“Tell me, Freidel, who are ‘we’? You said ‘we’ each time. ‘We’ went and ‘we’ came.”
“We two. That is my mother and I, Stempenyu.”
“Your mother!” cried Stempenyu. And, all at once he felt that he was a beaten man. “Your mother? What is she doing here?”
“Hush! What are you shouting for, Stempenyu? What did you suppose? No girl travels by herself. It would be a nice thing to do, eh?”
“True. But, what business has your mother with me?” asked Stempenyu, as he turned round, and retraced his steps back to the village.
“She is my mother, and will become your mother-in-law. You must remember that, Stempenyu.”
“And, do you really imagine, Freidel, that I am going to marry you?”
“Well, and what do you think yourself, Stempenyu?”
“Nonsense!”
“Why is it nonsense?”
“Because I never thought seriously of marrying you at all.”
Freidel stopped, and gazed at Stempenyu, right into his eyes. Then she looked about her on all sides to see if there was anyone near them. She drew closer to Stempenyu, and whispered to him hurriedly:
“Listen to me, Stempenyu. Don’t imagine that you have to do with a timid little girl who does not know anything of what foes on in the world. I know you well, Stempenyu. I know that you are a thorough-going charlatan. You would like to have a different girl to flirt with every day of the week. But, all this does not matter now. Everything has to come to an end at some time or another. Isn’t it so? In reality, you are not a bad sort, by any means. It is all because your heart is so soft. But, you are handsome, too — a man in ten thousand. And, your playing is marvelous. You can always provide for a wife. And, for these reasons, I want you. You must marry me, and that speedily. And, all your protests are in vain — a mere waste of breath. Bend your head a little lower, and I will tell you a secret.”
Freidel’s secret sent a thrill through Stempenyu’s frame. He was unable to lift a hand or a foot. He was like turned to stone. He remained standing stock still in the middle of the road, and could not even open his mouth to utter a single word. At this juncture there arrived upon the scene, panting and breathless, the red haired Michsa Drummer. He was looking for Stempenyu to tell him that the wealthiest man of the village was waiting for him to make arrangements to have him play at his daughter’s wedding.
Stempenyu pared from Freidel with a sigh. His last words were:
“We will meet again, Freidel.”
“There is no doubt that we will meet again,” was Freidel’s reply. And, she parted from Stempenyu well satisfied with the progress of affairs.
Everyone who saw Stempenyu when he played at that wedding was surprised at the pallor of his countenance, and the abstracted, glassy stare that was in his eyes. He looked far worse than many a man who was about to be laid in his grave. His carelessness and his joviality had been taken from him as with a hand. And, within himself, Stempenyu was feeling that the end of his old free life had come. He would never again be able to fly here and there like a bird of the high heavens. He was about to take upon his shoulders an everlasting yoke. Farewell to moonlight walks with pretty girls! Farewell to laughing eyes and ruddy lips! Farewell to silver, starlit nights of enchantment!
It was true that Stempenyu did not give in to his bondage without a struggle. But, he was as a fish that is caught in a net, and, no amount of struggling was of the least avail.
Freidel and her mother were arrayed in battle against him, and he could not hope to fight them down. Indeed, he was afraid to say a word. Especially was he afraid of Freidel’s mother. She was in the habit of screwing up her tiny black face until it almost disappeared from sight, and only her black eyes were to be seen burning in her head like two living coals. She looked so vicious that Stempenyu was afraid she would pounce down upon him, and tear him to pieces as a wild cat tears its prey, scratching the eyes out of his head, and clawing him all over. He felt that she kept herself from falling upon him only because Freidel held her back from doing so. He knew that she would not permit it. He was as sure of it as if he had actually heard her say:
“Do not interfere, mother. You will only make things worse. You had better do nothing and say nothing. Just look on in silence. But, be sure to keep a strict watch over him at every step he takes. He is a slippery customer, and may succeed in tearing himself free from our grip, in spite of all our precautions. But, and all will be well, mother, all will be well. Stempenyu is mine — he is mine!”
XVI SAMSON IN THE LAP OF DELILAH
Freidel had held out stubbornly, and in the end succeeded in getting what she wanted. She married Stempenyu according to all the laws and customs which were the most binding — that might serve to tighten the grip she had on him already. And, very soon after the wedding-day, she took him in hand, and began to tyrannize over him to her heart’s content, aided considerably by her mother, who could hardly contain herself in patience till the great day came round at last when she was the mother of a married daughter.
And, Stempenyu tasted the bitterness of hell, and got to know the taste of it thoroughly. He was now wide awake to the minutest thing that concerned him, and soon got to know every separate shade of difference which existed between his old free life and his new life, that was one long bondage.
After they were married, the young couple went and settled in the village of Tasapevka, to which she belonged. He and his company made the village their permanent headquarters.
There was no more going about for Stempenyu, no more wandering joyously and carelessly over the face of the earth. Freidel took care to impress upon him the fact that she was altogether opposed to his wandering life. He was her slave now, and he had to obey her slightest wish, though it was true that she managed him only through kindness, and by means of gentle persuasion.
And, there began for Stemepenyu a new life — a brand new life, as one might say. Before his marriage, he had been a mad of great pride and independence of spirit; but, no sooner had he become Freidel’s husband than he lost both his pride and his independence. All his strength was gone from him as well as his good-humour, and his sparkle of wit. In his own house, Stempenyu had no authority whatever.
“Keep in mind only what concerns you,” was Freidel’s argument. “Your business is with the orchestra and with the music, and with weddings and other parties where you are asked to play. What do you want money for, you little fool?”
After this fashion did Freidel succeed in extracting from him every single kopek he ever earned anywhere.
She was very fond of money. She had been brought up in extreme poverty, and had had very few opportunities of handling even the smallest sum of money. As a girl she had found it extremely difficult to procure of a piece of ribbon for her hair, or a comb, such as all the other girls wore. She never got anything she wanted before she had shed a little flood of tears of the bitterest and most despairing kind. Until she was fifteen years old, she went about barefooted and almost in rags. Her mother had gone out as a nurse to other families, talking care of tiny children. And, Freidel got many beatings from her mother and father, Isaiah the Fiddler, who had a decided weakness for strong drink. Though she had never enough to eat, Freidel was early filled with a passion for money. Her greed knew no bounds, and was only aggravated because of her wretched poverty. It was only at the Feast of the Purim, when she earned a few coppers on her own account, that she had an opportunity of holding some coins in her hand for a length of time. These coppers were given to her by the people for whom she carried out the customary Purim gifts to friends, from one end of the village to another. She used to hide her coppers in the bosom of her bodice so that her mother might have no chance of dragging them out of her on any pretense whatever. At night, she slept with the coins under her pillow, and in the day, she clutched them to her greedily. And, when the Festival of Pesach came round at last, Freidel rushed off to the fair to buy with her money the ribbons and other ornaments of personal adornment that she had long wished for and dreamt of in her wildest dreams.