When he concluded his preaching they showed him great honor and carried him away in triumph. A certain wealthy man sent his servant to his inn, brought his belongings to his house, and gave him a dwelling place in keeping with his honor. All the leading men in the town came and sat before him, and he went on with his disputations. And precisely those doubters who had at first been skeptical of his wisdom now showed him the greatest affection. They said, “If he made a mistake in the Gemara, it was only because ‘acuteness makes one blunder.’” In any case, they said, he was worthy of honor, because he was marvelously learned in the Torah. Just then, the simple folk surrounded the house, clamoring and shouting that the rabbi should be deposed from the seat of learning and the young genius put in his place. And as for his being a bachelor, they wished they had bars of gold that were worth as much — and weighed as much — as the bride they would give to him in marriage. And not only the simple people but some of the scholars wanted to establish a place for him in the town, for instance by making a great yeshiva for him, so that men should come from all countries to learn the Torah from his lips. The town was still weary from the controversy about Reb Hayim, who had tried to get the post of Rabbi of Szibucz. (The story of Reb Hayim is a matter for itself and is not in place here.) Next day two scholars went forth to sell the book that young man had written, and everyone who could afford it bought the book, some for a crown, some for two crowns, and some for more. Meanwhile the young man sat wrapped in his tefillin, writing new interpretations to be added to the book and pronouncing disputations before his hearers, like a man who has two brains and does two things at the same time.
That rich man, who had made his house a home for this young fellow, had an only daughter, tender and sweet, pure and chaste, and he set his eye on giving her to him in marriage. He undertook to establish a great yeshiva for him, in which he would maintain at his own expense two hundred students. And so that no one should forestall him, he hurriedly made a wedding for them at once. The whole town was jealous of him, but their envy did not last long, just as the rich man’s joy did not last. For all through the traditional seven days of the newlyweds’ celebration, women kept coming in from the countryside crying, “This bridegroom is my husband!” And while one was still shouting, another came and cried, “I am his wife and he is my husband!” The young man was afraid that even more women would come, so he got up and ran away. The father-in-law left all his business and went to look for him, to get his daughter a divorce and not leave her tied to an absent husband all her life, for she was still a child of seventeen or eighteen. Rut before he could find him, she bore a son, and died. The father of the girl died, too, and they called the child, after him, Yeruham.
So Yeruham was left without a mother and without a shelter, for all his grandfather’s wealth was gone. Things went so far that there was no money to hire him a wet nurse. Mrs. Bach had pity on him, so she took him and nursed him with her own milk, for Yeruham was born in the same month as her Aniela, that is, Erela. So Mrs. Bach took from the milk of Erela, that is, Aniela, and gave to Yeruham. Even in his childhood he showed strength and vigor, and drank double. That is why he is tall and handsome. For the women of today are not the women of before the war. The women of today have not a drop of blood in their faces or milk in their teats, but the women before the war — Father in heaven! — when the Emperor’s generals came to hold their battle exercises, and went out to the town and saw the daughters of Israel, they would bow down before them and say, “Daughters of kings, we are your servants!” But when the war came, they took the men to be killed in battle, and the women, who looked like the daughters of kings, lost the bloom of their loveliness in the struggle to find a piece of bread.
Chapter six and twenty. The Woman and Her Children
It was during that period of the war that Mrs. Bach wandered as far as Vienna, with her three daughters, her father-in-law, Yeruham her father-in-law’s son, and Yeruham the son of the Lithuanian. As for her eldest son, he died on the way between two towns and she did not know in which he was buried. Once she sent money to each of the towns, so that if her son was buried in one of them they should put a stone over the grave, and they did not send back the money. After some time she heard that both towns had been sacked and the graves in them destroyed by the Russian artillery. And how did she earn her living all the years she lived in Vienna? First, the government gave forty-five crowns a month to women whose husbands were in the army. Second, she and her two big daughters knit gloves for soldiers and various kinds of scarves and sashes, or sewed sacks that the troops could fill with sand and set down in front of them to absorb the enemy’s bullets. Her big daughters, as she called them, were little at that time, but by comparison with Erela she called them big. One of them died immediately after they came back to Szibucz, and another died of influenza soon after her father’s return.
While she was working, Mrs. Bach was free to think many thoughts. She even got around to thinking that this war would not come to an end so soon. True, our Emperor was waging war wisely and the Emperor of Germany was helping him, but the Russian Czar was not weak either, especially when other kings had joined him. And although the newspapers reported Austrian and German victories every day, the enemy was killing men and taking one city after another. The girls were growing up and so were the boys — Yeruham her father-in-law’s son and Yeruham the son of the Lithuanian. Prices were rising, and what she and her daughters earned, as well as what the government allotted to them, was not enough to keep seven souls, namely her and her three daughters and her father-in-law and Yeruham A and Yeruham B. Other women tried to make a living in other ways. They would go around to the shops and buy food to sell at a profit, or ask for help at the “Joint” which would once a week distribute tins of fish and yellow and white grits from America. But she was not very good at trade or at the gates of charity. Once she gave in to the persuasions of her neighbors and went to ask for help. The official wrote down her name and address and said they would send the food to her home. So, trusting him, she made a great feast that day, and took a piece of duck and roasted it, for it was several days since she or any of her family had tasted meat. The messenger of charity came and perceived the smell of roast. He was angry and rebuked her, saying, “It is a sin to take pity on a woman who roasts ducks when the whole world is hungry.” Then she began studying the papers to see if she could find work in keeping with her strength and honor, but by the time she would come for it others would have got there ahead of her.