"When Moses descended Mount Sinai, the thunders were silenced, the lightning was quenched, the wind lay down, and all Israel rose as one man and exclaimed with a great voice: 'Moses, repeat to us the words of the Eternal!'"
Meir listened attentively to the old voice relating the history of Israel. Golda looked at her grandfather.
"He always tells the different stories," she said. "I spin or lie at his feet and listen."
"Meir," she added, with gravity in her look and her voice, "enter our house and greet my grandfather."
In a few moments the door of the small hall creaked. Old Abel raised his head from the willow branches, which his trembling but active hand continually plaited, and seeing in the dark, the handsome figure of the young man, he said:
"Who is there?"
"Zeide," said Golda, "Meir Ezofowich, son of the rich Saul, has come to our house to greet you."
At the sound of that name pronounced by Golda, he shrunk against the wall, suddenly raised himself and leaning with both hands on the straw sheaf on which he sat, he stretched forward his yellow neck, swathed in rags. This brought near the flame a head covered with long, abundant white hair, and a small shrivelled face which was almost hidden by an enormous beard. Golda spoke the truth when she stated that her grandfather's hair had become white as snow from old age, and coral-like red were his eyes from weeping. Now, from beneath these swollen eyelids, the quenched pupils looked with an amazement of fear at first, and then with a sudden lighting of indignation or hatred.
"Ezofowich!" he exclaimed in a voice which was neither so hoarse nor so trembling as before, "why have you come here and passed the threshold of my house? You are a Rabbinit--foe--persecutor. Your great-grandfather cast an anathema at my ancestors and turned their temple into dust. Go from here. My old eyes shall not be poisoned by looking at you."
While speaking the last words he stretched his trembling hand toward the door through which the young man had entered.
But Meir stepped forward slowly, and bending his head before the angry old man said:
"Peace to you!"
Under the influence of those sweet words, pronounced with sonority and expressing a prayer for a blessing and concord, the old man became silent, fell back on his seat, and only after a long while did he begin to speak in a plaintive, pitiful voice:
"Why did you come here? You are a Rabbinit, and the great-grandson of the powerful Senior. Your people will curse you if they see you pass my threshold, for I am the last Karaite who remained here to watch the ruins of our temple and the ashes of our ancestors. I am a beggar! I am cursed by your people! I am the last of the Karaites!"
Meir listened to the old man's words in respectful silence.
"Reb," said he after a while, "I bend my head low before you because it is necessary that justice be done in the world, and that the great-grandson of the one who cursed should bow before the great-grandson of the accursed."
Abel Karait listened attentively to these words. Then he was silent for a while, as though he was pondering in his tired mind, over the meaning of them. Finally he understood them entirely, and whispered:
"Peace be to you!"
Golda stood with her arms crossed on her bosom, looking on Meir as pious people look on a holy image. Having heard the words of peace from her grandfather's lips, she pushed toward Meir one of two chairs, took as mall, shining pitcher and went into the hall.
Meir sat near the old man who was again busy with his work and whispered something. After a while this whispering became louder until it changed into a hoarse and trembling narrative. It seemed that was his habit. He had plenty of stories in his head and heart, and with them he brightened his miserable life.
Meir could not hear the first whispers, and only understood their meaning when the old man began to speak louder:
"On the shores of Babylon they sat weeping, and the wind moaned in their lutes, brought by them from their country, and in sadness they hung them on the trees."
"And their masters came to them, and said: 'Take to your hands your harps; play, and sing!' And they answered: 'How can we play and sing in the land of exile, when our tongues are dried with great bitterness and our hearts only know how to cry! Palestine!
Palestine!' But unto them their masters said: 'Take from the trees your harps. Play and sing!'"
"Then Israel's prophets looked at one another and said: 'Who of us is sure? Who will stand torture that we may not be made to play and sing in the land of exile!'"
