Читать книгу The Collection of Jewish Stories - Isaac Loeb Peretz - Страница 4

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Chaïm is a street porter.

When he goes through the town stooping beneath his case of wares, one can hardly make him out—it looks as if the box were walking along on two feet of its own. Listen to the heavy breathing! One can hear it quite a long way off.

But now he lays down his load, and is given a few pence. He straightens himself, wipes the sweat off his face, draws a deep breath, goes to the fountain and takes a drink of water, and then runs into the court.

He stands close to the wall, and lifts his huge head till the point of his chin and the tip of his nose and the brim of his hat are all on a level.

"Hannah," he calls.

A little window opens just below the eaves, and a small female head in a white kerchief answers, "Chaïm!"

The two look at each other very contentedly.

The neighbors say they are "lovering."

Chaïm tosses up his earnings wrapped in a piece of paper, and Hannah catches them in the air—not for the first time in her life, either!

"You're a wonder!" says Chaïm, and shows no disposition to go away.

"Off with you, Chaïm!" she says, smiling. "I daren't take my eyes off the sick child. I have stood the cradle near the fire-place, and I skim with one hand and rock with the other."

"How is it, poor little thing?"

"Better."

"God be praised! Where is Henne?"

"With the sempstress, learning to sew."

"And Yössele?"

"In Choder."

Chaïm lowers his chin and goes away. Hannah follows him with her eyes till he disappears. Thursday and Friday it lasts longer.

"How much have you got there in the paper?" inquires Hannah.

"Twenty-two groschen."

"I am afraid it is not enough!"

"Why, what do you want, Hannah?"

"A sechser's worth of ointment for the baby, a few farthing dips—a Sabbath loaf I have—oh! meat—a pound and a half—let me see—and brandy for the Kiddush, and a few splinters."

"Those I can get for you. There are sure to be some in the market."

"And then I want," and she makes a calculation of all she needs for Sabbath, and it comes to this: that one can say the Kiddush quite well over a loaf, and that there are heaps of things one can do without.

The two important ones are: the candles to say the blessing over and the salve for the child.

And if only the children, God helping, are well, and the metal candle-sticks not in pawn, and supposing there is even a pudding, they spend a cheerful Sabbath.

Hannah is wonderful at puddings!

She is always short of something, either meal or eggs or suet, and the end of it all is a sweet, succulent, altogether ravishing pudding—it melts away into the very limbs!

"An angel's handiwork!" says Hannah, smiling delightedly.

"An angel's is it?" Chaïm laughs. "You think you are a little angel, do you, because you put up with me and the children? Well, they worry you enough, goodness knows! And I'm a regular crosspatch, I am, at times—and never a curse do I get—you're not like other women. And what a comfort I must be to you, too! I'm no good at Kiddush or Havdoleh either—I can't even sing the hymns properly!"

"You're a good husband and a good father," persists Hannah. "I ask no better for myself or anyone else. God grant that we may grow old together, you and I!"

And they gaze into each other's eyes so kindly and so affectionately as it were from the very heart. It looks for all the world as if they were newly married, and the party at table grows more and more festive.

But directly after his nap, Chaïm repairs to the little synagogue to hear the Law—a teacher expounds Alshech1 there to simple folk like himself.

The faces still look sleepy.

One is finishing his doze, another yawns loudly. But all of a sudden, when it comes to the right moment, when there is talk of the other world, of Gehenna, where the wicked are scourged with iron rods, of the lightsome Garden of Eden, where the just sit with golden crowns on their heads and study the Torah, then they come to life again! The mouths open, the cheeks flush, they listen breathlessly to be told what the next world will be like. Chaïm usually stands near the stove.

His eyes are full of tears, he trembles all over, he is all there, in the other world!

He suffers together with the wicked; he is immersed in the molten pitch, he is flung away into hell; he gathers chips and splinters in gloomy woods....

He goes through it all himself, and is covered with a cold sweat. But then, later on, he also shares the bliss of the righteous. The Garden of Eden, the angels, Leviathan, Behemoth, and all good things present themselves so vividly to his imagination that when the reader kisses the book previously to closing it, Chaïm starts as it were out of a dream, like one called back from the other world!

"Ach!" he gasps, for wonder has held him breathless. "O Lord, just a tiny bit, just a scrap, just a morsel of the world to come—for me, for my wife, and for my little children!"

And then he grows sad, wondering: After all, because of what? as a reward for what?

Once, when the reading was over, he went up to the teacher:

"Rabbi," he said, and his voice shook, "advise me! What must I do to gain the world to come?"

"Study the Law, my son!" answered the teacher.

"I can't."

"Study Mishnayes, or some "Eye of Jacob," or even Perek."

"I can't."

"Recite the Psalms!"

"I haven't time!"

"Pray with devotion!"

"I don't know what the prayers mean!" The teacher looks at him with compassion:

"What are you?" he asks.

"A street porter."

"Well, then, do some service for the scholars."

"I beg pardon?"

"For instance, carry a few cans of water every day toward evening into the house-of-study, so that the students may have something to drink."

"Rabbi," he inquired further, "and my wife?"

"When a man sits on a chair in Paradise, his wife is his footstool."

* * * * *

When Chaïm went home to say Havdoleh, Hannah was sitting there reciting "God of Abraham." And when he saw her he felt a tug at his heart.

"No, Hannah," he flung his arms around her, "I won't have you be my footstool! I shall bend down to you and raise you and make you sit beside me. We shall sit both on one chair, just as we are doing now. We are so happy like that! Do you hear, Hannah? You and I, we are going to sit in a chair together ... the Almighty will have to allow it!"