, and that he
+abstained from meat.  Jacob was condemned to twenty lashes with
+rods.  An order was issued that all Cantonists should assemble to
+witness the flogging of the offender.
+
+In the course of time we got used to such sights; but the first time
+we were terribly shocked.  Just imagine: a lad of about fifteen is
+stripped, put on the ground face downwards; one man sits on his
+head, and another on his feet.  Two men are put on either side of
+him, each with a bundle of birch-rods in his hand.  Ten times each
+of them has to strike him with the rods, to make up the twenty
+lashes.  I looked at the face of the culprit; it was as white as
+chalk.  His lips were moving.  I thought he was reciting the prayer:
+"And He, the Merciful, will forgive sin, and will not destroy.
+. . ."  Up went the rods, down they went: a piercing cry . . . .
+blood . . . . flaps of loose skin . . . . cries . . . . "one, two,
+three" . . . . again cries . . . . sudden silence . . . . more cries
+. . . . again silence . . . . "four, five" . . . . "stop!"
+
+Because the culprit fainted, the sergeant in the goodness of his
+heart divided the punishment into two parts.  Jacob was carried off
+to the hospital, and it was put down in the book that he was to get
+ten more lashes after his recover.
+
+I went home.
+
+Had Anna given me a piece of pork to eat that evening, I do not know
+what I should have done.
+
+That night I saw the old rabbi in my dream.  He was standing before
+me, with bowed head and tears dropping from his eyes. . . . .
+
+I do not remember the way Marusya treated me at first.  But I do
+remember the look she gave me when I first entered her father's
+house.  There are trifling matters that one remembers forever.  Hers
+was a telltale look, wild and merry.  It is hard to describe it in
+words--as if she wanted to say, "Welcome, friend!  You did well in
+coming here.  I need just you to pass my leisure hours with me!"
+And she really needed someone like myself, for she never associated
+with the children of the village.  The beautiful lively girl used to
+have her fits of the blues.  Then it was impossible to look at her
+face without pitying her.  At such times her mother could not get a
+word out of her, and the whole expression of her face was changed to
+such an extent that she seemed to have aged suddenly.  She would
+look the very image of her mother then.  And a peculiar expression
+would steal over her face, which estranged her from other people,
+and perhaps brought her nearer to me.  During those fits of
+despondency she was sure to follow me if I happened to leave the
+room and go outside.  She would join me and spend hour after hour in
+childish prattle with me, and her merriment and wildness knew no
+limits.  Little by little I got used to her, and fell, in turn, a
+longing for her company during my own fits of lonesomeness.
+
+The day after I had witnessed Jacob's punishment I felt miserable.
+I was restless and excitable, and did not know what to do with
+myself.  I thought my heart would burst within me.  I asked myself
+all kinds of questions:  What am I doing here?  What did I come here
+for?  What are all those people to me?  As if I had come there only
+the day before, and of my own free will. . . .
+
+Marusya looked sharply at me.  Very likely she recognized that
+something was worrying me.  I felt a desire to share my feelings
+with her.  I got up and walked out into the garden behind the house.
+ In a moment she followed me.  I made a clean breast of it, and told
+her all I had to witness the day before.
+
+She listened, shivering, and asked in a tremulous voice:
+
+"And what did they beat him for?"
+
+"He said a Hebrew prayer, and refused to eat meat."
+
+"And why did he refuse to eat meat?"
+
+"It is forbidden."
+
+"Forbidden?  Why?"
+
+I was silent.
+
+She also became silent; then she laid her hand on me, and said with
+her usual merriment:
+
+"They will not beat you."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"The sergeant is a good friend of ours."
+
+"But if your mother should complain about me?"
+
+"Then I shall go in your stead, if they should decide to switch
+you."
+
+She laughed heartily at her own suggestion.  Her laughter made me
+laugh too; we both laughed, and laughed without knowing why.  And in
+a mood completely changed I returned to the house.  After that I
+felt very near to the girl.
+
+Well, time passed, months and years: I lost track of them.  But I do
+remember that the time had come when I knew enough Russian to make
+myself understood, and fit for any kind of work about the house and
+in the field, and could give my patron entire satisfaction.
+
+One day, I remember, I tried very hard to have my work well and
+promptly done, so as to earn, for once, the good-will of Anna
+herself.  I felt a longing for the friendly smile of a mother.  But
+Anna kept going in and out, and did not pay the least attention to
+me.  I was sitting on the bench outside the house alone.  My dog was
+lying at my feet, looking at me very intently.  His eyes seemed to
+be full of tears.  And let me tell you by the way, his lot in the
+house was entirely different from mine.  When he first entered
+Peter's courtyard, the dogs met him with howls.  He tried to find
+shelter in the kitchen, but was chased out with sticks.  "Where did
+that tramp come from?" wondered the people.  Then my Barker saw that
+he could expect no charity from the people, and he put his trust in
+his own teeth.  He stood up bravely, and fought all the dogs of the
+household till blood flowed.  Then only did the masters of the house
+appreciate his doggish virtues and accomplishments.  They befriended
+him, and allowed him his rations.  So my Barker saved his skin.  Yet
+his lot did not seem to please him.  He recognized, by some peculiar
+dog-sense, that I, his fellow in exile, was unhappy myself and sorry
+for him too.  He felt that somehow his own days of prosperity would
+not last long.  Whenever I sat about lonely and moping, he would
+stretch himself at my feet, and look straight into my eyes, with an
+expression of earnestness and wonderment, as if he wanted to ask me,
+How is that, why don't you fight for your rights the way I did?
+
+Presently Anna came out, shot a glance at me, and said:
+
+"Well, now, there is the lazy Zhid sitting idle, and I have to work
+and prepare meals for him, so that he may find everything ready!"  I
+got up, and began to look around for something to do.
+
+"Go, catch the little pig and bring it over here," ordered Anna.
+
+The day before I had overheard her say that it was time to kill the
+little pig.  I did not relish the job by any means.  I felt sorry
+for the porkling: mere pig though it was, it had after all grown up
+in our house.  And it was hard on me to have a hand in the affair.
+But one angry word of Anna's set me a-going.  In a moment my hand
+was on the animal, which trusted me and believed in me implicitly.
+Then Anna handed me a rope to bind it.  I did as she wanted; the pig
+started to squeal and squeak horribly.  To me it sounded like "Zhid,
+Zhid, is that the way to treat _me?"_
+
+Then Anna handed me a knife, and showed me where to make the cut.
+. . .  The pig began to bleed fearfully, gurgling, and choking with
+his own blood.  Forthwith Anna ordered wood to be brought, a fire to
+be kindled, and the pig to be put upon it.  I did all as I had been
+ordered.  My dog was watching me intently, greatly bewildered; the
+pig groaned and groaned; the flames licked his body and embraced
+it--and my dog was barking and yelping away up into the sky.
+
+That night I dreamt that my brother the Shohet and I were on trial
+in Heaven before the seat of judgment, with various animals
+complaining against us.  Only clean fowl, such as geese, pigeons,
+and the like were complaining against my brother, and they all
+pleaded in clear, good Hebrew, saying, "Was it for your own
+consumption that you killed us all?" . . . .  But it was only the
+pig that complained against me, and it pleaded in screeches and
+grunts that nobody could understand. . . .
+
+The next morning Anna got up early, and made me stand before the
+ikon of the Virgin and recite a certain prayer.  At dinner she
+seated me alongside of Peter, gave me some roast pork, and looked
+sharply at me.  I guess, while making all those preparations, Anna
+had only one thing in mind: to put Peter up against me while he was
+drunk.  I took fright, and began to chew away at the pork.  But then
+the screeches and the grunts of the pig rang in my ears, and I
+thought they came right from within my insides; I wondered how they
+could listen to all that, and yet eat the pork in perfect comfort.
+Suddenly a lump in my throat began to choke me. . . . Nausea,
+retching . . . . and something happened to me: I vomited everything
+out, right on the table.  Everybody jumped away from the table in
+disgust and anger.  I met Marusya's eye, and was ashamed to look
+into it.  Anna got up, boiling with rage, and took me by the ear,
+and pulled me outside: "Get out of here, you dirty Zhid; and don't
+you dare enter my house any more!"
+
+Well, she chased me out.  Peter and Marusya kept quiet.  Thoroughly
+miserable, I dropped down on the bench behind the house; my dog
+stretched himself out on the ground at my feet and looked into my
+eyes.  Then I began to talk to my fellow in misfortune:  "Do you
+hear, doggie, we have been chased out. . . .  What does that mean?
+did we come here of our own free will?  It is by force that we were
+brought here; so what sense is there in chasing us out?"
+
+And I thought my dog understood me; a sound came from the depths of
+his throat, and died away there.  Then a thought began to haunt me:
+Maybe it is really time to run away.  If they run after me and
+overtake me, I shall simply say that my patron chased me out of his
+house.  And the thought, Home! to your parents! took possession of
+me, and tortured me ceaselessly.  Said I to myself: "If they chase
+me out, I am certainly free!"  But then, just see the power of the
+birch-rod:  I knew well that much time would pass before my patron
+would notice my absence; and before the sergeant was informed, and
+people were dispatched to pursue me, more time would pass.  Then I
+should be far away from the place.  By that time I was quite
+hardened;  I was not afraid to hide in the woods; devils and evil
+spirits I did not fear any more.  I had learned well enough that no
+devil will ever trouble a man as much as one human being can trouble
+another.  And yet, when I remembered the swish of the rods over the
+naked flesh, the spurting blood, the loose flaps of skin, and the
+futile outcries, I was paralyzed with fear.  No, it was not really
+fear: it was a sort of submissive adoration.  Had a birch-rod been
+lying near me, I should have kissed it with fear and respect.  It is
+hard for me to explain to you.  You youngsters are not capable of
+understanding.
+
+And as I was sitting there, full of gloomy thoughts, I did not
+notice that the sun had set, and night had come.  It got so dark
+that I could not see my dog lying at my feet.  Suddenly I felt
+something touch me and pass lightly over my hair.  I thought it was
+an ant or a night moth, and I raised my hand to chase it away.  Then
+it changed its place, and I felt it at the nape of my neck.  I tried
+to catch the thing that was making my neck itch, and caught a hand,
+soft and warm.  I shuddered and started back: before me was Marusya,
+bending over me.  I wanted to get up, but she put her hands on me
+heavily, sat down at my side, all the while pressing my hand between
+hers.
+
+"Why are you sitting here?" she asked.
+
+"Didn't your mother chase me out?"
+
+"That is nothing.  Don't you know her temper?  That is her way."
+
+"She keeps nagging at me all the time, and calls me nothing but
+Zhid, Zhid."
+
+"And what of it?  Aren't you a Jew?  Should I feel insulted if some
+one were to call me Christian?!"
+
+I had nothing to say.  And it dawned upon me at that moment that I
+was really insulting myself by objecting to being called Zhid.
+True, Anna meant to jeer at me and insult me; but did it depend on
+her alone?
+
+"And what are you going to do now?" asked Marusya.
+
+"I want to run away."
+
+"Without telling me?"
+
+She peered into my face, and I felt as if two streams of warmth had
+emptied themselves into me.  My eyes had become somewhat accustomed
+to the darkness, and I could discern every movement of her body.  A
+delicate smile was playing around her mouth, and my feeling of
+despondency was giving way before it.  I felt that after all I had a
+friend in the house, a good, loving, and beautiful friend.
+
+I shuddered and broke out into tears.  Then she began to play
+caressingly with my hair and pat me on my neck and face.  She did
+well to let me have my cry out.  By and by I felt relieved.  She
+wanted to withdraw her hand, but then I held it fast.
+
+"So you were going to run away, and that without my knowledge?" said
+she.
+
+"No," I said with a deep sigh.
+
+"And if I should ever call you Zhid, will you be angry with me?"
+
+"No," answered I, thoroughly vanquished.
+
+"Well, then you are a dear boy, and I like you!"
+
+I felt the touch of soft, warm lips on my neck . . . .  I closed my
+eyes, that the dark night sky and the shining stars might not see
+me.  And when I recognized what had happened to me, I felt ashamed.
+Marusya disappeared, and soon returned with a bag in her hand.
+
+"Papa said you should go out with the horses for the night.  Here is
+some food in the bag.  Take it and go out."
+
+This she shot out quickly, and in a tone of authority, as befits the
+daughter of the patron, and as if what had passed between us were
+nothing but a dream.
+
+"Going out for the night" was a peculiar custom.  You can have no
+idea of what it meant.  The logic of it was this:  The cattle that
+had been worked the whole of the day were, to be sure, earning their
+fodder for the day.  And the owners felt under obligation and
+necessity to feed them during their working hours.  But how about
+the night, when the animals rested, and did no work?  Where should
+the fodder for the night time come from?  So the custom developed of
+letting the animals browse in some neighbor's meadow during the
+night.  That was cheaper.  But that neighbor also had cattle; he,
+too, had horses that did not earn their feed during the night.  Do
+you know what the neighbor did?  He did the same.  He, too, sent out
+his horses stealthily, into his neighbor's meadow.  So, in the long
+run, every one had his cattle browse secretly in some neighbor's
+meadow, and all were happy.  But when the trespassing shepherd
+happened to be caught poaching, he got a whipping.  And yet,
+strictly speaking, it was not stealing; it was a mere usage.  The
+land-owners seemed to have agreed beforehand:  "If you happen to
+catch my shepherd poaching, you may whip him, provided you do not
+object if I give a whipping to your shepherd on a similar occasion."
+ In spite of all this I rather liked "going out for the night."  I
+loved those nights in the open field.  When the moon gave but little
+light, and one could see but a few steps away, I forgot my immediate
+surroundings, and my imagination was free!  I would peer into the
+open sky, would bring before my mind's eye father and mother and all
+who were dear to me, and would feel near to them; for the sky that
+spread over all of us was the very same.  I could imagine my father
+celebrating the new moon with a prayer.  I could imagine my mother
+watching for the same star I was looking at; I could imagine that we
+were really looking at the same spot. . . .  Then tears would come
+into my eyes.  My mother, I would think, was crying, too.  And the
+night listened to me, and the stars listened to me. . . .  The
+crickets chirped, and if I chose, I could believe they shared my
+sorrows with me, and were sighing over my fate. . . .
+
+Idle fancy, nonsense, you think; but when one has nothing real to
+look up to, dreams are very sweet.  A light breeze would steal over
+me, refresh me, and bring me new hope; and I trusted I should not be
+a prisoner always, the day of my release would surely come.  At such
+happy moments I would fall asleep gazing at the stars.  And if the
+sudden whip of the landowner did not put an end to my dreams, I
+would dream away, and see things no language could describe.
+
+Well, I took the bag and led the horses out into the open field.
+But that time, out of sheer spite or for some other reason, I did
+not go into our neighbor's field, but descended right into the
+valley that my patron had left lying fallow, and stretched myself
+upon the soft grass of the hospitable turf.
