At that, I took a cigarette and lit it, as if I had come for nothing else but to smoke a cigarette.
The tailor put down his needle and said in a singsong, “The District Governor is friendly to me, and he will not resent it if I put off his work, for I have already made him a number of garments and you, sir, certainly need an overcoat, a fine, warm overcoat.” While speaking, he lifted himself up, skipped peculiarly, then said again in a singsong, “A fine overcoat.”
The tailor took out a pattern book and began to discuss every single type of garment in extraordinary detail, explaining which coat was handsome and which was handsomer still, as well as the reason why he said the one was handsome and the other more so. Finally he put one leg over the other, bent his left arm, put his head inside it, and looked at me through the wing with great affection. His cinnamon-brown eyes sparkled, and a kind of moisture appeared in them.
For many years he had not had the opportunity of making a new overcoat, but the pattern book he had was new, and there were many marks in it, which the tailor had made with his nails. There are many opinions among tailors; what one finds handsome the other does not, and every tailor changes and mends according to his own opinion.
I looked at the pattern book and could not find the overcoat I wanted. That tailor, on the other hand, guessed at every kind of coat, except the one I was looking for. He stood and looked at me, sometimes with affection and sometimes with great affection, rubbing his hands together. Suddenly he gave his peculiar skip and straightened himself like a stick. I said to him, “Sit down, and I will tell you something.” So he sat down and fixed his eyes on my mouth.
I said to him, ‘When I go to a barber and he does not know me, if he is a clever man he understands by himself what kind of haircut would suit me. If not, he asks me, and I tell him, ‘I am no expert at this kind of work; do it as you understand.’ If he is not a fool, he takes trouble with me and gives me a very good haircut, but if he is a fool, he says to himself: I will just pass the scissors over his head and take my money. I look in the mirror and see that he has made me look ugly. I say to myself: It is in the nature of hair to grow again, but this fellow, who has made me look ugly, will not see another penny of my money. So it is with the coat. I cannot imagine what kind of coat suits me and what kind does not; but you are an expert, so take thought and make me a coat that will suit me. And if you think an overcoat is not like a haircut, for a man has his hair done several times a year but he does not have an overcoat made until several years have passed, let me tell you that besides a coat I need other clothes as well.” The tailor looked glad and said, “Words like these I have never heard in my life.” He closed his eyes, put his left hand on them, and added in a whisper, “I shall make you a fine overcoat.”
After he had taken my measurements, he said, “I shall now show you some fine fabrics, none better. Even if you looked in all the shops you would not find anything like them. If I say so, you can believe me.” “I like to buy my materials from a shop and give the work to a craftsman,” I said, “so that each can do his business and earn his money, the shopkeeper with the materials and the craftsman with his craft.”
The tailor paid no attention to what I said, took another skip, and drew out a piece of cloth. Crushing it in his hand and squeezing the edge into his palm, he said, “You see, sir, it’s as smooth as before, exactly as it was before; you can’t see even a sign of a crease.” “Didn’t I tell you I want to buy the cloth from a shopkeeper?” I replied. Said he, “It wasn’t to have you buy from me that I showed you this; all I ask you to do is to look at this piece.” “I have already looked at it,” said I. “That was not what I asked you,” said he. “Examine the cloth with your hands.” I passed my hands over his cloth and said, “Very fine, very fine.” The tailor’s face shone with joy and he said, “And didn’t I tell you this cloth is fine? I am not pressing you to buy it. All I ask is that you should hear how it came into my hands.”
This is how that piece of cloth came into the tailor’s hands. The colonel of his battalion used to take every beautiful object that he saw in the possession of the enemy and send it to his wife. He would pick out messengers and exempt them from their army duties for a few days to take his booty back to his wife. “Once he sent me with all kinds of food and drink, silver vessels and cloth, and gave me permission to stay at home for a few days. I said to my comrades, ‘For a year or more I have not seen my wife and children, and now that I am going to visit them I have no presents to bring.’ There was a certain soldier there, a Gentile of peasant stock — I used to write letters for him to his father and mother. It happened that his mother had sent him a pot of butter that day. He gave me the butter and said, ‘Take it, brother, take it and give it to your wife, to spread on the bread for your children.’ When I came to the colonel’s wife and brought her the gifts from her husband, she saw the pot in my hand. ‘What is that in your hand?’ said she. ‘A little piece of butter,’ said I, ‘which I am bringing to my wife to spread on the bread for our little children.’ Said she, ‘Tonight I am making a banquet for the important people of the town, and I should like to have an extra piece of butter in the house. You take this piece of cloth and give me the butter.’ I found it hard, for I wanted to please my wife and children. But the lady took the pot from me and gave me the cloth. So I said to myself: So be it.”
