Stories and Pictures Part 26

"He was silent also fifteen years later, when the child had grown up and was strong enough to throw him out of the house."

"Me, they mean me!" Now he is sure of it.

"He kept silent even," began the angelic advocate once more in a still softer and sadder voice, "when the same philanthropist paid all his creditors their due but him--and even when (riding once again in a carriage with rubber tires and fiery horses) he knocked Bontzye down and drove over him.

"He kept silent. He did not even tell the police who had done for him."

"He kept silent even in the hospital, where one may cry out.

"He kept silent when the doctor would not come to his bedside without being paid fifteen kopeks, and when the attendant demanded another five--for changing his linen.

"He kept silent in the death-struggle--silent in death.

"Not a word against G.o.d; not a word against men!

"_Dixi!_"

Once more Bontzye trembled all over, he knew that after the advocate comes the prosecutor. Who knows what _he_ will say?

Bontzye himself had remembered nothing of his life.

Even in the other world he forgot every moment what had happened in the one before. The advocate had recalled everything to his mind. Who knows what the prosecutor will not remind him of?

"Gentlemen," begins the prosecutor, in a voice biting and acid as vinegar--but he breaks off.

"Gentlemen," he begins again, but his voice is milder, and a second time he breaks off.

Then, from out the same throat, comes in a voice that is almost gentle:

"Gentlemen! _He_ was silent! I will be silent, too!"

There is a hush--and there sounds in front a new, soft, trembling voice:

"Bontzye, my child," it speaks like a harp, "my dear child Bontzye!"

And Bontzye's heart melts within him. Now he would lift up his eyes, but they are blinded with tears; he never felt such sweet emotion before.

"My child!" "My Bontzye!"--no one, since his mother died, had spoken to him with such words in such a voice.

"My child," continued the presiding judge, "you have suffered and kept silent; there is no whole limb, no whole bone in your body, without a scar, without a wound, not a fibre of your soul that has not bled--and you kept silent.

"There they did not understand. Perhaps you yourself did not know that you might have cried out, and that at your cry the walls of Jericho would have shaken and fallen. You yourself knew nothing of your hidden power.

"In the other world your silence was not understood, but _that_ is the world of delusion; in the world of truth you will receive your reward.

"The Heavenly Court will not judge you; the Heavenly Court will not pa.s.s sentence on you; they will not apportion you a reward. Take what you will! Everything is yours!"

Bontzye looks up for the first time. He is dazzled; everything s.h.i.+nes and flashes and streams with light.

"_Taki?_" he asks shyly.

"Yes, really!" answers the presiding judge with decision; "really, I tell you, everything is yours; everything in heaven belongs to you.

Because all that s.h.i.+nes and sparkles is only the reflection of your hidden goodness, a reflection of your soul. You only take of what is yours."

"_Taki?_" asks Bontzye again, this time in a firmer voice.

"_Taki! taki! taki!_" they answer him from all sides.

"Well, if it is so," Bontzye smiles, "I would like to have every day, for breakfast, a hot roll with fresh b.u.t.ter."

The Court and the angels looked down, a little ashamed; the prosecutor laughed.

XII

THE DEAD TOWN

When travelling in the provinces after Jewish statistics, I one day met with a Jew dragging himself step by step through the heavy sand. He looks ill, can hardly walk, hardly put one foot before the other. I feel sorry for him and take him into my conveyance. He gets in, gives me a "peace be with you," and asks me every sort of question. I answer, and end by inquiring:

"And you, friend, whence are you?"

"From the dead town," he answers calmly.

I thought he was joking.

"Where is it?" I ask. "Behind the hills of darkness?"

"Where?" he smiles. "It's just in Poland!"

"In our country, a town like that?"

"There it is!" he said; "there it is! Although the nations of the world do not know of it, and have never given it a Gentile name, it is a genuinely Jewish town."

"What do you mean?"

"What I say! You know geography, and you think everything is down in it; not at all. We Jews live without geography. We are not 'down,' and yet they come to us from far and near. What is the good of geography? Every driver knows the way.

"You don't believe me?" he asks.

I am silent.