+
+That night I longed to bring father and mother before my mind's eye
+and have an imaginary talk with them.  But I did not succeed.
+Instead, the figure of the old rabbi hovered before my eyes.  It
+seemed to me that he was looking at me angrily, and telling me the
+story of Joseph the righteous: how he lived in the house of
+Potiphar, and ate nothing but vegetables.
+
+But when I reminded myself of Joseph the righteous, I felt my heart
+sink at the thought of what Marusya had done to me.  I could not
+deny that the good looks of the Gentile girl were endearing her to
+me, that out of her hands I would eat pork ten times a day, and that
+in fact I myself was trying to put up a defense of her.  I took all
+the responsibility on myself.  I was ready to believe that she did
+not seek my company, but that it was I who called her to myself.  I
+was a sinner in my own estimation, and I could not even cry.  Then
+it seemed to me that the sky was much darker than usual, and the
+stars did not shine at all.  With such thought in my mind I fell
+asleep.
+
+I awoke at the sound of voices.  Some one is crying, I thought.  The
+sound seemed near enough.  It rose and rose and filled the valley.
+It made me shudder.  The soft, plaintive chant swelled and grew
+louder, as if addressed to me.  It gripped my very heart.  I stood
+up all in a shiver, and started to walk in the direction of the
+sound.  But around me, up and down, on every side, was total
+darkness.  The moon had set long ago.  I moved away only a few steps
+from the horses, and could not make them out any more.  By and by I
+could distinguish some words, and I recognized the heart-gripping
+chant of a Hebrew Psalm. . . .
+
+  "For the Lord knoweth the path of the righteous,
+   And the path of the wicked shall perish." . . .
+
+My fears vanished, and gave place to a feeling of surprise.
+
+"Where can that chanting come from," thought I, "and here in exile,
+too?"
+
+Then I began to doubt it all, thinking it was but a dream.
+
+   "Why do the nations rage,
+    And the peoples imagine a vain thing?"
+
+The voices were drawing me forward irresistibly, and I decided to
+join the chorus, come what might.  And I continued the Psalm in a
+loud voice:
+
+   "The kings of the earth stood up . . . . "
+
+The chanting ceased; I heard steps approaching me.
+
+"Who is there?" asked a voice in Yiddish.
+
+"It is I," answered I, "and who are you?"
+
+"It is we!" shouted many voices in chorus.
+
+"Cantonists?"
+
+"A Cantonist, too?"
+
+Thus exchanging questions, we met.  They turned out to be three
+Cantonists, who lived in a village at some distance from Peter's
+house.  I had never met them before.  They, too, had "gone out for
+the night," and we had happened to use the same valley.
+
+I love to mention their names.  The oldest of them was Jacob, whom
+you remember from the punishment he underwent.  The others were
+Simeon and Reuben.  But there in the valley they introduced
+themselves to me with the names they were called by at home: Yekil,
+Shimele, and Ruvek.  I found out later that the valley was their
+meeting-place.  It was a sort of Klaus, "Rabbi Yekil's Klaus" the
+boys called it.  Yekil was a boy of about fifteen, who was
+well-equipped with knowledge of the Torah when he was taken away
+from his home.
+
+In the long years of our exile we had forgotten the Jewish calendar
+completely.  But Yekil prided himself on being able to distinguish
+the days "by their color and smell," especially Fridays; and his
+friends confirmed his statements.  He used to boast that he could
+keep track of every day of the year, and never miss a single day of
+the Jewish holidays.  Every Jewish holiday they met in the valley on
+Peter's estate.  According to Yekil's calendar, the eve of the Fast
+of the Ninth of Av fell on that very day.  That is why they had
+gathered in the valley that night.  "If so," said I, "what is the
+use of reciting that Psalm?  Were it not more proper to recite
+Lamentations?"
+
+"We do not know Lamentations by heart," explained Yekil, with the
+authority of a rabbi, "but we do know some Psalms, and these we
+recite on every holiday.  For, at bottom, are mere words the main
+thing?  Your real prayer is not what you say with your lips, but
+what you feel with the whole of your heart.  As long as the words
+are in the holy tongue, it all depends on the feelings you wish to
+put into them.  As my father, may he rest in peace, used to instruct
+me, the second Psalm is the same as the festival hymn, 'Thou hast
+chosen us from among the nations,' if you feel that way; or it may
+be the same as Lamentations.  It all depends on the feelings in our
+heart, and on the meaning we wish to put into the words!"
+
+Yekil's talk and the sounds of Yiddish speech, which I had not heard
+since I left home, impressed me in a wonderful way.  Here I found
+myself all at once in the company of Jews like father and mother.
+But I felt very much below that wonderful boy who could decide
+questions of Jewish law like some great rabbi.  Indeed, he seemed to
+me little short of a rabbi in our small congregation.  Then I began
+to feel more despondent than ever.  I considered myself the sinner
+of our little community.  I knew I was guilty of eating pork and of
+other grave trespasses, and I felt quite unworthy of being a member
+of the pious congregation.
+
+Meanwhile little Reuben discovered the contents of my bag.
+
+"Boys, grub!" exclaimed he, excitedly.  At the word "grub" the
+congregation was thrown into a flutter.  That was the way of the
+Cantonists.  They could not help getting excited at the sight of any
+article of food, even when they were not hungry at all.  In the long
+run our patrons fed us well enough, and on the whole we could not
+complain of lack of food.  But we were fed according to the
+calculations of our patrons, and not according to our own appetites.
+ So it became our habit to eat whenever victuals were put before us,
+even on a full stomach.  "Eat whenever you have something to eat, so
+as not to go hungry when there may be no rations."  That was a
+standing rule among the Cantonists.  They began fumbling in my bag,
+and I was dying with shame at the thought that soon they would
+discover the piece of pork, and that my sin would become known to
+the pious congregation.  Then I broke down, and with tears began to
+confess my sins.
+
+"I have sinned," said I, sobbing, "it is pork.  I could not
+withstand the temptation."
+
+At that moment it seemed to me that Yekil was the judge, and the
+boys who had found the pork were the witnesses against me.  Yekil
+listened to my partial confession, and the two "witnesses" hung
+their heads, and hid their faces in shame, as if they were the
+accused.  But I sobbed and cried bitterly.
+
+"Now, listen, little one," Yekil turned to me.  "I do not know
+whether you have suffered the horrors of hell that we have suffered.
+ Did they paint your body with tar, and put you up on the highest
+shelf in the steam-bath, and choke you with burning steam?  Did they
+flog you with birch-rods for having been caught mumbling a Hebrew
+prayer?  Did they make you kneel for hours on sharp stones for
+having refused to kiss the ikon and the crucifix?  Did they discover
+you secretly kissing the Arba-Kanfos, and give you as many lashes as
+there are treads in the Tzitzis?  If you have not passed through all
+that, uncover our backs, and count the welts that still mark them!
+And to this you must add the number of blows I have still to get,
+simply because my little body could not take in at once all it was
+expected to take in.  And yet, not a day passed without our having
+recited our Modeh-Ani.  As to eating pork, we abstained from it in
+spite of the rods.  Then they gave up flogging us; but, instead of
+that punishment, they gave us nothing but pork to eat.  Two days we
+held out; we did not touch any food.  We did not get even a drink of
+water.  Do you see little Simeon?  Well, he tried to eat the grass
+in the courtyard. . . .  On the third day of our fast I saw my
+father in my dream.  He was dressed in his holiday clothes, and
+holding the Bible in his hands he quoted the passage, 'Be ye mindful
+of your lives.'  Suddenly, the earth burst open, and the Angel of
+Death appeared.  He had rods in one hand and a piece of swine's
+flesh in the other.  He put the piece of pork into my mouth.  I
+looked up, terror-stricken, to my father, but he smiled.  His smile
+filled the place with light.  He said to me, 'Eatest thou this of
+thy own free will?'  Then he began to soar upwards, and called out
+to me from afar:  'Tell all thy comrades, the Cantonists:  Your
+reward is great.  Every sigh of yours is a prayer, every good
+thought of yours is a good action!  Only beware, lest you die of
+hunger; then surely you will merit eternal punishment!'
+
+"I awoke.  Since then we eat all kinds of forbidden food.  The main
+thing is that we have remained Jews, and that as Jews we shall
+return home to our parents.  It is clear to me now that the Holy
+One, blessed by He, will not consider all that a sin on our part!"
+
+I felt as if a heavy load had been taken off my shoulders.  My eyes
+began to flow with tears of gladness.  Then, having once started my
+confession, I decided to confess to my second sin also.  Meanwhile
+Simeon had pulled the bread and the meat out of my bag.
+
+"Glutton!" exclaimed Yekil, angrily.  "Have you forgotten that it is
+the night of the Fast of the Ninth of Av?"
+
+The boy, ashamed, returned the things to the bag, and moved away a
+few steps.  Then I told Yekil all that had passed between me and
+Marusya, and tried unconsciously to defend her in every way.  I
+think I exaggerated a good deal when I tried to show that Marusya
+liked the Jews very much, indeed.
+
+"And what was the end of it?" asked Yekil, with some fear.  "Did she
+really kiss you?"  The other boys echoed the question.  I looked
+down, and said nothing.
+
+"Is she good-looking?"
+
+I still gave no answer.
+
+"I have forgotten your name.  What is it?"
+
+"Samuel."
+
+"Now listen, Samuel, this is a very serious affair.  It is much
+worse than what is told of Joseph the righteous.  Do you understand?
+ I do not really know how to make it clear to you.  It is very
+dangerous to find good and true friends right here in exile, in the
+very ranks of our enemies."
+
+"Why?" wondered I.
+
+"I cannot tell you, but this is how I feel.  Insulted and outraged
+we have been brought here; insulted and outraged we should depart
+from here.  Ours is the right of the oppressed; and that right we
+must cherish till we return home."
+
+"I do not understand!"
+
+Jacob looked at me sharply, and said: "Well, I have warned you; keep
+away from her."
+
+His words entered into the depths of my heart.  I bowed my head
+before Yekil, and submitted to his authority.  That was the way we
+all felt:  Yekil had only to look at us to subject us to his will.
+It was hard to resist him.
+
+I felt a great change in myself:  I had been relieved of the weight
+of two sins.  Of one I had been absolved completely, and the other I
+had confessed in public and repented of.  I gladly joined the little
+congregation, and we returned to our Psalms, which we recited
+instead of Lamentations.  At the conclusion I proposed that we chant
+the Psalm "By the rivers of Babylon," which we all knew by heart.
+
+And we, a congregation of four little Jews, stood up in the valley
+on the estate of Peter Khlopov, concealed by steep hills and by the
+darkness of the night: thieves for the benefit of our masters, and
+mourners of Zion on our own account. . . .  And we chanted out of
+the depths of our hearts:
+
+"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, remembering Zion."
+. . .
+
+We chanted the whole of it, sat down and wept, remembering at the
+same time all we had gone through ourselves, and also the position
+we were in at that time.--
+
+
+
+Here old Samuel shuddered and stopped abruptly.  The sun had set,
+and he reminded himself that he had forgotten to say his afternoon
+prayer.  He jumped down hastily, washed his hands in a near-by pool,
+returned to his seat, and became absorbed in his devotion.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+By and by the streaks of light disappeared in the twilight sky, and
+the wintry night threw the mantle of thick and misty blackness over
+us.
+
+Presently I heard the old man conclude his prayer: "When the world
+will be reclaimed through the kingship of the Almighty; when all
+mortals will acknowledge Thy name. . . . on that day the Lord will
+be One, and His name will be One!"
+
+Out of the darkness came the devout words; they seemed to take wing,
+as though to pierce the shrouding mist and scatter it; but they
+themselves were finally dissolved in the triumph and blackness.
+. . .
+
+I did not have to urge the old man to continue his tale.  His
+prayers over, he picked up the thread of his narrative, as if
+something were driving him to give a full account of what he had
+passed through.--
+
+
+
+The day I became acquainted with Jacob--continued the old man--I
+consider the beginning of a new period in my life.  I became
+accustomed to consider him my superior, whose behavior had to be
+taken as an example.  Jacob spoke as an authority whenever he did
+speak, and he never wavered in his decisions.  Whenever he happened
+to be in doubt, his father would "instruct" him in his dreams.  Thus
+we lived according to Jacob's decisions and dreams.  I got used to
+eating forbidden food, to breaking the Sabbath, and trespassing
+against all the ordinances of the ritual without compunction.  And
+yet Jacob used to preach to us, to bear floggings and all kinds of
+punishments rather than turn traitor to our faith.  So I got the
+notion that our faith is neither prayers, nor a collection of
+ordinances of varying importance, but something I could not name,
+nor point to with my finger.  Jacob, I thought, certainly knows all
+about it; but I do not.  All I could was to _feel_ it; so could
+Anna.  Otherwise she would not have called me Zhid, and would not
+have hated me so much, in spite of seeing me break all the
+ordinances of the Jewish ritual.
+
+At times I thought that I and my comrades were captains in God's
+army, that all His ordinances were not meant for us, but for the
+plain soldiers of the line.  They, the rank and file, must be
+subjected to discipline, must know how to submit to authority; all
+of which does not apply to the commanding officers.  It seemed to me
+that this was what the Holy One, blessed be He, had deigned to
+reveal to us through the dreams of Jacob: there is another religion
+for you, the elect.  _You_ will surely know what is forbidden, and
+what is permitted. . . .
+
+Sometimes, again, I imagined that I might best prove true to my
+faith if I set my heart against the temptation that Satan had put
+before me in the person of Marusya.  If I turned away from her, I
+thought, I might at once gain my share in the future world.  So I
+armed myself against Marusya's influence in every possible way.  I
+firmly resolved to throw back at her any food she might offer me.
+If she laid her hand on me, I would push it away from me, and tell
+her plainly that I was a Jew, and she--a nobody.
+
+So I fought with her shadow, and, indeed, got the best of it as long
+as she herself was away.  But the moment she appeared, all my
+weapons became useless.  She made me feel like one drunk.  I could
+not withstand the wild-fire of her eye, nor the charm of her merry
+talk, nor the wonderful attraction of her whole person.  At the same
+time there was not a trace of deviltry about her: it was simply an
+attraction which I could not resist.  And when she laid her soft
+hand on me, I bent under it, and gave myself up entirely.  And she
+did what she wanted: where buttons were missing, she sewed them on;
+and where a patch was needed, she put it in.  She was a little
+mother to me.  She used to bring me all kinds of delicacies and
+order me to eat them; and I could not disobey her.  In short, she
+made me forget Jacob and his teachings.  But the moment I met Jacob
+I forgot Marusya's charms, and reminded myself that it was sinful to
+accept favors in exile.  Then I would repent of my past actions from
+the very depths of my heart--till I again was face to face with
+Marusya.  I was between the hammer and the anvil.
