The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  A coffin is a bridal bed.

  Although it was a mock wedding, many a tear fell from the women’s eyes. The men sighed. Everything proceeded according to custom. Getsl preached, sang, played. The guests could actually hear the weeping of a fiddle, the piping of a clarinet, the bleating of a trumpet, the wailing of a bagpipe. Getsl pretended to cover the bride with the veil and played a melody appropriate to the veiling ceremony. After the wedding march he recited the words of “Thou Art Sanctified,” which accompany the giving of the ring. He delivered the bridegroom’s oration, and announced the wedding presents: a shrouded mirror, a little sack of earth from the Holy Land, a burial cleansing spoon, a stopped clock. When the spirits of the guests seemed to droop, Getsl struck up a kozotsky. They tried to dance, but there was scarcely room to take a step. They swayed and gesticulated.

  Beyle Tslove suddenly began to wail. “Oy, Getsl!”

  “What, my dove!”

  “Why couldn’t this be real? We weren’t born dead!”

  “Pooh! Reality itself hangs by a thread.”

  “It’s not a game to me, you fool.”

  “Whatever it is, let’s drink and keep cool. May we rejoice and do well until all the fires are extinguished in hell.”

  A glass of wine was brought, and Liebe Yentl emptied it to the last drop. Then she dashed it against the wall, and Getsl began to recite in the singsong of the cheder boys:

  Such is Noah’s way,

  Wash your tears away.

  Take a drink instead,

  The living and the dead.

  Wine will make you strong,

  Eternity is long.

  Zise Feige could not endure any more. She rose from her sickbed, wrapped herself in a shawl, and shuffled into her daughter’s room in her slippers. She tried to push through the crowd. “Beasts,” she cried. “You are torturing my child!”

  Beyle Tslove screamed at her, “Don’t you worry, old sourpuss! Better a rotten fiddler than a creep from Zawiercia!”

  VI

  In the middle of the night there were sounds of steps and shouts outside the door. Reb Sheftel had come home from Worka, bringing a bagful of new amulets, charms, and talismans. The Hasidim of the Worka rabbi entered with him, ready to drive out the rabble. They swung their sashes, crying, “Get out, you scum!”

  Several young fellows tried to fight off the Worka Hasidim, but the Shidlovtse crowd was tired from standing so long, and they soon began to file out the door. Getsl called after them, “Brothers, don’t let the holy schlemiels get you! Give them a taste of your fists! Hey, you, big shot!”

  “Cowards! Bastards! Mice!” Beyle Tslove screeched.

  A few of the Worka Hasidim got a punch or two, but after a while the riffraff slunk off. The Hasidim burst into the room, panting and threatening the dybbuks with excommunication.

  The warden of the Worka synagogue, Reb Avigdor Yavrover, ran up to Liebe Yentl’s bed and tried to hang a charm around her neck, but the girl pulled off his hat and skullcap with her right hand, and with her left she seized him by the beard. The other Hasidim tried to pull him away, but Liebe Yentl thrashed out in all directions. She kicked, bit, and scratched. One man got a slap on the cheek, another had his sidelock pulled, a third got a mouthful of spittle on his face, a fourth a punch in the ribs. In order to frighten off the pious, she cried that she was in her unclean days. Then she tore off her shift and exhibited her shame. Those who did not avert their eyes remarked that her belly was distended like a drum. On the right and the left were two bumps as big as heads, and it was clear that the spirits were there. Getsl roared like a lion, howled like a wolf, hissed like a snake. He called the Worka rabbi a eunuch, a clown, a baboon, insulted all the holy sages, and blasphemed against God.

  Reb Sheftel sank to the floor and sat there like a mourner. He covered his eyes with both hands and rocked himself as over a corpse. Zise Feige snatched a broom and tried to drive away the men who swarmed around her daughter, but she was dragged aside and fell to the ground. Two neighboring women helped her to get up. Her bonnet fell off, exposing her shaven head with its gray stubble. She raised two fists and screamed, sobbing, “Torturers, you’re killing my child! Lord in Heaven, send Pharaoh’s curses upon them!”

  Finally, several of the younger Hasidim caught Liebe Yentl’s hands and feet and tied her to the bed with their sashes. Then they slipped the Worka rabbi’s amulets around her neck.

