Stories and Pictures Part 13

"Night and day; I am afraid all the time."

"What for are you afraid?"

"I am afraid for you."

"For me?"

No reply, but I felt a warm tear fall on my face.

"Mother, _you_ are crying now."

The tears fell faster.

I won't say! my resolve strengthened.

Suddenly she asked:

"Has Rivkah been telling you anything?"

"What about, mother?"

"About your intended?"

"How should _she_ know him?"

"If she really knew him, she would hold her tongue. I only mean, did she repeat any gossip? Out of jealousy--when a rich man marries a young girl in his old age, people always talk. I don't know--has no one told you that his last wife died because of the life he led her?"

I answered coolly that I had heard something like it, but that I had forgotten from whom.

"I'm sure it was Rivkah--I wish her mouth were in the back of her head!"

(angrily).

"Then why was it," I inquired, "that she died no suddenly?"

"Why? She had a weak heart."

"But--do people die of a weak heart?"

"Certainly."....

Something seemed to snap inside my brain.

I became a "silken child," my praise was in everyone's mouth. Parents could not understand it--neither could the tailor: I asked for nothing; mother chose everything--material, color, and cut, just as she fancied.

Rivkah used to come in and pinch her own red cheeks.

"Who would trust a mother in matters of dress? An old-fas.h.i.+oned Jewess?

You won't dare to show yourself on Sabbath either in Shool or in the street or anywhere else!

"You've done for yourself," she wound up.

It occurred to me that I had done for myself a long time, and I waited indifferently for the Sabbath of Consolation, when Reb Zeinwill was to be invited to supper.

Then there would follow the "calling up,"[16] and then the wedding.

Father was really better, he sometimes went out and began to inquire about produce. He thought it too soon to speak to Reb Zeinwill about anything further; he intended to ask him on Sabbath to come again for the "third meal," and to put in a word for himself after that.

All being so well, it was time to dismiss the Rofeh; there was no difficulty now about credit--he never reminded us of what was owing him, never sent the "boy," but came himself. Still, it was time this should end. I don't know how much they sent him, but the messenger was my brother Avremele, who was to leave the money on his way to Cheder.

But the "boy" appeared a few days later.

"How, wasn't it enough?" said my father, on seeing him.

"Yes, Reb Yehudah; I have come to say good-bye."

"To me?" asked my father in surprise.

I had dropped down, when he came in, on the nearest chair, but at these words I stood up; it had flashed across me that I must protect him, not let him be insulted. He hadn't come for that.

"I used to come to see you at one time," he said, with his gentle, melancholy voice, which was like sweet oil to my heart, "now I am leaving for good, so I thought--"

"Well, well, certainly," replied father, quite politely. "Take a seat, young man. It was very nice of you to think of it, very nice, indeed."

"Daughter," he called to me, "we must offer him some refreshment."

He sprang up, pale, with quivering lips and burning eyes, but the next instant his face had taken on its old melancholy expression.

"No, Reb Yehudah, I want nothing, thank you. Farewell!"

He put out his hand to no one, and barely gave me a glance.

And yet, in that one glance, I read that he reproached me, that he would never forgive me. For what? I hardly knew myself.

And again I fainted.

"The third time," I hear my mother say to my father. "It is of no consequence--at her age it often happens--but heaven forbid that Reb Zeinwill should hear of it. He would break off the match. He had enough of that with the last one--the invalid."

I was not an invalid. And I only fainted once more--on the wedding-day, when I saw Reb Zeinwill for the first time.

Never again.

Yesterday even, when the Rofeh, who cuts my Reb Zeinwill's nails every month (otherwise they grow into his fingers), asked me, as he left, if I remembered his "boy," because he had died in a hospital in Warsaw--even then I didn't faint; I only shed one tear. And I was not aware of _that_, only it seemed to please the Rofeh.

"You are a kind soul," he said, and then I felt it on my cheek.

Nothing more.