"And when their masters came to them the next day and said: 'Take from the trees your harps; play and sing!' the prophets of Israel raised their bloody hands and exclaimed: 'How can we take them, when our hands are cut in two, and we have no fingers!'"
"The rivers of Babylon rustled aloud with great amazement and the wind cried in the harps hanging on the trees, because the prophets of Israel had cut their hands in two rather than be forced to sing in the land of exile."
When Abel finished the last words of the old legend, Golda entered the room. In one hand she held a tray made of straw, on which there were two earthen cups. In the other hand she held a shining pitcher filled with milk. In the door, which remained open behind her, appeared the goat, whose whiteness stood out against the blackness of the hall. The girl was dressed in a faded skirt, and her long black tresses were thrown over the shoulders of the gray shirt which she wore. She poured the milk into the cups and handed it to the guest and her grandfather. She walked into the room quietly and lightly, with a smile on her lips. Then she sat down and began to spin. The room was in complete silence, and old Abel began to whisper some old story. But soon his mouth closed, his hands dropped on the sheaf of willow branches and his head rested motionlessly against the wall.
The goat disappeared from the threshold and for a while could be heard her tramping in the little hall. Then everything became quiet.
The young people remained alone in the presence of the slumbering old man and the stars which looked in through the low window, The girl was spinning, gazing into the face of the young man who sat opposite to her. He, with dropped, eyelids was thinking.
"Golda," said he, after a long while, "the prophets of Israel, who cut their hands in two rather than be forced to play and be the slaves of their masters, were great men."
"They did not wish to act against their hearts," answered the girl gravely.
They were silent again. The spindle still turned in Golda's hand, but less and less swiftly and more quietly. Gusts of wind blew through the chinks in the wall and caused the yellow flame of the candle to flicker.
"Golda," said Meir, "is it not frightful for you in this solitary cabin, when the long fall and winter drop black darkness over the earth, and great winds enter through the walls and moan about the house?"
"No," answered the girl, "it is not frightful for me, because the Eternal watches the poor huts standing in the darkness, and when the winds enter here and moan, I listen to the stories zeide tells me, and I do not hear their moaning."
Meir gazed pityingly into the face of the grave child. Golda looked at him with motionless eyes, which shone like black, fiery stars.
"Golda," said Meir again, "do you remember the story of Rabbi Akiba?"
"I shall never forget it to the end of my life," she answered.
"Golda, could you wait fourteen years, like the beautiful Rachel?"
"I could wait until the end of my life."
She said this quietly and gravely, but the spindle slipped from her hand and dropped.
"Meir," said she, so softly that the whispering of the wind almost deafened her words, "you must promise me one thing. When you have a sorrow in your heart, then come to our house. Let me know your every grief, let zeide console you with his beautiful stories."
"Golda," said Meir, in a strong voice, "I would rather cut my hand in two, as did the prophets of Israel, than act against my heart."
Having said this he rose and nodded to the girl.
"Peace to you!" he said.
"Peace to you," she answered softly, nodding to him slowly.
He went out, and after a while the girl rose, blew out the yellow flame of the burned-out candle, and having wrapped herself in some gray cloth, she lay down on the straw beside the sleeping old man.
She lay down, but for a long time she watched the shining stars.
