Pioneers: A Tale of Russian-Jewish Life in the 1880s

Chapter 39

Pioneers | 125 1. (Yiddish) “Oh, arise, my people, awake from your slumber, / Don’t be immersed in foolishness .” “Well, all right. Don’t say a word to anyone. . . . We’ll talk about it later,” replied Tsivershtein, who didn’t want Kevesh to be the one who’d made such an important discovery, rather than he himself. They returned to the other room. Kevesh calmed down completely and now remained inseparable from his confederate. A young man arrived wearing a long frock coat; he entered in haste with an expression of happy excitement on his face, as if he’d just escaped from oppressive confinement. “Ah! A nice little Russian cigarette after Sabbath dinner—it’s heavenly bliss. My ‘additional soul’ is an inveterate smoker!” he exclaimed and hastily lit a cigarette. 39 The small room was filled with people. They sat on beds and benches, the floor, and in each other’s laps. A samovar was boiling on the table. They took turns drinking tea from the only two glasses they had. The guests, first one, then another , ran out for provisions: soon loaves of bread, sausage, even pastries began to appear on the table. Thick tobacco smoke hung in the room; lively conversation was taking place, and the sound of young laughter could be heard. “Gentlemen, let’s read something!” cried Geverman. “No, it would be better to sing!” Kapluner said, trying to outshout him. “Read! Read Pisarev!” insisted Geverman. But the public was not in a serious-enough mood for reading Pisarev. Protests arouse. “No, Pisarev next time! Now we must sing something!” The young man in a frock coat with long flaps who’d greedily reached for a Russian cigarette, without waiting for an invitation, began singing a popular Jewish song in a low voice: “Shtey uf mayn folk, ervakh fun dayn dreml, In narishkayt zay nit fartift . . .”1 126 | Pioneers 2. This may be a parody of a famous song by the Russian composer Aleksandr Alabiev based on a lyric by Anton Delvig, or An-sky may have heard it from the Russian soldiers he knew in Switzerland. 3. One of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible who is said to have been stoned to death by his fellow Jews for constantly rebuking them for their idolatry. “Gurfarb! Go on, sing something!” replied Kapluner. “You sing so well! But not that one, not a Jewish song; sing a Russian song. . . .” “I’ll sing you a Russian song, a brand ne-ew one!” Gurfarb drawled in a somewhat sentimental voice. “Ah, what a nice song it is! Listen!” He began singing in a thin, rather pleasant tenor, mournfully and plaintively: “Why are you, you silly little nightingale, Singing beneath my window? Don’t you know that a Jewess Lives here in this house? The Jewess is the daughter of disdain, A child of want and cares, Bearing the burden of life here In painful sorrow and oblivion. Of a pitiful, gloomy life, Full of sighs and bitter tears, In this damp basement lair Where the floor is covered with mold. . . .”2 “Well, why did you pick such a sa-a-ad song?” someone protested. “It really sounds like one of Jeremiah’s lamentations,”3 cried Kapluner. “Sing something cheerful. . . . Sing ‘If I Go at Night’!” “No-o-o! This one’s fine,” Gurfarb replied dreamily. “I really like it! The fact that the Jewess is ‘the daughter of disdain, a child of want and cares’!” he repeated with feeling and anguish. “Why, that’s ver-ry well said! Everyone despises and insults the Jews. . . . Isn’t that right?” “Take, for example, our literature teacher!” Kevesh suddenly exclaimed with emotion and annoyance. “He never says a word that isn’t intended to make fun of how Jews talk! Just a few days ago he asked me, ‘Are you sure that your father is a Jew and not a Yid?’” “If he’d said that to me, I’d have spit right in his mug!” Tsivershtein replied indignantly. “It would be better to mimic how the Latin teacher speaks Russian,” Kapluner replied. Suddenly, cheering up, he exclaimed, “What fun we had the other day with the Latin teacher! He called on Grober and ordered him to list the exceptions to masculine nouns ending in -is. But Grober had forgotten them! He was standing at the blackboard, looking around—would someone prompt him? The teacher re- Pioneers | 127...