by Ezra Glinter
Leybe has also not been himself in recent days. He doesn’t talk to her much either. He too is not all there, not conscious of what he’s saying, forgetting what he was about to say. He just lies there lost in thought—awake the whole night. He’s muddled, distressed, and angers easily.
And then there is Peshke, who never seems to leave their house. Either she’s got something she wants to ask Leybe or she’s got something to tell him. She hangs around all evening laughing and cackling. She’s so loud the whole street can hear her. Tomorrow, tomorrow, they’re going away. Tomorrow belongs to them.
“Dear mother!” she suddenly jumps up, “what am I going to do? I won’t survive this! Leybe, Leybe, my Leybe, the father of my three babies. I will lie down in the doorway and tell them the truth. I will say, Leybe, kill me now, hack me to pieces, kill me, but not like this! I can’t live without you! I can’t! I won’t even make it one day.”
Golde grabs her head, tears pour from her eyes, the knot twists in her throat. Her heart is pounding. Her limbs turn limp and feeble.
“Golde, Golde, what’s gotten into you!” her aged mother murmurs and creeps out from behind the stove. “You have little children, pull yourself together, why are you making yourself sick?”
Her mother is old and blind—she can’t see what’s happening to her daughter but she senses a weird tone in her voice. And the knot in Golde’s throat unfurls in lament—a desolate wail.
And suddenly her room is filled. Someone has brought the lamp. They’re all standing there: Uncle Berel; Fayvl, the neighbor; Mendel, Leybe’s cousin; and the two of them too. There is Leybe, terrified. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “Golde, what’s wrong with you?” He tries to take her hand but she pulls away from him and buries her face in the pillow. She starts rocking ever more fiercely, totally lost in her torment—desperate, untethered.
“Golde, what’s happening to you?” She hears Leybe’s voice. “Why are you killing yourself like this? Why are you letting yourself go like this? Golde, Golde. Call the medic, the doctor. What’s happening to her?”
His terrified voice calms her a bit, lessens her pain. But she won’t open her eyes. She doesn’t want to restrain the strange, wild sounds that are tearing out of her chest—let them scream, let them resound, let all the evil that has accumulated inside her pour out.
“Feh, disgusting,” a voice responds. “I was also left all alone when my Zelig went away. I was also left alone. And I was certainly miserable and lonely without him. But look at me now—God has helped, I’m on my way to him now. Your Leybe is going away. He will reach his destination. He will make it and close the deal. And you too will be on your way to him before you know it.”
“For sure, for sure! God will provide,” the others chime in to comfort her.
But Leybe is silent. Who knows what he’s thinking. And the icy void again pierces Golde’s squirming flesh and she loses herself in a fresh lament—more forceful and wild and horrifying than before.
Golde went on like that for quite a while. No one was able to calm her for a long time. Some neighbors came in and rubbed her with vinegar, put cold compresses on her head, warmed her feet with a hot water bottle. The children woke up, were cradled and rocked, and went back to sleep. Everyone eventually dispersed.
Leybe sat with her for a long while, until dawn was already long on the horizon. He consoled her and begged her to be strong, to have faith, and to wait for a time when things would be better.
Abraham Cahan
1860–1951
ABRAHAM CAHAN, THE founding editor of the Forward, was the most influential Yiddish journalist in history, and an accomplished writer of fiction.
Born in the town of Podberezhi, in what is now Belarus, he moved with his parents at a young age to Vilna, where he received a traditional religious education. As a teenager, he developed an interest in secular literature and attended the city’s Jewish teachers’ seminary, where he became involved in radical politics.
Following the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881, Cahan’s political affiliations brought him under the suspicion of government authorities. To avoid arrest he joined the thousands of Jewish refugees then fleeing the pogroms sweeping the Russian Empire, and immigrated to America.
