"Never mind blushing. It is she who tells Reb Sender to be so good to you.
The foxy thing! She thinks I don"t see through her. That scarecrow of a girl is old enough to be your mother, and she has not a penny to her marriage portion, either. A fine match for a boy like you!
Why, you can get the best girl in town."
She said it aloud, by way of flaunting my future before our room-mates. Two of the three families who shared the room with us, by the way, were the same as when I was a little boy. Moving was a rare event in the life of the average Antomir family
Red Esther was still there. She was one of those who heard my mother"s boastful warning to me. She grinned. After a little, as I was crossing the room, she sang out with a giggle: "Bridegroom!"
"I"ll break your bones," I returned, pausing
She stuck out her tongue at me
I still hated her, but, somehow, she did not seem to be the same as she had been before. The new lines that were developing in her growing little figure, and more particularly her own consciousness of them, were not lost upon me. A new element was stealing into my rancor for her--a feeling of forbidden curiosity. At night, when I lay in bed, before falling asleep, I would be alive to the fact that she was sleeping in the same room, only a few feet from me.
Sometimes I would conjure up the days of our childhood when Red Esther caused me to "sin" against my will, whereupon I would try to imagine the same scenes, but with the present fifteen-year-old Esther in place of the five-year-old one of yore.
The word "girl" had acquired a novel sound for me, one full of disquieting charm. The same was true of such words as "sister,"
"niece," or "bride," but not of "woman." Somehow sisters and nieces were all young girls, whereas a woman belonged to the realm of middle-aged humanity, not to my world
Naphtali went to the same seminary. He was two grades ahead of me. He "ate days," for his father had died and his mother had married a man who refused to support him. He was my great chum at the seminary. The students called him Tidy Naphtali or simply the Tidy One. He was a slender, trim lad, his curly brown hair and his near-sighted eyes emphasizing his Talmudic appearance. He was the cleanliest and neatest boy at the yeshivah.
This often aroused sardonic witticism from some of the other students. Scrupulous tidiness was so uncommon a virtue among the poorer cla.s.ses of Antomir that the painstaking care he bestowed upon his person and everything with which he came in contact struck many of the boys as a manifestation of girl-like squeamishness. As for me, it only added to my admiration of him.
His conscience seemed to be as clean as his finger-nails. He wrote a beautiful hand, he could draw and carve, and he was a good singer. His interpretations were as clear-cut as his handwriting. He seemed to be a Jack of all trades and master of all. I admired and envied him. His reticence piqued me and intensified his power over me. I strove to emulate his cleanliness, his graceful Talmud gestures, and his handwriting. At one period I spent many hours a day practising caligraphy with some of his lines for a model
"Oh, I shall never be able to write like you," I once said to him, in despair
"Let us swap, then," he replied, gaily.. "Give me your mind for learning and I shall let you have my handwriting."
"Pshaw! Yours is a better mind than mine, too."
"No, it is not," he returned, and resumed his reading. "Besides, you are ahead of me in piety and conduct." He shook his head deprecatingly and went on reading. He was one of the noted "men of diligence" at the seminary. With his near-sighted eyes close to the book he would read all day and far into the night in ringing, ardent singsongs that I thought fascinating. The other reticent Talmudists I knew usually read in an undertone, humming their recitatives quietly. He seldom did. Sparing as he was of his voice in conversation, he would use it extravagantly when intoning his Talmud
It is with a peculiar sense of duality one reads this ancient work.
While your mind is absorbed in the meaning of the words you utter, the melody in which you utter them tells your heart a tale of its own. You live in two distinct worlds at once. Naphtali had little to say to other people, but he seemed to have much to say to himself. His singsongs were full of meaning, of pa.s.sion, of beauty. Quite often he would sing himself hoa.r.s.e
Regularly every Thursday night he and I had our vigil at the Preacher"s Synagogue, where many other young men would gather for the same purpose. We would sit up reading, side by side, until the worshipers came to morning service. To spend a whole night by his side was one of the joys of my existence in those days
Reb Sender was somewhat jealous of him
Soon after graduation Naphtali left Antomir for a town in which lived some of his relatives. I missed him as I would a sweetheart
CHAPTER II
I WAS nearly sixteen. I had graduated from the seminary and was pursuing my studies at the Preacher"s Synagogue exclusively, as an "independent scholar." I was overborne with a sense of my dignity and freedom. I seemed to have suddenly grown much taller. If I caught myself walking fast or indulging in some boyish prank I would check myself, saying in my heart: "You must not forget that you are an independent scholar. You are a boy no longer."
