A Shtetl and Other Yiddish Novellas

AT THE DEPOT

AT THE DEPOT •>««•>*«•>*«•>-«•- •>«»~f»>~0~OMK«>«»-€•>-«»><• DAVID BERGELSON INTRODUCTION TO AT THE DEPOT DAVID BERGELSON'S early fiction offers the most fully sustained example of impressionism in modern Yiddish prose. His stories and novels, written between the abortive revolution of 1905 and the successful Bolshevik revolution twelve years later, convey a palpable sense of the tedium and stagnation, the oppressive hopelessness, of pre-revolutionary Russia. Social progress and personal advancement hover just beyond the reach of his characters and their native communities. The shtetl is in decline; its inhabitants are trapped by torpor and unable to pry themselves loose into the beckoning world outside. Like characters in the plays of Chekhov , they will still be longing for Moscow when the curtain falls. At the Depot, 1909, Bergelson's first published novella, introduces the commercial society of grain dealers and brokers around a railway station in the Ukraine. The agents are classic examples of economic middlemen, buying up produce from large landowners and sharecroppers and arranging for its distribution in the distant urban centers. They are themselves caught in the middle behveen the shtetl and the city, between a traditional Jewish way of life with its ritual bath and cheder, and the possibilities of Russified assimilation, either through participation in the simmering political underground, or as part of the growing professional middle class. The main character, Benish Rubinstein, is marginal to the 81 82 YIDDISH NOVELLAS already marginal depot society. Still bearing traces of his pampered, bookish upbringing, he cannot reconcile himself to the competitive hustle of his own entrepreneurial employment, and indulges vague notions of escape—through a love affair, by becoming a village tutor, in suicide. His female counterpart, Avromchik's wife, Clara, also possesses the dubious advantage of a sensibility which alienates her from the vulgar commercial atmosphere, while lacking the corresponding will or ability to transcend it. The two young people are drawn to one another because of their mutual dissatisfactions, but their attachment is only transitory; it is characteristic of Bergelson 's world that nothing is ever consummated except business transactions . Despite the novella's unfavorable depiction of the life of trade, it is not quite the Marxist critique of the bourgeoisie that some Soviet literary critics have claimed. * To be sure, the new "lingo" of the revolution is in the air, but radical political ideologies are heard—as they usually are in Bergelsons work—through a wall, and their proponents are even less engaging of our sympathies than is Rubinstein, the book's petit-bourgeois, anti-heroic protagonist. The unseen figures who debate the abuses of capitalism in the home of Moni Drel are as petty and self-centered as those debating the size of the crop at the depot, and no less prey to the pervasive climate of doom that snuffs out all hope and idealism. For at the center of this short novel, as of the depot, stands the somnolent station house, a reminder of the essential changelessness of life despite the illusion of eventfulness. Incoming trains bring promise of mystery and adventure; shifting seasons elicit eager speculation; new arrivals at the depot create a stir of anticipatory excitement. But in the image of the station house, which both introduces and closes the book, is the spirit of stasis. The seasons, the fortunes of the dealers, the comings and goings of trains, and all events in the lives of the characters, recur in repetitive, predictable patterns. Benish Rubinstein can never transcend the ineffectual restlessness of his character, nor will the region ever escape its "deep, eternal gloom." In Bergelson's vision, the movement of life, hence of the plot and often even of sentence structure, is not linear and progressive, *A good exposition of this type can be found in I. Dobrushin's critical book Dovid Bereelson (in Yiddish). The author emphasizes the specific relation of events in the book to the rise of capitalism in Russia after 1905. AT THE DEPOT 83 but circular and static. His many works of this period introduce a wide range of variations on a theme: there is Burman, the thirty-year old government rabbi of "In a Backwoods Town/' who by the end of the first paragraph has grown "drowsy and indolent, has ceased writing to his only sister . . . and has let his blond mustache grow long and his chance to Enish at the university go by forever." There are, among others, Joseph Shor, in the delicate story which bears his name, who tries vainly to find a refined big-city match for his provincial wealth; and Mirl Hurwitz, the moody heroine of Nokh Alemen—"After All Is Said and Done"—the title condemning its subject before she even comes on the scene. But the depot with its superficial bustle and allure remains Bergelson's most enduring symbol of illusory existential choice in a life which offers essentially only boredom and futility. AT THE DEPOT BY DAVID BERGELSON INARROW roads start their winding way in forsaken little towns of the countryside. Then cutting through sleepy villages, they creep up silent green hills, drop to the valleys, and join far off ona distant rise to bow before the red stone railway station. The tall, two-storied building has been a regional landmark for years. Petrified and inert, it dominates the countryside like a spellbound sentry, cast by some prankster into everlasting, melancholy sleep. Whoever that sullen magician may have been, he has long since returned to dust, and his bones have grown black in the damp ground. But the station has yet to be released from its trance: somnolently it stands guard over the incoming roads, over the near and distant hills and valleys, and over the pretty village, scattered at the bottom of a long valley, that has spent years clambering up the slopes of two adjacent mountains without ever reaching the top. The old station shares in the silence of the village and countryside; secretly, though, as it stares into the blue, unknown distance, it yearns for a proud and forceful hero to come storming the sleepy hamlets and recall to life everything languishing and dead. But the horizon is imperturbable and glum, and so deeply bored by the sleepy countryside that it too begins to doze. Occasionally its tooth84 AT THE DEPOT 85 less old mouth opens in a weary yawn, and out spits a long rushing passenger train. The train comes from far away and is eager to impart its good tidings to the station and the surrounding countryside . But after hearing the first mournful echo of its expansive merry whistle, it realizes that nothing will ever pierce this region's deep, eternal gloom. The train slows to a dispirited crawl, and comes to a stop with a long heavy sigh of steam. The sigh hangs suspended in the air like a verdict: "Useless, useless, and doomed." As for the passengers inside one such train, they felt an inexplicable twinge of sadness and thrust their heads out the windows to examine the ancient, sleepy depot. The drabness and tedium were disheartening; no one felt the urge to say anything or stir from his seat. The people on the platform stood motionless, looking as glum and stony as the station itself. Some paced alongside the train, absorbed in fantasies about the brooding strangers aboard. The very unfamiliarity of these travellers, the mystery of where they came from and where they were going, of what they did for a living and what they were concerned with, won the silent respect of those on the platform, who tried in their turn to appear very fine and grand for the occasion. The station attendants drew themselves up to their full height; the porter standing at the bell thrust out his chest; the young salesmen cocked their heads, now this way, now that, in serious appraisal of one or another attractive female passenger. The grain dealers, absorbed in their business affairs, stood looking at the train while chewing at their beards. Further along the platform stood a swarthy little broker with a frightened face, beset by the uncertainties of his recent impoverishment. The strange, silent passengers reminded him of the money he had once had, though he could no longer remember where it had come from or where it had gone. Sitting alone on a bench was a gray-haired old man, blind in one eye, who tapped his worn cane against the hard stone platform. Once this man had been a messenger entrusted to carry documents and mail from town to town; now, bored perhaps by the sameness of his surroundings, he would have liked to tell someone of his pover- 86 YIDDISH NOVELLAS ty, of his open, unseeing eye, his children in America, and his wife, dead these many long years. But no one took any notice of him. Gradually his mind had grown childish and now he amused himself with the dull thuds of his cane against the stone. When the game lost its charm, he raised his one good eye and saw Pinye Lisak. With the assumed air of a beggar, Pinye was silently appealing to a newly-arrived grain dealer, as if to say: "I am Pinye Lisak. Once I had money of my own, but now I'm reduced to brokerage . . . perhaps there is something you are interested in buying?" The stranger ignored him, but Pinye's face remained distorted in an obsequious grimace, causing a good deal of merriment among the dealers once the train pulled away. "As I am a Jew," swore Levi Pivniak, a tall broker with a noticeable stoop and bulging, mischievous eyes, "He looks like a pauper already." The grain dealers, salesmen, and brokers who clustered around him, bared their tobacco-stained teeth in a hearty laugh that resounded solidly across the empty depot, inspiring in each of them a deep satisfaction in his own future. The only serious face in the place belonged to Pivniak, who stood calmly at the center of the group, arms folded, head at a confident tilt. As the laughter subsided, the group was joined by Avromchik Kaufman, a thick-set business-like fellow with impressively broad shoulders. His hands folded behind his new jacket, he walked with his head jutting forward and a lazy, self-assured smile on his face as though letting the world know that it could save itself the trouble: no one would get the better of him. The local dealers knew that Kaufman was wearing an expensive suit, that his father, a miser, was the richest man in the neighboring town, and that he was still single, a successful grain dealer with money of his own. So Avromchik enjoyed an easy familiarity with these men and smiled when they thumped him on the back. After hearing their quips about Lisak, whom he could observe across the length of the platform, he made a solemn suggestion of his own: "He still has that raccoon jacket of his. If he's willing, I'll pay him an even hundred for it and he'll be a rich man again." They all enjoyed the joke. Pivniak's eyesflickeredwith mischief and then feigned surprise. "Do you really want that jacket? Watch me arrange the sale," he said, and pretended to rush off in Lisak's direction. AT THE DEPOT 87 There was another part of the depot, free from the bustle of local dealers, where coachmen sat nodding atop their harnessed buggies, waiting with superhuman patience for their masters to arrive. Upon arrival, the master would climb into his waiting buggy, and pull the driver by the sleeve. The driver would snap to life and raise his whip over the horses. Soon the carriage would be swaying along, rocking the master to sleep. As the horses trotted amid the green fields, past an occasional hill or valley, the little bells around their necks tinkled monotonously; still half asleep, the master imagined the bells were telling the silent fields of all that he had seen on his travels. Then he forgot that he was on his way home, and dozed off again. In some distant town, nestled in a valley, stood a house with windows and doors and rooms eagerly awaiting his arrival. One of his children was running around barefoot, boasting of the gift he was soon to receive. But meanwhile, in the swaying buggy, the master was still fast asleep. CHAPTER 1 Once, a warm spring day smiled down on the depot and its lethargic grain dealers as though asking brightly: shall I show you a trick? The depot pretended not to hear and went back to sleep. The dealers regarded the bright day as the harbinger of a plentiful harvest and were reluctant to begin trading prematurely. All around them the richly cultivated fields lay resting beneath tranquil skies. Here and there soft winds could be heard whispering confidentially to the grassy hillocks: everything will soon be plentiful and cheap. In a green valley at the outskirts of a peaceful village, two dealers passed on the road. Drawing to a stop, they shouted questions at one another: "Where are you coming from? The peasant farms?" "And you? From the estates I'll bet." "Where else? I wanted to look over the crops." "Well?" "Well what? . . . the guy is begging us to buy." "Will he have many carloads to sell?" 88 YIDDISH NOVELLAS "No question." "How do you know?" "Just look around you. . . ." The two dealers looked around at the green fields on either side of the narrow road. The grain was busy growing. It swayed in slow and pious worship, repeating its fervent promise of a plentiful harvest . . . a plentiful harvest. Yet in mid-spring, it suddenly stopped raining, and the grass began to wither. By the time the local dealers realized there was a drought on, dust had begun to gather on the grass and trees. Burning winds bore it through the air, dulling the light of the long hot summer days. The dealers were now sunburned and streaked with sweat, and feverishly busy. With the dust caking their faces and beards, and irritating their blood-shot, sleepless eyes, they bustled around the huge station grounds, arranging whatever sales they could, even if it meant snatching a customer from under someone else's nose. At brief intervals they appeared on the platform to load up, bargain, sell, and buy again to replenish their supply. Every day the trains brought merchants from the big cities to negotiate with the sweaty, sun-streaked local dealers. Standing on the steps of the departing train they would shout their parting words: "Then it's settled? Tomorrow you'll ship it out!" The local dealer's shouted reply was drowned out by the wheels of the long railway cars. He nodded his head to indicate, yes: it was settled. Long after the train had disappeared, chased by the wild gusts of wind and dust that darkened the air and sky, his mind was still on the sale. Someone, he felt, had been cheated, but whether him or that city merchant the dustclouds had just swallowed up, he couldn't tell. The other dealers surrounded him and pelted him with questions: "Did you sell?" "Really?" "For how much?" He was too preoccupied to understand the question. He answered as if out of a deep sleep: Eh? When the dealers had bought up all the available crops of the area and shipped them to the various distant provinces, the station returned to its former calm. Once again the brokers walked around AT THE DEPOT 89 with time on their hands, time to discuss the unusual reversals and upsets. Elye "the Merciful," a lanky, freethinking young man with a kind heart and two distinct voices—one manly and thick, the other high-pitched and thin—had netted about ten thousand rubles that summer. He came to the station with his own driver and his own team of horses and took his tea in thefirst-classlounge. Shloymke Perl, a young fellow with a shady reputation, who until recently was wearing patched trousers and mooching cigarettes , now traded in the grand manner, buying and selling by the carload. Then there was Chaim Mendl Margulies, a "big spender" who leased the estate of an absentee count and ran it for his own profit. A man with a delicate, aristocratic face, and aristocratic tastes to match, he had dropped vast sums of money and no one knew whether he had anything left in reserve. He still came to the depot in a new phaeton drawn by a flashy team of horses. He lived as lavishly as ever, and continued to conduct