In New York, Cahan quickly learned English and began a journalistic career writing for both the city’s English-language newspapers and its nascent Yiddish press. When in 1897 a group of socialist editors and writers broke off from the existing socialist weekly to start their own Yiddish newspaper, the Forward, Cahan was appointed editor.
At the same time, Cahan was also writing and publishing fiction in English. In 1896 his first book, Yekl: A Tail of the New York Ghetto, appeared, and in 1917 he published his magnum opus, The Rise of David Levinsky. But although Cahan was the editor of the largest Yiddish newspaper in the world, his English-language fiction and his Yiddish journalism rarely overlapped.
One exception was The Additional Soul, a novella that Cahan serialized in the Forward between November 17, 1900, and January 19, 1901. The novella was comprised of fictionalized sketches of character types that he encountered in New York’s Jewish ghetto on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. In Jewish folk belief, a person receives an additional soul for the duration of the Sabbath. Cahan expands this concept to refer not only to an additional Sabbath soul, but also a more ethical and righteous soul that can exist at any time.
The following excerpt from The Additional Soul focuses on two such character types—Shneur Zadobnik, a rich immigrant who has lost the integrity he once had, and Motke the Hatter, a laughingstock who has been able to reinvent himself as a respectable figure. These two characters illustrate not only Cahan’s distinction between those who have an “additional soul” and those who do not, but also the ways in which immigration allowed people to reinvent themselves—sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse.
Shneur Zadobnik and Motke the Hatter
(DECEMBER 29, 1900–JANUARY 12, 1901) AN EXCERPT FROM The Additional Soul (NOVEMBER 17, 1900–JANUARY 19, 1901)
Translated by Jordan Kutzik
JEWS SAY THAT if you change where you live you’ll change your luck, but is America really that different? What became of my fellow countryman Shneur Zadobnik here in America? I used to ask myself such questions when I was younger. Now I’ve stopped asking them altogether.
In the old country he belonged to the nouveau riche. He had already been rich for eleven or twelve years when the Russo-Turkish War 1 made him even richer. Money begets money, success begets success, as the Americans say. And luck? Well luck makes you lucky; it seems to reproduce just like cats do. Whatever Zadobnik touched was blessed. There’s an old tale about a man who had the “golden touch”; whatever he put his finger on would turn into pure gold. Even when he caressed his daughter she became petrified—all that remained of her was a cold and silent golden golem, like Lot’s wife, who became a pillar of salt. 2 In truth, that’s how things go with millionaires. Whatever they touch is multiplied a thousandfold, and most of those things turn into petrified golems.
By nature Shneur was one of those folks who loved to have a good time. He wasn’t a bad person. Complaining, sullying his reputation—that wasn’t him. Stingy people have such joy from their treasure that for them it’s like the manna the Jews ate in the dessert. The manna had all sorts of flavors: it was bread, meat, kugel—whatever you wished. For a true miser gold serves as his theater, his music, his honor and his love—every earthly joy wrapped into one. Shneur, however, was different. He sought delight in everything. He ate well, was used to having a nice glass of wine at his dinner table, was honored wherever he went, had the city’s cantor perform in his home, loved his children and also the beggars, who loved him in turn. He found joy in everything. And this way of life was replicated in his business: if he gave away a thousand, he would get three thousand in return. He gave with an open hand and would donate hundreds to all sorts of charitable causes, but for every hundred he gave away, h
is heart would swell with a pride worth thousands of rubles.
The educated people in his city would say that he was an egoist. But he had a heart, and even his egoistic pleasures were intertwined with honest sentiment. He could be enraptured, Shneur; he had an additional soul. He would actually take pride in himself, take pride in his additional soul, just as his wife would take pride in the pearls around her neck. Just so long as he had one! It wasn’t that big or healthy; it fact it was rather puny, but it was an additional soul, and a puny one is better than none at all.
The greatest Jewish scholars in the city used to gather at his house, and the proponents of Haskalah 3 would come together to see him. His children went to modern Russian high schools and he would feel right at home when educated young men visited to tutor them.
