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Chapter 3
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8 | Pioneers “A schoolboy? There goes one!” He pointed at a tall, thin gymnasium student with a knapsack on his back, slowly making his way along the opposite sidewalk. “Which? The one over there with the white buttons?” Eizerman said in surprise . “Is he really a Jew?” “I can’t vouch for whether he’s a Jew or not,” the shopkeeper replied with a chuckle. “I can’t even say if he’s the ‘son of a Jew.’ His father’s also not a fullblooded Jew. But you can be absolutely sure he’s the ‘grandson of a Jew.’ Of course, you’ve heard of Rabbi Velvel Kapluner, blessed be his name. Well, this student is his grandson. . . . If the old man ever rose from his grave . . .” “So, I could go ask him? He’ll tell me?” Eizerman asked hastily, seeing that the gymnasium student had already moved quite far off. Without waiting for an answer, he ran out of the shop. 3 After catching up with the gymnasium student, Eizerman walked behind him for several minutes, unable to decide whether to call out to him and not knowing how to do it. At last, summoning his courage, he gently pulled on his coattail from behind and said in a trembling voice, “Look here! Gymnasium student!” The fellow quickly turned around and, seeing before him a young man in a long coat, asked sternly, “What do you want?” “Excuse me. . . . I want to ask you something. . . .” “What?” “Could you possibly direct me to some teacher . . . ? Or—I’ll be completely frank with you—could you identify some ‘modern man,’ a maskil? I’ve come here to study,” he concluded decisively. Kapluner keenly and carefully looked Eizerman over from head to toe and asked in a haughty manner, “You’re from a yeshiva, of course.” “No, straight from home. . . .” “Where’s your home?” “Miloslavka. You’ve probably heard of it.” “Did you run away?” “How do you know?” Eizerman asked in surprise. Pioneers | 9 1. Meyer Rothschild (1743–1812), German-Jewish financier and founder of an enormous European banking dynasty. “By your nose!” Noticing another gymnasium student in the distance, Kapluner called out to him, “Kalmanshtein, come over here!” When he’d drawn near, Kapluner, pointing at Eizerman, said indignantly and, at the same time, mockingly, “Feast your eyes! God has sent us a new recruit! As if we didn’t have enough already! So, what do you think of him? Quite something , isn’t he?” “Where’shefrom?”askedKalmanshtein,fixinghisnearsightedgazeonEizerman. “From where? Some little village, of course! He’s run away from his parents ! Now he’s wandering the streets searching for some ‘modern people,’ some maskilim. . . .” “Terrible,” replied Kalmanshtein, though rather calmly. “For what reason?” “Well, why have you come? What for?” Kapluner turned sternly to Eizerman. “What do you mean, for what?” Eizerman said in astonishment. “I’ve come in search of the Haskalah, to study, to become a person.” “To study,” Kapluner repeated with irritation, turning to Kalmanshtein and shrugging his shoulders. “They all sing the same song!” “Awful!” Kalmanshtein seconded him, again without irritation. “To study? You want to become a doctor? Right?” Kapluner continued with deep irony, definitely assuming the role of accuser. Eizerman failed to understand the reason for Kapluner’s irritation and, hearing his indignant exclamations, transferred his clear, innocently interrogative gaze from his accuser’s thin nervous face to Kalmanshtein’s generous freckled face. From Kapluner’s last words he realized that the gymnasium students hadn’t understood him at all. He said hastily, “No, no! You haven’t understood me! I haven’t come here to study to be a doctor. . . . I’m looking for the Haskalah. Don’t you see: I’m also a maskil! Don’t you understand . . . ?” “I understand, I understand!” Kapluner interrupted him. “But how will you live here? Do you understand: live how? Of course, you don’t have even half a kopeck!” “You’re wrong!” Eizerman replied joyously and triumphantly. “I do have money! I have all of six rubles and fifty-eight kopecks!” “Ha, ha, ha! Rothschild!”1 Kalmanshtein guffawed affably. “Well, what will you do with all that money? We have to take him off somewhere.” Eizerman’s triumphant declaration of his six rubles and fifty-eight kopecks forced even Kapluner to smile. After that, he immediately shed the guise of an indignant accuser and began speaking in a simple manner, with only a trace of bitterness . [54.226.68.181] Project MUSE (2024...