The White Terror and The Red: A Novel of Revolutionary Russia by Abraham Cahan
CHAPTER XXI.
MAKAR'S FATHER.
On Saturday morning Weinstein's salon was crowded with worshippers, allmarried men in their praying shawls and skull-caps. A Good Jew is exemptfrom praying with the congregation, his transports of religious fervourbeing too sacred a proceeding for common mortals to intrude upon.Accordingly, the Man of Righteousness was making his devotions in theseclusion of the adjoining parlour.
To a stranger unfamiliar with Pietist prayer meetings the crowd heregathered would have looked for all the world like the inmates of theviolent ward in an insane asylum. Most of the worshippers were snappingtheir fingers; the others were clapping their hands, clenching theirfists with all their might or otherwise gesticulating savagely. Theywere running or jumping about, shrieking, sighing or intoning merrily,while here and there a man seemed to be straining every bit of hisstrength to shut his eyes as tightly as possible or to distort his faceinto some painful or grotesque expression. The Gentiles of the provincecalled the Pietists Jumping Jacks.
Some of the worshippers gesticulated merely because it was "correctform"; others did so from force of habit, or by way of fighting off theintrusion of worldly thoughts; still others for the same reason forwhich one yawns when others do. But all these formed a small minority.The bulk of the Pietists present, including several people ofquestionable honesty in business matters, were honestly convulsed with acontagion of religious rapture. The invisible proximity of the Man ofRighteousness, the sight of the door that concealed his holy presence,keyed them up to the highest pitch of exaltation. Their ears followedthe "master of prayers" at the Stand, but their minds beheld the GoodJew of Gornovo. All hearts converged at the mysterious spot behind thatdoor. That which sounded and looked like a pandemonium of voices andgestures was in reality a chorus of uplifted souls with the soul of theconcealed man of God for a "master of prayers."
Weinstein was slapping the wall with both hands. His large figure wasenveloped in the costliest praying-shawl in the room. All that was seenof him were two wrists overgrown with red hair. Now and then he wouldface about and fall to striding up and down meditatively. He was awell-fed, ruddy-necked Jew of fifty with a sharp hooked nose sandwichedin between two plump florid cheeks, and a small red beard. Hisunbuttoned coat of a rich broadcloth reached down to his heels; histrousers were tucked into the tops of well-polished boots. Once or twicean unkempt, underfed little man in a tattered shawl and with a figureand gait which left no doubt that he was a tailor by trade, barredWeinstein's way, snapping his fingers at him; then the two took topacing the room together, shouting and chuckling in rapturous duet asthey moved along, as is written: "Serve the Lord with gladness, comebefore His presence with singing," or "Because thou servedst not thy Godwith joyfulness and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of allthings; therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies." That the littletailor did not enjoy an "abundance of all things" was evident from hispinched face and broken shoes. He did not rank high enough in his tradeto have even Weinstein's clerk for a customer, yet at the Pietistgatherings he addressed Weinstein himself by the familiar diminutive ofhis first name and sometimes helped to spank him or to pelt him withburrs out of his "gladness of heart."
Yossl Parmet--Makar's father--was tiptoeing about the crowded room,smiling and whispering fondly, as though confiding glad news to himself,but his heart was not in his prayer. He was thinking of his son and theyoung woman who had come to plead for him. Indeed, Yossl's piety haddeserted him long since. He clung to the Pietists for the sake of theemotional atmosphere that enveloped it and from his sincere admirationof the Good Jew's personality rather than from faith. He was fond ofMiriam and his heart was now torn between jealousy in her behalf andanxiety about his son.
The services over, silence fell upon the congregation. The Pietists werefolding up their shawls, or eyeing the floor expectantly. The minuteswere passing slowly. The stillness seemed to be growing in intensity.Presently a song broke from somebody in a corner. It was a song withoutwords, a new tune especially composed for the occasion. Like most"Gornovo melodies" it was meant to be gay, and like all of them it waspervaded by the mixed sadness of the Exiled People and the brooding,far-away plaint of their Slavic neighbours. There is a mingling of fireand tears in the Pietist "hop." It isn't without reason that the mostrabid Oppositionist of Lithuania will sing them on the Rejoicing of theLaw.