+
+My meetings with Jacob were regular and frequent.  After what
+according to Jacob's calendar was the Ninth of Av, we met nightly in
+the valley on Peter's estate, till a disagreement broke out among
+us.  I would not permit the cattle of the whole neighborhood to
+browse on the estate of my patron, and Simeon and Reuben would not
+agree to let my patron's horses be brought to the meadows of their
+patrons.  Our congregation nearly broke up.  But here Jacob
+intervened with his expert decision.
+
+"Boys," said he, "you must know that 'going out for the night' is
+really a form of stealing.  True, we do not steal for our own
+benefit.  Yet, as long as we have a hand in it, we must manage it in
+a fair way.  So let us figure out how many horses every one of our
+patrons possesses.  And let us arrange the nights according to the
+number of horses each of the patrons has.  According to this
+calculation we shall change places.  We shall spend more nights in
+the meadows of those who have more horses.  That will make 'fair
+stealing.'"
+
+The plan of Jacob was accepted, not as a proposition, but as an
+order.  Since that time we began to "steal with justice."  And our
+patrons slept peacefully, delighted with their unpunished thievery,
+till a Gentile boy, one Serge Ivanovich, joined us on one of his own
+"nights."  He was the son of the village elder, and a cousin of
+Peter Khlopov.  He was compelled to obey Jacob, but the next morning
+he blabbed about it all over the village.
+
+Of course, our patrons were angry.  Jacob took the whole blame on
+himself, and suffered punishment for all of us.  Then "Jacob's
+Klaus" was closed, because our patrons gave up sending us out "for
+the night."
+
+Well, if you please, their dissatisfaction was not entirely
+groundless: they found themselves fooled by us, and cheated in a
+way.  For every one of them had been thinking that his horse would
+bring him some profit every night, equal to the value of the horse's
+browsing.  Seven nights, seven times that profit; thirty nights,
+thirty times that profit. . . .  All at once these "profits" had
+vanished: it turned out that every horse had been browsing at the
+expense of his own master; so the expected profits became a total
+loss.  Of course, stealing is stealing.  But then, they argued, had
+the Zhid youngsters any right to meddle with their affairs?  Was it
+their property that was being stolen?  As one of my Gentile
+acquaintances told me once: "The trouble with the Jews is that they
+are always pushing themselves in where they are not wanted at all."
+
+Indeed, it was this fault of ours that Serge kept pointing out to me
+and berating us for.  Well, Jacob's Klaus had been closed.  But we
+managed to get together in different places.  Once in a while we
+came to see one another at our patron's houses, and they did not
+object.
+
+I do not know who told Marusya what kind of a chap Jacob was, and
+what he thought of her; but she hated him from the moment she first
+saw him, when he came to visit me.
+
+"He is a real savage," she would say.  "I never saw such a Jew.  I
+am simply afraid of him.  I am afraid of those wild eyes of his.  I
+detest him, anyway."  That is what she used to tell me.
+
+Whenever Jacob came to see me, and Marusya happened to be in the
+room, she would walk out immediately, and would not return before he
+was out of the house.  I rather liked it.  I could not be giving in
+to both of them at the same time.
+
+Such were the surroundings that shaped my life during those days.
+Peter befriended me; but Anna kept on worrying me and making me
+miserable.  Marusya loved me as a sister loves a brother, and the
+fire of her eyes ate into my heart.  Jacob kept preaching to me that
+it was wrong to accept favors from Gentiles, and that we had to
+fight for our faith.  Serge became my bitter enemy from the time he
+betrayed our scheme of "honest stealing."
+
+To top it all, my sergeant tried to put me through the paces of the
+military drill, and succeeded.
+
+But my own self seemed to have been totally forgotten and left out
+of the account.
+
+By and by the summer passed, and most of the following winter; and
+in the Khlopov household preparations were made for some holiday, I
+forget which.  Those days of preparation were our most miserable
+days in exile.  When Anna was busy on the eve of a holiday, I could
+not help remembering our own Sabbath eves at home, the Sabbath days
+in the Klaus, as well as the other holidays, and all the things that
+are so dear to the heart of the Jewish boy.  That was the time when
+I felt especially lonely and homesick; it was as though a fever were
+burning within me.  Then neither tears nor even Marusya's company
+did me any good.  I felt as if red-hot coals had been packed up
+right here in my breast.  Did you ever feel that way?  I felt like
+rolling on the ground and pressing my chest against something hard.
+I felt I was going mad.  I felt like jumping, crying, singing, and
+fighting all at once.  I felt as if even lashes would be welcome,
+simply to get rid of that horrible heartache.
+
+On that particular day Khlopov was late in coming home.  Marusya
+remarked that she had seen her father enter the tavern.  Then Anna
+began to curse "our Moshko," the tavern keeper.  Marusya objected:
+
+"Tut, tut, mother, is it any of Moshko's fault?  Does he compel papa
+to go there?  Does he compel him to drink?"
+
+Then Anna few into a temper, and poured out a torrent of curses and
+insults on Marusya.  I don't know what happened to me then.  My
+blood was up; my fists tightened.  It was a dangerous moment; I was
+ready to pounce upon Anna.  I did not know that Marusya had been
+watching me all the while from behind, and understood all that was
+passing within me.  Presently the door opened, and Khlopov entered,
+rather tipsy, hopping and jigging.  That was his way when in his
+cups.  When he was under the influence of liquor, his soul seemed to
+spread beyond its usual limits and light up his face with smiles.
+At such moments he would be ready to hug, to kiss, or to cry; or
+else to curse, to fight, and to laugh at the same time.
+
+Right here you can see the difference between the Jew and the
+Gentile.  The finer soul of the Jew may contract and settle on the
+very point of his nose.  But the grosser soul of the Gentile needs,
+as it were, more space to spread over.  This, I believe, is why
+Khlopov never failed to get a clean shave on the eve of every
+holiday.
+
+As soon as Khlopov had entered the room, he began to play with me
+and Marusya.  He gave us candy, and insisted on dancing a jig with
+us.
+
+Anna met him with a frown:  "Drunk again?"  But this time her eyes
+seemed to have no power over Khlopov.  He could not stand it any
+longer, and gave tit for tat.  "Zhidovka!" he shouted.  I looked at
+Anna: she turned red.  Marusya blushed.  Khlopov sobered up, and his
+soul shrank to its usual size.  Anna went to her room.  The spell
+was broken.
+
+The word "Zhidovka" hurled at Anna made me start back.  What could
+it mean, I wondered.  I felt sorry for Khlopov, for Marusya, for
+Anna, and for the holiday mood that had been spoilt by a single
+word.  And it seemed to me it was my fault to some extent.  Who, I
+thought, had anything in common with Zhidovka if not myself?  Or was
+it Khlopov?--
+
+
+
+Here the old man was interrupted by the neighing of the horses.
+
+The forward horse seemed to be getting proud of the comparative
+freedom he enjoyed, and bit his neighbor, only to remind him of it.
+The latter, unable to turn around in the harness, resented the
+insult by kicking.  But then the driver plied the whip, and there
+was peace again.
+
+"Would you take the trouble to dismount?  Just walk up that hill: it
+will do you good to warm yourselves up a little after sitting so
+long in one place."
+
+That was the driver's suggestion; and as no one refuses obedience to
+drivers on the road, we dismounted.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+The next day--resumed the old man--the situation became a little
+clearer to me.  Marusya told me that according to the gossip of the
+village her mother was a converted Jewess.  She, Marusya, was not so
+sure of it.  Her father would call her mother a Jewess once in a
+while, but that happened only when he was drunk.  So she did not
+know whether he merely repeated the village gossip, or had his own
+information in the matter.  And when she asked her mother, the
+latter would fly into a temper.
+
+"Papa himself," said Marusya, "likes Jews; but mother hates them.  I
+like papa more than mamma; I also like Jews; I often play with
+Moshko's girls when mother is not around.  I do not understand why
+mother dislikes Jews so much."
+
+Then Marusya insisted I should tell her the real truth about the
+Jews, as they are at home: were they like myself, or like Jacob, the
+wild one?  But I stopped listening to her chatter, and began to
+think of what she had told me about her mother.  For in case it was
+true that Anna was a convert, then--why, then Marusya herself was
+half a Jewess.  I decided to solve the mystery.
+
+Now let me tell you that as a result of our Cantonist training we
+were not only as bold as eagles, as courageous as lions, as swift as
+the deer in doing the will of our patrons, but also as sly as foxes
+in finding a way out of a difficulty.  And, by the way, that was
+also the opinion of our late commander, Colonel Pavel Akimovich.  A
+keen-eyed commander and a kind-hearted master was he, may his lot be
+in Paradise among the godly men of the Gentile tribes.  Yes, if he
+was an eagle, we were his chicks; if he was a lion, we were his
+whelps!  This is what he used to say:  "In time of need, you have no
+better soldier than the Jew.  But then you must know how to use him.
+ Do not give him too many instructions, and do not try to explain it
+all to him from beginning to end.  If you instruct him too much, he
+will be afraid to do any scheming on his own hook, and you will be
+the loser.  Just give him your order, and tell him what the order is
+for.  Then you may be sure he will get it for you, even if he should
+have to go to hell for it!"  This is what Colonel Pavel Akimovich
+used to say of us.
+
+Now, once I decided to find out Anna's secret, I thought it all out
+beforehand, as a Cantonist should; and I hit upon a plan.
+
+That was at the beginning of spring.  One day Khlopov left on a
+journey to the neighboring villages to collect the taxes.  He had to
+stay away some time.  The whole of that day Anna kept worrying me as
+usual.  She sent me on unnecessary errands, she wanted me to be in
+two places at the same time.  She yelled, she cursed, she shook me,
+and mauled me, she pulled me by the ears.  She knew well how to make
+one miserable.  When night came, I went to sleep in the anteroom;
+that was my bedroom.  Anna was abed, but not asleep.  Marusya had
+long been asleep.  Then Anna remembered that she had forgotten to
+close the door leading to the anteroom, and she ordered me to get up
+and close it.  I made believe I was sleeping soundly, and began to
+snore loudly.  She kept on calling me, but I kept on snoring.
+Suddenly I began to cry, as if from the sleep:  "O mother, leave
+Anna alone.  She too is a mother!  Pity her family!"
+
+Anna became silent.  I half opened my eyes and looked at her through
+the open door.  A candle was burning on the table near her bed, and
+I could see that she was frightened, and was listening intently.
+then I continued, somewhat differently:  "I beg of you, mother, is
+it her fault?  Doesn't she feed me?  Isn't she a mother too?"
+
+Then I began to cry as if in my sleep.  "What?"  I asked suddenly,
+"Anna?!  Anna--a Jewess too?!"
+
+Then I noticed that Anna was watching Marusya's bed.  I saw she was
+afraid Marusya might overhear what was not intended for her ears.
+She put on her night robe, came to my bed, and began in a whisper:
+"Are you sleeping?  Get up, my boy, wake up!"
+
+I did "wake up," and put on a frightened appearance.  "What did you
+cry about?" she asked.  "I dreamt something terrible."  "What did
+you dream about"  I kept silent.  "Tell me, tell me!" she insisted.
+"I saw my mother in a dream."  "Is she alive yet?"  I told a lie.  I
+said my mother was long dead.  "And what did she tell you?"  "She
+said that . . . ."  "Tell me, tell me!"  "I cannot repeat that in
+Russian."  "Then say it in Yiddish."  I looked with make-believe
+surprise at Anna.  "She said: 'I shall come to Anna at night and
+choke her, if she doesn't give up abusing you.'"  At this Anna
+turned red.  I continued:  "And she said also, 'Anna ought to have
+pity on Jewish children, because she is a Jewess herself.'" . . . .
+
+My scheme worked well.  Anna began to treat me in an entirely
+different way, and my position in the house not only improved, but
+became the opposite of what it had been.  At times, when no one was
+around, she even spoke Yiddish to me.  Apparently she liked to
+remain alone in the house with me and chat with me.  You must know,
+her position in the village was all but agreeable.  She had very few
+acquaintances; and she would have been better off without any.  When
+she happened to have visitors, a mutual suspicion at once became
+apparent, in their behavior and their talk.  There was much more
+flattery, much more sweetness of speech than is common among people.
+ One could see that each spoke only to hide her innermost thoughts.
+Every conversation ended as it began: with gossip about women who
+were not zealous enough in matters of church attendance.  And when
+it came to that, Anna invariably blushed, simply because she was
+afraid she might blush.  Then, feeling the blood coming to her face,
+she would try to hide her confusion, and would chatter away
+ceaselessly, to show how punctual she was herself in church matters.
+ On taking leave, Anna's friends would exchange significant glances,
+and Anna would have been either too stupid or else too wise not to
+notice the sting of those sly looks.
+
+As to Peter, he treated Anna fairly well; and when they happened to
+quarrel, it was mostly her own fault.  One night--it was long after
+I had found out Anna's secret--I happened to be sleepless, and I
+overheard Anna talking angrily to Peter.  She was scolding him for
+having forgotten to prepare oil for the lamp before the ikon of some
+saint.  It was that saint's day, and Khlopov had either forgotten or
+neglected it.  He was very careless in church matters, and Anna
+never got tired of taking him to task for it.  This time she didn't
+leave off nagging him, till he lost patience, and said:  "Were I
+really as religious as you want me to be, I should have taken to
+wife a woman who--well, who is a real Christian herself."  Perhaps
+Peter never meant to insult Anna by reminding her of that which she
+wished to forget.  Or perhaps Peter thought he had offered a valid
+excuse.  But Anna was offended and turned around crying.
+
+The trouble with Anna was that she was very sensitive.  That was a
+trait of hers.  When she heard something said about herself, she
+never was satisfied with the plain meaning of what was said, but
+tried to give the words every other possible meaning.  Every chance
+remark she happened to overhear she took to be meant for herself.
+Well, this same sensitiveness one may find in most of the
+Cantonists.  For instance, in the regiment of General Luders, in
+which I served once, we had many Tatars, some Karaites, and a goodly
+number of Jews.  To all appearances there was no trouble; but let
+one soldier call another "Antichrist," and every Jew in the regiment
+would get excited.  The Tatars and the Karaites rather liked to call
+their comrades Antichrist, even if they happened to be Christians.
+But it was only the Jews whom the word set a-shivering.  It is as I
+tell you--the Jew is painfully sensitive.  Well, to cut my story
+short, Anna did not have a happy time of it.  She was all alone,
+surrounded though she was by many people.  She became taciturn in
+spite of herself.  And this is a great misfortune when it happens
+with womenfolk.  Women are naturally great talkers, and you may do
+them much harm, if you do not give them a chance to talk.  So I
+became her crony as soon as I discovered her secret.  Then she tried
+to make up for the many years of silence by chattering incessantly.
+In her long talks she often said things she had denied before.  Once
+she told me that she felt a longing to see her relations and
+townspeople.  But the next time she said that she hated them
+mightily.  Very likely she did not hate them.  We all dislike that
+which has caused us pain and harm.  So Anna disliked her relations
+for having caused her remorse, homesickness, and perhaps shame.