business with the nobility . But it was because of him that Chanina Shapira, a rich moneylender with a chronic cough, came as often as he did to the station, where he would stroll around, stroking his tangled yellow beard under the watchful smile of the dealers. On one occasion, when the depot crowd was in high spirits, Pivniak, who was sporting a new black overcoat, was delegated to approach the money-lender. Pivniak did as he was bidden; he stopped Chanina and asked whether he had not sworn out a complaint against Margulies before the local judge, and whether the case was not to be tried on the sixteenth of that very month. What was the story, eh? Pivniak's shameless fabrication provoked hoots of laughter from the onlookers, but failed to disturb the slumbers of the tall red station. Chanina was on the point of answering, then thought better of it, and instead gave an audible snort. For want of something to do, he drew a crumpled scrap of paper slowly from his pocket, raised it to his wide, nearsighted eyes, and sniffed at it tentatively, as though it might have been dropped into his pocket, and were about to go off like a bomb. Benish Rubinstein, a dark young man of medium height, with a narrow, overgrown forehead, deep black eyes, and a sharp, pointed nose, stood in the middle of the platform like a forgotten man. He was well educated, of a good family and of decidedly liberal views, 90 YIDDISH NOVELLAS and he had recently remarried, receiving a dowry for the second time. His second wife was a dumpy woman with a greenish complexion, the daughter of a wealthy parvenu. He, on the other hand, was a bit of a miser, with close-shaven cheeks and traces of studyhouse bookishness. He resented the fact that other dealers were earning a profit while he was eating up ready cash, and in his envy he chewed anxiously at his fingernails. From time to time Avromehik Kaufman strolled over casually to give him a playful slap over the shoulders. "Benish," he shouted into the other's glum face, "you're a lucky man." Benish smiled back thinly, but his eyes glittered, and he was uncertain whether he ought to take offense or not. Before he could decide, Avromchik was already striding off, with his hands behind his jacket and his head jutting forward. He had made a lot of money that summer, and by adding to it the sizeable sum he had managed to squeeze out of his miserly father, he now was able to buy the reservoir near the depot. He gave the impression of having grown stronger; his face seemed more confident, and his smile, lazier. Whenever he ran into his old friend, Itsik-Borukh, at the depot, he grabbed him by both hands, shook him good-naturedly back and forth, and asked: "Tell me the truth, Itsik, does it pay to drive yourself?" Years ago, when as children they had studied together in the same cheder, Itsik was forever playing tricks on Benish, smudging his face with dirt, or sticking a white paper to his back with the word IDIOT printed in large black lettering. Later Itsik had gone off to a big city to study on his own for the external university exams. He was still there when his younger brother was accepted into the university, and even later, when his father, a "Litvak,"* and one of the first dealers to sell on commission, had grown old. When his father died, he quit the big city and returned to the depot for his mother's sake. The station habitues treated the newcomer with respect. They were impressed by his aloofness and by his robust physique and long hair, which bespoke his former revolutionary activities in the distant city. Shaking himself free from Avromchik's grip, Itsik whispered in his ear: "I feel sorry for you, Avromchik. How can anyone be so strong, so healthy, and so dumb!" *A Litvak: a Lithuanian. In folk parlance, a cold rationalist, a man of sceptical bent. AT THE DEPOT 91 Avromchik laughed tolerantly and rewarded him with another jovial slap on the back. CHAPTER 2 It was during that summer that Avromchik built himself a home: its construction was as lazy and slow as the unctuous ruminations of his lazy brain. And yet, by the beginning of September, a handsome cottage stood near the reservoir at a slight distance from the depot, wearing its flat white roof with becoming modesty, gazing intently at all the passing vehicles as though the four long glass windows of its front wall were huge gaping eyes. Barefoot local peasant children, who tended their geese on the adjacent field, came over to peer through the open windows into the five empty rooms, all painted and wallpapered, and to listen for the echoes of the stones they furtively threw inside. Avromchik would sometimes stand on the handcarved, unfinished veranda, hands folded behind his jacket, nodding cheerfully at the passing salesmen and dealers. The dealers did not wish him well. Nevertheless, the veranda was eventually completed, and Avromchik celebrated with a bachelor's housewarming party which attracted many invited and uninvited guests from the neighboring town. The guests, including a number of girls in shabby little hats, arrived in two large, tightly-packed carriages amid a great deal of shouting and merriment. But as they drew up to the new and empty house the girls felt suddenly embarrassed because their host was a bachelor and a complete stranger, and they remained seated in their places. Ashamed to go in, they giggled loudly and blushed, nudging one another in the ribs. Then they set out for the station grounds, where they strolled around arm in arm, still a little shyly, nibbling at cheap stale candy. Among these girls was Avromchik's sister, a strapping girl of about seventeen, with the face and mannerisms of a boy. Her stride was masculine too, and she swung her long arms vigorously as she walked. It was as if someone, long ago, while she was still a child, had put the wrong clothes on her; sooner or later, when the mistake 92 YIDDISH NOVELLAS came to be rectified, she would undoubtedly cut off her long braid and don jacket and trousers, as was proper. The sales agents hanging around the depot exchanged lewd and witty remarks as they appraised the unusual bevy of visitors; Benish Rubinstein, standing slightly apart from the others, fretted and bit his nails. He was annoyed that Avromchik had invited so many blushing young girls down to the station, and when he saw Itsik-Borukh, he asked him, as a like-minded ally, what did he make of all this? He liked speaking cryptically, in unfinished and therefore suggestive phrases. "That girl over there has a pretty face." Itsik said, pointing to the one of his choice. After studying her a little longer, he added, "Pretty but dumb." A young salesman, with a face red like a butcher's, tried to engage the girls in conversation, but succeeded only in embarrassing them and in setting them scurrying and giggling loudly in every direction. "Well, Itsik?" Benish persisted. Receiving no answer, he continued to gaze expectantly at this newcomer from the strange and distant world of the city. Nothing seemed to bother the man. . . . "You have some fine qualities", said Benish approvingly, adding as an afterthought, "You don't hate anyone, do you Itsik?" Itsik glanced around and admitted to hating sour borscht, fools, and people who didn't know their own minds. Rubinstein's close-shaven cheeks reddened meekly in protest: "Come now, Itsik." But Itsik was already gone. And Benish suddenly felt altogether forsaken. He felt he was drowning in a sea of hatred; someone was choking him mercilessly from behind even as he sank, squeezing his throat a little tighter day by day. Exactly who was choking him he did not—he would never—know; one day, still ignorant, he would turn black and blue, extend a blue-black tongue, and give up his soul—a soul, he felt, as ugly and stupid as the body it had entered and inhabited. He began chewing his nails ever more vigorously, and tried to regain his composure by computing in his head the money he still possessed. Unwelcome thoughts kept intruding, reminding him of the dealers who had prospered that summer, of Chaim Mendl Margulies who still owed him quite a large sum, and of his own AT THE DEPOT 93 useless meanderings about the depot, which accomplished nothing and seemed only to whittle away at his remaining cash supply. "It doesn't take much work to become a pauper/' he smiled wryly to himself. For a while, he continued to wander aimlessly around the station, then he made his way to the other side of the building where the agents and dealers were climbing back into their carriages for the return trip to their lodgings in the next town. Levi Pivniak leaned out of one of the larger carriages to shout: "Well, Benish, let's go home to the wife." But he made no move to go. His wife was a dumpy woman with a greenish complexion and a thick snub nose. Whenever she went to the pantry, she climbed on a stool, fell, and broke something. And with this sickly woman, who could never bear him any children, he had to spend the rest of his life, looking at her green face and snub nose, and watching her break the dishes and glassware. The sun was setting. For a few final moments the huge red ball hung on the cloudy horizon, setting fire to the yellow leaves at the tips of the acacia trees. Then it slid down behind a bald mountain. "Does Mr. Rubinstein intend to spend the night at the depot?" asked another voice from one of the carriages. Benish didn't bother to reply. His eyes were on the little figure of Pinye Lisak skulking forlornly, in an oversized black coat, around the three rented carriages. Having no money for the fare, Pinye was ignored by the coachmen. Finally Elye "the Merciful" invited him into his carriage and sat him up front with the driver, a strong peasant lad with the black hands of a cobbler, who so resented the intrusion he began to poke Lisak and make threatening faces at him. Lisak made himself as small as possible on the seat, his face wearing an expression of mixed fright and gratitude. The last carriage left the depot, crammed with passengers happy to be on their way home. Benish watched the driver beat the scrawny horses in an attempt to catch up with the earlier departures; the cool evening breeze chased after the carriage, sweeping its dust in the direction of the town. A tall provincial officer with stiff military bearing emerged from the station house. The door banged shut behind him, resounding loudly, not as in a building with rooms and corridors, but like a hollow, empty barrel. At the sight of Rubinstein standing alone, 94 YIDDISH NOVELLAS absorbed in his thoughts, the officer felt he wanted to say something but on second thought decided that this might be undignified. Instead, he set out for home, holding himself proud and alert, as though he were being observed from the station and its tall swaying trees by the thousand piercing eyes of his superiors. The sight of the distant carriages crawling one after another up the hill and over the cloudy horizon made Benish feel abandoned and forgotten. He could see, as vividly as if he were actually there, the town behind the horizon, the herd being driven home from the pasture through the long narrow street, the women sitting in the open doorways of their homes, waiting for their husbands to return, and complaining about the early autumn chill. His own house stood at the bottom of the street, surrounded by a low fence, and it had a padlock on the door. Were he now to arrive, he would try the lock, peer through the closed window into the empty house, and then set out to look for his wife. He would find her at her father's house; she would greet him with perfect equanimity, her face as green as ever. But his mother-in-law would undoubtedly bounce up from her chair and say: "Look who's here. It's Benish. Go, daughter, go home and make him some tea." And they would take their leave. Even farther beyond the same cloudy horizon lay another town with a main street that was wide and twisting, and there it was already night. Midway up that street stood his father's house, an old crooked structure with misshapen windows. In that house he had been born, and in the old studyhouse nearby he had spent his youth. At that very moment his father was probably sitting in the studyhouse, surrounded by deferential Jews who still remembered his father-in-law's impressive wealth. But he, Benish, stood alone in an empty depot, without a home, and with a lock on the perfectly silent and empty house that was his. From that day on Benish did not return to town in the evenings, but rented a room from one of the local farmers which he called his "home." This was an act of spite against his sickly wife and another loathsome person, his snooty mother-in-law, who then had to take over his wife's support. But neither his wife nor his stingy motherin -law took the trouble to inquire why he had stopped coming AT THE DEPOT 95 home. He was apparently so insignificant that his absence mattered no more than his presence. Their lack of interest made him all the more obstinate, and soon he even stopped writing letters. The days at the depot crept by with steady monotony. In the early morning the grain dealers would arrive. As a result of the drought, there was nothing to do but make small talk with the brokers, or follow the progress of the long passenger trains as they entered and left the station. Benish avoided the other dealers as much as possible because of the loud delight they took in the losses he was sustaining and in the ugliness of his wife. They were all mean and unprincipled, they were all, except for him, earning money, and he hated them all heartily. Nevertheless, when the dealers left for home in the evening, the station seemed an emptier and gloomier place. After they left, Benish drifted around the deserted station grounds, feeling hurt and abandoned. His thoughts were grim and unpleasant, no matter where they turned: to his empty house standing alone among the friendly homes of the cheerful town, or to the prospect of wandering around forever, silent, lonely, and sad. His presence, moreover, seemed to irritate the station attendants, who, passing the bench where he sat, would throw quick, angry glances as if to ask: why do you loiter here? Even the porter who swept up every night was beginning to find him bothersome: why else did he glare at him and sweep the dust right into his face? He resented this man who straggled about like a dog for no apparent reason after all the other merchants had gone home to their wives and children. As if the air itself were out to get him, the evenings turned cool and autumnal, and soft winds spread about a heavy gloom; the winds were not strong enough to sway the tall poplars that stood in two soldierly rows, upright and at attention, in the field opposite the station, but their leaves turned over and trembled in silent prayer. Sometimes Avromchik Kaufman made a quick trip to the station to check if the last freight had brought his order of kerosene and lumber, and then he hurried back to the reservoir. In the evenings the lights of his house could be seen shining in the distance, and through the still, empty air, his elderly caretaker was heard absent-mindedly banging a stick against the wooden fence. At the far edge of the station grounds Itsik-Borukh sometimes could be seen on his way to the pump, where he would try to find someone to go bathing with him. He was so powerful and stubborn 96 YIDDISH NOVELLAS that he still bathed regularly twice a day though the water in the lake was like ice and cut the body with knifelike cold. He sent all his earnings home to his mother, but he himself stayed at the depot, aloof from everyone, with an expression that never varied from Sabbath to weekday. One evening Benish dropped in for a visit, and found Itsik lying on a low couch, staring up at the ceiling. Benish asked if Itsik was bored. Itsik replied no, but continued to stare at the ceiling. On that occasion Benish stayed for a few hours, and thereafter fell into the habit of visiting every evening. Most of the time Itsik merely stared at the ceiling without saying a word, as if he could see in its dark corners those great cities where he had