  Getsl, who had fallen silent during the struggle, spoke up. “Tell your miracle worker his charms are tripe.”

  “Wretch, you’re in Hell, and you still deny?” Reb Avigdor Yavrover thundered.

  “Hell’s full of your kind.”

  “Dog, rascal, degenerate!”

  “Why are you cursing, you louses?” Beyle Tslove yelled. “Is it our fault that your holy idiot hands out phony talismans? You’d better leave the girl alone. We aren’t doing her any harm. Her good is our good. We’re also Jews, remember—not Tartars. Our souls have stood on Mount Sinai, too. If we erred in life, we’ve paid our debt, with interest.”

  “Strumpet, hussy, slut, out with you!” one of the Hasidim cried.

  “I’ll go when I feel like it.”

  “Todres, blow the ram’s horn—a long blast!”

  The ram’s horn filled the night with its eerie wail.

  Beyle Tslove laughed and jeered. “Blow hot, blow cold, who cares!”

  “A broken trill now!”

  “Don’t you have enough breaks under your rupture bands?” Getsl jeered.

  “Satan, Amalekite, apostate!”

  Hours went by, but the dybbuks remained obdurate. Some of the Worka Hasidim went home. Others leaned against the wall, ready to do battle until the end of their strength. The hoodlums who had run away returned with sticks and knives. The Hasidim of the Radzymin rabbi had heard the news that the Worka talismans had failed, and they came to gloat.

  Reb Sheftel rose from the floor and in his anguish began to plead with the dybbuks. “If you are Jews, you should have Jewish hearts. Look what has become of my innocent daughter, lying bound like a sheep prepared for slaughter. My wife is sick. I myself am ready to drop. My business is falling apart. How long will you torture us? Even a murderer has a spark of pity.”

  “Nobody pities us.”

  “I’ll see to it that you get forgiveness. It says in the Bible, ‘His banished be not expelled from Him.’ No Jewish soul is rejected forever.”

  “What will you do for us?” asked Getsl. “Help us moan?”

  “I will recite psalms and read the Mishnah for you. I will give alms. I will say Kaddish for you for a full twelve months.”

  “I’m not one of your peasants. You can’t fool me.”

  “I have never fooled anyone.”

  “Swear that you will keep your word!” Getsl commanded.

  “What’s the matter, Getsl? You anxious to leave me already?” Beyle Tslove asked with a laugh.

  Getsl yawned. “I’m sorry for the old folks.”

  “You want to leave me a deserted wife the very first night?”

  “Come along if you can.”

  “Where to? Behind the Mountains of Darkness?”

  “Wherever our eyes take us.”

  “You mean sockets, comedian!”

  “Swear, Reb Sheftel, that you will keep all your promises,” Getsl the fiddler repeated. “Make a holy vow. If you break your word, I’ll be back with the whole Evil Host and scatter your bones to the four winds.”

  “Don’t swear, Reb Sheftel, don’t swear!” the Hasidim cried. “Such a vow is a desecration of the Name!”

  “Swear, my husband, swear. If you don’t, we shall all perish.”

  Reb Sheftel put his hand on his beard. “Dead souls, I swear that I will faithfully fulfill all that I take upon myself. I will study the Mishnah for you. I will say Kaddish for twelve months. Tell me when you died, and I will burn memorial candles for you. If there are no headstones on your graves, I will journey to the cemeteries and have them e
rected.”

  “Our graves have been leveled long since. Come, Beyle Tslove, let’s go. Dawn is rising over Pinchev.”

  “Imp, you made a fool of a Jewish daughter all for nothing!” Beyle Tslove reproached him.

  “Hey, men, move aside!” Getsl cried. “Or I shall enter one of you!”

  There was such a crush that, though the door stood open, no one could get out. Hats and skullcaps fell off. Caftans caught on nails and ripped. A muffled cry rose from the crowd. Several Hasidim fell, and others trampled them. Liebe Yentl’s mouth opened wide and there was a shot as from a pistol. Her eyes rolled and she fell back on the pillow, white as death. A stench swept across the room—a foul breath of the grave. Zise Feige stumbled on weak legs toward her daughter and untied her. The girl’s belly was now flat and shrunken like the belly of a woman after childbirth.