He had a good head on his shoulders. He was no scholar, not a true Maskil, 4 and certainly not an educated man. But he wasn’t a delinquent, either. He listened a great deal and was interested in everything—partly because it suited his role, but mostly because he genuinely enjoyed learning things, and his mind took to it well. In short, he was like a relative to the scholars and a big shot among the proponents of the Haskalah. He was a patron, a supporter of education among the learned. He gave money to help poor boys go to modern Russian high schools and universities. He would pay a pretty penny for every book an author would bring him; he supported the yeshiva. Such a mixture of things is a true rarity. But Shneur Zadobnik was Shneur Zadobnik, and his house was among the finest. People therefore were jealous of him. They would hide their jealousy behind their eyes while gazing upon him with flattery.
He had moments when he would become truly enraptured. The very best of society would gather at his house, and at those times he would feel a certain genteel, refined spirit floating through his home. That would make him feel good inside. And since he felt goodness in his heart, he also became a better person as well.
Shneur Zadobnik often committed the ugly and wanton deeds common to the business world, but sometimes that refined spirit of his home stopped him. For instance, he was once squeezing the soul out of a poor, small-time businessman who was quivering in his arms when that same spirit touched him.
“Feh, it’s not right,” the spirit said, and Shneur released his victim and even helped him out. And in helping him, Shneur’s heart went from loving and respecting himself to seeing goodness and gentleness in everything. At that point, he would flatter himself the same way the poor used to flatter him. But, as we’ve said before, he did have an additional soul, and when he would do something good, his limbs would feel warmer and his thoughts would drift somewhere far off, to more civilized places. He would imagine different things and lose himself in daydreams.
When learned men would come to his house and interpret biblical passages, Shneur would listen with a peculiar smile. The smile said two things at once. It said: “Speak words of Torah, speak! I’m a rich man and you are all paupers, so therefore I understand the meaning concealed in the small letters of your holy texts.” At the same time the smile also said: “You all are bums and I’m Shneur Zadobnik, but my house is open to everyone.” But little by little he would become truly interested in their discussion and forget about his wealth. He would ask about a point he didn’t understand and listen with his full attention, with a shimmer in his eyes and color in his cheeks and with the dream of a better sort of life in his heart.
During those times he would, for a brief moment, become truly pious and make a blessing or say his Grace after meals with real devotion.
The same was true, however, when educated heretics would gather at his home. He would start off with that same smile of his but soon became genuinely enthused. And for the first minutes after they would leave, he would think over what they had discussed and believe with all his heart that he should no longer allow the religious men to come to his home—that religiosity, the Talmud, and all the other trappings of faith were nothing more than madness and darkness and that the only way to counter them was by spreading education and light. His enemies said that he was a hypocrite: a religious man among the pious, an enlightened man among the proponents of the Haskalah, and a godless man among the heretics. They didn’t understand him.
The real story was this: Whoever visited his home infused him with a refined spirit. And this spirit would in turn refine his luck. The good fortune in his business dealings was like the body of his enjoyment, and this refined spirit was its soul. In his heart he divided his pleasures into two parts: one holy and one profane, one for the hallowed day and one for the other days of the week. The joys stemming from his wealth and the honor that it provided him, his revenge over enemies, the flavor of roast duck and wine, the pleasure he derived from everyone bowing and spinning before him—all of that fell into the section of his heart reserved for the profane. The true humbleness, which would come upon him in a split second, the delicate feelings that fine company would inspire in him, the sweet elusive dreams of an honest, fine life—that was the sanctification of his good fortune. We have six weekdays and the Sabbath, which comes but once a week. That’s probably how it was with Shneur’s happiness: it was six parts (or perhaps six hundred parts) egotistical joy with one part holy joy. But a tiny piece of an additional soul is better than nothing.