spent his youth. Itsik's unconcern with the profits of the other grain dealers, and his equal unconcern with the heavy losses sustained by Benish, made it agreeable to be in his presence and even to speak freely while he kept silent. Once, after lingering even longer than usual, Benish spent the night in Itsik's room. He took that opportunity to reveal his deepest confidences, but Itsik maintained his usual silence and looked as if he were pretending Benish was addressing someone else. The lamp, shaded by a red paper hood, cast a reddish glow over everything in the room, the air, the walls, the table with the perking samovar and the full glasses of tea, and over Itsik himself, lying in his usual position with his hands folded behind his head. It was pleasant to sit in the warm stillness, to hear the sounds of a piglet squealing in the dark corridor behind the door and of the landlord who was quarreling with his pretty young wife in the other half of the house. Yet despite the calm, Benish's heart ached and contracted in pain. He spoke in a low voice in a tone of muted complaint: "Can't you understand, Itsik? They're saying: 'look at us and eat your heart out/ If s as simple as that." Etched visibly into his face was resentment: against his wife, against the dealers who were making good profits, against life itself. His deep narrow eyes glittered, giving the impression of helplessness and pain. "Everywhere there are scoundrels like Avromchik Kaufman who smile and prosper." But suddenly Itsik stretched his powerful body to its fulllength, and yawned aloud: "Rubinstein, they say your first wife was beautiful and clever." Rubinstein, his eyes glittering fiercely, wanted to respond that his present wife was ugly and stupid, but held his tongue. AT THE DEPOT 97 The pretty young wife of the landlord came into the room. She pushed several chairs against the couch and with her round arms exposed, made up their bed for the night. Benish took off everything but his underwear and lay down next to the wall. Then Itsik turned out the lamp, stretched out beside him, and promptly fell asleep. The little pig was heard poking its way into a dark corner where it curled up and stopped its squealing. Suddenly there was only silence and emptiness and between the side-curtains, the dark heavy September night peered in through the open window. The landlord, bundled up in his sheepskin , passed the window on his way to work; at a distance of at least three viorsts, he would spend the night as a lonely watchman. The lantern under his arm bobbed up and down like a giganticfieryeye, now fading, now disappearing from view, but never extinguished. Benish's heart began to ache again, and his mind throbbed with memories of his departed wife, a very lovely, very gentle girl with soft and delicate feelings, who had somehow loved him, as dark and homely as he was, with his close-shaven cheeks and fingernails bitten to the bone. He must have loved her too. Otherwise he would not have fallen into a frenzy when she died, rushing into the street like a madman screaming "help" for two hours until every woman in the neighborhood came running. No one screams like that without cause, certainly not he, Benish Rubinstein. Yet in spite of this, he returned to his father's house shortly after she died, tore up the lovely photograph she had given him when they were engaged, shoved the pieces under a leaf of the dining room table, and remarried four months later, receiving a second dowry into the bargain. When he brought his second wife home to introduce her to his family, his mother, a decent and clever woman, welcomed her as a fine, respectable daughter-in-law; but his younger sister, an outspoken provincial girl with a mole under her nose, broke into loud sobbing and mourned as though over a corpse: "Some replacement you found!" The replacement, who was in the adjoining room at the time and heard every word, did not even protest: a leaden, lifeless woman . Once, when the dining room table was being moved, the torn scraps of the photograph fell out. His wife picked them up and studied them. Her eye looked up gently and without reproach from one of the scraps. "Whose picture is this?" Though his face was aflame and his throat strangely parched, he felt obliged to answer. But his reply made not the slightest impression, and at that moment 98 YIDDISH NOVELLAS his resentment toward his wife grew stronger. He wished his sister were there to cry out as she had before: "What a replacement! What a replacement you found!" Just as he began to doze off, a sudden rapping was heard at the window on the other side of the house. He shuddered and opened his eyes. The soft taps rained against the thin glass pane, which vibrated as if confessing a secret to the night air. Then came the sound of a door opening cautiously in the vestibule, a hushed whispering in the dark, and footsteps going out into the hall and then back again. "There goes the ghost!" muttered Itsik from his sleep, shifting his weight and pressing Benish a little more tightly against the wall. "Who is it?" he wanted to know. "Avromchik. He's here every night. . . . " Even as he spoke Itsik fell asleep again; the sound of his strong regular breathing filled the room. Benish was incredulous, and for a moment his face froze in a grimace of surprise. Later, when he realized it really was Avromchik there on the other side of the house with that pretty young wench whose bare round arms had so recently made up his bed, he began to brood resentfully over the other's good fortune: "A pig knows how to wallow in the pleasures of this life. No wonder he's so pleased with himself." Assuring himself that it was not envy but merely annoyance that he felt, he lay there sleeplessly, chewing on his fingernails, and wondering why Avromchik should have this too, in addition to his money, his reservoir, and a new home with new furnishings. Early the next morning he buttonholed Itsik at the depot and blurted out: "You'll see: Avromchik will even find himself a pretty wife." Itsik was slow to understand his meaning, but when he saw what Benish was getting at, he merely turned aside and spat. CHAPTER 3 Pinye Lisak stole away from the depot, looking furtively behind him to see if anyone noticed his retreat. In any case, his presence was AT THE DEPOT 99 superfluous: no one spoke to him any more and he was afraid of them all. As might have been expected, it was some time before his absence was noted, and even then it provoked only mild surprise: "Come to think of it, I haven't seen him for a while." They were brought up to date by Levi Pivniak who said: "You want to know about Pinye Lisak? Why, he's begging from door to door." The man was a born meddler. Nothing escaped his prying eyes. In imparting the news, he even raised an astonished eyebrow, as if wondering how anyone could have remained ignorant of so common a fact. When his audience persisted in its disbelief, Pivniak folded his hands into his sleeves, bowed his head to his chest, and magisterially, without looking at anyone, summoned Nahum Piatke to appear at once. A red-haired young man with a ruddy freckled face, one cheek swathed in a bandage, and pale, bloodless lips, came forth to bear witness: his own mother-in-law had seen Lisak in Odessa, making the rounds and passing himself off as one of the survivors of the Kalibelod fire. His duty accomplished, Pivniak coughed for no apparent reason and strode away without looking back. Bewildered, the grain dealers smiled at one another quizzically, wondering what to make of the news. Before them rose an image of Lisak's swarthy, frightened face, drifting about some distant place, wincing at the sight of the scorched women who had to smear their bodies every day with mud: "Refugees of Kalibelod. Lost everything in the fire." The red-haired, freckled youth continued to stand there swearing to the truth of his report. It gave one an uncomfortable feeling. One day several weeks later, after the trains had pulled out of the station and the crowd begun to disperse, the dealers noticed Lisak's wife, a heavy woman made even stouter by pregnancy, with smooth flaxen hair and an equally smooth, sallow face. She was standing with her face to the wall, crying soundlessly. The dealers kept their distance, but the sight of her trembling shoulders reminded them that not long ago, when she used to accompany Lisak to his tiny office to help with his business affairs, her hair had smelled of perfume. Moved by her plight, they decided to take up a collection. Elye "the Merciful" approached each of them in turn, smiling gently and pleading: "You must shut your eyes and give blindly for a cause like this." The dealers responded to his appeal. When it came to Benish, Pivniak interrupted long enough to mutter: "Give generously. 1OO YIDDISH NOVELLAS When your turn, God willing, comes along, we'll take up another collection for you/' The bystanders enjoyed the joke, but Benish took offense and his deepset eyes flashed angrily. What wrong had he ever done to this broad-boned hunchback? He turned on the dealers and pointing to Lisak's wife, accused them of bringing her husband to ruin: first they forced him into beggary, then they took up collections for him. His insulted eyes surveyed the dealers, finally focusing on Meir Hecht as if to ask: was this as it should be? Hecht turned toward the sobbing woman. His head with its prominent nose and flaring nostrils was tilted upward as though someone were chucking him lovingly under his black, newly-sprouted beard, asking what he had learned that day in cheder. He had recently came to the depot from the province of Chernigov to buy up some bran. As he had little to do with the other dealers, he was dubbed "The Holidayer." The nickname may have been inspired by the fashionable black suit he always wore, or by his heavily inflected speech that was punctuated by leisurely pauses, a little like the study chant of a pious Jew on Sabbath, or by the festive tranquillity of his face, which was smooth as dark silk. This fellow Hecht was a strange creature. His delicate sensibilities were outraged by trade and those who conducted it, and yet he was a tradesman himself. He had a pretty little wife back home in the province of Chernigov. She wrote letters to say that she loved him, and he wrote back that the price of bran was holding its own. Wrinkled, yellowing leaves fell from the trees. Turning a few somersaults on the way down, they glided gracefully back and forth through the air before coming to their final rest on the station platform, dejected and broken: was this, then, the end? The answer came in the form of a whisking broom and the cold blast of an ominous evening wind. Swept up from one place to another, they tumbled to the far side of the tracks while other leaves, as wrinkled and yellowish as they, fell to the platform from the semi-naked trees. Mournful evenings descended upon the depot. No one admitted to fright, but everyone fled to the warmth of the bright warm cottages, leaving Benish Rubinstein alone in the cold. AT THE DEPOT 101 Once inside, everyone calmly drank tea, smiled pleasantly at his host, bounced a child on his knee, made conversation, all to stave off the gloom on the other side of the bright windows. Thus was the gloom driven back to the station, and from there its bleak hegemony extended as far as the eye could see. The straight railroad track and tall telegraph poles stretched to the very edge of the horizon, eventually disappearing into darkness, but traces of gloom lingered in the long row of red lanterns that bobbed and bowed in the direction of the oncoming night. Long, heavy freight trains stood angrily in the station, then began to shunt slowly backward along the track; at the sound of a sleepy conductor's whistle, they jerked suddenly to a stop and resumed their brooding, stationary silence. The sight of the freight cars bulging with goods filled Benish with envy of those whose pleasure they would serve. The cars were loaded with lumber for Avromchik and many other comfortable Avromchiks who lived near sleepy outlying depots: some people were apparently enjoying their lives. Only two others remained on the empty platform. Israel Zazoly , a Jew from the country, was engrossed in friendly conversation with himself, in the course of which he cursed himself intermittently with a hearty, "pox on your father's house!" Not far from him the sole lingering student was engaged in a heated argument with the pretty salesgirl at the newspaper stand. He may have been explaining why he was hanging around the station so late, and why she ought to love him despite his snub nose, gangling height, and bulging glassy eyes. It was rather sad to hear. Benish tried vainly to do a little reading. Time was when he could study for days on end, but now . . . whenever he tried to read he was beset by memories of his boyhood, and of his first wife who liked to nestle her head against his shoulder and close her eyes in contented silence. And all this led him inevitably to thoughts of his present wife, strange and sickly, and of his obese mother-in-law, whose affected voice he thought he heard right now: "Well, if it isn't Benish himself! Go on, daughter, go home and make him some tea." For spite, he resolved not to think about them, and he went to call on Meir Hecht who had also read and studied much at one time, but now smoked cigarettes and ruminated: life, he was fond of saying, was more interesting than any book. As he made this pronouncement his silky, insolent face would grow quite earnest 102 YIDDISH NOVELLAS and his eyes open very wide. Then he told a wonderful ancient tale of a man of the Church who had pointed to the natural surroundings saying, "These are my books." During one such conversation, Benish suddenly thought of his own mean little life which had already made half a pauper out of him and would soon be the object of open scorn. He smiled bitterly: "And what about my own life, eh?" Meir Hecht's eyes widened with pleasure and deepened their glow. Nodding and puffing on a cigarette, he assured Benish with a chuckle that the same held true for his own life and everyone else's. Well, it was all very well for him, for Hecht, to say so. He was earning considerable sums of money, and he had a lively, attractive little wife. When she paid him a visit, she always smiled cheerfully up at him as they whiled away the time by playing hand-slap games. He would slap her small chubby hands so hard they tingled and she would run away shouting: "Go away! I hate you!" In the evenings as she walked beside him, she looked up proudly at his dark silk-smooth face, and told lovely, charming stories about the things that had happened back home in Chernigov . The men couldn't take their eyes off her. They exchanged envious, insinuating remarks: "Sweet and petite. . . ." "You said it!" Avromchik now came to the station every day in his new suit. Once Pivniak teased him publicly by greeting him with the words, "Happy holiday to you, Reb Avromchik!" But rather than take offense, Avromchik only smiled lazily at Pivniak and motioned in the direction of Meir Hecht's wife. Pivniak's roguish eyes inquired whether Avromchik wanted one such for himself. At that point, Benish would have liked to tell Avromchik to his face that Hecht, who was a fine young man with many sterling qualities, deserved to have a fine wife, whereas a fat pig like himself. . . . But then remembering Avromchik's dumb luck, he began to bite his nails. It was now quite clear to him: the others would all live happily ever after, but his own house in the nearby town would remain locked, and his sickly wife would continue to write that she was well, yet unwell, that she had lately fallen off something or other, hurting herself badly and breaking the porcelain vase. And as for his business dealings, it was hopeless even to think about them! The autumn dragged on. Short bleak days when no sun or sky was AT THE DEPOT 103 visible were followed by twenty-four hour rains that brought fresh black mudholes reminiscent of the dawn of creation. All this meant extra hardship for the coachmen who had