  Reb Sheftel attested afterward that two balls of fire came out of Liebe Yentl’s nostrils and flew to the window. A pane split open, and the two sinful souls returned through the crack to the World of Delusion.

  VII

  For weeks after the dybbuks had left her, Liebe Yentl lay sick. The doctor applied cups and leeches; he bled her, but Liebe Yentl never opened her eyes. The woman from the Society of Tenders of the Sick who sat with the girl at night related that she heard sad melodies outside the window, and Getsl’s voice begging her to remove the amulets from the girl’s neck and let him in. The woman also heard Beyle Tslove’s giggling.

  Gradually Liebe Yentl began to recover, but she had almost stopped speaking. She sat in bed and stared at the window. Winter was over. Swallows returned from the warm countries and were building a nest under the eaves. From her bed Liebe Yentl could see the roof of the synagogue, where a pair of storks were repairing last year’s nest.

  Reb Sheftel and Zise Feige feared that Liebe Yentl would no longer be accepted in marriage, but Shmelke Motl wrote from Zawiercia that he would keep to his agreement if the dowry were raised by one third. Reb Sheftel and Zise Feige consented at once. After Pentecost, Shmelke Motl made his appearance at the Shidlovtse prayer house—no taller than a cheder boy but with a large head on a thin neck and tightly twisted sidelocks that stood up like a pair of horns. He had thick eyebrows and dark eyes that looked down at the tip of his nose. As soon as he entered the study house, he took out a Gemara and sat down to study. He sat there, swaying and mumbling, until he was taken to the ceremony of betrothal.

  Reb Sheftel invited only a selected few to the engagement meal, for during the time that his daughter had been possessed by the dybbuks he had made many enemies both among the Radzymin Hasidim and among those of Worka. According to custom, the men sat at one table, the women at another. The bridegroom delivered an impromptu sermon on the subject of the Stoned Ox. Such sermons usually last half an hour, but two hours went by and the groom still talked on in his high, grating voice, accompanying his words with wild gestures. He grimaced as though gripped with pain, pulled at a sidelock, scratched his chin, which was just beginning to sprout a beard, grasped the lobe of his ear. From time to time his lips stretched in a smile, revealing blackened teeth, pointed as nails.

  Liebe Yentl never once took her eyes from him. The women tried to talk to her; they urged her to taste the cookies, the jam, the mead. But Liebe Yentl bit her lips and stared.

  The guests began to cough and fidget, hinting in various ways that it was time to bring the oration to an end, and finally the bridegroom broke off his sermon. The betrothal contract was brought to him, but he did not sign it at once. First he read the page from beginning to end. He was evidently nearsighted, for he brought the paper right up to his nose. Then he began to bargain. “The prayer shawl should have silver braid.”

  “It will have any braid you wish,” Reb Sheftel agreed.

  “Write it in.”

  It was written in on the margin. The groom read on, and demanded, “I want a Talmud printed in Slovita.”

  “Very well, it will be from Slovita.”

  “Write it in.”

  After much haggling and writing in, the groom signed the contract: Shmelke Motl son of the late Catriel Godl. The letters of the signature were as tiny as flyspecks.

  When Reb Sheftel brought the contract over to Liebe Yentl and handed her the pen, she said in a clear voice, “I will not sign.”

  “Daughter, you shame me!”

  “I will not live with him.”

  Zise Feige began to pinch her wrinkled cheeks. “People, go home!” she called out. She snuffed the candles in the candlesticks. Some of the women wept with the disgraced mother; others berated the bride. But the girl answered no one. Before long, the house was dark and empty. The servant went out to close the shutters.

  Reb Sheftel usually prayed at the synagogue with the first quorum, but that morning he did not show himself at the holy place. Zise Feige did not go out to do her shopping. The door of Reb Sheftel’s house stood locked; the windows were shuttered. Shmelke Motl returned at once to Zawiercia.

  After a time Reb Sheftel went back to praying at the synagogue, and Zise Feige went again to market with her basket. But Liebe Yentl no longer came out into the street. People thought that her parents had sent her away somewhere, but Liebe Yentl was at home. She kept to her room and refused to speak to anyone. When her mother brought her a plate of soup, she first knocked at the door as though they were gentry. Liebe Yentl scarcely touched the food, and Zise Feige sent it to the poorhouse.