+Once her tongue was loosed, she did not stop until she had poured
+out the proverbial nine measures given to woman as her share of the
+ten measures of speech in the world.  She spoke Yiddish even in the
+presence of Marusya and of Jacob, who used to visit me once in a
+while.  By and by Anna began to treat him in a very friendly way.
+Only Marusya avoided him, and never spoke a word to him.  She simply
+hated him.
+
+Thus in time the house of Anna became something like a Jewish
+settlement, or rather like some sort of a Klaus, especially when
+Pater was away from home.  We all used to gather there, and talk
+Yiddish, just as in a Klaus.  For under Anna's roof we felt
+perfectly free.  She became a mother to the homeless Cantonists.
+Even marusya took to jabbering a little Yiddish.  Jacob began to
+feel that the leadership of our little community was passing into
+the hands of Anna, and he became jealous.  He did not see that the
+very fact that he too was falling under her spell was influencing
+our community greatly, and that thus he was stamping it with his own
+character.
+
+Anna liked him more than she did any one of us.  Moreover, she
+respected him.  At times it looked as if she were somewhat afraid of
+him.
+
+Now you must know that at bottom Anna had never deserted her
+religion.  Instead, she carried the burdens of both religions; to
+the fear of the Jewish hell she seemed to have added the fear of the
+Christian hell.  I suspect that she was still in the habit of
+reciting her Hebrew prayer before going to sleep.  She also believed
+in dreams.  In this respect all women are the same.  Of course, she
+had her dreams, and Jacob thought himself able to interpret them; he
+used to seek her company for that purpose.
+
+So we all began to feel very much at home in Anna's house.
+
+Once it happened that Peter entered the house at a moment when we
+were all so much absorbed in our Yiddish conversation that we did
+not notice his presence.  He sat down quietly among us and took part
+in our talk, smiling in his usual manner.  He asked us some
+questions, and we answered him.  Then we asked him something, and he
+answered us in pure, good Yiddish, as if there were nothing new or
+surprising about it.  At last Marusya awoke, and exclaimed with glad
+surprise:  "Papa, can you speak Yiddish too?"  We all shuddered, as
+if caught stealing.  Peter's smile broadened, covering the whole of
+his face.
+
+"Did you imagine that I do not know it?  I wish you could speak it
+as well as I do."
+
+That made me suspect that Peter might have been himself a convert
+from Judaism, and I decided to ask Anna bout it.  She cleared up my
+doubts very soon.  She told me that Peter had been brought up in an
+exclusively Jewish town; he had been employed there as a clerk in
+the Town Hall.  As he always had to deal with jews, he finally
+learned their language.  She told me at the same time that Peter
+rather liked Jews, and that he was a man of more than ordinary
+ability; otherwise, she said, it would have been very foolish on her
+part to leave the religion of her father for the sake of Peter.
+
+"What did you say was the name of your native town?" I asked out of
+sheer curiosity.  She named my native town.  I felt a shiver go
+through me.  "And what was your father's name?" I asked again,
+trembling.
+
+"Bendet."
+
+"Was he a wine-dealer?"
+
+"Yes; and how do you know it?  Are you of the same town?"
+
+I told her my father's name, and we clasped hands in surprise.--
+
+
+
+While the old man was telling his tale, the clouds dispersed.  I
+looked upwards: the dark sky spread vaultlike above us studded with
+stars, some in groups, some far apart.  Then I remembered what the
+Lord had promised to our father Abraham:  "And I shall multiply thy
+seed as the stars in heaven."  And I thought I saw in the sky naught
+but so many groups of Jews: some kept in exile, some confined within
+the nebulae of the Milky Way. . . .  But even then, it seemed to me,
+there was a strong attraction, a deep sympathy between them all, far
+apart and scattered though they were.  Even so they formed
+aggregations of shining stars--far apart, yet near. . . .
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+The wind began to grow cold; we pressed close to one another to keep
+warm.  The old man drew his old coat tightly about him, and
+continued his story:--
+
+
+
+Well, we of our little community threw off the yoke of the old
+Torah, yet refused to accept the yoke of the new Torah.
+Nevertheless our lives were far from being barren.  Our longing for
+the things we were forbidden to practise prompted us to invent a
+good many new usages.  For instance, long before we had the freedom
+of Anna's house, we managed to meet every Saturday to exchange a few
+words in Yiddish; two or three words were sufficient to satisfy our
+sense of duty.  Those meetings were among the things for the sake of
+which we were ready to run any risk of discovery.  Of course, we
+dared not recite our Modeh-Ani: our patrons might have overheard us,
+and that meant a sure flogging.  But we practised repeating the
+prayer mentally, and we always managed to do it with our faces
+turned in the direction from which we thought we had come, and where
+our native towns were situated.  Jacob had a little piece of cloth,
+a remnant of an Arba-Kanfos.  The Tzitzis had long been torn away,
+to prevent discovery and avoid punishment; but what was left of it
+we kept secretly, and we used to kiss it at opportune moments, as if
+it were a scroll of the Torah.
+
+Then we made a point of abstaining from work at least one hour every
+Saturday and on the days that were the Jewish holidays according to
+Jacob's calendar.  On the other hand, work was considered obligatory
+on Sundays and on Christian holidays.  Tearing up some papers or
+starting a fire was thought sufficient.
+
+These and many other usages we invented, slowly, one after another.
+In time we got into the habit of observing them very punctiliously,
+even after we had made ourselves at home in Anna's house.  But over
+and above all Jacob never gave up preaching to me that it was wrong
+on the part of an oppressed Jew to accept favors from a non-Jew.
+And this he preached without ever noticing that he was himself
+giving in to temptation when he accepted favors and kindnesses from
+Anna.  As to Marusya, he always found a pretext to separate us
+whenever he met me in her company.  I was very angry with him for
+that, but I could not tell him so openly.  At last it came to such a
+pass that Marusya lost all patience, and made me the scapegoat.  She
+stopped having anything to do with me.
+
+Now that was a real misfortune as far as I was concerned.  For only
+then did I come to realize how much I was attached to the girl.  I
+felt an utter emptiness in my heart; I began to feel myself a total
+stranger in the house.  When everybody was talking merrily, I kept
+quiet, as if I were a mourner.  I was always looking for Marusya, I
+was always trying to catch her eye.  I hoped that our eyes would
+meet, that she would at least look at me.  But she kept on avoiding
+me.  No, she did not avoid me: she simply did not seem to know that
+I was in the house.  I was exasperated; and when once I came face to
+face with Jacob, I lost my temper, and berated him roundly,
+attacking him on his weakest side:
+
+"Is it on me that you are spying?  How many favors, if you please,
+have you accepted yourself from Anna?  Perhaps your father gave you
+a special dispensation in your dreams?"
+
+To all of this Jacob replied very calmly: "First of all, your
+analogy does not hold, for you and Marusya are both youngsters.
+And, second, even supposing I were sinning, it is your fault then,
+too; for it is clearly your duty to warn me.  At the same time, you
+can imagine how much the whole thing grieves me."
+
+Well, after all, I was ready to forgive him his sins, provided he
+overlooked mine. . . . .
+
+Yes, that happened on a Saturday.  We were all standing in line on
+the drill grounds.  I was in the first line, and Jacob was directly
+behind me in the second line.  We were going through the paces of
+the so-called three-step exercise.  It was this way: the soldier had
+to stretch his left leg forward on a somewhat oblique line, so that
+the sole of his foot touched the ground without resting on it.  That
+was the first pace, the hardest of all, as we had to stand on one
+leg, with the other a dead weight.  In this position we had to keep
+standing till the command was given for the second pace.  At that
+moment we had to shift to our left leg, and quickly bend the right
+leg at the knee-joint at a right angle.  Thus we had to stand till
+the command was given for the third pace, when we had to unbend the
+right leg and bring it forward.  On that day we were kept at the
+first pace unusually long.  My muscles began to twitch, and I felt
+as if needles were pricking me from under the skin.  Suddenly I felt
+as if I had lost my footing, and was suspended in the air.  Then I
+fell.  This was my first mishap on that day.  The sergeant made
+believe that he did not notice it, and I congratulated myself,
+hoping it would pass unremarked.
+
+The sergeant was busy with the last of our line: somehow he did not
+like the way he was standing.  Just then, in a crazy fit of
+contrariness, I felt a sudden desire to fulfil my duty of talking a
+few words of Yiddish on Saturday.  I turned my head and whispered to
+Jacob in Yiddish:  "He is going to keep us here the whole day!  When
+shall we have our hour's rest?"  At that moment the sergeant passed
+between the lines, and overheard me speaking Yiddish.  O yes, they
+have sharp ears, those drill-masters.  As you know, speaking Yiddish
+was considered a great breach of discipline, which never passed
+unpunished.  It always meant a whipping.  So I had made myself
+guilty of two offenses.  On that day I did not go home empty-handed:
+ I got an order to report the next morning to receive my twenty
+lashes.  I received my order like a soldier, saluted, and seemed
+cool about it--for the time being.  That pleased the sergeant
+greatly; he was a thorough soldier himself, and heartily hated
+tenderfeet and cowards.  He looked at me approvingly, and said:
+"Because you have always been a good soldier, I shall make the
+punishment easier for you.  You have the privilege of dividing the
+number of lashes in two: ten you get to-morrow, and ten you may put
+off for some other time."  That was the customary way of making the
+punishment easier in the cases when the Cantonist was either too
+weak to take in the whole number of lashes at once, or was thought
+to deserve consideration otherwise.  A temporary relief it certainly
+was; but in the end the relief was worse than the punishment itself.
+ Between the first half of the punishment and the other half, life
+was a burden to the culprit: he could neither eat, nor drink, nor
+sleep in peace.  Every moment he felt as if his back were not his
+own, that he merely had borrowed it for a while, and sooner or later
+he would have to stretch himself on the ground, to bear the weight
+of a rider on his neck and of another on his feet, and have the rods
+fall on him with a swish: one, two, three. . . .
+
+And the pain was awful.  It felt as if the skin were being torn away
+in strips.  A new lash on the fresh cut, and another strip was torn
+out; then another strip across the two.  One felt like yelling, but
+the throat was dry.  One felt like scratching the ground, but the
+finger nails had long become soft.  One felt like biting one's own
+flesh, but one had no power over himself so long as a man was
+sitting on his neck and pinning it tight to the ground.  It was hard
+enough to stand the ordeal itself, as hard as hell.  But it was
+still harder to bear in mind that such a punishment was coming.  It
+felt as if one was being flogged every moment.  So, in the stress of
+the moment, I found my speech.  "Sir," said I, saluting, "I would
+rather stand twenty-five lashes at once than have the twenty lashes
+divided in two parts."
+
+"Why?" asked the sergeant.
+
+"Because a Russian soldier has no time to keep accounts that concern
+only his own back.  He has no right to forget his military duties
+even for a single moment."
+
+Here the sergeant gave me an approving smile, and reduced the twenty
+lashes to ten.  Then Jacob stepped forward, stood at attention,
+saluted, and said:
+
+"Sir, it is not his fault, but mine.  It was I who spoke to him.  He
+was silent.  As to his falling during the drill, that was also my
+fault:  I made him stumble.  I am ready to stand the punishment,
+because I am the guilty one."
+
+The sergeant threw a quick, admiring glance at Jacob, and said:
+
+"Your intentions are certainly good, because you wish to sacrifice
+yourself for your friend.  You might serve as a model for all the
+young soldiers.  Boys, do you hear?  Love one another as Jacob loves
+his guilty friend!  But you must know that your sergeant is not to
+be fooled; his eyes are everywhere, and he certainly knows the
+guilty one!"
+
+When I went home, I felt neither glad nor despondent; I felt as if I
+did not exist at all--as if my very body did not belong to me, but
+had been borrowed for a few hours.  That night I woke up many times;
+I felt as if snakes were crawling over my flesh.  I got up early the
+next morning.  Marusya was yet in bed, half awake.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Anna, standing in my way.  I kept
+silent for a while, then I made a clean breast of it all.  Anna
+shook her head at me, and said with tears glistening in her eyes:
+"Poor fellow, and where are you going to?"
+
+"I am going to the sergeant's; if it has been decreed, let it be
+done quickly."
+
+"Why should you go hungry?"
+
+"That does not matter."  I waved my hand, and walked away slowly.
+One the way I met some people, but I did not greet them; some people
+overtook me, but I did not even notice them pass.  I had nothing in
+my mind except my own shoulders and the stinging rods.  And for a
+moment I really lost heart; I acted like a tenderfoot instead of a
+Cantonist.  I was ready to cry; my tears were choking me, as if I
+were mamma's only darling.  It was about a two hours' walk to the
+sergeant's.  When I arrived there, I stood outside and waited for
+him.  Then I thought I heard the sound of some not unfamiliar voice:
+arguments, expostulations, again arguments.  Somebody was talking
+earnestly behind the closed door.  I could not make out what was
+said.  Neither did I have any desire to know what it was all about.
+I was very impatient.  I longed for the sergeant to come out and do
+the thing he had to do to me.  I wished for all to be over and done
+with--that I had already been carried to the hospital and been
+bandaged; that the days in the hospital had gone; that I had
+recovered and had been dismissed.  But at the same time I hoped the
+sergeant might be a little slow in coming out, and that my pain
+might be postponed for a little while.  In short, I was divided
+against myself: I had two wishes, one excluding the other.  Suddenly
+the door opened, and on the threshold was standing--do you know who?
+ Marusya!  Yes, dear God, it was Marusya.  She was standing at the
+right of the sergeant.  With one hand he was playing with her locks,
+and in the other he was holding both her hands.  Then he turned to
+me:
+
+"Hourvitz, this young lady has interceded in your favor.  And a
+soldier is in honor bound to respect the request of such a nice
+girl.  So, for her sake, all is forgiven this time.  Go home!"
+
+At that moment I was ready to take forty lashes, if only I might
+remove the sergeant's hands from off Marusya.  I went home at a very
+slow pace, so that Marusya might overtake me on the road.  I thought
+she might talk to me then.  I meant to ask her how she had gotten
+ahead of me without my noticing her.  The minutes seemed hours; I
+thought she would never come out of the house.  Then a crazy idea
+struck me--to return to the sergeant's house and see what had
+happened to Marusya.  After all, I thought, what can the sergeant do
+to me more than have me whipped?  At that moment I thought little of
+the rods; it seemed to me just then that the rods did not hurt so
+much after all, and the pain they caused was only temporary; it was
+hardly worth while giving the matter much thought.  And, I am sure,
+for the moment I had lost all sense of pain.  Had they flogged me
+then, I should not have felt any pain.  I turned back.  Luckily I
+did not have to go as far as the sergeant's house; I met Marusya on
+the way.  She passed me, looking right and left, as if I were a mere
+stone lying on the roadside.