to keep binding up the horses* tails and bundling themselves into thick wet greatcoats. They were afraid of the darkness as of death itself. "It's impossible to drive," they complained, whipping their horses forward, "one might as well be blind!" At one point the dimly-lit and rain-soaked depot was smothered by a thick fog that severed it from the rest of the world. There were fewer people around now, and Benish felt terribly alone. Meir Hecht had gone away for a few weeks. Avromchik had found himself a pretty fiancee and was boasting of getting married on the Sabbath of Hanukah. As for Itsik, his life at the depot remained as solitary and mysterious as in the cities where he had once lived. During the day he busied himself at the depot and in the evenings he strode off with a thick walking stick in the direction of the scattered village in the nearby valley that was still clambering up the adjacent mountain slopes. Whom was he going to see? There were no Jews there except for Chaim Mendl Margulies, the man with the aristocratic face and bearing, who managed the count's estate and occupied the lovely, spacious manor house. CHAPTER 4 One frosty and overcast evening Avromchik came in on one of the long passenger trains. The local dealers surrounded him with animated curiosity, some tugging him by the shoulders, others by the hands, everyone asking at once: "Well, Avromchik, where is she?" Pulled and pushed in every direction, Avromchik grasped the package he was carrying and shouted good-naturedly: "Don't get so excited! Have patience. Wait a minute. . . ." When they turned their heads, they all fell silent. A shapely girl of medium height was standing beside Avromchik with an expression that seemed to ask: 104 YIDDISH NOVELLAS "You must be the grain dealers?" She had an attractive dark face and clever black eyes that glowed with a dreamy, faraway look. This was Avromchik's wife. The younger men blushed, and the older ones pinched each other behind their backs. Whether accidentally or not, one of the pinches found its way to Avromchik who almost screamed aloud, but was unable to determine whom he ought to repay for the favor. The men all had such serious, responsible faces, and such mischievous, twinkling eyes. Apparently, they were a little ill at ease. Avromchik was therefore eager to show off his easy familiarity with her; taking his wife by the arm he led her away to their home near the reservoir. The dealers felt a sudden relief, and their roguish, merry eyes accompanied the departing couple down the road. As usual, Levi Pivniak was the first to break the mood of earnest self-restraint. Folding his hands inside the sleeves of his jacket, he pronounced her not quite beautiful, but certainly far from ugly. "And what a pair of eyes!" "And what a pair of. . . . " Their minds were dizzied by the boldness of this, and the conversation grew flustered. "Seems a little on the thin side, but. . . . " "Isn't she something!" "She sure is!" They were talking in broken phrases, with gestures and winks to supplement what could not be said. "Just wait and see." This insinuating prediction came from a tall, robust sales agent with a silly florid face and a long curling mustache. The silliness of his face was so well concealed by the black mustache that those seeing him for the first time were struck rather by his awesome height and robust good health. The many successful intrigues he had carried on during the course of his vapid life with women as healthy and silly as himself had made him quite confident and self-assured. Since Avromchik's pretty wife pleased him, he boasted that he would soon be on intimate terms with her. The dealers believed him, and were jealous already. Within a few hours Avromchik was back at the depot. The dealers continued their teasing, but he was now at liberty to return AT THE DEPOT 105 every pinch and nudge in kind. In the darkness a very young man with soft down on his cheeks, coughed in embarrassment and an older "authority" declared loudly: "These delicate women are not to my taste." Everyone was suddenly laughing. Avromchik joined in their laughter as though the delicate and attractive female, the subject of all these remarks, were no more his concern than theirs, as though not he but some unknown stranger had brought her down to the depot and then disappeared with her. Someone gave him an approving thump on the back and soon, over the sound of back-slapping and the noise of departing trains the cry of "molodietsl" was heard, muffled at first, then repeated more loudly and resonantly. It was at that moment that Benish recalled the comely wench to whom Avromchik had so recently paid his nocturnal visit. His eyes glittered fiercely: hadn't he predicted that this would happen? Someone beside him was shaking his head in wonder that Avromchik could have landed such a beauty, while someone else expressed astonishment that anyone should be surprised. In their excitement the grain dealers became very rowdy. There was much pushing and jostling and Avromchik was finally pulled into the bright secondclass salon where a sour-faced Tartar stood behind a bar laden with bottles. As long as he stayed among them, Benish knew he would feel as coarse and mean as the others; but he had nowhere else to go. So he stayed, and heard first the lewd voice of Levi Pivniak, then a second voice estimating the cost of the long drunken night ahead and crying: "The treat's on you, Avromchik!" Later, the station was cold and deserted, except for one dark corner where some tipsy grain dealers were arguing among themselves about a sale to a local landowner. The wind carried their haggling voices into the cold night air: "I hope your doctor's bills amount to at least half of what your meddling has cost me!" The long row of lamps bore silent witness to the curse. The little flames bobbed and nodded slowly like so many tiny human heads giving testimony to an unseen stranger: "We heard. We heard." io6 YIDDISH NOVELLAS A figure detached itself from the group in the corner, hunched its shoulders like a beggar, and extended a hand for charity. Even as he turned aside, refusing to give, Benish heard the man's nasty and persistent voice mocking him: "Give or don't give, it's all the same. You'll be a pauper anyhow." Benish slowly walked away from the depot, chewing on his fingernails. Terrifying thoughts assaulted him: he would soon be a pauper, a miserable beggar like Pinye Lisak. The crowd at the depot would make fun of him, as they did of Lisak, and he would not even be there to hear it. Lonely and crazed with resentment, he would rot in some faraway place while the ancient red station house stared as frigidly as ever at the approaching and departing trains, at the enterprising and cheerful dealers. The night grew heavier. An intense blackness filled the chilly air, hiding the cloudy skies and smothering the houses, trees, and railroad tracks. Somewhere in the dark a locomotive gave a tentative whistle that broke off in the middle and expired in a hoarse and heavy sigh. Caught by the wind, the sigh was carried to the small grove of trees on the south side of the depot where it disturbed the nocturnal stillness of the sleeping naked trees. For a moment the grove stirred awake, cast a reluctant eye into the depth of the blackness, and then fell back into so sound a slumber that nothing, not even the submissive bending of the staunch naked trees, could disturb its rest. Rubinstein walked homeward, deep in thought, yet painfully conscious of his own self. This was he, Benish Rubinstein, whose fortune, like his life, was in steady decline, who had not been home, or seen his wife, or spoken to her, in three months. Behind him in the dark, the great station bell swung back and forth, battling the wind. Its slow, even peals announced the coming of a train that was even now slicing its way across the night in their direction. Two conductors, muffled up against the cold, emerged from the darkness with flickering reddish-green lanterns in their hands. The passage of these two bulging figures intruded briefly on the darkness, which soon closed behind them and became even more intense, as if pleased to reassert its rule. The darkened houses near the depot stood like gravestones in a long mournful row, eager to share the easy, peaceful sleep of their hard-working owners, but kept awake by the blustering wind. AT THE DEPOT 107 Benish felt very lonely by himself. In the darkness to his left, where there was only the reservoir, he saw Avromchik's bright little house standing alone in the cold black night that stretched endlessly across a frozen expanse offieldsand valleys and naked mountains. Rubinstein was attracted to the house. It was a pretty little place. A thin strip of light escaped through the outer shutters of the first three windows, but the shutters of the furthest two had been left open, and inside them it was dark. All at once the night was startled by a light, and he saw Avromchik's wife standing in the doorway to the bedroom with a candle in her hand. From inside the room the twin beds, twin dressers, and twin night tables stared back at her sullenly. Her slender figure began moving forward, but something startled her and she hastily withdrew. The candle fell from her hand and was extinguished, plunging the room back into darkness. Benish felt the pounding of his own heart: should he go in? He was ashamed at the thought, until he reminded himself that she had just suffered a fright. Perhaps she had imagined a hideous intruder standing between the beds. Or perhaps the beds themselves frightened her. . . . Before he could make up his mind what to do, the room became bright again. She was back in the doorway with a candle in her hand as before, looking fearfully into the heart of the room. Benish thought to himself that Avromchik would soon come home and grin at his wife with the same smug and lazy smile he had lavished on the pretty farmwife with the bare round arms. Benish was drawn back to the house night after night. The evenings were dark and cold and reeked of loneliness, and the wind howled over the dormant houses at the depot. It was hard to understand why he braved the darkness on such bitter nights or what he hoped to find. But having nowhere else to go, he would prowl around, wondering whether that fat pig, Avromchik, realized how well off he was. Whenever Avromchik stayed late at the depot and the shutters of his house remained open, Benish could look inside and see the lovely slender female figure with the deep black eyes, smiling occasionally at the maid. Meanwhile Avromchik played cards at the depot with the other grain dealers and bought an occasional whiskey from the sour-faced Tartar. Whenever he ran into Benish he pulled io8 YIDDISH NOVELLAS him by the hand—"Come on, Benish, what are you worried about?"—and then nudged him playfully in the ribs. Benish simmered resentfully: why should Avromchik have it all? On one particular evening, he walked over to the depot and downed several bottles of beer in quick succession. He was a poor drinker; beer alone was enough to make his head spin and his mind churn with greater hatred than usual toward Avromchik and the other dealers. He looked up at the Tartar who was pouring beer into his glass, and asked: "I guess the dealers are playing cards, eh?" The Tartar leaned toward him across the bar as though reporting the outcome of an important mission: "Yes, they're in the men's lounge." This thick-headed bartender was apparently under the impression that he, Benish Rubinstein, wanted to join the card game in the lounge. Benish hastily downed the full glass that had been put in front of him and explained that business was very bad these days: the dealers couldn't cheat one another in trade, so they were reduced to cheating each other at cards. The formulation so delighted him that he smiled at the Tartar and tried to develop it further: a dealer isn't alive unless he's cheating someone. Now, in his own experience, for example. . . . But the Tartar understood nothing of what he was saying, and Benish began to regret his words. He looked straight into the man's swarthy face and saw that his eyes had an ominous flicker, and his lower lip kept falling open and shut. "Never mind." He dismissed him with a wave of the hand and left the building. A wave of cold air suddenly enveloped him. He walked along, tipsy from the successive beers. Sad thoughts and hopeful ones were tangled in his mind, and his mood was now gay, now gloomy: Things were not going very well for him . . . but at least he was not like the others, like Shloymke Perl, and Elye "the Merciful," and Avromchik Kaufman, who sat in the men's lounge cheating one another at cards . . . Benish Rubinstein could not cheat, so he would have to do something else. He had to make a living somehow. Maybe he could become a tutor in a village somewhere . . . . Half giggling and half in tears, he concluded that everything was actually for the best. Pivniak and his mother-in-law and even his wife Frumke would be satisfied by his decision. AT THE DEPOT 109 By this time he had reached Avromchik's house and was again pacing back and forth, stopping to peer through the window. What was he, a village tutor, doing there? Clara was inside—so he had heard her referred to at the depot—she was sitting at the table facing the window, absorbed in something. It was cozy and peaceful inside. Outside where he stood, the icy wind whistled and blew against his back and shoulders. Tears sprang up in his eyes, perhaps from staring for so long from the intense darkness outside at her calm illumined face within. He saw her rise to turn down the lamp. Her dark and earnest face was so very familiar and dear. It seemed to him that he had known that dark face for a very long time, those serious and clever black eyes, the delicate slender body. He had known her forever, from his earliest childhood. . . . He was shivering with cold. Why should he, the village tutor, with the closely shaven cheeks and narrow sunken eyes, stand outside in the biting cold, shivering in his skin, while inside where she sat it was so cozy and warm, so clean and homey? And she was lonely by herself. Why not drop in after all? He could always think of a suitable excuse. . . . Standing on the smooth stone steps, with his hand pressed against the bell, he was suddenly struck by the thought that Avromchik might be home. Even as he rang he was frightened and regretted his action: he had done a foolish thing. The door was opened by the squat peasant girl whose hair, he noticed, was disheveled and whose feet were bare. Almost sober by this time, he decided that he must ask for Avromchik, and then immediately take his leave. But before he could carry out this resolution, the familiar pretty face appeared in the doorway, with the clever black eyes trained on him. He grew tongue-tied, and felt himself blush. A confusion of thoughts tumbled through his mind as he looked into her dark, earnest face. "Come in and sit down," she said. He sat opposite her at the table feeling that his smile was surely gratuitous, and afraid he had completely forgotten his reasons for coming here. When she asked if he had come to see Avromchik, the smile suffused his entire face. Though he had made a determined effort not to spread his hands over the table, there they suddenly appeared. He blushed and stammered: "Avromchik? No. Actually, no." He immediately sensed how foolish and unnecessary the word 110 YIDDISH NOVELLAS "actually" was, and in an effort to improve matters he tried to explain that he just happened to be passing by . . . that he just dropped in . . . that he was a grain dealer. . . . The more he spoke, the more confused he became. His face was crimson and his throat was parched. Meanwhile she sat opposite him leaning her head on her hands like a tired child: "Are there many dealers at the depot?" she wanted to know. Her soft, unhurried voice reminded him of something important and brought him back to his senses. He began to explain that he himself was one of the dealers, but all at once he broke off in fear: by tomorrow he would be the