The others in the room had never heard the song before, yet several ofthem fell to at once, seizing the tune by intuition. The rest joined ingradually, until the whole assemblage was united in chorus. The importof this kind of singing while the Good Jew is in the privacy of his roomis a plea that he may issue forth and grace the crowd with his presenceand "some law." They went through the tune again and again, gatheringzest as they mastered its few simple bars. The melody seemed to beclimbing up and down, or diving in and out; expostulating with somebodyas it did so, bewailing somebody or something, appealing in the name ofsome dear event in the past or future. Unable to tell definitely whattheir tune was saying or doing, the singers craved to see the speechlesssong, to make out the words it seemed to be uttering, and because thatwas impossible their hearts were agitated with objectless sympathy andlonging, and the rabbi was forgotten for awhile. They pitied the unknownman who seemed to be climbing or diving all the more because it was intheir own voices that his incomprehensible words were concealed.
Little by little, however, as the novelty of the air wore off, theconsciousness that they were beseeching the Man of Righteousness to comeout to them blent with their yearning sympathy for their melody. Theyardently believed that the Good Jew's soul had ascended on the wings ofhis ecstasy to the Divine Presence. All eyes were on his door. Anindescribable ring of solemnity, of awe, of love and of prayer came intotheir voices. Their faces were transfixed with it. The melody waspouring out its very heart to the holy man.
Suddenly it all died away. The door flew open and, preceded by a stout"supervisor," appeared an elderly man with a flabby-lipped mouth and ahooked little nose. He wore a long-skirted coat of black silk with abelt of the same material wound several times round his waist, and around cap of sable and velvet. The crowd fell apart in breathlessexcitement. As he advanced through the lane thus formed he was flushedand trying to conceal his embarrassment in a look of grief. He seatedhimself at a long table and shut his eyes. Now and then he heaved asigh, swaying his head silently, with absorbed mien. He was supposed tobe in a trance of lofty meditation, abandoned to thoughts and feelingswhich were to bear his soul to heaven.
The crowd was literally spellbound. Yossl Parmet was pale with unutteredsobs. He was perhaps the only man in the room who perceived that theholy man was ill at ease, and this gave him a sense of the Good Jew'schildlike purity which threw him into a veritable frenzy of reverence.More than thirty years the master of multitudes and still blushing! WhenYossl was a young man he had changed his Good Jews several times. He hadadored them all, but he had not liked them. His soul had found no restuntil he moved to Zorki and met this Good Jew of Gornovo. Then he felthimself in the presence of absolute sincerity, of unsophisticated warmthof heart. This Good Jew was a naive man, timid and unassertive. He hadan unfeigned sense of his own supernatural powers, and was somewhat inawe of them. He felt as though there was another, a holier being withinhim and he feared that being in the same way as one possessed fears theunholy tenant of his soul.
Finally the Good Jew opened his eyes and began to speak. It was a simplesermon on a text taken at random from the Bible before him, but hislisteners sought a hidden meaning, a mystical allusion, in the plainestof his words or gestures. Yossl could have instructed him in everybranch of holy lore, yet he seized upon the exposition thirstily. In thefirst place, he had seen Good Jews who were even less at home in the Lawthan the Good Jew of Gornovo was, so that he felt grateful to him fornot being a downright ignoramus. In the second place, he knew that heactually believed his own words to be inspired.
A few minutes after the sermon the Good Jew beckone
"How are you, Yossl? Any news of Feivish?"
"He's in Paris now," Yossl answered with a gesture of disrelish andspeaking aloud, so that the entire crowd might hear him. He hated totell the holy man a lie, yet he did so readily, the occasion being hisbest opportunity for giving the story wide circulation.