CHAPTER VII
Eli Witebski possessed in his mind and character many diplomatic qualities. He was neither born nor brought up in Szybow, as were without exception all the inhabitants of the town; but three years ago had settled there on account of business matters as well as for various family reasons. Among the population who lived there for generations he was therefore almost a stranger, and in addition to that, having spent his whole life in a large city, he brought with him many new customs which astonished and shocked the ultra-conservative inhabitants of this lost corner of the world. Among these differences were the different cut and material of his clothing, the wearing of the diamond ring, the rejection of the skull cap on his head, the short clipping of his beard, and the absolute lack in his house of Talmudistic and Kabalistic books, and, principally, the possession of such a wife as Pani Hannah, of a daughter who was studying somewhere in a boarding school, and besides this daughter Mera, only two more children. These innovations, never seen nor heard of before, should have been the cause of drawing on the elegant merchant a general dislike of the population of Szybow. But they did not. It is true that at first so-and-so whispered to so-and-so that he was a misnagdim, progressive and indifferent in matters of religion. But these suspicious notions soon disappeared, stopped chiefly by Eli's extraordinary affability, amiability, and the power of adapting himself to any and all circumstances. Always good-natured smiling, and serene, he never argued with anybody, stood out of the way for everybody, affirmed nothing, avoided quarrels in order not to be obliged to take sides with the participants and thus offend the other, and when he could not avoid so doing, spoke so sweetly and convincingly that the antagonists, enraptured with his eloquence, became reconciled, bearing in their hearts gratitude and admiration for him, and speaking of him with enthusiasm. Ein kluger Mensch! As to rites and religious rules, Witebski proved to be perfectly orthodox. He observed the Sabbath, and kept kosher house with the minutest punctuality. Every time he met the great Rabbi he bowed very low, and he as no other before could make bright the eyes of the learned man, by telling him merry stories--taken no one knew whence, and he always told them in such a way that they possessed something of a mystic and patriotic character, and pleased even the most severely religious listeners. He did not spend much time at home, but continually travelled for business purposes, but every time he was seen in Szybow he was seen in the Bet-ha-Midrash, listening with due respect to the learned preaching of Rabbi Todros, or smiling when numbers of old and young scholars of the community passionately discussed Pilpul, or spoke of different commentaries, or commentaries on commentaries, with which twenty-five hundred printed sheets of Helaha, Hagada and Gemara were filled. He was also always to be seen in the synagogue, whenever there was occasion for a general attendance, and although he could not be counted among the most zealously praying ones, nor the most vehemently swaying ones, his attitude and the expression of his face were perfectly decent.
But it must not be thought that Witebski was a hypocrite; not at all--he was sincerely fond of peace and good understanding, and did not wish them disturbed for himself nor for others. He was successful in life; he felt happy and satisfied, and consequently he loved everybody, and it was a matter of absolute indifference to him whether the man with whom he had to deal was a Talmudist, a Kabalist, Hassyd, orthodox, heretic, or even Edomit, provided he was not obnoxious to him. He learned of the Edomits for the first time in his life when he came to Szybow, for in the circle in which he lived Christians were called gojem and that only seldom, and under the influence of exceptional sentiments of anger or offence. But when he came to Szybow and learned of the Edomits, he thought, "Let them be Edomits!" and from that time he spoke of Christians by that name when in conversation with the inhabitants of Szybow. But in the use of that name he felt not the slightest hatred nor even dislike. Until now the Edomits had done him no wrong--then why should he dislike them? Outside of Szybow he was friendly with them--he was even very fond of them--but in Szybow he did as everyone else did. He had received his religious education when he was young, but he afterward forgot everything amidst entirely secular occupations and cares. He believed in Jehovah and worshipped him profoundly; he knew the history of Moses and also something about the Babylonian captivity and the later history of the Jewish people, but he did not know much of the deeper meaning of these things. In the main be did not care what Tanait or some Rabbi said or commanded. But he did not contradict anything either by word or deed--not even by thought. He did everything that was commanded, thinking to himself: "There is no harm in it. Maybe it's only a human invention, but again it may be God's command--why should I anger Him against me." Thus, acting diplomatically with the people and with God, he was not afraid of anything, and he was happy. He would have been completely happy if he had not brought with him to Szybow that greatest and, for the inhabitants of Szybow, most astonishing novelty, his wife Hannah. In the same degree that it was his object while living in the small town to act as did everyone else there, it was the greatest desire of Pani Hannah to act differently from everyone else. When they had lived in a large city there was celestial harmony between them based on mutual attachment and similarity of taste. Here, however, Pani Hannah became to her husband the cause of perpetual embarrassment and occasional fear.