I was free to loaf, but I worked harder than ever. I was either in an exalted state of mind or pining away under a spell of yearning and melancholy--of causeless, meaningless melancholy.
My Talmudic singsong reflected my moods. Sometimes it was a spirited recitative, ringing with cheery self-consciousness and the joy of being a lad of sixteen; at other times it was a solemn song, aglow with devotional ecstasy. When I happened to be dejected in the commonplace sense of the word, it was a listless murmur, doleful or sullen. But then the very reading of the Talmud was apt to dispel my gloom. My voice would gradually rise and ring out, vibrating with intellectual pa.s.sion
The intonations of the other scholars, too, echoed the voices of their hearts, some of them sonorous with religious bliss, others sad, still others happy-go-lucky. Although absorbed in my book, I would have a vague consciousness of the connection between the various singsongs and their respective performers. I would be aware that the ba.s.s voice with the flourishes in front of me belonged to the stuttering widower from Vitebsk, that the squeaky, jerky intonation to the right came from the red-headed fellow whom I loathed for his thick lips, or that the sweet, una.s.sertive cadences that came floating from the east wall were being uttered by Reb Rachmiel, the "man of ac.u.men" whose father-in-law had made a fortune as a war-contractor in the late conflict with Turkey. All these voices blended in a symphonic source of inspiration for me. It was divine music in more senses than one
The ancient rabbis of the Talmud, the Tanaim of the earlier period and the Amorairn of later generations, were living men. I could almost see them, each of them individualized in my mind by some of his sayings, by his manner in debate, by some particular word he used, or by some particular incident in which he figured. I pictured their faces, their beards, their voices.
Some of them had won a warmer corner in my heart than others, but they were all superior human beings, G.o.dly, unearthly, denizens of a world that had been ages ago and would come back in the remote future when Messiah should make his appearance
Added to the mystery of that world was the mystery of my own singsong. Who is there?--I seemed to be wondering, my tune or recitative sounding like the voice of some other fellow. It was as if somebody were hidden within me.
What did he look like? If you study the Talmud you please G.o.d even more than you do by praying or fasting. As you sit reading the great folio He looks down from heaven upon you. Sometimes I seemed to feel His gaze shining down upon me, as though casting a halo over my bead
My relations with G.o.d were of a personal and of a rather familiar character.
He was interested in everything I did or said; He watched my every move or thought; He was always in heaven, yet, somehow, he was always near me, and I often spoke to Him as I might to Reb Sender
If I caught myself slurring over some of my prayers or speaking ill of another boy or telling a falsehood, I would say to Him, audibly: "Oh, forgive me once more. You know that I want to be good. I will be good.
I know I will."
Sometimes I would continue to plead in this manner till I broke into sobs.
At other times, as I read my Talmud, conscious of His approval of me, tears of bliss would come into my eyes
I loved Him as one does a woman.
Often while saying my prayers I would fall into a veritable delirium of religious infatuation. Sometimes this fit of happiness and yearning would seize me as I walked in the street
"O Master of the World! Master of the Universe! I love you so!" I would sigh. "Oh, how I love you!"
I also had talks with the Evil Spirit, or Satan. He, too, was always near me. But he was always trying to get me into trouble
"You won"t catch me again, scoundrel you," I would a.s.sure him with sneers and leers. Or, "Get away from me, heartless mischief-maker you! You"re wasting your time, I can tell you that."
My bursts of piety usually lasted a week or two. Then there was apt to set in a period of apathy, which was sure to be replaced by days of penance and a new access of spiritual fervor.
One day, as Reb Sender and I were reading a page together, a very pretty girl entered the synagogue. She came to have a letter written for her by one of the scholars. I continued to read aloud, but I did so absently now, trailing along after my companion. My mind was upon the girl, and I was casting furtive glances
Reb Sender paused, with evident annoyance. "What are you looking at, David?" he said, with a tug at my arm. "Shame! You are yielding to Satan."
I colored
He was too deeply interested in the Talmudic argument under consideration to say more on the matter at this minute, but he returned to it as soon as we had reached the end of the section. He spoke earnestly, with fatherly concern: "You are growing, David.
You are a boy no longer. You are getting to be a man. This is just the time when one should be on his guard against Satan."
I sat, looking down, my brain in a daze of embarra.s.sment
"Remember, David, "He who looks even at the little finger of a woman is as guilty as though he looked at a woman that is wholly naked."" He quoted the Talmudic maxim in a tone of pa.s.sionate sternness, beating the desk with his snuff-box at each word
As to his own conduct, he was one of three or four men at the synagogue of whom it was said that they never looked at women, and, to a very considerable extent, his reputation was not unjustified