Yiddish Tales Part 20

Berel took another look at the Prayer of Expiation. The words, "unless he asks his neighbor's forgiveness," danced before his eyes. A ray of hope crept into his despairing heart. One way is left open to him: he can confess to Moisheh Chalfon! But the hope was quickly extinguished.

Is that a small matter? What of my honor, my good name? And what of the match? "Mercy, O Father," he cried, "have mercy!"

Berel proceeded no further with the Prayer of Expiation. He stood lost in his melancholy thoughts, his whole life pa.s.sed before his eyes. He, Berel, had never licked honey, trouble had been his in plenty, he had known cares and worries, but G.o.d had never abandoned him. It had frequently happened to him in the course of his life to think he was lost, to give up all his hope. But each time G.o.d had extricated him unexpectedly from his difficulty, and not only that, but lawfully, honestly, Jewishly. And now--he had suddenly lost his trust in the Providence of His dear Name! "Donkey!" thus Berel abused himself, "went to look for trouble, did you? Now you've got it! Sold yourself body and soul for one hundred rubles! Thief! thief! thief!" It did Berel good to abuse himself like this, it gave him a sort of pleasure to aggravate his wounds.

Berel, sunk in his sad reflections, has forgotten where he is in the world. The congregation has finished the Prayer of Expiation, and is ready for Kol Nidre. The cantor is at his post at the reading-desk on the platform, two of the princ.i.p.al, well-to-do Jews, with Torahs in their hands, on each side of him. One of them is Moisheh Chalfon. There is a deep silence in the building. The very last rays of the sun are slanting in through the window, and mingling with the flames of the wax-candles....

"With the consent of the All-Present and with the consent of this congregation, we give leave to pray with them that have transgressed,"

startled Berel's ears. It was Moisheh Chalfon's voice. The voice was low, sweet, and sad. Berel gave a side glance at where Moisheh Chalfon was standing, and it seemed to him that Moisheh Chalfon was doing the same to him, only Moisheh Chalfon was looking not into his eyes, but deep into his heart, and there reading the word Thief! And Moisheh Chalfon is permitting the people to pray together with him, Berel the thief!

"Mercy, mercy, compa.s.sionate G.o.d!" cried Berel's heart in its despair.

They had concluded Maariv, recited the first four chapters of the Psalms and the Song of Unity, and the people went home, to lay in new strength for the morrow.

There remained only a few, who spent the greater part of the night repeating Psalms, intoning the Mishnah, and so on; they s.n.a.t.c.hed an occasional doze on the bare floor overlaid with a whisp of hay, an old cloak under their head. Berel also stayed the night in the house-of-study. He sat down in a corner, in robe and Tallis, and began reciting Psalms with a pleasing pathos, and he went on until overtaken by sleep. At first he resisted, he took a nice pinch of snuff, rubbed his eyes, collected his thoughts, but it was no good. The covers of the book of Psalms seemed to have been greased, for they continually slipped from his grasp, the printed lines had grown crooked and twisted, his head felt dreadfully heavy, and his eyelids clung together; his nose was forever drooping towards the book of Psalms. He made every effort to keep awake, started up every time as though he had burnt himself, but sleep was the stronger of the two. Gradually he slid from the bench onto the floor; the Psalter slipped finally from between his fingers, his head dropped onto the hay, and he fell sweetly asleep....

And Berel had a dream:

Yom Kippur, and yet there is a fair in the town, the kind of fair one calls an "earthquake," a fair such as Berel does not remember having seen these many years, so crowded is it with men and merchandise. There is something of everything--cattle, horses, sheep, corn, and fruit. All the Tamschevate Jews are strolling round with their wives and children, there is buying and selling, the air is full of noise and shouting, the whole fair is boiling and hissing and humming like a kettle. One runs this way and one that way, this one is driving a cow, that one leading home a horse by the rein, the other buying a whole cart-load of corn.

Berel is all astonishment and curiosity: how is it possible for Jews to busy themselves with commerce on Yom Kippur? on such a holy day? As far back as he can remember, Jews used to spend the whole day in Shool, in linen socks, white robe, and prayer-scarf. They prayed and wept. And now what has come over them, that they should be trading on Yom Kippur, as if it were a common week-day, in shoes and boots (this last struck him more than anything)? Perhaps it is all a dream? thought Berel in his sleep. But no, it is no dream! "Here I am strolling round the fair, wide awake. And the screaming and the row in my ears, is that a dream, too?

And my having this very minute been b.u.mped on the shoulder by a Gentile going past me with a horse--is that a dream? But if the whole world is taking part in the fair, it's evidently the proper thing to do...."

Meanwhile he was watching a peasant with a horse, and he liked the look of the horse so much that he bought it and mounted it. And he looked at it from where he sat astride, and saw the horse was a horse, but at the selfsame time it was Moisheh Chalfon as well. Berel wondered: how is it possible for it to be at once a horse and a man? But his own eyes told him it was so. He wanted to dismount, but the horse bears him to a shop.

Here he climbed down and asked for a pound of sugar. Berel kept his eyes on the scales, and--a fresh surprise! Where they should have been weighing sugar, they were weighing his good and bad deeds. And the two scales were nearly equally laden, and oscillated up and down in the air....

Suddenly they threw a sheet of paper into the scale that held his bad deeds. Berel looked to see--it was the hundred-ruble-note which he had appropriated at Moisheh Chalfon's! But it was now much larger, bordered with black, and the letters and numbers were red as fire. The piece of paper was frightfully heavy, it was all two men could do to carry it to the weighing-machine, and when they had thrown it with all their might onto the scale, something snapped, and the scale went down, down, down.