laughingstock of the depot. Some loudmouth or other would regale all the dealers, agents, and brokers with the story of how Benish Rubinstein was making overtures to Avromchik's wife. "Not everyone has an easy life," he sighed. At these words he saw her head shoot up and her eyes look fearfully into his face: "Tell me! You must tell me! What is it like here around the depot?" He responded to the plea in her dark face, and forgetting that he was seeing her for the first time, poured out his aggrieved and heavy heart: "Some people have a harder life than others, and what's most important is that some people don't even understand the meaning of their lives." He was thinking of Avromchik and Pivniak and the florid sales agent with the curled mustache and of all those who were playing cards in the men's lounge. "What is it like, you ask? We live here like pigs, or if you prefer, like dogs. . . ." He smiled unexpectedly, but whether in bitter regret for the life he had been describing or because someone had just rung the doorbell, it was hard to determine. Sitting opposite her again the following evening he felt quite comfortable and at ease. He complained about the depot, the dealers, and the life of trade. "Dealers are a special breed, an ugly breed . . . first they choke a body to death, then they feel sorry for him." They had begun to put the squeeze on him, for example, and he was already AT THE DEPOT 111 half dead. Since he was incapable of swindling others, he himself was being swindled. The interest that showed in her face filled him with a strange sense of pleasure, and he stayed late into the night. She had asked him, he began, about life at the depot: well, it was a wretched and stupid life. His own life was no different from the others: plodding through the muck, day after day, without rhyme or reason. Were she, for instance, to try interrupting a merchant in the middle of his affairs he would tear himself loose from her and go right back to what he was doing. As for her, well of course, he didn't know her very well and was only seeing her now for the third time, but he knew her well enough to understand that she ought never to have come to the depot. She had no place among people who thought less of their lives than they did of their money. By this time she had probably come to realize this herself. . . . He sensed that it wouldn't do for Avromchik to discover him there again, and rose to his feet. He was going "home," he said, to his present lodgings, a small rented room in a local farmhouse. Sometimes, unable to fall asleep, he lay awake thinking of the senseless life that grain dealers led. He tried to think of a way of escaping the dealers, and of escaping himself. And he had a wife, he continued, in one of the neighboring towns, a dumpy woman with strange ailments and a green complexion. Although he hadn't been home or written to her in three months, she didn't seem to mind, not in the slightest. . . . Walking slowly back to his lodgings, he no longer felt concerned with the depot or the dealers, or with being discovered by Avromchik, or even with the attentions of Avromchik's pretty and earnest wife. He became a part of the thick darkness surrounding him, and returned to an unpleasant thought: he hadn't been home or written to her in three months, but she didn't seem to mind, not in the slightest. CHAPTER 5 One day Elye "the Merciful" told Benish in his high-pitched womanly voice that his mother-in-law had stopped him in town to ask 112 YIDDISH NOVELLAS how much the local dealers were earning and whether Benish was making a living. She felt that she certainly had a right to know. Her shrewd and meticulous inquiry into his affairs seemed to carry with it the message that he was quite welcome to stay where he was. Yet Benish was obliged to smile politely and to thank Elye for the greetings from his mother-in-law. And what if she were a loathsome creature, pretending ignorance of his impending ruin, and asking innocently if her son-in-law was making a living? She could go to the devil, with the dealers and the profits in her wake. If he wanted to, he could throw up the whole thing and become a village tutor. All the same, he wandered around absentmindedly for several hours, chewing his nails. Later, for lack of anything to do, he dropped in on Itsik-Borukh and watched him carving wood to make a child's wooden sled. He was struck by the care and devotion of Itsik's work, the way he stopped every few minutes to wipe the sweat from his brow, and then returned to his chopping and carving. He was also thinking about himself, and suddenly went over to Itsik to tap him lightly on the shoulder and ask: did Itsik think he could earn twenty rubles a month as a village tutor? Itsik lodged his hatchet in the wood, and looked at him with such warm affection that tears sprang to Benish's eyes. He was drawn to this powerful and reserved young fellow, who was already bending over the wood again, chopping away. Benish wondered what possible need he could have of a child's sled, but there was no point in asking. Some time later, on an overcast and frosty Saturday afternoon, as he was passing the frozen lake where the pump stood, he saw Itsik harnessed to the sled, pulling Chaim Mendl Margulies's nineteenyear -old daughter across the ice. It was a very odd sight. At the depot they were saying that Margulies's daughter was in love with Itsik, and that she was the reason for his nightly visits to the nearby village. But there was still something unusual and baffling about the whole affair, and the dealers scratched themselves behind the ear as they wondered out loud: could it really be as simple as that? As for Chaim Mendl Margulies, he of the aristocratic face and stately manners, he was so absorbed in his important financial speculations and his discussions with the magnates who passed through the station, he didn't even notice Itsik's presence. AT THE DEPOT 113 From then on, Benish began to observe Itsik closely, and certain thoughts kept recurring to him: Itsik was a healthy and good-looking young man, without any problems whatsoever. He lived in a marvellous private world of his own, where no grain dealers ever intruded; he loved life with singular passion and had no use for money. It was therefore natural that the dealers should respect him, and that Margulies's daughter, with the curly blond hair and crinkling skyblue eyes, should dote on him and gaze at him with such fierce pleasure and passion and delight. But he, Benish, had a small face with closely trimmed black cheeks, a pointed nose, and beady black eyes that glittered even in the distance. Try as they might, his eyes could never cry, but smiled back whenever anyone smiled at them. Moreover, he was a little man, and he persisted in doing foolish things such as tying himself down to an ugly, sickly wife so that people might have something to laugh at, and he had reduced himself to loitering aimlessly around the depot, earning nothing but the sarcasm of his mother-in-law who wondered whether or not he was making a living. And where would it all end? He waited until Avromchik was immersed in a card game with the dealers, and then set out toward the reservoir. There was surely no point to his going! If it was merely to see Clara, why should he? Would it net him any profit? Yet his gloom was so heavy that he felt he had to talk to someone, and at the depot there was no one, except for Itsik who was pulling Margulies's daughter around on his home-made sled somewhere on the lake, and the card-playing grain dealers who mocked him for wandering around, living off his ready cash and despising his ugly and sickly wife. And recently Clara had stopped during her walk to ask whether he would not drop in sometime to see her. She had seemed frightened, and added: "It's so lonely around here!" So he accepted the invitation, and sitting opposite her now at the table, slowly sipping his tea, he spoke in the weak tones of a helpless sinner. Would she please forgive him, he began, if he spoke a little too freely the previous time. She probably realized that it was hard to keep everything to oneself. Sometimes one said a little more than was called for. . . . Her friendly glance, and the attentiveness with which she listened to his every word, aroused in him a nagging envy of her smug, self-satisfied husband, who took everything in life as it came, 114 YIDDISH NOVELLAS with that never-changing, lazy smile forever on his lips. She ought to be told the truth.' He did not, he went on, want to offend her. It was enough that his own wife and mother-in-law found him offensive. He was an object of dislike and derision to the dealers and agents at the depot, and he wanted her, at least, to think kindly of him. . . . Yet he had to admit that there was a time when people loved him, though it was a long time ago to be sure. The teacher's eyes that glared so fiercely at the other children had smiled benignly at him, had winked in affectionate gratitude at his thorough and proper grasp of the rabbi's teaching. And elderly, gray-bearded Jews with radiant faces had rejoiced in him as in an equal. . . . Even Moishe Aaron "the Grandchild," a querulous, unkempt, consumptive old man, who had spitefully driven his own wife and children from his home, who believed in nothing and spoke to no one, had once confided to him alone how profound and intense was his loathing for his fellow man. . . . And even somewhat later, when he was grown up, and was visiting his first fiancee. . . . Well, no matter. Since it was probably of no great interest to her, he needn't speak of it. She flushed slightly. Why, she wanted to know, should Benish think it of no interest to her? She understood him perfectly and even shared some of his feelings. In fact, though there was probably no use admitting it, she had been thinking of him that very evening, and also the previous evening. . . . It was very gloomy sitting alone at home, listening to the soft, slow ticking of the clock and to the wind rattling the outside shutters. . . . But that wasn't what she had started to say. . . . He had gone through such a lot in his life. What? Was he leaving already? Why the hurry? The evenings were so bleak and long, and so depressing, and he came so rarely. It was surely cozier here than back in his rented room. But perhaps he felt uncomfortable with her. . . . He was free to admit it, it didn't matter. Maybe he could tell her before he went, she said, where Avromchik disappeared to night after night. Was he really at the depot? Was he playing cards, as they said? Benish ought to know if anyone did. And if he were not in such a hurry, there was another important subject she would have liked to discuss with him . . . but he would surely drop in again soon and it would wait till then. Good night, good night. He walked home with his head lowered, pondering the differ- AT THE DEPOT 1 1 5 ence between his own wife, Frumke, the clumsy eccentric with the greenish complexion who took no interest in anything except breaking dishes and glassware, and Avromchik's wife, Clara, with those clever eyes and . . . so much else besides. They said at the depot that she even had brought Avromchik a sizable dowry. If only he had such a wife, he would be sitting with her in a cozy room, with the storm winds tearing angrily at the shutters, telling her about the time long ago when in just such a storm, while he was on his way home from cheder by way of the narrow synagogue lane, he had heard someone in the darkened women's section banging slowly against the pane. He would tell her how for a three-penny dare he had once spent the night alone in the cemetery . . . he would not, in any case, be worrying about money. CHAPTER 6 Hard-packed snows with scattered patches of dirt covered the frozen ground and hid it from view. Snow lay upon the hills and fields and lonely valleys where a solitary sleigh sometimes passed, leaving behind in the air the tremulous echoes of its old copper bell. A hoary mist settled over the region and over the icy trees that like elderly folk bent their heavy backs down to the ground. Benish sat bundled up in the recesses of the sleigh, watching the blue puffs of steam that issued from the mouth of the driver, who had turned around to face him. Disjointed words flew out of the driver's mouth, froze in the air and then evaporated. "Moni Drel . . . no fool . . . bankrupt just a year ago . . . built himself a new home . . . opposite the post office in Setrenitz . . . property . . . manager at the sugar factory . . . leased the mill from the count . . . no fool, as I am a Jew . . . giddyup!" This very same Moni Drel was the object of his visit. The previous year Benish had returned Moni's promissory notes for eight hundred rubles at 20% of their value, and now that he was the one in trouble and Moni was doing so well, he hoped to receive a little help. Admittedly, Moni was not famed for his generosity. It was probably useless to complain to him now, but perhaps there was I l 6 YIDDISH NOVELLAS a slim chance after all. If only the driver, Shloyme the Lip, would keep his secret at the depot. The sleighbells tinkled monotonously, telling the long sad story of a distant corner of the world where everlasting winter reigned, and great snow mountains slumbered eternally under blankets of fog and cloud. From time to time, creatures muffled up in thick winter clothing passed them on the path, like sleepwalkers oblivious to the white rust that had formed on their beards. The driver shouted at them to look out, but the sounds of his voice froze long before reaching their ears and hung suspended right under his nose. Far off on the horizon along the slope of a broad mountain, the signs of "greater Setrenitz" began to appear: first, a tall upright brick chimney, piercing the fog; then the sharp steeple of a solitary brooding church, then the telegraph poles, and finally an ample spread of low, snow-white rooftops. Moni DreFs daughter, a girl of about eighteen, greeted him in the dim entrance hall. Her father was in the sugar factory, she said. He would probably go on from there to the mill and would not be home until evening. He was about to reply that waiting was actually inconvenient, but that since he was already there. . . . Instead, a self-deprecating "Oh well" escaped from his lips, accompanied by a meek little smile. He was instantly ashamed of himself, and blushed. The girl repeated her message: her father was not expected before evening. He could wait in there if he wished to. She opened the door to an adjoining room, and promptly disappeared. Had Itsik-Borukh come in his stead, he brooded, the girl would not have scurried off so quickly, nor looked at him as if to say: well, hurry up, don't complain, just make up your mind—staying or leaving? He sat down and looked around him. The study was nicely furnished. There was a penholder with a marble poodle wagging its tail in the air. Paintings in thick gilded frames hung on the walls. It might all have been bought with his money, who could be sure? Yet there he sat gingerly among these strange objects, afraid to touch them. The house itself, or a considerable part of it, was probably built with his money, yet he didn't even dare lean against the desk or relax on the sofa with his feet up on the cushions. AT THE DEPOT l l ' Voices could be heard in the adjoining room, rising now and then in argument. Girls were engaged in what sounded like an intelligent debate. At one point a girl with a very gentle voice was silenced by a thick male voice: 'Tour father, for example, runs a shop. Let's say that he charges ten cents for every yard of cloth that he sells. Since he himself does not produce the cloth, the ten cents properly belong to the worker. In other words, he is living at the worker's expense." Drel's eighteen-year-old daughter chimed in with her support: "Right! Exactly!" On tiptoe he crept toward the door of the adjoining room and pressed his ear to the wood. The male voice was speaking again, its easyflowsoothing the excited girlish hearts: "I'll give you an example. . . ." Perhaps he was a bachelor, a teacher with a high forehead