Before I left the tailor, I told him to fix a time and keep to his word. I myself do not place a great value on my time, but I value a man’s honor, for if he breaks his word his honor is soiled; and even more, he is a craftsman and I have a great respect for the honor of craftsmen, and I do not wish to see them doing wrong. The cloth I found in the shop was not so good as the tailor’s, and it cost more, but I did not go to look for other shops, for there would be no end to the matter: however fine the goods, you can always find better. After I had paid for the material, the shopkeeper’s wife asked me, To which tailor are you giving the cloth to make you a coat?” “I have just come from Schuster,” I replied. “A fine tailor you have found!” said the shopkeeper’s wife. “May the Lord not punish me for my words — he’s nothing but a puffed-up pauper. All Schuster has to boast of is that he once lived in Germany. Heavens above, who didn’t live in Germany? I know people who were in Paris. And if he was in Berlin, what about it? Perhaps Hindenburg commissioned him to make him a tefillin sack? Ha, ha, ha. Let me send for my own tailor and you will see the difference between one tailor and another.” “I do not want to have him waste his time for nothing,” said I. “What d’you mean for nothing?” exclaimed the shopkeeper’s wife. “Isn’t that what he’s there for? Feivel, Feivel,” cried the woman to her husband, “why don’t you say something? Just you listen to what my husband says. Sometimes a man says a thing a thousand women can’t say!” Said her husband, “After all, the gentleman has just come from Schuster, and found him suitable.” “What d’you mean, found him suitable?” said his wife. “What does a man know? They tell him that’s a tailor, and he believes them. If the world depended only on men, the human race would have died out already. I am surprised they didn’t tell you anything in the hotel. Wasn’t it Dolik who sent your honor to my shop?” “Not at all,” I replied, “it was Schuster who sent me to you.” “Schuster? But whenever anyone comes to him he offers them his own cloth.” “And has he cloth to sell?” “He had.” “And now?” “Now, O sir, he has nothing left. And whatever he has left he needs for himself.” “Why for himself?” I asked. “Because he has a sick wife at home. She is sick with asthma, and he puts his cloth under her head, for all the pillows he has are not enough. You should thank the Almighty, sir, that you didn’t take his cloth. Surely you haven’t come here to take the pillow from under a sick woman’s head. I hear that your honor comes from the Land of Israel. It’s very hot there. Burns like fire. There’s a lad who’s come back from there, no doubt you’ve seen him. He’s dark and he has a double forelock. He works at repairing the roads. Now that boy says it’s just the same there as here, and the same here as there. In fact, it’s hotter there than here, but for most of the day there’s a wind blowing that softens the heat a little; and here it’s different — when it’s hot a man can’t stand the heat. But who’d believe him? He’s a communist, half a Bolshevik, or perhaps more than half, and that’s why they put him out of there, for the Land of Israel was given only for the Zionists. But what do the Zionists get out of it all? They get killed there. One lad from our town was there — really you can’t call him a lad, for he got married there. Anyway, that lad I was talking about, Daniel Bach’s brother — that’s the one-legged fellow who goes about with a wooden leg — was killed there for nothing. He was standing one night on guard and an Arab passed by, so the Arab took it into his head to fire a bullet at him, and he did and killed him. And the English look on and say nothing. And surely the English are not just goyim who hate Jews, so why do they say nothing? What do you think, sir, is there any remedy for the Land of Israel? My father, may he rest in peace, used to say that if it was a good thing for us, our Emperor would say to the Turk, ‘Listen!’ and the Turk would immediately give him the whole of the Land of Israel. Since you’re in a hurry, sir, I don’t want to hold you up, but what I ask you is this: If you have to get a suit made you should know that we have all kinds of fine cloth in our shop.”