“Now, my chick, let us talk of other things, for I see you think this thing I have told you is not nice. And it really isn’t nice, for it is not polite to kick away presents. And as for my house, which you said you thought was nice, I think it is nice too. First, because a man thinks his own house is nice, and second, because it is a gift from heaven. The wood and the stones are not a gift, for they were bought with my father’s money, but the place where the house stands was given to us by the Almighty, as a man gives a gift to his friend and tells him; Take it. And how was that? In those days my father lived with his father-in-law, near this house. One Sabbath eve, in the afternoon, my father went out to bathe in the river, for on Sabbath eves in the summer Father used to bathe in the Stripa. He saw that the bank of the river had dried up. At first he was angry, because they had diverted the water where they had built a large flourmill at the side of the river. But while he was standing in the water his anger abated and his spirits rose, for it is the way of men that when wisdom enters their hearts, their anger goes away. Father said, ‘The bank of the river is dry and the water does not pass here; I will make me a little house.’ From then on, Father would examine the bank of the river and see how it was becoming firm soil, and my father was a Jew of the past generations, who, if he thought of doing a thing, did it. In short, why should I make the story any longer? — may God give you a long life, my chick — Father hired workmen, and brought beams and stones and other building materials, and started building himself a house. Some people laughed at Father and some envied him, but in any case the house was built. And when Father dedicated his house, he made a great Kiddush for all his friends, and they ate, drank, and sang hymns. So everything seemed to be good. But the best of the good started afterward, although from that best came great evil. How? Father had beams and boards left over from the building, and he wondered what he should do with these beams and boards. So he made himself a little hut for bathers. Once father made some clothes for a minister. When the minister saw the hut, he went in, took off his clothes, and went down to bathe. When he came out he gave Mother a little present. When they heard of this in the town they began coming to bathe; everyone would give a kreutzer and bathe. Finally one hut was not enough, and Father built several huts.
“So far, so good, my chick, but from now on everything went bad. When the Almighty gives a man bread, men come to wrench out his teeth. A certain lawyer, a wicked man, who profaned the Sabbath in public, Ausdauer, may his name be forgotten, built himself a house near Father’s. That wicked man did not take pleasure in people’s taking pleasure; he said it was not to his honor that people should go about naked near his house. So he used his tricks and they pulled down the huts. And that wicked man was not content until he had tried to have us driven off our property that the Almighty had given us, because it was not to his honor to have Father as a neighbor. He wanted to buy the house, but Father did not want to sell. From then on, not a week passed when they did not fine us, because of an eggshell that was thrown out of the house or a drop of water that was spilled in front of it. So long as Father was alive he held his own, but when Father passed away and went to his rest, and I inherited the house, I said: Either that wicked man leaves the world or we leave the house, for I am a feeble woman, my chick, and I cannot bear to be provoked; and when that wicked man reviled me I would tremble, and I could see that he and I could not live as neighbors. But Ephraim Yossel — may he be our spokesman in heaven — was a stubborn man and an angry man, and he would answer, ‘This pleasure, Freide, I won’t give you, to leave my house because you are trembling.’ But Ausdauer, may his name be forgotten, was even more stubborn, and he went on tormenting us until Ephraim Yossel, may he rest in peace, agreed to sell him the house and go to America with the money. Elimelech, who is more stubborn than the whole world, dug in his heels and said, ‘In spite of Ausdauer we will stay here and not move.’ In the meantime the war came, and the Russians came and destroyed Ausdauer’s house; they did not leave one stone on another. But they did not touch our house, and here it stands in its place — and more, it is finer than it was, for so long as that wicked man’s house was there, it hid the sun, and now that it is destroyed it hides the sun no longer. Nevertheless, my joy is not complete, my chick. What happiness can a mother have who has been left alone, without her four sons and her two daughters, and this Elimelech, who used to shout, ‘We will stay here and not move,’ is wandering about like a man who has no home.”
Here Freide stopped and looked at me, and then started again: “You tell me, my chick, you have read his letters, haven’t you; what do you think? Is there any hope that he will come back?” “Why should he not come back?” I said. “That’s what I say,” said Freide. “But I am afraid he may dig in his heels as he usually does and won’t want to come back, or he may come back after I am dead. And I, my chick, am not stubborn like him; I cannot dig in my heels and live until he comes back. You, my chick, you were there in Jerusalem, or in the Land of Israel, weren’t you? And since everyone there knows — tell me, my chick, when will the Messiah come? Don’t be afraid, my chick, I won’t tell anyone else, but for myself I should like to know when the Messiah will come. You see that my house is fine and the dishes are washed and you think Freide does not need the Messiah. But I want you to know, my chick, not everything that looks nice outside is nice inside. Inside my heart, oh, my chick, everything is not so nice. So, my chick, don’t be angry with me, that I want to see a little bit of pleasure.”
Chapter six and forty. A New Man
As soon as I had left, a man some fifty years old came up to me. He was well dressed, his yellowish beard rounded and handsome, and all his movements were sober and deliberate. You do not see such men in Szibucz. At first sight he looked like a leader of the religious Zionist Mizrachi party who had turned up from elsewhere, but his complete self-confidence showed that he belonged to the town.
He put out his hand to greet me and said in Hebrew, “ Shalom,” but immediately greeted me again in Yiddish with “Sholom Aleichem,” so that I should not mistake him for a Zionist. “It is a great pleasure to make your personal acquaintance,” he said, rubbing his hands together joyfully as he spoke, and added, “Don’t you know me? If I tell you my name you will know who I am.”
In this way did Pinhas Aryeh make himself known to me. This Pinhas Aryeh was the son of the town rabbi — that son we have already mentioned, who was an important figure in the orthodox Agudat Israel and wrote in their papers. Now that the editorial office was closed for the festival period, he and his wife had come to visit his father and mother.
He immediately entered into conversation with me and told what he told. Whenever he made a statement, he started hesitantly, as if he felt doubtful, but at once added something more to reinforce the statement and tell you that this was so and there could be no question about it — like a man who is cracking a nut and hovers in the air above it with the hammer, but when he hits the nut he strikes it with all his might.