+
+"Marusya!" I called after her.  But she kept on walking ahead, as if
+she had not heard me.  "Marusya," I cried again, "is that the way
+you are going to treat me?!  Why, then, did you save me from the
+rods?"
+
+She stopped for a moment, as though thinking of something.  Her
+handkerchief fell from her hand.  She sighed deeply, picked up the
+handkerchief, and resumed her walk.  I returned to the village
+alone.  Anna met me with tears of joy in her eyes.  I broke out into
+tears myself, without really knowing why.  I caught Marusya's eye,
+but her look was a puzzle to me.--
+
+
+
+Presently our horses began to trot at a lively pace; they felt the
+road sloping downhill.  The driver, who had long been nodding in his
+seat, was suddenly shaken out of his slumbers.  He woke up with a
+start, and flourished his whip; which is a habit acquired in his
+trade.  Uphill or downhill, your coach-drive is bound to work with
+his whip.  Let him be disturbed, no matter when,--even when he drops
+into a doze in his Klaus on a Yom-Kippur night--he will invariably
+shake his hand at the intruder as if swinging his whip.
+
+As the horses increased their speed, the baying of dogs became
+audible; a village was not far off.  Cheering and inviting as the
+distant chorus sounded, it resolved itself by and by into single
+barks, and every bark seemed to say, "Away with you,"  "Stand back,"
+ "No strangers admitted," and the like.  A gust of wind brought to
+our nostrils warmish air laden with all kinds of smells: smells of
+smouldering dung, of garbage, and of humanity in general.  Soon
+lights began to twinkle from huddled shanties and from broad-faced
+houses, as if welcoming our arrival.  It looked as if the village
+were priding itself on its lights, and boasting before Heaven:  "See
+how much stronger I am: sunk in the deep slush of a dirty valley, I
+have my own lights, and my own stars within myself."
+
+The village seemed to have shrunk within the limits of its own nest,
+glad that it need not know the ills and the hardships of travel.
+
+The driver ordered an hour's rest.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+After we had warmed ourselves a little in the village inn, we
+returned to our seats in the coach, and the drive continued his
+"talk" with the horses.  The old man resumed his story:--
+
+
+Well, I had fallen into debt; and my two creditors were very hard to
+satisfy.  Jacob had offered, though vainly, to sacrifice his skin
+for mine and suffer the lashes intended for me.  Marusya took the
+trouble to walk all the way to the sergeant's house and talk with
+him, to save me from punishment.  Thus I was indebted to both of
+them, but with a difference.  While trying to belittle the good
+intentions of jacob, I tried at the same time to belittle my
+obligation to him, whose authority was fast becoming irksome.
+Marusya, on the other hand, refused to accept my thanks. . . . .
+
+Well, by that time I had long considered myself a good young
+soldier.  I knew I was growing in the favor of my superiors.  The
+sergeant had praised me repeatedly, in my presence and in my
+absence.  I began to feel my own worth, to cherish military
+aspirations, and to burn with the ambition of a soldier.  Many a
+time I dreamt I was promoted from the ranks, had become a colonel,
+and was promoted to a higher rank still. . . .  I fought in battles,
+performed wonderful feats. . . .
+
+About that time they began to talk in the army about the Turks.
+Jacob and I had our differences with respect to them.  He tried to
+prove to me that the Turks, being the sons of Ishmael, were our
+cousins.  But I did not believe it.  I did not wish to believe it,
+in spite of everything.  He claimed that the children of Ishmael
+were heroes, brave as lions.  But I used to say, "Just give me ten
+Turks, and I shall put them out of business with one shot!"
+
+On account of these talks Jacob and I began to avoid one another's
+company.  He was too hard on me, with his endless contradictions,
+admonitions, and warnings.
+
+One day we went out target shooting.  Jacob fired twelve shots in
+succession, at long range, and every shot was a bull's eye.  He
+outdid all his comrades on that day.  Then the sergeant put his hand
+on Jacob's shoulder, and said:  "Bravo, Jacob!  I see a coming
+officer in you!  Have you a petition to make of me for something I
+can grant?"  Then Jacob saluted, and asked to be permitted to recite
+his Hebrew prayers daily and rest on Saturdays.  The sergeant
+smiled, and granted Jacob's request.
+
+I may just as well tell you now that long before this incident the
+authorities had lost all hope of getting us converted to the ruling
+faith.  They became convinced that we did not budge so much as an
+inch, in spite of all the pressure and tortures we had to stand.
+they realized at last that only compulsion could make us say certain
+prayers before the crucifix every morning.  So by and by they gave
+it up.  And Jacob's request was not so hard to grant after all.
+
+From that moment Jacob became a bitter enemy of the Turks.  He
+pictured them as midgets, and named his patron's dog "Turk."  Aside
+from all this there was a general change in Jacob's disposition; it
+was something that one could only feel, but not exactly see.
+
+We had a very hard winter that year, quite different from what we
+have now.  Nowadays the very seasons of the year seem to have
+softened: new generations--new people; new times--new winters.  Why,
+only last mid-winter I saw the rabbi's daughter-in-law pass through
+the streets bareheaded.  In the mid-summer she drank hot tea, and
+caught a cold in her teeth.  It is all the way I am telling you: the
+word is turned topsyturvy.  In olden times a married woman would not
+dare uncover her hair even in the presence of her husband; it was
+also thought dangerous even for a man to go out bareheaded in winter
+time; and nobody ever caught a cold in midsummer.  Nowadays things
+are different: only last winter I saw soldiers shiver with cold,
+while in our time a soldier was ashamed to show he was afraid of the
+cold.  Yes, new generations, new soldiers; new times, new seasons.
+. . .
+
+In short, that winter was a very hard one: heavy snowfalls,
+snow-storms, and no roads.  The peasants could not go outside of the
+village; they had to stay home, and being idle and lonesome, they
+celebrated their weddings at that convenient season.  Many people
+used to go to their weddings merely as sight-seers, I among them,
+for my sergeant gave me plenty of freedom.  I had been excused from
+a large part of the drill; it was really superfluous as far as I was
+concerned.  I had long learned all there was to learn.  So I had
+much leisure to knock about in.  Well, my sergeant rather liked us
+grown-up Cantonists.  We were, with hardly an exception, very good
+soldiers indeed.  And, after all, what was the hope of the sergeant,
+if not the praise of his superior, "Bravo, sergeant!"  He liked to
+hear it, just as we ourselves liked to hear his "Bravo, boys, well
+done!"
+
+One of the weddings of that season happened to take place in the
+house of the richest peasant of the village, one of those peasants
+who try to rise above their class.  It goes without saying that
+among the invited guests was the very cream of the village society:
+the few Government officials, the village elder, the clerk of the
+village, our sergeant, etc.  Yes, as to our sergeant, he was a jolly
+sort of fellow.  He enjoyed a good laugh himself, and liked to hear
+others laugh.  He liked to pass jokes with his soldiers, too.  But
+then he was always the first to laugh at his own jokes; it seemed as
+if he might laugh himself to death.  Of course, his hearty laughter
+made one laugh with him, joke or no joke.  Yes, he was a good
+fellow; may he, too, have his place among the righteous in Paradise.
+ True, he had us switched once in a while; but that was the way of
+the world in those days.  For he, too, grew up and had been promoted
+from under the birch-rods.  You know what all this reminds me of?
+take this driver, for instance: he is used to belabor his horses
+with the whip; and yet he likes them, you may be sure.  Of course,
+our sergeant would scold us once in a while, too.  But then his
+scolding seemed to hurt him more than us: he looked as if he had
+gotten the scolding himself.  The jokers of our company used to say
+of him, that he stood up every morning before his own uniform, and
+saluted it as it hung on the wall. . . .
+
+In short, he liked to mingle with people and to make merry; then he
+was always the happiest of all.
+
+Of course, he also had been invited to that wedding.
+
+Marusya, too, was there, and that was against her habit.  She kept
+away from all kinds of public gatherings and festivities.  And right
+she was, too, in staying away.  For it was in the company of other
+girls that her brooding, melancholy disposition showed itself most
+clearly.  Did I say melancholy?  No it was not exactly melancholy.
+It was rather the feeling of total isolation, which one could not
+help reading on her face.  And a total stranger she certainly was in
+that throng.  When she kept quiet, her very silence betrayed her
+presence among the chattering girls.  One could almost hear her
+silence.  And when she did take part in the conversation, her voice
+somehow sounded strange and far away in the chorus of voices.  Her
+very dress seemed different, though she was dressed just like any
+other of the village girls.  It was in her gait, her deportment, in
+her very being that she differed from the rest of the girls.  From
+the moment she entered the house she had to run the gauntlet of
+inquisitive looks, which seemed to pierce her very body and made her
+look like a sieve, as it were.  I looked at Marusya, and it seemed
+to me that her face had become longer and her lips more compressed;
+her eyes seemed wider open and lying deeper in her sockets.  She
+looked shrunken and contracted, very much like my mother on the eve
+of the Ninth of Av, when she read aloud the Lamentations for the
+benefit of her illiterate women-friends.
+
+Well, that evening the sergeant danced with Marusya, neglecting the
+other girls entirely.  They kept on refusing the invitations of the
+cavaliers, in the hope that they might yet have a chance to dance
+with the sergeant.  The result was that the cavaliers were angry
+with the girls; the girls, with Marusya; and I, with the sergeant.
+
+And when a recess was called, something happened: one of the
+bachelors, Serge Ivanovich, my old enemy, stood up behind Marusya,
+and shouted with all his might, "Zhidovka!"  Then the envious girls
+broke out into a malicious giggle.
+
+Marusya turned crimson.  She looked first at the sergeant: he was
+curling his mustache, and tried to look angry.  Then Marusya turned
+away from him, and I caught her eye.  Well, that was too much for
+me.  I could not stand it any longer.  I sprang at Serge and dragged
+him to Marusya.  I struck him once and twice, got him by the neck,
+and belabored him with the hilt of my sword.
+
+"Apologize!" said I.
+
+Now, no one is obedient as your Gentile once you have him down.  And
+Serge Ivanovich did not balk.  He apologized in the very words that
+I dictated to him.  Then I let him go.  The sergeant looked at me
+approvingly, as if wishing to say, "Well done!"  This prevented the
+young men from attacking me.
+
+Marusya left the house, and I followed her.  Once outside, she broke
+into tears.  She said something between sobs, but I could not make
+out what she meant.  I thought she was complaining of someone,
+probably her mother.  I wished very much to comfort her, but I did
+not know how.  So we walked on in silence.  The hard, crisp snow was
+squeaking rhythmically under our feet, as if we were trying to play
+a tune.  And from the house snatches of music reached us, mixed with
+sounds of quarreling and merry-making.  It seemed as if all those
+sounds were pursuing us:  "Zhid!  Zhid!"  Suddenly a sense of
+resentment overtook me, as if I had been called upon to defend the
+Jews.  And I blurted out:
+
+"If it is so hard to be insulted once by a youngster who cannot
+count his own years yet, how much harder is it to hear insults day
+in and day out, year in and year out?"
+
+Marusya looked at me with sparkling eyes.  She thought I was angry
+with her and meant her.  Then she wanted to soothe my feelings, and
+she said wonderingly:
+
+"Years?  What, pray, did I do to you?  I only wanted you not to
+listen to Jacob.  He is a bad man.  He hates me.  He is forever on
+the lookout to separate us!"
+
+"He is afraid," said I, "I might yet get converted."
+
+At this Marusya gave me an irresistible look, the look of a mother,
+of a loving sister.
+
+"No," she said decidedly, "I shall not let you do that.  You and
+your daughters will be unhappy forever.  You know what I have
+decided?  I have decided never to get married.  For I know that my
+own daughters will always be called Zhidovka."  At this point I
+became sorry for the turn our conversation had taken, and I cared no
+more for the defense of the Jews.  After a brief silence Marusya
+turned to me:
+
+"Why does mother dislike Jews so much?  She surely knows them better
+than papa does."
+
+"Very likely she fears being called Zhidovka, as they called you."
+
+"But, then, why did she get herself into that trouble?"
+
+"Ask yourself; she may tell you." . . . .
+
+Never mind what passed between us afterwards.  It does not suit a
+man of my age to go into particulars, the way the story-writers do.
+Suffice it to tell you that our relations became very much
+complicated.  Marusya attached herself to me; she became a sister to
+me.
+
+So, after all, Jacob's fears had been well founded from the very
+beginning.  I felt I had gotten myself into a tangle, but I did
+nothing to escape from it; on the contrary, I was getting myself
+deeper and deeper into it.--
+
+
+
+Here the old man's eyes flashed with a fire that fairly penetrated
+the darkness, and for a moment I thought it was but a youth of
+eighteen who was sitting opposite me.  I was glad that the dark hid
+the whiteness of the old man's beard from my view.  The white beard
+was entirely out of harmony with the youthful ardor of its owner's
+speech.
+
+There was a silence of a few minutes, and the old man continued his
+story:--
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+Hard as Anna's lot was, Peter himself was not very happy either.  I
+do not know how things are managed nowadays.  As I told you before,
+new times bring new people with new ways.  It never happened in our
+day that a Jewish maiden, no matter what class she belonged to,
+should throw herself at a young Gentile, and tell him, "Now, I am
+ready to leave my faith and my people, if you will marry me."  In
+our day there never was a case of apostasy except after a good deal
+of courting.  No Jewish girl ever left her faith, unless there was a
+proposal of marriage accompanied by much coaxing.  It required a
+great deal of coaxing and enticing on the part of the man.  Only
+extravagant promises and assurances, which never could be made good,
+could prompt a Jewish maiden to leave her faith.  And such had been
+the case with Khlopov, as Anna told me afterwards.
+
+Anna, or, as she had been called as a Jewess, Hannah, had spent her
+girlhood under the rule of a stepmother.  Peter was a young man
+earning a fair salary as a clerk at the Town Hall.  He was a
+frequent visitor at Bendet's wine-shop.  And Peter was an expert
+judge of the comeliness of Jewish maidens in general and of Anna's
+beauty in particular.  So, when Pater did come, he came as a
+veritable angel-protector.  He came to save her from the yoke of a
+stepmother and make her his wife.  He promised her "golden castles"
+and a "paradise on earth."  All that would be hers but for one
+obstacle: she had to renounce her faith.  At first Anna was
+unwilling.  But the stepmother made Anna as miserable as only human
+beings know how.  Then Bendet's business began to go from bad to
+worse, so that Anna had very slim prospects of ever exchanging the
+yoke of a stepmother for that of a husband.  At the same time Peter
+urged his suit, coaxing her more and more.  Anna warned Peter, that
+in her new life she might find misery instead of happiness.  She was
+sure she would be a stranger to the people with whom she would have
+to come in contact.  Should she happen to be below the other women,
+they would despise her.  Should she happen to be above them, they
+would envy and hate her.  Here she certainly spoke like a
+prophetess.  But Peter kept on assuring her that she was the very
+best of all women, and that he would be her protector in all
+possible troubles.  Then she argued that he might not be happy
+himself; that he would have to fight many a battle.  His parents
+would surely not agree with him.  His relations would shun him.  In
+short, he would be isolated.  Peter laughed at her, and told her
+that all her fears were nothing but the imagination of an unhappy
+maiden who did not believe in the possibility of ever being happy.