This all seems like typical bourgeois happiness. True, but bourgeois life is not the same everywhere. Look at what happened to Shneur’s good fortune in America! He is also rich here and everything he touches does well here too. His star shines brightly, perhaps even more so than in Russia. But look a little closer: your heart will weep when you consider what has become of Shneur Zadobnik.
Shneur’s wife died. He took a pretty young girl and became young again himself. Right afterwards, however, the wheel of fortune began to turn backward.
A large number of new merchants settled in Shneur’s city after the Jews were driven out of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. 5 They were people who had been born in Shneur’s hometown, but who had lived for many years in Saint Petersburg or Moscow and who therefore had money and skill in business. The competition was stark, and economic troubles grew so large that business collapsed altogether in the Jewish towns.
Many of Shneur’s debtors went bankrupt. He lost nearly half his wealth and the other half began to melt away. Confusion broke out in many Jewish towns. The recently arrived merchants from Moscow and Saint Petersburg not only muddled up the business world, but also changed its style. The new businessmen were used to Moscow’s customs, to wide-reaching management; they summoned a coachman in a totally different manner and cursed a tailor differently for not fitting a coat properly. In short: the wings of the old aristocracy had been clipped.
Because of his pretty young wife, Shneur wanted, as always, to live. But the wheel had already turned back.
His beautiful young wife had a peculiar sadness in her eyes, as if she had been fooled. This sadness cut Shneur’s heart as if with knives. It spoke to him like a constant criticism, and the criticism dogged him as a constant thought: that he was no longer Shneur, that he had fallen out of the game entirely. It was terrifying. His mind clawed at itself.
A new idea began to take root: to immigrate to America. He would gather up his rubles as soon as possible, before they vanished entirely, and go with his wife and children to New York.
A certain class of Jew travels from Russia to America the same way that Americans settle in Europe. When an American earns “only” twenty-five thousand dollars a year and belongs to the upper class, he finds himself a home in Dresden or Munich, in Rome or Florence. Nobody knows him there and he can allow himself to live a bit more simply. Everything there is cheaper as well. There are entire colonies of this type of wealthy American in Dresden, Munich and several Italian cities.
It’s the same story with fallen wealthy Russian Jews: at home they can’t just do whatever comes along. But America is far from home and there’s no shame in it. There may be many fellow countrymen here, but everything is permissible i
n America; nothing is shameful here. People know this in Russia, and embarrassed businessmen travel to America seeking refuge from their shame because everything can be done here and nothing is inappropriate, so long as you make a living.
The fallen Russian merchant therefore hopes to do big business with his few remaining rubles. If Chaim’ke the tailor could become a wealthy businessman there, if Borekh’ke the coachman’s son-in-law could grow rich enough to own a factory, then certainly Shneur Zadobnik would be able to shake up the world.
At first his young wife did not want to hear about America. America was where tailors, coachman and all sorts of other poor people went. Why should she have married Shneur Zadobnik? She could have taken a young pauper and traveled far away with him. She never said any of this aloud, but the sadness in her eyes stabbed Shneur’s heart like a sword. Her silence told him much more than if she had spoken.
He thought that he would lose his mind.
He didn’t understand her well, however. She didn’t understand herself, either. She had a womanly mistake in her heart. She wanted to travel away from home even more than he did. The eyes of the women in town, both those she knew and those of strangers, sucked the blood right out of her, just as her own eyes did to Shneur. It seemed that the women were teasing her, that they were making fun of her and the wealth that supposedly came along with her engagement.
Previously all of the women had been jealous of her, and now they were all taking joy in the fact that her husband’s bread was landing butter side down. She was bothered more than anything by the words of pity she heard from her sister. She merely sighed at Zadobnik’s state.
“Such a treasure!” she’d say. “Such a treasure! May God take pity upon him!” That’s what her sister would say while sighing, and the young Mrs. Zadobnik knew in her heart of hearts that her sister loved every minute of it. Previously her sister had begrudged her for his wealth—she had made nice and flattered her, but it was just for show; now she was in seventh heaven because her sister had lost her status.