balding at both corners, an intellectual who avoided looking directly at females, but had a habit of flattening his glasses back against his nose. Perhaps Drel's daughter looked up to this man, perhaps she even loved him despite his receding hairline and the two red ridges etched by his glasses over his studious nose, and perhaps that was why she exclaimed each time he would finish speaking: "Right! Exactly!" But he was annoyed with the girl. He chewed his nails and smiled sarcastically thinking about her and her father: "The devil take them! First they cheat and stuff their pockets with someone else's goods, then they sit in comfortable, decorated rooms, looking up fondly at a gentleman-friend, and preaching morality: Tou don't work, yet you live. That's proof that you're living at someone else's expense.'" The young man was still speaking: "That's what we mean by capitalist, do you understand?" He was suddenly reminded of a young agent at the depot who had picked up some of the new lingo and asked Avromchik where capital originated. Avromchik gaped as though at a madman, but Pivniak shrugged his shoulders and answered on his behalf: "What kind of a question is that, you fool? When you get your dowry, then you have your capital." And yet, where did capital originate? If the fellow behind the door knew, Benish certainly should know. He had the better mind, and besides, he had once had some capital of his own, though he had it no longer. I l 8 YIDDISH NOVELLAS In the evening, Moni Drel came home. His children ran to greet him crying: "Daddy, someone's waiting for you in the study." Then someone brought in a lamp, set it down on the desk, and closed the door again. People were drinking tea in the dining room, and spoons were heard clinking. Surely Moni Drel didn't have to keep him waiting so long. He might have come in to say hello. But then it was Moni DreFs custom to do incomprehensible things, each of which made very good sense in its way: though his hearing was perfect, he would speak very softly, pretend to deafness in one ear, and incline his head toward the person addressing him to inquire, "Eh?" He finally came into the study to ask what it was that Benish wanted. His short stiff beard looked as if it had just been attached to his chin and from his expression one would have thought he was seeing Benish for the very first time. Benish blushed, and stammered out an introduction: "You see, last year . . . last year. . . . " It was such a waste of effort to sit across from that bloodsucker. And it was so difficult to find the right words. Drel regarded him with perfect composure and inclined his supposedly damaged ear to ask, "Eh?" He explained about his losses: he was failing and sinking into ruin. Since there were really about 700 rubles owing to him he wondered if Drel could . . . there was no way he could take the money by force, but he begged of Drel. . . . Drel listened attentively as though it were possibly someone else and not he who owed Benish the money. Nevertheless, he would give him a sympathetic hearing and try to suggest some means whereby Benish could recover his money. "Mr. Rubinstein," he explained softly and patiently, "you are an intelligent young man. You can appreciate even without being told that having grown accustomed to it, I now have to maintain a decent standard of living. My wife travels abroad once a year: she suffers—may you be spared—from a liver ailment. My two sons board in a large city: they cost me at least a hundred and fifty rubles a month between them. For the other children I have to employ a resident tutor who costs me eighty rubles a month plus room and board. Then I have to clothe the children and myself. A man has to keep up appearances in this world. Take my own situation: since I AT THE DEPOT 119 come into contact with people all the time and depend on these contacts for my livelihood, I have to make a decent impression when I show myself. "Hear me out, Mr. Rubinstein. If there is anything left after expenses, I will repay you before any of the others. I may not be able to pay off all my debts, but yours. . . ." They were interrupted by the loud shouting of Shloyme the Lip who stood in the outer hall: "That good-for-nothing! How long is he going to warm the bench? I've been sitting out there all day for his lousy ruble! . . . " Benish was left with a final hope—that Shloyme the Lip would keep this to himself at the depot. CHAPTER 7 There was an incident: he and Shloymke Perl made a deposit on a load of scorched corn. The corn netted them a large profit, but Shloymke claimed that Benish had not contributed his share on time and refused to divide the money. After eight consecutive days of litigation in one of the neighboring towns, he came away with about four hundred rubles. This was the first profit he had seen all winter. On the return trip he smiled happily to himself and decided that people were not so bad after all. He even neglected to bite his nails. By the time he was back in his own bed that evening he had plans for earning enough to build a house like Avromchik's near the depot. Throughout the night, a strange dream kept weaving in and out of his sleep: he and Avromchik's wife seemed to be on their way home to his father's house for Passover. He took her for a walk through his native town, pointing out the prayer house where he had studied . . . the home of a rich atheist with a huge library who had lent him books to read . . . the valley where during the holidays he used to lie on the grass beside the abandoned mill, looking up at the endless skies. . . . 120 YIDDISH NOVELLAS When he awoke early the next morning, his landlady was stoking the fire in his room. She told him that Avromchik's wife had been there on Sunday to ask about renting the garden for the summer. She had been inside the house too, asking who occupied this room. He passed the day idling around the depot, and in the evening made his way toward the reservoir. He waited until it was quite dark before nearing the house to peer in through the bright dining room windows. There were several agents and dealers playing cards around the table, and he was not entirely pleased to see Avromchik's wife, at the far end, smiling at the florid sales agent with the curling mustache. Perhaps she preferred the sight of that handsome agent to his own scrawny face? A half hour later, back in his cramped and dingy quarters, he ran his hands over his pointed nose and closely shaven cheeks and decided that it was obviously so. He stopped going to see her and spent his time pacing the station grounds. He regretted the many wasted evenings, the mooning around the reservoir, and now decided to turn his mind to other matters like the four hundred rubles he had recently earned. And yet one evening he found himself back near the reservoir. Without making a sound, he stole into the dim entrance hall of Avromchik's house and stood there for several minutes unobserved by anyone. Through the open door he caught sight of the curled mustache that belonged to the handsome agent and, still unnoticed, made his way back outside again. Some time later on a very cold and damp day, he noticed her at the depot, and caught a quick glimpse of her lovely, dark face from the distance. Dressed stylishly in a short winter coat, she drew approving stares from the two telegraph operators who ogled her through the window. Benish turned aside and deliberately began a conversation with Elye "the Merciful," for no other reason than to spite the young woman standing somewhere behind his turned back. The cold damp south wind splattered mud over the clean snowdrifts, the trees, fields, and encircling hills. Patches of dirt peered up at the overcast skies asking mutely: would you kindly cover us again with that pure white blanket of snow? AT THE DEPOT 121 But the skies were rnute themselves, and it remained for the open wind to snatch up the raspings of vagrant crows and offer these by way of an answer. Melting snows left the station grounds splattered and dirty. The wind rattled the glass of the unlit lamps, spreading a strange sense of desolation over the depot. From time to time someone passed by, with his head lowered against the wind that tugged mischievously at his coattails. Soft and gentle words poured steadily from Elye's mouth: a certain landowner had sold his crop of oats at a very good price, and Benish could probably buy it now for even less. In his delicate, good-natured way, Elye was trying to render this kindly little service. But Benish, who was only conscious of her presence somewhere in back of him, and of the two telegraph operators leering at her through the window, was not even listening. A wet, smoke-smudged passenger train pulled into the station for a five-minute stopover. The wind blew at the windows in playful gusts, bent on some cheerful mischief. But the coaches remained perfectly still, with an air of angry brooding, and no one quit or boarded the train. It was as if each coach held a corpse whose disconsolate relatives were escorting it to some distant burial. At the rear of the train, where she was strolling around, a young student finally came out on the platform of the coach and stood with his mournful eyes glued to her dark and lovely face. She returned his glances from time to time. Benish wondered whether he ought to go over and speak to her after all. Then the train pulled out and slithered away rapidly until it disappeared into the tinny, low-lying winter clouds. Only the two of them remained on the wet, empty platform. He stood at one end, wounded and spiteful, she at the other, lovely and all alone. Again he felt an urge to go over and look closely into her dark face and patiently tell her she ought not to have come down to the depot alone. But just then she walked by without even seeming to notice him. He bit his fingernails and decided that he was wasting his time on nonsense. Why should he be mooning around, doing nothing, and—really—what difference did it make whom she was thinking of: Avromchik, the ruddy agent, or even the student on the platform of the train? It was of no interest to him. . . . 122 YIDDISH NOVELLAS On her way back along the platform, however, she stopped beside him and complained to him with a worried expression: "It is so desolate here, isn't it?" Her face was strained, but whether because of the wind or the bleakness of the depot, he wasn't sure. "Dissolute?" he repeated. "Yes, it certainly is." He felt himself blushing and smiling against his will. Why had he suddenly been so rude to her? She was hurt by his offhand quip, and glared at him with proud and haughty eyes. Suddenly she turned to face straight into the cold, wet wind. She hesitated a moment then decided to retaliate. She would thank him never to say such a thing again. . . . And that evening when he sulked so foolishly in her entrance hall instead of coming in . . . she would have been glad to see him. He could have joined them. And he knew very well that she shared his feelings about the denizens of the depot . . . she hated them no less than he did. His eyes followed her until she was out of sight. Why, he wondered, having such contempt for these merchants , had she come down to live among them? And why, if his hatred was even greater than hers, did he not make his escape? What kept him there? Was it the four hundred rubles, which represented his total earnings for the entire year? CHAPTER 8 At the very end of winter, when the frosts were milder but heavy snows still continued to fall day and night, Meir Hecht returned to the depot to sell his stock of bran. He rented a spacious room in a local farmhouse, made as much money as he had the last time, smoked an endless chain of cigarettes, and had as little to do with the other dealers as possible. His dark, silksmooth face had not changed, except that when he looked at the dealers with his wide-open eyes, his contempt for them and their dealings seemed to have grown much deeper and stronger. Benish studied him like a AT THE DEPOT 123 riddle, and wondered about the unknown distant province of Chernigov where Hecht's contempt had been nurtured: what odd creatures its inhabitants must be. Hecht himself was certainly an odd creature, with his delicate sensibilities; he hated trade, yet he lived by it. For days at a time he would sit in his room, his nostrils distended, staring earnestly at the smoke rising from his upturned mouth. Of what was he thinking? Of himself? Of his profits? Of the pretty little wife he had left behind in Chernigov? It was impossible to guess. There were many books strewn under the table and bed of his room, all tattered and stained with food and drink. He never held them in his hand and never spoke of them, but their presence seemed to suggest, to Benish at least, a thought. Since even he, Meir Hecht, with his intense hatred of merchants, could not escape being a merchant himself, of what use were these precious clever volumes and what help could they be to anyone? If he himself was unable to escape the clutches of commerce then all these intellectual trimmings were useless, and one might as well sit comfortably as he, Meir Hecht, was doing, staring silently at the smoke rising from his pursed and upturned mouth. Benish could not contain himself, and asked a question, though it was admittedly none of his affair. He, too, Benish, that is, hated the life of trade, and he was therefore considering becoming a tutor in a village. But why should Hecht have to be a merchant? For instance, on whose account did he have to come down to the depot? Hechf s eyes widened in surprise. What kind of a question was that? Why, on his own account of course. Just the answer you might expect from a Lithuanian rationalist! Benish was dissatisfied, however, and made a mental objection. He had the example at hand of his own clumsy wife. Since she had no use for him, hadn't he simply managed to escape from her? One day, at Itsik-Borukh's quarters, he met a thin girl with a small, childlike face and bobbed hair. She had fallen in love with Itsik back in the city, and had taken a job in a nearby town to be closer to him. Itsik was then sick with influenza. He lay quietly on a low couch, his throat wrapped in a scarf, his face red and feverish. Although he appeared to have no use for this thin small girl, she pretended not to 124 YIDDISH NOVELLAS notice, and stopped by every evening to chat with his brother Volodye, a freckled and pimply student who had recently come home on a visit. The girl spoke heatedly, and her hollow cheeks flamed with passion. Volodye's pale watery eyes smiled back at her; he was pleased that he had chosen to come home at this fortuitous time. Benish took no part in their conversation. It was all the same to him, whatever they talked or argued about. His thoughts were on the sunflower crop in which he had recently invested, and on which he now stood to lose a hundred and fifty, if not two hundred rubles. By this time the clusters of dealers at the depot were already saying: "Some business Benish is doing!" "That sunflower load will be on his hands for years." "No, I mean his loan to the gentleman from Batsenets." "Why even talk about it? The man is an imbecile!" His mother-in-law ran into Pivniak in town and tore her hair: "Heaven help us! The whole world knows that the Batsenetser was on the verge of bankruptcy!" Pivniak was soon back at the depot. "Take it from me: the man is an idiot. A full-fledged idiot!" As far as Benish was concerned, they could all go to the devil. He had no interest in what they were saying about him. All that really mattered was that the Batsenetser was into him for five hundred rubles. He was nervous, and chewed on his nails, and his mind kept gnawing away at one and the same thought: five hundred rubles was no joke. When he later ran into Avromchik at the depot he was, for the first time, happy to see him: Avromchik had just come away from the Batsenetser with a thousand rubles in hand. W^hat did he think of his chances? Could he rescue his five hundred rubles? Avromchik made a sour face and began scratching himself behind the ear so vigorously that he