+He told her also that not all the women in the world were as bad as
+her stepmother.  Still Hannah was unwilling.  Then Peter attacked
+her with a new weapon.  He made believe he was ill, and let her know
+that if he should die, it would be her fault; and if he did not die,
+he would commit suicide, and his last thought would be that the Jews
+are cruel, and rejoice in the misfortune of a Christian.  Then Hanna
+gave in, did as she was urged, and was renamed Anna.
+
+Now what Anna found in actual life far exceeded what Hannah had
+prophesied.  The women of the village kept aloof from her, and for
+many reasons.  The first reason was that she never visited the
+village tavern.  She never drank any liquor herself, nor treated her
+visitors with it.  And nothing in the world brings such people
+together as liquor does.  Then the men hated her for the purity and
+chastity which she brought from her father's house.  Besides, men
+and women alike envied the prosperity of Khlopov's household, which
+was due only to Anna's thrift.  All those reasons, as well as many
+others, were included in the one word "Zhidovka."  So that word may
+stand for anything you choose.  As to Peter's brothers and
+relatives, they not only kept away from him but also became his open
+or secret enemies.
+
+By and by Peter recognized that Hannah's fears were not the result
+of mere imagination, but the true prophecy of a mature young woman,
+who had foreseen her own future, and he could not help feeling hurt.
+ That bitter thought was possibly the only reason why he frequented
+the establishment of "our Moshko."  He wanted to get rid of the
+accursed thought; but he did not succeed.  He pined for the time
+when he lived among Jews; but Anna could not possibly return to live
+among them.  In the meantime Peter sickened, and took to bed.  Anna
+knew there was still some litigation pending between Khlopov and his
+relations, and his title to the property he held by inheritance was
+disputed.  And she always feared the worst: should she survive
+Peter, his relations would start proceedings against her, dispossess
+her and Marusya, and let them shift for themselves.  Many a time did
+Anna mention the matter to Peter in a casual, off-hand way; but he
+merely smiled his usual smile, listened, and forgot all about it the
+next morning.
+
+Well, that was a weakness of Peter's.  Writing official papers had
+been his lifework, and when he had to do writing in his own behalf,
+he felt disgusted.  He could not touch the pen when his own affairs
+were involved.  Even the writing of a simple letter he used to put
+off from day to day.  And when it came to clear up the title to his
+holding, he would have had to write papers and fill out documents
+enough to load two pack-donkeys.  Small wonder, then, that he kept
+putting it off.
+
+But the time came when it was necessary that Anna should speak to
+him about the matter; and yet she could not muster up enough courage
+to do it.  For at times she thought herself nothing but a stranger
+in the place.  Who was she anyway, to inherit the property left by
+old Simeon Khlopov, deceased?  On one occasion she asked me to call
+Peter's attention to the matter of his title to the property.  I
+entered the sick-room and began to discuss the matter cautiously, in
+a roundabout way, so as not to excite the patient by implying that
+his end might be near.  But my precautions were unnecessary.  He
+spoke very cooly of the possibility of his end coming at any moment,
+but at the same time he insisted that there was really no need to
+hurry, a proper time to settle the matter would be found.
+
+Now here you see one more difference between Jews and Gentiles.  To
+look at the Gentiles, would you ever think them all fools?  Why, you
+may find many a shrewd man among them, many a man who could get me
+and you into his net, as the spider the fly.  But when it comes to
+taking care of the next day, the future, they are rather foolish.
+They do not foresee things as clearly as the Jew does.  For
+instance, do I not work hard to save up money for my daughter's
+dowry, even though I hardly expect her to get married for two years
+at least?  Do I not try hard to pay off the mortgage on my house, so
+as to leave it to my children free and clear?  Say what you will, I
+hold to my opinion, that Gentile-folk do not feel the "to-morrow" as
+keenly as we do.  If you like, the whole life of a Jew is nothing
+but an anticipation of "to-morrow."  Many a time I went without a
+meal simply because I forgot to eat, or thought I had eaten already.
+ But I never forget anything that concerns the coming day.  I can
+hardly explain it to you, but many a time I thought, dull as my
+brains were made by my soldier's grub, that the Jew is altogether a
+creature of "to-morrow."
+
+Well, Peter listened to me; he saw there was reason in what I told
+him; and yet he did not feel that way.  He did not feel the
+necessity of acting immediately, and he put it off.
+
+Now, it seems to me that when things come to such a pass between a
+Gentile husband and his Jewish wife, the results are bound to be
+strange, unusual, and anything but agreeable.  It is all something
+like--let me see--something like what is written in the Bible about
+the confusion of tongues, when one could not understand the speech
+of his fellow.  Indeed, had Peter known that it was Anna who sent me
+to him, he would have resented it surely, and would have thought
+that she cared more for his inheritance than she cared for him.
+
+And Peter died, after a long illness.
+
+Then Anna had to go through an ordeal she had not yet experienced in
+her life of apostasy: she had to go through the ceremony of mourning
+according to the prescribed rules.  And her fears regarding the
+house turned out to have been but too well founded.  The village
+elder, in the name of the rest of the relatives, disputed Peter's
+title to the property.  Anna was given a small sum of money, and the
+whole piece of property was deeded over to Serge Ivanovich.  As to
+Anna and Marusya, they had to be satisfied with the little money
+they received.
+
+In the end it turned out that there was a deeper purpose at the
+bottom of the whole affair.  That scamp, Serge Ivanovich, understood
+very well that in every respect Marusya was above the rest of the
+village girls, and he made up his mind to marry her.  To be sure, he
+hated the Jews: they always managed to intrude where they were least
+wanted; and he never missed an opportunity of insulting Anna and her
+daughter.  But that is just the way they all are: they will spit
+to-day, to lick it off to-morrow.  At the same time he knew well
+enough that Marusya would not be willing to have him.  Yet, in spite
+of it all, he sent some friends with the formal message of a
+proposal.  As an inducement he promised to deed the whole property
+to Anna and Marusya.  Anna seemed willing enough to accept the
+offer.  Then Marusya turned to me.  I began to side with Anna.
+
+"You are a liar!" shouted Marusya, turning to me.  And she was
+right.  Indeed, I did not wish at all to see Marusya marry Serve.
+But I cannot tell why I had said the opposite.  Then Marusya curtly
+dismissed the representatives of the suitor.
+
+I decided not to part from the two unhappy women just then and leave
+them alone with their misfortune.  But Heaven willed otherwise.  The
+Crimean War had been decided upon, and our regiment was the first to
+be sent to the front.  So I was taken from my dear friends just when
+they needed me most.--
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+A mixture of light and darkness appeared in a corner of the eastern
+sky, something like the reflection of a distant conflagration.  The
+light spread farther and farther, and swallowed many a star.  It
+looked as if some half-extinguished firebrand of a world had blazed
+up again, and was burning brightly once more.  But no! that was
+neither a world-catastrophe nor a conflagration: some mysterious new
+creation was struggling into existence.  And after the noiseless
+storm and battle of lights, the moon appeared, angry-looking, and
+ragged-edged.  In the light of the moon the speaker too looked
+strange and fantastic, like a relic of a world that is no more.
+
+The old man continued:--
+
+
+
+Well, on that day we turned a new leaf in our lives.  Till then we
+had been like people who live against their own will, without aim or
+object.  We had to get up in the morning, because we had gone to bed
+the night before.  We ate, because we were hungry.  We went to our
+drills, because we were ordered to go.  And we went to sleep at
+night, because we felt tired.  All our existence seemed to be only
+for the sake of discipline; and that discipline, again, seemed a
+thing in itself.  But the moment they told us of mobilization and
+war, our riddle was solved.  It suddenly became clear to us why we
+had been caught and brought to where we were, and why we had been
+suffering all the time.  It looked as if year in, year out, we had
+been walking in the darkness of some cave, and all of a sudden our
+path became light.  And we were happy.
+
+I saw Jacob: he, too, looked happy, which had not been his way for
+the last few years.  From the moment he had received permission to
+pray in Hebrew and observe the Sabbath, his mood had changed for the
+worse: he looked as if he were "possessed."  He complained that his
+prayers were not so sweet to him any more as they had been before;
+and the Sabbath rest was a real burden upon him.  Then, his father
+did not appear in his dreams any more.  Besides, he confessed that
+he forgot his prayers many a time, and was not very strict as to the
+Sabbath.  He feared his prayers were no longer acceptable in Heaven.
+ No, said he, that was not his destiny: the Jewishness of a
+Cantonist lay only in suffering martyrdom.  But with the news of the
+coming war, a change came over him.  He became gay as a child.
+
+One morning, when we were assembled on the drill grounds before the
+house of the sergeant, I was called into the house.  "Hourvitz,"
+said my good sergeant, turning to me, "three beautiful creatures ask
+me not to send you to the fighting line but to appoint you to some
+auxiliary company.  Ask, and I shall do so."
+
+"Sir," said I, "if this be your order, I have but to obey; but if my
+wish counts for anything, I should prefer to stay with the colors
+and go to the fighting line.  Otherwise what was our preparation for
+and our training of many years?"
+
+A smile of satisfaction appeared on the face of the sergeant.
+
+"And if you fall in battle?"
+
+"I shall not fall, sir, before I make others fall."
+
+"What makes you feel so sure of it?"
+
+"I cannot tell, sir; but it is enough if I am sure of it."
+
+"Well, I agree with you.  Now let us hear what your fair advocates
+have to say."
+
+He opened the door of an adjoining room, and Anna, Marusya, and the
+sergeant's wife appeared.  Then a dispute began.  They insisted on
+their opinion, and I on mine.
+
+"Let us count votes," said the sergeant.  "I grant you two votes;
+together with my own vote it makes three against tree."
+
+Then I looked at Marusya.  She thought a little, and added her vote
+to mine.  So the majority prevailed.  When I went outside, Marusya
+followed me, and handed me a small parcel.  What I found there,
+among other things, was a small Hebrew prayer book, which Marusya
+must have gotten at Moshko's, and a small silver cross which she had
+always worn around her neck.  We looked at each other and kept
+silent: was there anything to be said?
+
+After she had walked away a few steps, she turned around, as if she
+had forgotten something.
+
+"And if you return . . . ?"
+
+"Then to you I return," was my answer.  She went on, and I turned to
+look back in her direction: she also looked back at me.  Later I
+turned again to look at her, and she, too, kept looking back, until
+we lost sight of each other.
+
+Before Anna could be dispossessed, Heaven wrought a miracle:  Serge
+Ivanovich was drafted into the army.  He was attached to our
+regiment, and we served in the same company.  In the meantime Anna
+remained in possession of the house.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+So, after all, they had not been mere sport, those years of
+drilling, of exercising, of training to "stand up," to "lie down,"
+to "run," etc., etc. . . .
+
+It had been all for the sake of war, and it was to war that we were
+going.  My companion in exile, I mean my Barker, did not wish to
+part from me.  Ashamed though I am, I must yet call him "my true
+friend."  Human beings as a rule forget favors rendered.  This is
+the way God has made them.  In very truth, it is only your soldier,
+your fellow in exile, and your dog that are able to serve you and
+love you at the risk of their own lives.  I chased Barker away, but
+he kept on following me.  I struck him: he took the blows, and
+licked my hands.  I struck him over the legs with the stock of my
+gun.  He broke out in a whine, and ran after me, limping.  Marusya
+caught him and locked him up in the stable.  I thought I had gotten
+rid of him.  But some hours later I saw him limping after me.  Then
+I realized that the dog was fated to share all the troubles of
+campaign life with me.  And my Barker became a highly respectable
+dog.  The first day he eyed everybody with a look of suspicion.  The
+bright buttons and the blue uniforms scared him; possibly because
+buttons and uniforms went with stocks of guns like the one that had
+given him the lame leg.  By and by Barker picked me and Jacob out
+from among the soldiers, and kept near us.  They used to say in our
+company that Barker was a particular friend of jews, and he knew a
+Jew when he saw one.  Very likely that was so.  But then they never
+knew how many slices of bread and meat Barker had gotten from Jewish
+hands before he knew the difference.
+
+Just about that time we got other new companions.  One of them was a
+certain Pole, Vassil Stefanovich Zagrubsky, blessed be his memory,
+Jew-hater though he was.
+
+The beginning of our acquaintance promised no good.  That particular
+Pole was poor but proud--a poor fellow with many wants.  Then he was
+a smoker, too.  I also enjoyed a smoke when I had an extra copper in
+my pocket.  But Zagrubsky had a passion for smoking, and when he had
+no tobacco of his own, he demanded it of others.  That was his way:
+he could not beg; he could only demand.  Three of us shared one
+tent: Zagrubsky, Serge, and myself.  Serge was a soldier in
+comfortable circumstances.  He had taken some money with him from
+home, and received a monthly allowance from his parents.  He always
+had excellent tobacco.  Once, when he happened to open his tobacco
+pouch to roll a cigarette, Zagrubsky took notice of it, and put
+forth his hand to take some tobacco.  That was his way: whenever he
+saw a tobacco pouch open, he would try to help himself to some of
+its contents.  But Serge was one of those peasants whose ambition
+extends beyond their class.  He was painfully proud, prouder than
+any of the nobles.  Before entering the service he had made up his
+mind to "rise."  He wanted to become an officer, so that the
+villagers would have to stand at attention before him, when he
+returned home.  Therefore he gave Zagrubsky a supercilious look of
+contempt, and unceremoniously closed the pouch when the Pole wanted
+to take some tobacco.  I was sorry for the Pole, and offered him
+some of my own tobacco.  He did not fail to take it, but at the same
+time I heard him sizzle out "Zhid" from between his tightly closed
+lips.  I looked at him in amazement: how on earth could he guess I
+was a Jew, when I spoke my Russian with the right accent and
+inflection, while his was lame, broken, and half mixed with Polish?
+That was a riddle to me.  But I had no time to puzzle it out, and I
+forgot it on the spot.
+
+We had long been occupying the same position, waiting for a merry
+beginning.  All that time seemed to us something like a preparation
+for a holiday; but the long tiresome wait was disgusting.  In the
+meantime something extraordinary happened in our camp.  Our camp was
+surrounded by a cordon of sentries.  At some distance from the
+cordon was the camp of the purveyors, the merchants who supplied the
+soldiers with all kinds of necessaries.  Without a special permit no
+purveyor could pass the line of sentries and enter the camp.
+
+It happened that one of those purveyors excited the suspicion of
+Jacob.  Without really knowing why, Jacob came to consider him a
+suspicious character.  Even Barker, timid dog that he was, once
+viciously attacked that particular man, as if to tear him to pieces.