"In Paris!"
"Yes, he has been there since the beginning of summer. I have lettersfrom him."
"Letters from Feivish!"
"He wanted to show off I suppose. Wanted his father to see he's inParis. On my part he may go to perdition."
"What is he doing there? Studying medicine in French?"
"That's what he says in his letter. Yes, he has quite broken withJudaism, rabbi, quite a Gentile. All that is required to make thetransformation complete is that he should extort bribes from Jews forallowing them to breathe. One Jew he prevents from breathingalready"--pointing at himself.
The rabbi swayed his head sympathetically.
"What a misfortune! What a misfortune! Men like him could not be had forthe picking."
"He has left a wound in my heart and it will not heal, rabbi. If this isthe kind of doctor he is going to be, he won't make much headway. 'I hada vineyard,' rabbi," he went on in a lugubrious sing-song, quoting fromIsaiah, "'I fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof and planted itwith the choicest vine. What could have been done more to my vineyardthat I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it shouldbring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?'"
"Don't grieve, my son, I forbid you, do you hear?" the Good Jew said,limply. He was deeply touched. "Better give us a song, boys!"
The song burst forth and was taken up by the glad crowd on the lawn,some Gentiles, standing at a respectful distance, listening reverently.
Yossl had uncovered to the rabbi only part of his heart's wound. Sincehis son's compulsory divorce Weinstein had personified the cruelties andinjustices of the whole world to him. When a couple applies for a writof divorcement it is the duty of the rabbi to persuade them from thestep. God wants no severance of the marriage bond. "When a man divorceshis first wife, the altar weeps," says the Talmud. Yet Weinstein, whohad so brutally extorted such a divorce from Feivish, continued to belooked upon as a pillar of the faith. All this had stirred a novelfeeling, a novel trend of thought in Yossl.
The next morning Weinstein's salon was jammed with people begging foradmission to the Good Jew, who was in the next room.
The scribes were busy writing applications, praying the rabbi to "awakenthe great mercy of the Master of Mercies."
"My wife is ill, her name is Sarah, daughter of Tevye," one manbesought. "Do be so kind. If I don't get in at once it may be too late."
Another applicant, with a crippled boy in his arms, sought a blessingfor the child and himself. One father, whose son had been declared ablockhead by his teachers, wanted the Good Jew to pray that the boymight get "a good head." A white-haired man was picking a quarrel withtwo other Pietists who were trying to get in front of him. The old man'smarried daughter was childless and her husband did not care for her, sohe wanted the rabbi to "give her children and grace in the eyes of herspouse." Several others wanted dowries for their marriageable daughters.That the Master of Mercies would grant the Good Jew's prayer in theirdaughters' behalf was all the more probable because in cases of thissort either the Good Jew himself or some of his well-to-do followersusually came to the poor man's assistance.
Yossl sat at the corner of the table watching the scene pensively whenClara entered the room. The blood rushed to his face as he recognisedher, and he hastened to take her out into the road.
"What are you doing in this town so long?" he then asked, in a rage. "Ithought you had left long since. What do you want of us all? Do you wantto get everybody in trouble?"
"How will I get you in trouble? Am I the only Jewish woman who has cometo Zorki these few days? Have I no right to be here like everybody else?Besides, it's to bid you good-bye that I want to see you now. I am goingaway."
Her few words, uttered with simple earnestness, had a softening effecton him.
"You look like a good girl," he said, frowning at her amicably. "Tellme frankly: are you and my son having a love affair?"
Clara coloured literally to the roots of her brown hair. She paused toregain her self-possession and then said, with a smile at onceshamefaced and amused:
"It is not true, Reb Yossl. What is more, your son and I are not evenacquainted."
"Can that be possible!"
"It's the absolute truth I am telling you, Reb Yossl."
He shrugged his shoulder and proceeded to question her on his son'scase, on his mode of life before he was arrested, on the meaning of thestruggle to which he had dedicated himself.