At that moment a man sleeping at Berel's head stretched out a foot, and gave Berel a kick in the head. Berel awoke.

Not far from him sat a grey-haired old Jew, huddled together, enfolded in a Tallis and robe, repeating Psalms with a melancholy chant and a broken, quavering voice.

Berel caught the words:

"Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: For the end of that man is peace.

But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: The latter end of the wicked shall be cut off...."

Berel looked round in a fright: Where is he? He had quite forgotten that he had remained for the night in the house-of-study. He gazed round with sleepy eyes, and they fell on some white heaps wrapped in robes and prayer-scarfs, while from their midst came the low, hoa.r.s.e, tearful voices of two or three men who had not gone to sleep and were repeating Psalms. Many of the candles were already sputtering, the wax was melting into the sand, the flames rose and fell, and rose again, flaring brightly.

And the pale moon looked in at the windows, and poured her silvery light over the fantastic scene.

Berel grew icy cold, and a dreadful shuddering went through his limbs.

He had not yet remembered that he was spending the night in the house-of-study.

He imagined that he was dead, and astray in limbo. The white heaps which he sees are graves, actual graves, and there among the graves sit a few sinful souls, and bewail and lament their transgressions. And he, Berel, cannot even weep, he is a fallen one, lost forever--he is condemned to wander, to roam everlastingly among the graves.

By degrees, however, he called to mind where he was, and collected his wits.

Only then he remembered his fearful dream.

"No," he decided within himself, "I have lived till now without the hundred rubles, and I will continue to live without them. If the Lord of the Universe wishes to help me, he will do so without them too. My soul and my portion of the world-to-come are dearer to me. Only let Moisheh Chalfon come in to pray, I will tell him the whole truth and avert misfortune."

This decision gave him courage, he washed his hands, and sat down again to the Psalms. Every few minutes he glanced at the window, to see if it were not beginning to dawn, and if Reb Moisheh Chalfon were not coming along to Shool.

The day broke.

With the first sunbeams Berel's fears and terrors began little by little to dissipate and diminish. His resolve to restore the hundred rubles weakened considerably.

"If I don't confess," thought Berel, wrestling in spirit with temptation, "I risk my world-to-come.... If I do confess, what will my Chantzeh-Leah say to it? He writes, either the wedding takes place, or the contract is dissolved! And what shall I do, when his father gets to hear about it? There will be a stain on my character, the marriage contract will be annulled, and I shall be left ... without my good name and ... with my ugly old maid....

"What is to be done? Help! What is to be done?"

The people began to gather in the Shool. The reader of the Morning Service intoned "He is Lord of the Universe" to the special Yom Kippur tune, a few householders and young men supported him, and Berel heard through it all only, Help! What is to be done?

And suddenly he beheld Moisheh Chalfon.

Berel quickly rose from his place, he wanted to make a rush at Moisheh Chalfon. But after all he remained where he was, and sat down again.

"I must first think it over, and discuss it with my Chantzeh-Leah," was Berel's decision.

Berel stood up to pray with the congregation. He was again wishful to pray with fervor, to collect his thoughts, and attend to the meaning of the words, but try as he would, he couldn't! Quite other things came into his head: a dream, a fair, a horse, Moisheh Chalfon, Chantzeh-Leah, oats, barley, _this_ world and the next were all mixed up together in his mind, and the words of the prayers skipped about like black patches before his eyes. He wanted to say he was sorry, to cry, but he only made curious grimaces, and could not squeeze out so much as a single tear.

Berel was very dissatisfied with himself. He finished the Morning Prayer, stood through the Additional Service, and proceeded to devour the long Piyyutim.

The question, What is to be done? left him no peace, and he was really reciting the Piyyutim to try and stupefy himself, to dull his brain.

So it went on till U-Nesanneh Toikef.

The congregation began to prepare for U-Nesanneh Toikef, coughed, to clear their throats, and pulled the Tallesim over their heads. The cantor sat down for a minute to rest, and unb.u.t.toned his shroud. His face was pale and perspiring, and his eyes betrayed a great weariness.

From the women's gallery came a sound of weeping and wailing.

Berel had drawn his Tallis over his head, and started reciting with earnestness and enthusiasm:

"We will express the mighty holiness of this Day, For it is tremendous and awful!

On which Thy kingdom is exalted, And Thy throne established in grace; Whereupon Thou art seated in truth.

Verily, it is Thou who art judge and arbitrator, Who knowest all, and art witness, writer, sigillator, recorder and teller; And Thou recallest all forgotten things, And openest the Book of Remembrance, and the book reads itself, And every man's handwriting is there...."

These words opened the source of Berel's tears, and he sobbed unaffectedly. Every sentence cut him to the heart, like a sharp knife, and especially the pa.s.sage:

"And Thou recallest all forgotten things, and openest the Book of Remembrance, and the book reads itself, and every man's handwriting is there...." At that very moment the Book of Remembrance was lying open before the Lord of the Universe, with the handwritings of all men. It contains his own as well, the one which he wrote with his own hand that day when he took away the hundred-ruble-note. He pictures how his soul flew up to Heaven while he slept, and entered everything in the eternal book, and now the letters stood before the Throne of Glory, and cried, "Berel is a thief, Berel is a robber!" And he has the impudence to stand and pray before G.o.d? He, the offender, the transgressor--and the Shool does not fall upon his head?

The congregation concluded U-Nesanneh Toikef, and the cantor began: "And the great trumpet of ram's horn shall be sounded..." and still Berel stood with the Tallis over his head.

Suddenly he heard the words:

"And the Angels are dismayed, Fear and trembling seize hold of them as they proclaim, As swiftly as birds, and say: This is the Day of Judgment!"