+ And it was with great difficulty that Jacob saved him from Barker's
+teeth.  But from that time on Jacob began to watch the man closely.
+That very day we were told that General Luders was going to visit
+our camp.  Jacob was doing sentry duty.  Just then the suspicious
+purveyor appeared suddenly, as if he had sprung out of the ground.
+Jacob had his eye on him.  Presently Jacob noticed that the fellow
+was hiding behind a bank of earth; he saw him take out a pistol from
+his pocket and aim it somewhere into space.  That very moment
+General Luders appeared on the grounds.  Without thinking much,
+Jacob aimed his gun at the purveyor and shot him dead.  On
+investigation, it turned out that the purveyor was a Pole, who had
+smuggled himself into the camp in order to assassinate the General.
+
+Then they began to gossip in the regiment about Jacob's "rising."
+General Luders patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Bravo,
+officer!"
+
+A few days later I met Jacob: he looked pale and worn out.  His
+smile was more like the frozen smile of the agony of death.  I told
+him I had dreamt he was drowning in a river of oil.  Then he told me
+confidentially that he had promised his superiors to renounce his
+faith.
+
+Well, in the long run, it appeared that there was much truth in
+Jacob's idea, that a Jew in exile must not accept favors from
+Gentiles.  And the temptation to which Jacob had been exposed was
+certainly much harder to stand than a thousand lashes, or even, for
+that matter, the whole bitter life of a Cantonist.  The pity of it!
+
+A few days later Zagrubsky was appointed to serve Jacob.  But when
+Zagrubsky reported for duty, Jacob dismissed him.  It was against
+Jacob's nature to have others do for him what he could do himself.
+
+Zagrubsky departed, hissing "Zhid" under his breath.  It was the way
+he had treated me.  My patience was gone.  I put myself in his way,
+stopped him and asked him: "Now listen, you Pollack, how do you come
+to find out so quickly who is a Jew, and who is not?  As far as I
+can see, you cannot speak Russian correctly yourself: why, then, do
+you spy on others?  I have not yet forgotten that it was on account
+of my tobacco that you recognized I was a Zhid, too."
+
+"O, that is all very simple," said he.  "I never saw such
+lickspittles as the Jews are.  They are always ready to oblige
+others with their favors and refuse honors due to themselves.  That
+is why the authorities favor them so much.  Do you wish to know what
+a Jew is?  A Jew is a spendthrift, a liar, a whip-kisser, a sneak.
+He likes to be trampled on much more than others like to trample on
+him.  He makes a slave of himself in order to be able to enslave
+everybody else.  I hate the Jews, especially those from whom I ever
+get any favors."
+
+Well, by this time I am ready almost to agree with many of the
+Pole's assertions.  The Jew is very lavish in his dealings with
+Gentiles.  He is subservient, and always ready to give up what is
+his due.  All that is a puzzle to the Gentiles, and every Jew who
+has been brought up and educated among them knows that as well as I
+do.  Sometimes they have a queer explanation for it.  A gentile who
+has ever tasted of Jewish kindness and unselfishness will say to
+himself, "Very likely the Jew feels that he owes me much more."
+
+To be brief: Zagrubsky and I became very much attached to each
+other.  But we never tried to disguise our feelings.  I knew he was
+my enemy, and he knew that I was repaying him in kind, with open
+enmity.  That was just what Zagrubsky liked.  We loved our mutual
+cordial hatred.  When one feels like giving vent to his feelings,
+like hating, cursing, or detesting somebody or something, one's
+enemy becomes dearer than a hundred friends.
+
+Then there came a certain day, and that day brought us closer
+together for a moment, closer than we should ever be again.  It
+happened at night . . . . cursed be that night! swallowed up the
+following day! . . . .
+
+We soldiers had long become tired of our drill and our manoeuvres;
+we got tired of "attacking" under the feint of a "retreat," and of
+"retreating" under the feint of an "attack."  We were disgusted with
+standing in line and discharging our guns into the air, without ever
+seeing the enemy.  In our days a soldier hated feints and
+make-believes.  "Get at your enemy and crush his head, or lie down
+yourself a crushed 'cadaver'"--that was our way of fighting, and
+that was the way we won victories.  As our general used to say: "The
+bullet is a blind fool, but the bayonet is the real thing."
+
+At last, at last, we heard the quick, nervous notes of the bugle,
+and the hurried beats of the drum, the same we used to hear year in,
+year out.  But till that moment it was all "make-believe" drill.  It
+was like what we mean by the passage in the Passover Haggodah: "Any
+one who is in need may come, and partake of the Passah-lamb. . . ."
+Till that moment we used to attack the air with our bayonets and
+pierce space right and left, "as if" the enemy had been before us,
+ready for our steel.  We were accustomed to pierce and to vanquish
+the air and spirits, and that is all.  At the same time there was
+something wonderful, sweet, and terrible in those blasts of the
+bugle, something that was the very secret of soldiery, something
+that went right into our souls when we returned home from our drill.
+. . .
+
+But on that day it was not drill any more, and not make-believe any
+more, no!  Before us was the real enemy, looking into our very eyes
+and thirsting for our blood.
+
+Then, just for a moment I thought of myself, of my own flesh, which
+was not made proof against the sharp steel.  I remembered that I had
+many an account to settle in this world; that I had started many a
+thing and had not finished it; and that there was much more to
+start.  I thought of my own enemies, whom I had not harmed as yet.
+I thought of my friends, to whom I had so far done no good.  In
+short, I thought I was just in the middle of my lifework, and that
+the proper moment to die had not yet come.  But all that came as a
+mere flash.  For in the line of battle my own self was dissolved, as
+it were, and was lost, just like the selves of all who were there.
+I became a new creature with new feelings and a new consciousness.
+But the thing cannot be described: one has to be a soldier and stand
+in the line of battle to feel it.  You may say, if you like, that I
+believe that the angel-protectors of warring nations descend from on
+high, and in the hour of battle enter as new souls into the soldiers
+of the line.
+
+Then and there an end came also to the vicissitudes of my Barker.  I
+found him dead, stretched out at full length on a bank of earth,
+which was the monument over the grave of the heroes of the first
+day's fighting.  In the morning they all went to battle in the full
+flowering of strength and thirsty for victory, only to be dragged
+down at night into that hole, to be buried there.  Well, the earth
+knows no distinction between one race and another; its worms feed
+alike on Jew and Gentile.  But there, in Heaven, they surely know
+the difference between one soul and another, and each one is sent to
+its appointed place.
+
+I was told that Jacob was among those buried in the common grave.
+Quite likely.  I whispered a Kaddish over the grave, giving it the
+benefit of the doubt.
+
+Of course, I was not foolish enough to cry over the cadaver of a
+dog; and yet it was a pity.  After all, it was a living creature,
+too; it had shared all kinds of things with me: exile, hunger,
+rations, blows.  And it had loved me, too. . . .
+
+The next morning we were out again.  In a moment line faced line,
+man faced man, enemy faced enemy.  It was a mutual murderous
+attraction, a bloodthirsty love, a desire to embrace and to kill.
+
+It was very much like the pull I felt towards Marusya.
+
+. . . . Lightening. . . . shots. . . . thunder. . . .  The talk of
+the angel-protectors it is. . . . Snakes of fire flying upward,
+spreading out . . . . shrapnel . . . . bombs a-bursting . . . .
+soldiers standing . . . . reeling . . . . falling . . . . crushed,
+or lapping their own blood. . . .  Thinning lines . . . . breast to
+breast. . . .  Hellish howls over the field. . . .
+
+Crashing comes the Russian music, drowning all that hellish chorus,
+pouring vigor, might, and hope into the hearts of men. . . .
+
+Alas, the music breaks off. . . .  Where is the bugle? . . . .  The
+trumpet is silenced. . . .  The trombone breaks off in the middle of
+a note. . . .  Only one horn is left. . . .  Higher and higher rise
+its ringing blasts, chanting, as it were, "Yea, thought I walk
+through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for
+Thou art with me!"
+
+In mighty embrace men clasp one another. . . .  Stabbing, being
+stabbed . . . . killing, being killed. . . . .
+
+I work away right and left, I expect my death-blow at every moment,
+but I seem to be charmed: swords and bayonets surround me, but never
+touch me. . . .
+
+Yes, it was a critical moment; it could not last much longer; one
+side had to give way.
+
+But the Russians could not retreat, because in their very midst the
+priest was standing, the ikon of the Virgin in one hand and the
+crucifix in the other.
+
+The soldiers looked at the images, got up new courage, and did
+wonders.
+
+Do you remember the Biblical story of the brazen serpent?  That was
+just like it.
+
+Well, a bullet came flying, whistling, through the air, and the
+priest fell.  Then the ikon and the crucifix began to wobble this
+way and that way, and fell down, too.  The soldiers saw it, lost
+heart, and wanted to run.
+
+At that moment I felt as if I were made of three different men.
+
+Just imagine:  Samuel the individual, Samuel the soldier, and Samuel
+the Jew.
+
+Says Samuel the individual:  "You have done well enough, and it is
+all over for now.  Run for dear life."
+
+Says Samuel the soldier:  "Shame on you, where is your bravery?  The
+regimental images are falling.  Try, perhaps they may be saved yet."
+
+Says Samuel the Jew:  "Of course, save; for a Jew must ever do more
+than is expected of him."
+
+But Samuel the individual replies:  "Do you remember how many lashes
+you have suffered on account of these very images?"
+
+Says Samuel the Jew again:  "Do you know what these images are, and
+to what race they belong?"
+
+Many such thoughts flashed through my brain; but it was all in a
+moment.  And in a moment I was at the side of the priest.  He was
+alive; he was only wounded in his hand.  I raised him to his feet,
+put the images into his hands, lifted them up, and supported them.
+
+"This way, Russians!"
+
+I do not know who shouted these words.  Perhaps I did; perhaps some
+one else; perhaps it was from Heaven.
+
+However, the victory was ours.
+
+But I did not remain on my feet a long time; a bullet struck me, and
+I fell. . . . .
+
+What happened then, I cannot tell.  All I know is that I dreamt
+something very agreeable:  I was a little boy again, hanging on to
+my father's coat-tails, and standing beside him in the Klaus on a
+Yom-Kippur even, during the most tearful prayers, and a mischievous
+little boy began to play with me, pricking my leg with a needle
+every now and then. . . .
+
+When I came to my senses, I found myself in a sea of howls, groans,
+and cries, which seemed to be issuing from the very depths of the
+earth.  For a moment I thought I was in purgatory, among the sinners
+who undergo punishment.  But pretty soon I recognized everything.  I
+turned my head, and saw Zagrubsky lying near me, wounded and
+groaning.  He looked at me, and there was love and hatred mixed in
+that look.  "Zhid," said he, with his last breath, and gave up the
+ghost.
+
+Rest in peace, thou beloved enemy of mine!
+
+From behind I heard someone groaning and moaning; but the voice
+sounded full and strong.  I turned my head in the direction of the
+voice, and I saw that Serge Ivanovich was lying on his side and
+moaning.  He looked around, stood up for a while, and lay down
+again.  This manoeuvre he repeated several times in succession.  You
+see, the rascal was scheming to his own advantage.  He knew very
+well that in the end he would have to fall down and groan for good.
+So he thought it was much cheaper and wiser to do it of his own free
+will, than to wait for something to throw him down.  The scamp had
+seen what I had done before I fell.  A thought came to him.  He
+helped me to my feet, bandaged my wound, and said:
+
+"Now listen, Samuel: you have certainly done a very great thing; but
+it is worth nothing to you personally.  Nay, worse: they might again
+try to make you renounce your faith.  So it is really a danger to
+you.  But, if you wish, just say that I have done it, and I shall
+repay you handsomely for it.  The priest will not know the
+difference."
+
+Well, it is this way:  I always hated get-rich-quick schemes.  I
+never cared a rap for a penny I had not expected and was not ready
+to earn.  Take, for instance, what I did with the priest:  Did I
+ever expect any honors or profits out of it?  Such possible honors
+and profits I certainly did not like, and did not look for.
+Besides, who could assure me that they would not try again to coax
+me into renouncing my faith?  Why, then, should I put myself into
+such trouble?  And I said to Serge:
+
+"You want it badly, Serge, do you?  You'd like to see yourself
+promoted, to be an officer?  Is that so?  Very well, then.  Make out
+a paper assigning the house to Marusya."
+
+"I promise faithfully."
+
+"I believe no promises."
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+"You have paper and pencil in your pocket?"
+
+"Certainly!"
+
+I turned around, supported myself on both my arms and one knee, and
+made a sort of a rickety table of myself.  And on my back Serge
+wrote out his paper, and signed it.  But all that was really
+unnecessary.  He would have kept his word anyway.  For he was always
+afraid I might blurt out the whole story.  Not I, though.  May I
+never have anything in common with those who profit by falsehoods!
+
+As to what happened later, I cannot tell you exactly.  For I was
+taken away, first to a temporary hospital, and then to a permanent
+one.  I fell into a fever and lost consciousness.  I do not know how
+many days or weeks passed by:  I was in a different world all that
+time.  How can I describe it to you?  Well, it was a world of chaos.
+ It was all jumbled together: father, mother, military service,
+ikons, lashes, lambs slaughtered, Peter, bullets, etc., etc.
+
+It was all in a jumble, all topsyturvy.  And in the midst of that
+chaos I felt as if I were a thing apart from myself.  My head ached,
+and yet it felt as if it did not belong to me. . . .  Finally I
+thought I felt mother bathing me; a delicious feeling of moisture
+spread over my flesh, and my headache disappeared.  Then I felt a
+warm, soft hand pass over my forehead, cheeks, and neck. . . .
+
+I opened my eyes, the first time since I lost consciousness, and I
+exclaimed:
+
+"Marusya!?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said she, with a smile, while her eyes brimmed with
+tears, "it is I."  And behind her was another face:
+
+"Anna?!"
+
+"Rest, rest," said they, warningly.  "Thanks to God, the crisis is
+over."
+
+I doubted, I thought it was all a dream.  But it was no dream.  It
+was all very simple:  Anna and Marusya had enlisted and were serving
+as volunteer nurses at the military hospital, and I had known
+nothing of it.
+
+"Marusya," said I, "please tell me how do I happen to be here?"
+
+Then she began to tell me how they brought me there, and took me
+down from the wagon as insensible as a log.  But she could not
+finish her story; she began to choke with tears, and Anna finished
+what Marusya wanted to tell me.
+
+I turned to Marusya:
+
+"Where are my clothes?"
+
+"What do you want them for?"
+
+"There is a paper there."
+
+I insisted, and she brought the paper.
+
+"Read the paper, Marusya," said I.  She read the document in which
+Serge assigned the house to Marusya.  The two women looked at me
+with glad surprise.
+
+"How did you ever get it?"
+
+But I had decided to keep the thing a secret from them, and I did.