  For some months the matchmakers still came with offers, but since a dybbuk had spoken from her and she had shamed a bridegroom Liebe Yentl could no longer make a proper match. Reb Sheftel tried to obtain a pardon from the young man in Zawiercia, but he had gone away to some yeshiva in Lithuania. There was a rumor that he had hanged himself with his sash. Then it became clear that Liebe Yentl would remain an old maid. Her younger brother, Tsadock Meyer, had in the meantime grown up and got married to a girl from Bendin.

  Reb Sheftel was the first to die. This happened on a Thursday night in winter. Reb Sheftel had risen for midnight prayers. He stood at the reading desk, with ash on his head, reciting a lament on the Destruction of the Temple. A beggar was spending that night at the prayer house. About three o’clock in the morning, the man awakened and put some potatoes into the stove to bake. Suddenly he heard a thud. He stood up and saw Reb Sheftel on the floor. He sprinkled him with water from the pitcher, but the soul had already departed.

  The townspeople mourned Reb Sheftel. The body was not taken home but lay in the prayer house with candles at its head until the time of burial. The rabbi and some of the town’s scholars delivered eulogies. On Friday, Liebe Yentl escorted the coffin with her mother. Liebe Yentl was wrapped in a black shawl from head to toe; only a part of her face showed, white as the snow in the cemetery. The two sons lived far from Shidlovtse, and the funeral could not be postponed till after the Sabbath; it is a dishonor for a corpse to wait too long for burial. Reb Sheftel was put to rest near the grave of the old rabbi. It is known that those who are buried on Friday after noon do not suffer the pressure of the grave, for the Angel Dumah puts away his fiery rod on the eve of the Sabbath.

  Zise Feige lingered a few years more, but she was fading day by day. Her body bent like a candle. In her last year she no longer attended to the business, relying entirely on her assistant, Zalkind. She began to rise at dawn to pray at the women’s synagogue, and she often went to the cemetery and prostrated herself on Reb Sheftel’s grave. She died as suddenly as her husband. It happened during evening prayer on Yom Kippur. Zise Feige had stood all day, weeping, at the railing that divided the women’s section from the men’s in the prayer house. Her neighbors, seeing her waxen-yellow face, urged her to break her fast, for human life takes precedence over all laws, but Zise Feige refused. When the cantor intoned, “The gates of Heaven open,” Zise Feige took from her bosom a vial of aromatic drops, which are a remedy against faintness. But the vial slipped from her hand and she fell forward onto the reading desk. There was
an outcry and women ran for the doctor, but Zise Feige had already passed into the True World. Her last words were: “My daughter …”

  This time the funeral was delayed until the arrival of the two sons. They sat in mourning with their sister. But Liebe Yentl avoided all strangers. Those who came to pray with the mourners and to comfort them found only Jedidiah and Tsadock Meyer. Liebe Yentl would lock herself away in her room.

  Nothing was left of Reb Sheftel’s wealth. People muttered that the assistant had pocketed the money, but it could not be proved. Reb Sheftel and Zise Feige had kept no books. All the accounting had been done with a piece of chalk on the wall of a wardrobe. After the seven days of mourning, the sons called Zalkind to the rabbi’s court, but he offered to swear before the Holy Scrolls and black candles that he had not touched a groschen of his employers’ money. The rabbi forbade such an oath. He said that a man who could break the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Steal” could also violate the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of Thy God the Lord in Vain.”

  After the judgment, the two sons went home. Liebe Yentl remained with the servant. Zalkind took over the business and merely sent Liebe Yentl two gulden a week for food. Soon he refused to give even that and sent only a few groschen. The servant woman left and went to work elsewhere.

  Now that Liebe Yentl no longer had a servant, she was compelled to show herself in the street, but she never came out during the day. She would leave the house only after dark, waiting until the streets were empty and the stores without other customers. She would appear suddenly, as though from nowhere. The storekeepers were afraid of her. Dogs barked at her from Christian yards.

  Summer and winter she was wrapped from head to toe in a long shawl. She would enter the store and forget what she wanted to buy. She often gave more money than was asked, as though she no longer remembered how to count. A few times she was seen entering the Gentile tavern to buy vodka. Tevye the night watchman had heard Liebe Yentl pacing the house at night, talking to herself.