seemed to be suffering from a terrible eczema. "Ay, my dear Benish," he scolded in a shrill voice, still scratching himself behind the ear, "Why didn't you speak to me first, eh, Benish?" Benish nibbled at his nails and turned his eyes away to focus on Avromchik's feet. In other words, he concluded, the money was gone. Well, AT THE DEPOT 125 never mind . . . he could always get along with five hundred rubles less. But then maybe . . . maybe there was some way of getting back the money after all? Did Avromchik think it was possible ? No? Then to hell with it. He didn't even want to think about it anymore. . . . But when Avromchik made a move to go, Benish detained him. He just wanted a few more words with him. For instance, what about the following plan: he would swear out a formal complaint before the district clerk. Or else, he could pay a visit to the Count of Kilkev, to press his claim. That wouldn't help either? Well, then, there was obviously no point discussing it. No point wracking your brains for nothing. But his brains continued to wrack themselves. The sunflower investment, for which there was no client forthcoming and which the mice were steadily eating away at in some dark and dusty corner, and the Batsenetser's stupid bankruptcy following his own no less stupid loan to him, lodged themselves in his mind and gave him no rest. It was painful to keep thinking of them, but impossible to forget them. If he did occasionally forget himself, it was during a walk around the depot when he remembered the good fortune of Avromchik Kaufman who had no bankrupt debtors, but a reservoir and a lovely home, and money, and above all, a pretty and clever wife of whom he was wholly undeserving. He longed for another stormy winter night with snow swirling in his eyes and blustering winds rattling the shutters, and no one at the cheerful little cottage but himself and its pretty mistress who would look up at him with her clever eyes, listening sympathetically to his heartfelt woes, and saying: "I understand you, Benish. I know exactly how you feel." The gossip at the depot began to annoy him. What did they have against him? Why did their jeering faces peer at him from every crack? Why did they have to keep pointing him out: "There goes Benish. There he goes, as I am a Jew!" Winter was coming to an end. One of its last evenings was warm and humid, with dampness exuding from the station grounds, the trees, 126 YIDDISH NOVELLAS and even from the faces of the bystanders. Somewhere above the chaos of earth, spring and winter were grappling for control of the skies. Spring pleaded gently with the skies to turn blue and clear. But bushy-browed winter bullied and threatened: "Skies, do your worst!" The skies, uncertain, turned first overcast, then clear. The weather prophets of the depot looked up idly and wondered whether the sun would set that day in clouds or clear blue sky. And the gossiping grain dealers were still on the subject of Benish: "He's almost a pauper by now—it better not be contagious!" Whenever a passenger train arrived, they put Benish aside temporarily and turned their attention to the students on their way home for the holidays. They singled out an emaciated young extern with a sorrowful expression: "Poor boy . . . what a shame . . . woe to his mother." But no sooner did the train depart than their conversation reverted to Benish: "Tell me, where is he going for Passover? His mother-in-law is ready to chase him off with a stick." Elye "the Merciful" walked by with an out-of-town dealer, complaining in his high-pitched womanly voice about the state of their profession. There was a certain dealer, Benish Rubinstein . . . he had heard the story? Well, then, that was a perfect example of how dangerous it was nowadays to part with even a penny. Standing alone and apart from the others, Benish bit his nails and wondered who but Pivniak could have spread the news around so effectively. But Pivniak pretended innocence. Standing not quite out of earshot, he joked with the other dealers: "Listen, Merciful. May these Jews be my witness: I've been thinking over your case and I have a bone to pick with you. There is only one way to deal with your kind. You ought to be stopped right here and now and have your face slapped. Do you understand me?" The assembled bystanders laughed, but the kindly and goodnatured butt of the joke smiled in obvious confusion. "Slapped?" he asked, "But why, Reb Levi?" Pivniak paused for effect and then explained himself: "Yes, slapped. You have enough money; your father's reputation is above reproach; you don't touch anyone's wealth or honor; you even insist on doing kind and generous deeds. There is obviously no other way of dealing with such a paragon of righteousness except to provoke you publicly and force you to lodge a complaint with the county judge." AT THE DEPOT 127 The good-humored laughter and back-slapping that greeted Pivniak's witticism was interrupted by a sudden question: "And what would you do with Benish?" Pivniak rose to the bait eagerly: "Why, you silly fool. Everyone knows that Benish has slapped his own face!" A hush ran through the crowd. Benish heard someone whisper to Pivniak that he was nearby. He felt people staring at him, but when he looked up they were afraid to meet his eyes. His heart pounded so rapidly that it ached, and it seemed to be engulfed in a seething hot fluid. Pivniak's jocular voice sounded strange and unreal as he continued, unruffled: "It wouldn't hurt him to hear it. By this time he's even poorer than Shloyme the Lip." A very loud ringing was in his ears. His heart began to pound harder and faster and the fluid in which it seethed became hotter than ever. He saw no one but his tormenter, the tall stooped joker to whom he felt drawn like a magnet, and whom he finally approached with a proud and resolute reply: "Take that!" His hand came down angrily against Pivniak's cheek, and he tasted the intoxicating pleasure of revenge. "Now go and haul me up before the county judge!" By way of reply he heard a wild, enraged scream. It was not clear to him, however, whether the scream was his own or whether it came from the tall stooping man who was clutching his face with both hands. Someone grabbed him from behind and pinned back his arms. He struggled to free himself, still savoring the vengeance of his short and final challenge: "Now go and haul me up before the county judge. . . . " Some good friends dropped by a few days later to warn Benish that he had better leave the depot. Pivniak's twenty-five-year-old son had just been discharged from the army. Tall and husky, wearing a short jacket and high boots, he was hanging around the depot, on the lookout for Benish. The fellow had the healthy face of a gentile, powerful shoulders and strong hands. His brain was shrunken and flabby from lack of use, and if told to beat a man up he would probably kill him. Was there any choice? He had to leave. Actually, his head had begun to hurt, and the joints of his arms and legs were aching, but was there any choice? He would go to bed early and leave the next morning on the six o'clock train. 128 YIDDISH NOVELLAS During the night he awoke from a long troubled sleep and felt an awful chill running through his body. He stuck one shivering foot out on the cold floor, and reached for his warm, heavy robe, which he flung over his blanket. But his body trembled and his teeth chattered even under the warm coverings. He shut his eyes and dozed lightly, mindful of the six o'clock train that he would soon have to board. Suddenly, there he was aboard the train. The lamps were still burning in the sleeping car. Bare feet dangled from the upper berths. When he tried to settle into a dim corner of the car, familiar faces were already there awaiting him, smiling and asking: "Where are you bound for, Reb Benish?" The question was unbearably painful, yet he had to smile and say that he was going home to his father's . . . for Passover. His friends did not seem to understand. With the smile still on his face, he explained that he was bringing his father a gift, the gift of a well-established, married son. His father was a sleepy burgher, a tall lean man who had lost all his money and possessions except for a dilapidated, rotting house and a prominent seat in the synagogue of his outlying shtetl. He was proably living off hand-outs and private charity from the well-to-do who still remembered his father-in-law's wealth. His mother was a clever woman with stooping shoulders who could never quite forget the good old days of her youth. She would wipe away hot tears with the edge of her apron, and transfix him every now and then with a red-eyed expression of self-pity: "Dear God . . . to have lived to see this day . . . ." The nice young people of the town would all turn out to see him, and his friends to whom he had once boasted that he would be a very rich man some day, and the sorrowing relatives of his first wife. . . . The beloved shtetl where he was going to spend Passover was the home of everything that mattered. Why couldn't these traveling companions of his leave him alone and quit their sly and nagging questions: "Where to? Where to, Reb Benish?" Back in his little room in the misshapen farmhouse it was very hot. The pale rays of a dull and chilly morning fell softly into the room. When he opened his eyes he was puzzled: he was apparently still in the same place. AT THE DEPOT 129 A noisy cricket was chirping somewhere inside a crack of the well-stoked woodstove, deliriously happy in the warmth. The room was dark, and it was dark on the other side of the square little window, where the old apple tree stood trembling with its sad naked branches. He remembered Pivniak's powerful son who was lying in wait for him at the depot, and feeling suddenly weak, closed his eyes. His limbs ached, his head was heavy and hot, and he wanted badly to sleep. But some visitors had dropped by; well-meaning grain dealers had taken pity on him and had come to bring him comfort: "Why the fuss? It's only a small matter." It seemed that the slap he had dealt Pivniak was not so important , except as a source of amusement to Avromchik and the other dealers. At Avromchik's house they sat around speculating: "He must be almost penniless by now." It was obvious that anyone else in his place would be living happily at the depot with his money intact and beyond the range of Pivniak's sneering insults. A shudder ran through all the feverish limbs of his body, and he woke up. His dark little room was empty except for a strong healthy fellow who stood beside his bed holding a very cool hand over his burning forehead. When he looked up from under his heavy sleepy lids he saw a familiar rosy face with an amiable smile. "Is that the way it is?" the smile was asking. He recalled that Itsik-Borukh had just such a smile and his own expression answered: "That's the way it is." The thin girl with the bobbed hair stood beside Itsik looking very frightened. She asked Itsik softly whether it might not be wise to send for his wife. Itsik smiled but made no answer. Slowly Benish closed his eyes again and fell back asleep. When he awoke, the lamp in his room was already burning. The local doctor was examining him with cold, prodding fingers and breathing cold air into his flushed face. "Pneumonia or typhus," the doctor pronounced with a sigh. "Who knows?" Neither he nor Itsik nor the thin girl with the bobbed hair was frightened by the pronouncement. Volodye's yellowish watery eyes did show surprise for a moment, but soon relaxed into a smile. 130 YIDDISH NOVELLAS CHAPTER 9 The days were warm again. Birds danced and twittered along the gnarled boughs of the sun-spattered apple tree, hopping and swinging from every damp little branch. Through the open window the landlord could be seen walking bareheaded around the garden, examining each sapling to see if it had been damaged by the winter frosts. His two huge dogs, shaggy and well-fed beasts, followed patiently at his heels. From time to time they broke into play, pretending to fight and nip one another. Noticing a strange pig at the edge of the garden, they suddenly made for him, lunging over the black clumps of damp earth. As soon as he saw the dogs, the frightened pig forgot where the entrance was in the fence, and set off in the wrong direction. The dogs grabbed him by the ears, and he began squealing loudly. Meanwhile the farmer, who had been talking to himself, stopped shamefaced when he noticed Benish standing by the open window. Benish dressed slowly and ventured out for the first time since his illness. It was remarkably warm outside. The skies were languid and blue, and the sun showed off its charms with coquettish delight. He stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at the world. A narrow footpath wound its way among half-dried clods of earth and disappeared in some ditch or other near the station. Should he go there or not? He touched his sunken cheeks and looked down at his thin, weakened hands; then he took out his wallet and with clutched, trembling fingers put it back again. "This is some sad state of affairs," he sighed. He moved haltingly, like a baby learning to walk, and concentrated on his feet which were leaving tracks in the soft ground. Everywhere it was calm and still. The sun shone serenely, pouring down its loving warmth over all the scattered cottages. The houses dozing in the soft sunlight heard in their sleep the faraway blows of the blacksmith as he hammered out a slow and sorrowful tale: the story of a beaten man, a miserable, unfortunate creature who earned his livelihood through sweat and toil. Just as he was nearing the depot, Avromchik Kaufman caught up with him, gave him a playful poke and shouted: AT THE DEPOT 131 "What about a small loan, Benish, eh?" By the time Benish could crease his sunken cheeks in a weak smile, Avromchik was rushing off in the company of a frightened agent to whom he was complaining, half-jokingly, half in earnest: "You silly ass, couldn't you tell that to the police on your own?" Benish went on smiling, and his thin weak hand remained outstretched in the direction of the receding pair. Then he saw two familiar agents coming toward him from the depot. Without stopping or even acknowledging his presence they cast one look at his pale and sickly face and began to discuss him in their own idiom as soon as they were behind his back. "Well, what do you say!" "What is there to say?" "Through thick and thin, eh?" "You said it!" As he walked on with feeble little steps, his thin smile gave way to a bitter expression of unworthiness and failure. Something puzzled him, but he couldn't fix his mind on what it was. His surroundings were normal enough: everything wore an expression of languid calm and luxuriated in the radiance of the huge western sun. The day trains had already departed. Little birds hopped around the station grounds, springing from one spot to another and stopping occasionally to peck under their wings. Four young grain dealers were sitting on a bench catching the warmth of the setting sun and gossiping about tradesmen and pretty young wives. He was noticed by one of the young men, who smiled meaningfully at the others and immediately bowed his head. At this signal the others looked at him and appraised him with a knowing smile. He lowered his head and moved a few steps forward to the big square windows of the second-class waiting room. Several out-oftown merchants were sitting inside around a table playing cards with Pivniak, Shloymke Perl, and the florid agent with the curling mustache . They looked relaxed, like people who, having just enjoyed a good sleep, have awakened with a yawn and a bright idea: why not a round of cards? But suddenly Pivniak pointed to the window. They all turned in his direction and smiled knowingly. He turned away from the window and started home with the same halting and feeble steps that had brought him to the depot. 