+
+When I was discharged from the hospital, the war was long over, and
+a treaty of peace had been signed.  Had they asked me, I should not
+have signed it.--
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+Here the old man stopped for a while.  Apparently he skipped many an
+incident, and omitted many a thing that he did not care to mention.
+I saw he was touching upon them mentally.  Her resumed:--
+
+
+
+Just so, just so. . . .  Many, many a thing may take place within
+us, without our ever knowing it.  I never suspected that I had been
+longing to see my parents.  I never wrote to them, simply because I
+had never learned to write my Jewish well enough.  Of course, had my
+brother Solomon been taken, he would surely have written regularly,
+for he was a great penman, may he rest in peace.  As to Russian, I
+certainly might have written in that language; but then it would
+have been very much like offering salt water to a thirsty person.
+And that is why I did not write.  I thought I had forgotten my
+parents.  But no!  Even that was merely a matter of habit.  I had
+gotten so used to my feeling of longing that I was not aware of
+having it.  That is the way I explain it to myself.  By and by there
+opened in my heart a dark little corner that had been closed for
+many a year.  That was the longing for my parents, for my home,
+mixed with just a trace of anger and resentment.  I began to picture
+to myself how my folks would meet me: there would be kisses,
+embraces, tears, neighbors. . . .  For, like a silly child, I
+imagined they were all alive and well yet, and that the Angel of
+Death would wait till I came and repaid them for all the worry I had
+caused them. . . .  And, indeed, would they not have been greatly
+wronged, had they been allowed to die unconsoled, after they had
+rent Heaven with their prayers and lamentations?
+
+But the nearer I came to my native town, the less grew my desire to
+see it.  A feeling of estrangement crept over me at the sight of the
+neighborhood.  No, it was not exactly a feeling of estrangement, but
+some other feeling, something akin to what we feel at the
+recollection of the pain caused by long-forgotten troubles.  I can
+hardly make it clear to you; it was not unlike what an old man feels
+after a bad dream of the days of his youth.
+
+It was about this time of the year.  The roads were just as bad as
+now, the slush just as deep.  And it was as nauseating to sit in the
+coach only to watch the glittering mud and count the slow steps of
+the horses.  In a season like this it is certainly much more
+agreeable to dismount and walk.  That was just what I did.  My
+native town was not far away: only once uphill, once downhill, and
+there was the inevitable cemetery, which must be passed when one
+enters a Jewish village.  The horses could hardly move, and I
+overtook them very soon, as I took a short cut, and struck into a
+path across the peasants' fields.  I allowed myself that privilege,
+because at that time I was still wearing my uniform with the brass
+buttons shining brightly.  When I descended into the valley, I
+decided to cross the cemetery, and so shorten my way.  The coach was
+far behind, and I was walking very slowly, that it might reach me at
+the other side of the cemetery.  My path lay among the gravestones,
+some of them gray with age, dilapidated, bent forward, as if trying
+to overhear the talk of the nether world: some clean and upright, as
+if gazing proudly heavenwards.  It was a world of silence I was in;
+and heavy indeed is the silence I was in; it is really a speaking
+silence.  I think there is something real in the belief that the
+dead talk in their graves.  To me it seemed as if the gravestones
+were casting evil glances at me for my having disturbed the silent
+place with the glitter of my buttons.  And it was with difficulty
+that I could decipher the inscriptions on the stones.  I do not know
+why it was so: either my Hebrew had got rusty, or else graveyard
+inscriptions make hard reading in general.
+
+"Here lieth . . . . the righteous man . . . . modest, pious . . . .
+Rabbi Simhah . . . . Shohet. . . . "
+
+I read it all, and shuddered: why, under that very stone lay the
+remains of my own brother Simhah!
+
+I wanted to shed tears, but my tears did not obey me.  I read it
+again and again, and when I came to the words "modest," "pious," I
+mumbled something to myself, something angry and envious.  Then I
+thought I felt the tombstone move, the ground shake under me, as if
+a shiver were passing through the air. . .
+
+"Forgive me, forgive me!"
+
+It was not my ears that caught those words; it was my heart.  I
+understood that it was the soul of my brother apologizing to me for
+the action of my parents.  Tears began to flow from my eyes.  I did
+not care to read any further, from fear of finding something I did
+not wish to find.  I was thinking of my parents.
+
+And when I entered the house of my parents, I could hardly recognize
+them.  Wrinkled, bent, with sunken cheeks, they had changed entirely
+in appearance.
+
+Father looked at my buttons, removed his cap, and stood bent before
+me.  Mother was busying herself at the oven, and began to speak to
+father in a mixture of Hebrew and Yiddish:  "Sure enough, some sort
+of taxes again. . . .  Much do we need it now. . . ."  Then, in a
+fit of spitefulness, I made believe I was a stranger.
+
+"Old people," said I, "I have brought you news from your son
+Samuel."  As soon as father heard me speak Yiddish, he ran to the
+window, rubbed his hands against the moist pane, by way of washing
+them, and shook hands with me.
+
+"Peace be with you, young man," said he.  Mother left her corner and
+stood up before me.  Father began fumbling for his glasses, and
+asked me: "News from my son, you say?  Where did you see him last?"
+
+"And when did you see him?" asked mother, shivering.
+
+I mentioned some imaginary place and date.
+
+"How does he feel?  Was he in the war?  Is he well?  Does he expect
+to come home?"
+
+Many such questions followed one another in quick succession.
+Meanwhile father took me aside, and whispered into my ear: "How
+about . . . . how about religion?"  Out of sheer spitefulness I
+wanted to worry the poor old folks a little; may the Lord not
+consider it a sin on my part.
+
+I said:  "Had Rabbi Simhah the Shohet been in his place, he surely
+would have withstood all temptations!" . . . .
+
+"What, converted?!"
+
+I kept silent, and the old people took it as a sign of affirmation.
+
+They hung their heads despondently, and kept silent, too.  Then
+father asked me once more:
+
+"Married a Gentile?  Has children?"  I still kept silent.  My old
+mother wept silently.  My heart melted within me, but I braced
+myself up and kept silent.  I felt as if a lump in my throat was
+choking me, but I swallowed it.  I heard mother talking to herself:
+"O Master of the Universe, Father who art in Heaven, Thou Merciful
+and Righteous!" . . . .  As she said it, she shook her head, as if
+accepting God's verdict and complaining at the same time.
+
+The old man stood up, his beard a-quiver.  His hand shook nervously,
+and he said in a tone of dry, cold despair:
+
+"Ett. . . .  Blessed be the righteous Judge!" as though I had told
+him the news of his son's death.  With that he took out a pocket
+knife, and wanted to make the "mourning cut."  At that moment my ear
+caught the sound of the heartrending singsong of the Psalms.  The
+voice was old and tremulous.  It was an old man, evidently a lodger,
+who was reading his Psalter in an adjoining room:
+
+"For the Lord knoweth the path of the righteous. . . ."
+
+The memories of the long past overtook me, and I told my parents who
+I was. . . . .
+
+And yet--continued Samuel after some thought--and yet they were not
+at peace, fearing I had deceived them.  And they never rested till
+they got me married to my Rebekah, "according to the laws of Moses
+and Israel."
+
+Well, two years passed after my wedding, and troubles began; I got a
+toothache, may you be spared the pain!  That is the way of the Jew:
+no sooner does he wed a woman and beget children, than all kinds of
+ills come upon him.
+
+Some one told me, there was a nurse at the city hospital who knew
+how to treat aching teeth and all kinds of ills better than a
+full-fledged doctor.
+
+I went to the hospital, and asked for the nurse.
+
+A young woman came out. . . .
+
+"Marusya?!"
+
+"Samuel?!"
+
+We were both taken aback.
+
+"And where is your husband, Marusya?" asked I, after I had caught my
+breath.
+
+"And you, Samuel, are you married?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But I am single yet."
+
+Yes, yes, she was a good soul!  She died long ago. . . .  May it
+please the Lord to give her a goodly portion in Paradise!--
+
+
+
+Here the old man broke off his story with a deep sigh escaping from
+his breast.
+
+We waved his hand at the son, who was dozing away unconcerned,
+lurching from side to side.  The old man looked at his son, shook
+his head, and said:
+
+"Yes, yes, those were times, those were soldiers. . . .  It is all
+different now: new times, new people, new soldiers. . . .
+
+"It is all make-believe nowadays! . . . . "
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                 NOTES
+          BY THE TRANSLATOR
+
+Av.
+    The month in the Jewish calendar corresponding to July-August.
+    On the ninth day of Av the Temple was taken and destroyed by
+    Titus.
+
+Arba-Kanfos.
+    Literally "four corners."  A rectangular piece of cloth about
+    one foot wide and three feet long, with an aperture in the
+    middle large enough to pass it over the head.  The front part of
+    the garment falls over the chest, the other part covers the
+    shoulders. To its four corners "Tzitzis," or fringes, are
+    attached in prescribed manner.  When made of wool, the
+    Arba-Kanfos is usually called TALLIS-KOTON (which see).
+
+
+
+Bar-Mitzwah.
+    Literally "man of duty."  A Jewish boy who has passed his
+    thirteenth birthday, and has thus attained his religious
+    majority.
+
+Beadle.
+    The functions of this officer in a Jewish community were
+    somewhat similar to those of the constable in some American
+    villages.
+
+
+
+Candles.
+    The Sabbath is ushered in by lighting the Sabbath candles,
+    accompanied by a short prayer.
+
+Cantonists.
+    A term applied to Jewish boys drafted into military service
+    during the reign of Nicholas I of Russia (1825-1855).  Every
+    Jewish community had to supply its quota; but as parents did not
+    surrender their children willingly, they were secured by
+    kidnappers specially appointed by the Community for the purpose.
+    See CATCHER.  The same term was applied to the children of
+    Russian soldiers who were educated for the army in the so-called
+    District, or Canton, Schools. Hence the name.
+
+Catcher.
+    An agent of the Jewish community prior to the introduction, in
+    1874, of general military duty in Russia.
+
+
+
+Havdolah.
+    Ceremonial with wine, candles, and spices, accompanied by a
+    prayer, at the end of the Sabbath.
+
+Haggodah.
+    The ritual used at the Passover eve home service.
+
+Hallah.
+    In commemoration of the priest's tithe at the time of the
+    Temple.  The ceremonial consists of taking a piece of the bread
+    dough before it is baked and throwing it into the fire; a prayer
+    is recited at the same time.
+
+Heder.
+    Literally, "a room."  Specifically, a school in which Bible and
+    Talmud are taught.
+
+
+
+Kaddish.
+    Literally, "sanctification."  A prayer recited in commemoration
+    of the dead.
+
+Karaites.
+    Members of a Jewish sect that does not recognize the authority
+    of the Talmud.
+
+Kosher.
+    Literally, "right," "fit."  Specifically applied to food
+    prepared in accordance with the Jewish dietary laws.
+
+Klaus.
+    A synagogue to which students of the Talmud resort for study and
+    discussion.
+
+
+
+Lamdan.
+    A scholar learned in the Torah.
+
+
+
+Mezuzah.
+    Literally, "door-post."  A piece of parchment, inscribed with
+    the SHEMA (which see), together with Deut. 11:13-21, rolled up,
+    and enclosed in an oblong box, which is attached in a prescribed
+    way to the door-post of a dwelling.
+
+Modeh-Ani.
+    Literally "I affirm."  The opening words of a brief confession
+    of faith.
+
+
+
+Shaatnez.
+    Cloth or a garment made of linen and wool woven together; or a
+    wool garment sewed with linen thread; or a linen garment sewed
+    with wool.
+
+Shema.
+    Literally, "listen,"  The opening words of Deut. 6:4-9.
+
+Shemad.
+    Literally, "extermination."  Applied figuratively to
+    renunciation of the Jewish faith, whether forced or voluntary.
+
+Shohet.
+    A slaughterer of cattle licensed by a rabbi.  He must examine
+    the viscera of cattle according to the rules laid down in the
+    Talmud.
+
+
+
+Tallis-koton.
+    Literally, "the little Tallis," or prayer shawl.  Worn by some
+    Jews.  See ARBA-KANFOS.
+
+Torah.
+    Literally, "doctrine."  A term applied to the Pentateuch, and to
+    the Talmud with its commentaries.
+
+Tzitzis.  See ARBA-KANFOS.
+
+
+
+Yom-Kippur.
+    Day of Atonement.
+
+
+
+Zhid (fem. Zhidovka: zh sounded like z in azure).
+    Literally, "Judean."  Russian equivalent of English "sheeny."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+__________________________
+  TRANSCRIBER'S DISCUSSION
+
+The book presents a softer side of Cantonist life than history
+records.  The abducted children (as young as eight) were usually
+raised in barracks ('Cantonments') under brutal conditions designed
+to break their Jewishness.  Speaking Yiddish, or any sign of
+Jewishness or religious practice, was punished by starvation,
+beatings, and if that failed outright tortures, resulting in many
+deaths, as well as suicides.  At age 18, the lads began a 25 year
+term in the army.  Reversion to Judaism at any time thereafter was a
+crime.  At its height, in 1854, official records show 7,515
+Cantonists conscripted into the Russian army.  The Cantonist laws
+were ended in 1856 by Tsar Alexander II, almost as soon as he came
+to power.
+
+Alexander II created a general draft in 1874, affecting all
+Russians.  One message of the book is clear; whatever worries Jewish
+parents may have regarding their drafted child's ability to maintain
+their religion, this modern draft was vastly preferable to the
+Cantonist system, and might even be welcomed for its fairness.
+
+In retrospect, Steinberg was really using the Cantonist topic as a
+backdrop for a cultural study.  He presents us with several
+characters, each at a different place in the gray zone between
+Jewish and Christian cultures: two Cantonists, one clinging to the
+Jewish side (Jacob); one closer to the non-Jewish side (Samuel, the
+narrator); as well as a Jewish convert unhappy with her lot (Anna,
+whose abuse of Samuel we later understand as the 'self-disdain'
+often seen among those who had left Judaism); her daughter Marusya,
+who although fully Christian is ostracized as being a Jewess, and
+struggles unsuccessfully to find her place in life; and Peter
+Khlopov, a full Christian who finds Jewish culture agreeable.
+Steinberg's portrayal of Samuel makes it clear, even in the first
+few pages, that Samuel, although Jewish, thinks very much like a
+Russian peasant; in a very real way he straddles that fringe zone
+between the two distinct societies.
+
+
+
+_____________________
+  TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+Serge Ivanovich
+     acute accent over the a, throughout the text
+
+At such moments he would be ready to hug
+     "be" was erroneously "he" in source text
+
+Zhidovka
+     acute accent over the o, throughout the text
+
+nebulae
+     ae written as a ligature
+
+Vassil Stefanovich Zagrubsky
+     acute accent over the u, throughout the text
+
+manoeuvres
+     oe written as a ligature
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In Those Days, by Jehudah Steinberg
+
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