No one took the least notice of Freidel until she was about eighteen years old, when she suddenly sprang up, as a gourd in the night, from a little girl to a tall, dark, heavily-built young woman of mature physique.
When she became engaged to Stempenyu, she herself did not realize the good fortune which had befallen her. But, her mother saw everything with her lynx eyes. A hundred times a day, she explained to Freidel that Stempenyu was a treasure — a little gold-mine in himself, even thought he was a charlatan and a good-for-nothing as well, into the bargain, so to speak. He was a man to whom the roubles were of no value; and, hence, she must make it her business to manage him in all things as she herself had always managed her husband, Freidel’s father, Isaiah the Fiddler.
After Freidel had married Stempenyu, she remembered and applied every word of advice which her mother had given her — had drilled into her, rather. Gradually and completely, she took all the authority out of Stempenyu’s hands. She proved to him times out of number that a woman must know everything connected with her husband, that a man’s wife was not a stranger to him, and that a daughter of the Jewish people was not the kind of woman who created for herself different interests from those which concerned her husband. No, she was at one with him in everything. He must know that. He must realize clearly, once and for all, that he was she, and she was he. In short, he must not fail to see that he had a wife who was only his second self.
When Freidel became the mistress of the house, she saw that Stempenyu was always making more and more money. He often brought home a handful of silver roubles. She threw herself upon them with the greed of a hungry person before whom has been set a tasty dish, and an appetizing one. But, the money itself brought her neither pleasure nor satisfaction. She was continually harassed by the fear that there might be no more on the morrow. Perhaps her husband might one day be incapacitated from ever earning another kopek again! So she tied up the money in many knots and not only that, but she began to scrape together one kopek on top of the other with a sort of feverish anxiety.
“Why are you always complaining and protesting that we can’t afford this and that?” asked Stempenyu, whenever he heard her talk of the terrible possibilities which stood before her eyes like ghosts, haunting her by day as well as by night. And, she answered him evasively:
“If you knew everything you would grow old before your time. Never mind, Stempenyu,” she added, with a smile. But, she went on doing as she thought it was her duty to do — saving, and stinting, and economizing in a thousand different ways. On all sides she kept reducing her household expenses. She bought in as little as possible, kept a badly filled larder, and cut down the number and variety of the day’s meals to a minimum. She herself often refrained from eating and drinking, so that she might add another few coins to her hoard at the end of a few days. Presently, she began to do business with the money she had saved. She lent it out on securities of different kinds, and so succeeded in earning a percentage on the money which, otherwise, might have brought her no profit. She began the business by lending a few roubles to a neighbor in a friendly way. Why not? she asked herself. And, as time went on, she saw that capital was not touched; but that, on the contrary, one rouble soon grew into two, almost without the least bother. It was not long before she had entered heart and soul into the business of lending money as a regular means of making money. And, as her business grew, her rapacity, her usury grew also. She developed all the cunning and all the meanness which have from time immemorial been connected with money-lending. She was like so many of our wealthy folks who follow the same calling, and are not ashamed of it.
It was remarkable that Freidel should have within her such a terrible love of money. She could not have inherited the passion from her father, Isaiah the Fiddler. Neither could she have acquired this feeling by imitating her father’s friends, the other musicians, for amongst them there was not one who cared very much about the roubles, or who kept a tight hold on the kopeks. A Jewish musician, at that period, was something like a nigger, a wandering gipsy rather. He belonged to a distinct and separate species of mankind. He had even a jargon of his own which no one else understood; and, he had his own peculiar manners, and customs, and traditions.
He was always jolly and in the height of good humor. He danced and sang and played all sorts of games to amuse himself. Her always talked of lively things, and seemed to care nothing if he turned the whole world upside down. When he came home to his wife and children he made merry, and lived on cakes and sweets if he had the money. Or if he hadn’t, he starved with the same cheerfulness. But, he never cared about the morrow. Neither did he seem to care whether he had the money he needed or not. Life itself was enough for him, and he wanted but little to induce him to dance and sing and make merry, even if had to go without meals for days. After a supperless night, he went a-borrowing without a moment’s thought; or else he pawned the very pillows he had to sleep on. And, when he did get them back, he knew that it would not be long before he would pawn them all over again as before. And, the children of the musicians were also jolly. They were easy-going, devil-may-care the sort of creatures, the daughters as well as the sons. Their lives, no more than their faces, were not covered over in with veils of worry or anxiety. In a word, the life of a musician had all the qualities as well as all the drawbacks of those who dwell in earthly paradise. And, living in this way, how could he ever occupy himself with fretting about the future? How could he possibly leave off his play to fret himself about the morrow?
Freidel’s father, Isaiah, was not a weeping soul. He was, in nature, utterly unlike other poor men. He did not interest himself in his poverty. On the contrary, he was always lively and gay. No sooner did he earn a rouble did he spend it in the same breath, as one might say. And, Freidel’s mother was also found of good things. That is to say, of good living — good eating and drinking. She would have dainties, even if she had to pawn her pillows to procure them. And, in order to prove that her love of dainties was only right and normal, she was ready to quote a number of proverbs all of them bearing on the same thing, that it was apparent to the wisest as well as the most foolish of mankind that all a man’s work was only for his stomach, and that it was better to spend one’s money on the baker than on the doctor. And, after all, what was a man’s life that he should deny himself what his heart desired?