It has been so with us always. Our feastings, our rejoicings, have always found their most adequate expression in tears and weeping. Through an excess of joy, our hearts are melted, as with sorrow.
But, the melody sounded lonelier and more melancholy now as it came out over the still night air, when the whole village was sunken in sleep. Only a small number of persons heard the weeping music — the persons who were returning from the wedding with drooping heads. Why were they so silent? You see, they had got rid of a child — that is, provided for its future. Thanks be to the Holy Name! And, in the stillness of the summer night Stempenyu’s fiddle was heard far better than at any other time. One’s heart sank within one, and the soul was drawn out of one’s body. The very roots of one’s life seemed as if they were about to be torn out by the sweetness of the melody.
And, Rochalle stood in the window, half naked, listening and listening. She thought that she ought to run away, and close the window tight so that she should not hear any more; but, she could not move from the spot. She was like one petrified — like a steel that cannot withstand the power of the magnet. She continued to look about her, and to bend her ear to listen. She felt that she was not listening to his fiddle, but to himself. And, he was begging her, pleading with her, weeping before her.
Rochalle was not the only being who was listening to Stempenyu in surprise, on this warm, soft night. The moon and the stars and the air itself — all nature seemed to have relapsed into a dead silence in order to listen the more attentively to Stempenyu. And, there were others who, on the contrary, woke up to listen to him, who stood up to hear what sort of peculiar unknown sounds were disturbing the night. What did it mean that the quiet night was interrupted in this fashion? The cock that woke the whole village with his crowing at the dawn of day was led into imagining that he had overslept himself, and that the night had passed already. He got down from his perch, flapped his wings, crowed aloud and went back to his nest again. Seeing that it was not daylight at all yet, he felt aggrieved that he had been disturbed for nothing.
Even the dogs — the watch-dogs of the monastery — on hearing the Jewish orchestra in the middle of the night, began to bark, as they were in the habit of doing. But they, too, grew silent when they found that nothing further happened. They sought out their kennels, and fell asleep. And, the cow — Dvossa-Malka’s treasure — set its ears and listened to the unwonted sounds. It let out a deep bellow that was like a groan. And, its neighbors, two goats, jumped up from the straw they were lying on, and ran into one another to show off their horns.
In short, everything grew lively at the sound of the fiddle on this calm and beautiful night — on this warm summer’s night that was full of charm and mystery.
Rochalle did not move all the time that the fiddle was still to be heard. She felt that she was bound to the spot with iron clamps. And she was lost in wonder and amazement. She forgot completely where she was. She only felt that she was surrounded by the beauties of the night. And, what a night it was, heavenly Father! As she stood there all her senses were on the alert to drink in every note and every breeze of the mild air hat was wafted to her. She was like one in a dream, enchanted. She looked up at the blue of the sky, and she was reminded of the summer nights of long ago when she was a little child and sat on the door-step, and counted the stars, and followed the moonbeams as they spread here and there. And, she used to sing to herself the little song which was so popular at that time:
“The moon is shining on the night,
And Perralle sits at her door.
She sighs, and moans, and pines away,
Her heart is filled with grief.
She sighs, and moans, and pines away,
Her heart is filled with grief!”
At that time Rochalle did not understand the real meaning of the song, though she sand it over and over again, times without number. But, she understood it now. She felt the full force of its message and its pathos. And she felt also, now that her emotions were stirred out of their slumber, that there was something which was drawing her hence — out into the night, into the free air and under the vast blue sky over her head. She felt that it was too hot for her in the house, and too narrow and too uncomfortable. And, then there came into her mind another song from her old repertory, which she thought she had long forgotten — another of those that she used to connect with the silver moonlight, and which she always sang at night on the door-step, when she was a little child:
“I stand on the brink of the river;
But cannot get over to thee.
Oh, I long to go, but I cannot—
I cannot get over to thee.
Oh, I long to go, but I cannot—
I cannot get over to thee!”
Stempenyu had now come quite close to her. There he was with his fiddle and his long hair and his blazing, burning eyes that seemed to be looking at her always — warming her with their piercing glances and with the fire that was always burning in them. She felt that it would have been the greatest satisfaction of her life to be near him always, and to listen to him for ever and ever, as she was listening now. Then, too, she would have liked to keep looking back into his burning black eyes, into them always and for ever…
But there was one thing which Rochalle could not understand. How did Stempenyu come here? What did he want here, at dead of night, with his fiddle? Was he not taking the wedding guests a long way around? That was what she could not make out, no matter how much she puzzled her brain with the problem. It occurred to her at last that a wedding had taken place at a synagogue that day. But, how came the guests to be in the far-off corner of the village in which she lived?
It was only at that instant that she began to see the light — to understand the secret — on the moment when Stempenyu and his orchestra were close beside her window, almost at the door of her house. Stempenyu came forward, and began to play a solo with much vivacity and spirit. Then it was that Rochalle understood everything — why he had dragged all the wedding guests, as well as the orchestra around the village, a dozen streets away from their destination. And, for whom had he done this bold thing? She felt that he was paying her a high compliment, and her heart was filled with pleasurable sensations. It leaped up within her so that she thought it would fly out of her bosom altogether. She never thought for a moment that he was compromising her. She was only glad of that compliment that he was paying her. Unconsciously, unwittingly, she began to laugh softly within herself — a joyous, mirthful laugh that betokened her deep sense of pleasure and satisfaction. But, she was startled at the sound of her own voice. She was wide awake now, and saw herself as she was, standing in the window, in the scantest attire, her head thrust forward and her hair flying loose about her shoulders. She darted from the window, and jumped back into bed. “Ah, woe is me! Ah, woe is me!” she murmured. “See to what a pass one can come if one does not consider beforehand what one is about, and where one is in the world. There was I, in the window, at dead of night, only half-dressed, a crowd of men around me, and my mind completely filled with foolish, empty nonsense. More than that! I carry about in my heart the most sinful thoughts, and am filled with pictures, not of my husband, but of Stempenyu. And Stempenyu? He has a cheek to drag a crowd of Jews over the half the village for nothing. One must have a fine set of nerves that permit one to do such a thing. Where did he get the idea? I must ask him. And, I must make an end to this sort of thing, once and for always. He wants to bring about my ruin. I will talk the whole business over with him, and tell him exactly what I think of him. What is it that they say about the first quarrel being better than — something or another — I forget what. He tells me a whole yarn about love. Rubbish! It’s a good joke, as I live! ‘Next Saturday evening,’ he says, ‘on the Monastery Road, there he will explain everything to me.’ I wish the Sabbath would come quicker, so that I might not be kept long waiting to tell him what I think of him. And, at the same time, to hear what he has to say. I will surely go. What have I to be afraid of? Whom do I care about? One has no right to be afraid of any person — of anyone but the Lord himself.