132 YIDDISH NOVELLAS Later he lay in bed, fretting that the illness had cost him his last few pennies, and that at Avromchik's house people were probably taking their tea on the veranda, warming themselves by the last rays of the sun. Volodye, with the golden buttons and watery eyes, dropped in to see him and sat for a long time. He reported that Itsik had gone back to his studies in the city, that the thin girl with the bobbed hair was planning to follow him, and that Avromchik's wife was so pretty and charming that he of the freckles and watery, good-natured eyes, was attracted to her. Suddenly something occured to Volodye that made him jump to his feet excitedly and begin a heated monologue in which the name of Avromchik's wife figured prominently, coupled with the name of that strapping agent with the curling mustache and the silly handsome face. "What persistence!" Volodye marvelled. "He really set his mind to the task." "Is that so?" asked Benish. As he sat thinking of this man who had applied himself so successfully, and was now strutting around the station grounds with an occasional yawn and a mien of self-assurance, Volodye gave him a nudge and winked broadly: "And what about you, Benish? Come on now, own up." Benish recalled how often he had spoken to her of himself and of his ugly, sickly wife, and felt a dull pang of shame and regret. Still later the room was dark and very quiet. A clean moon shone from the skyblue heights through the open window. The sculptured tips of the gilded trees looked up at the moon in respectful homage, waiting for it to reveal its secret of eternal gloom and sadness. But the moon remained engrossed in heavenly matters. Somewhere nearby a passerby was being attacked by a pack of dogs. They set upon him fiercely, yelping and barking in fury, as though he were the villain for whom they had been lying in wait these many long years. Then the passerby was heard shouting and chasing off the dogs, one of whom received a resounding blow that drove him away with a pitiful moan. And then it was quiet once more. In a dark corner of the room Volodye's face still seemed to be winking and grinning: AT THE DEPOT 133 "What about you, Benish? Come on now, own up." Outside, there was a scratching sound against the wall. Steps were heard coming toward the window and a head, shrouded in a black shawl, was thrust inside. He leapt to his feet and saw Avromchik 's wife. In the same moment, garbled thoughts concerning her and the agent rushed through his mind and threw him into confusion . She was asking him something in her soft and pleasant voice, but he was so confused he did not hear her. "Wait," he said, groping for something on the table, 'Til light the lamp." But he couldn't find it on the table and the room remained in darkness. The silence clinging to the walls was broken by her sad, subdued voice: "It's such a lovely night, so warm and peaceful." In a soft, hesitant voice, she began to tell him about a life that was lost, and about a vague dream that had long beguiled her without ever coming true. Everything was quiet and attentive. The moon moved a little closer, casting a pale yellow sheen over her bowed head, and he listened with half an ear to what the woman in the shawl was saying. Her village, she began, was very far away, on the slope of a mountain . At that very moment the moon was probably out, and the frogs were poking their heads out from under the lily pads to croak at the moon. The water made a rushing sound as it turned the millwheel in the valley, and boys played with the fresh flour dust, tossing it high into the air with a hearty shout. . . . All at once she laughed aloud and then fell silent. The atmosphere grew heavy and oppressive. A human figure slipped away from a corner of the room and vanished. From out in the garden came the sounds of a dog chasing an excited cat that scrambled up the closest available tree. Someone sighed deeply. Benish stirred as from a sleep and started to say something, but then waved it off: it was of no importance . But she had begun to talk about a subject that held for him a morbid fascination. She spoke about his illness, and of his wife who had come from town to be with him: she was there for two days and then took sick herself. She was on her way somewhere and suddenly fell down in a dead faint. 134 YIDDISH NOVELLAS Later they walked together along the narrow moonlit path leading to the depot. They walked with their eyes on the ground in front of them. Damp green rooftops shone in the moonlight. Somewhere a lost bird was shrieking, and reddish green lamps, visible from some three viorsts away, sent greetings from people who were not yet asleep. "Do you understand?" she lamented with a sigh, "Everyone played me false, and I foolishly believed them. Later, I was the one who lied and they foolishly believed me. You see how it is: I too made a very bad bargain. I loved one man and married another. But what difference does it make now? I'm the subject of gossip here." On the path ahead they saw approaching them a city grain dealer who had just come down to the depot. They stopped when he came abreast of them. The dealer laconically removed the spectacles from his nose, wiped the lenses, and said laughingly that by sheer coincidence he was on his way to see them, her and Avromchik that is. There was no one at the depot and he was looking for a game of cards. Then he replaced his spectacles, looked Benishover from head to foot and apparently satisfied that he was not someone to be reckoned with, said to her simply: come along. And she walked away with the out-of-town dealer without even a parting glance in his direction. When they had disappeared from sight, he sighed and walked back to his lodgings. Volodye came running to meet him, panting and eager to know: wasn't that her beside the window? Upon his admission that it was, Volodye winked and gave him another nudge: "What about you, Benish? Own up now!" CHAPTER 10 He paced his room for days on end without saying a word, thinking of the good fortune of others and of his own misery. But everything was behind him now, and it was useless even to think of it. He stayed away from the station not because he was ashamed, but AT THE DEPOT 135 because he begrudged them the satisfaction of seeing his haggard face and of feeling sorry for him. Standing unnoticed at the depot one evening, he had heard them speaking about him: "Who, Benish? He's talking to himself by now." One of the dealers found it funny, but another interrupted with the assurance that it was perfectly true: "Do you think I'm inventing it?" They concluded that possibly he was not fully in his right mind, and Pivniak boasted of the lawsuit that would soon be brought against him on account of the slap: "You'll see. I'll have him buried nine cubits under ground." He turned and moved away, trying to forget about Pivniak. The case was finally brought to trial. It coincided with the eve of Shavuot and provided the dealers with a lively topic of gossip. At the outskirts of the village that held the district offices of the Tsar, stood the bright, freshly whitewashed house of the district judge, nestling in a verdant garden heavy with the aroma of early summer. The blossoming trees, like new brides, shielded the green earth from the bright new sun that was sprinkling light through the branches. It was eleven in the morning. Benish stood unnoticed near some bushes, watching one carriage after another deposit the dealers who were to bear witness. He tried to ignore them by concentrating on something else. Avromchik noticed him standing there alone. He came over to mutter a few hasty words which Benish, however, failed to understand, and then he disappeared. For the grain dealers the event was a festive occasion, but they were concerned about the time: couldn't things go a little faster? After all, tonight was a holiday. Back in town, the front doors of their homes stood open, the fish was being chopped on the chopping boards, and children were decorating the tidied rooms with green Stars of David. But the local justice, an evil-tempered retired general, would not be hurried; he examined every witness thoroughly, scolding each of them in turn. The hearing dragged on until evening. The witnesses, who were afraid that this nasty military man would banish them from the depot, gave garbled testimonies or answers that were not to the point. Some simply refused to testify: "We don't know . . . we didn't actually see it ourselves . . . we only heard about it afterwards." 136 YIDDISH NOVELLAS The judge lost his temper with them and with Pivniak who had initiated the action; he warned that he would throw them all into prison. But in the end, it was only Benish, the haggard and discouraged young man with the terribly pale face and dry lips, who was sentenced to two weeks in the county jail. Relieved that the trial was finally over, the dealers and brokers scrambled into their carriages, and told the drivers to hurry up. The coachmen whipped their horses to make up for lost time, swearing under their breath: "It's too late for the bath, as I am a Jew! Giddyup!" The sun began to go down. Benish was left alone, biting his fingernails. He had no desire to return either to his wife or to the depot and would willingly have stayed there forever, ruminating and biting his nails beside the judge's freshly-whitewashed cottage. He decided that he might as well begin serving his sentence. A bare half hour later he was on his way to town, walking between two peasants who had been hired to guard him. The sky was clear and blue overhead, green fields like gigantic wings lay on either side of the road and the evening air smelled of newly-mown grass. One of the peasants blew his nose rudely and told him to step it up: "Hey there, faster, it's almost night." He didn't hear, so absorbed was he by the sight of a solitary farmer still out in the field with his horse and wagon. His lips moved involuntarily and he whispered softly: "Five hundred rubles . . . ." He served his sentence locked up in a square little hut near the house of the chief of police. He was weak and dejected, like a mourner, and his thoughts kept turning to a certain Yisep Yageshpolski , a respectable young man and even something of an intellectual , who had once had several thousand rubles, an attractive wife, two pretty daughters, and a princely life. One day his affairs took a bad turn, and people stopped greeting him in the street. Why should they greet him? Had they never seen a pauper before? So Yisep took a trip to the city, registered in the finest hotel, and retired to his room for the night. In the morning they found AT THE DEPOT 137 him hanging from a rope. But at least the fellow had left an attractive widow and two pretty daughters to mourn him. Who would ever mourn for Benish, especially as he was already thought to be slightly mad? The real question was not that, but whether Yisep had made the right decision. His head was too numb and his heart too sore for him to think the matter through, but even in the midst of his misery he felt sure that Avromchik, wherever he was, was light-hearted and gayEvery evening he watched from his square little window as the decked-out city girls promenaded to the outskirts of town. He saw their rosy smiling faces, but his own eyes were bloodshot and his lips were parched and pale. He grew thinner from day to day. Occasionally he coughed tentatively to test the sound of his chest. He had always been so well looked after, but what would happen to him now were he suddenly to take sick or waste away. . . . The evening came when he was released from the cramped, dirty room and told he was free to go. A plan of action had formed in his mind. He waited until it was dark, then hired a buggy to drive him to the depot. His mind was so exhausted that it refused to serve him, and by the time the buggy reached the first valley outside town, the whole plan had begun to disintegrate. He tried vainly to reconstruct it and couldn't. Confused thoughts tumbled around in his head. As soon as he arrived, he would collect his belongings. He would leave. But he couldn't remember where he was going or why and so he watched the moon as it rose from behind the opposite hill. The narrow, empty road on which he rode was already bathed in magical yellow light. The road twisted in both directions, going uphill and down and onward to that point on the horizon where the full quicksilver moon hung over the dark depot. The driver whipped the horses harshly. They flicked away the whipmarks with their tails and began galloping harder; the buggy trailed its shadow on the ground and a small cloud of damp yellow dust rose in the air. The dark yellow world was in repose. His head sank slowly to his chest and he momentarily forgot his suffering. 138 YIDDISH NOVELLAS But as they drew closer to the station, he heard the sounds of a drum and the footings of a horn: he sat up in fright. The music was coming from around the reservoir. It poured out in all directions and then faded off in the distance. He looked closely at Avromchik's house, which was more brightly lit up than ever, and suddenly remembered that Avromchik's sister was to have gotten married at just about this time. All at once he felt himself growing pale. His heart began to pound with a dreadful realization: they would be passing Avromchik's house. His wife and mother-in-law were probably at the wedding. . . . Pivniak and his gang would catch sight of him and surround his buggy with cries of "Hurrah! Hurrah!" To avoid being seen, he dismissed the driver and buggy, cut across the tracks to his left, and slowly made his way to the tiny garden alongside the depot. There he sat down on a bench in deep shadow, with his head on his chest, as though asleep. The gilded tips of the poplar branches were perfectly still, and not a leaf stirred. The only sounds came from beyond the long shadows of the trees, where the salesgirl at the bookstand was laughing her distinctive laugh, evidently amused by the story that the lanky student was telling her. The station bell began to toll. Ten minutes before the ten-thirty train, the families of the bride and groom appeared in the garden. They walked slowly in pairs down the long sandy footpath, and their snowy white silk clothes rustled as they moved. Avromchik's wife passed almost in front of him, complaining to a tall elderly woman. He was not a bad husband, she was saying, he did as he was told. But at night he snored in his sleep and drooled. Benish was suddenly reminded of Shloymke Perl who had started out, after all, without so much as a cent to his name. He walked slowly to the station and waited in a corner. Avromchik , dressed up in a black coat, black trousers, and a white cravat, was talking to one of the relatives. He went over and motioned him aside: "The Lozovker still has a fair supply of beans left. It might be a good idea to take a ride over tomorrow." And since Avromchik calmly, and without the least surprise, began to discuss the Lozovker's beans, Benish took courage and urged him on: things would certainly go well, he suggested, because AT THE DEPOT 139 he and the Lozovker were on excellent terms. Avromchik scratched himself behind the ear and showed his commercial acumen. Benish, he replied, would undoubtedly agree that they had better cut Pivniak in as their broker; otherwise he would be sure to wreck the deal. And on the following day Benish, Avromchik, and Pivniak set out together for Lozovke. At first they were all quiet, listening to the buggy swaying from side to side as it strained up a hill and Shloyme the Lip clicked his tongue at the horses. Then Pivniak livened up and said for no apparent reason: "Ay, Avromchik, what a wife you've got!" A comfortable smile spread across Avromchik's thick and amiable face. He sat back in the buggy and pointed to Benish: "He can vouch for that, can't you Benish?" But Pivniak objected. You couldn't know a woman until you'd. . . . His conclusion was not in very good taste. Benish preferred not to hear the rest of the conversation and concentrated instead on a letter he would shortly send to his wife: "To my dear wife, Frumke, may you be in good health; since I intend to come home for the Sabbath, would you kindly. . . ." On the hilltop that now lay behind them, the somnolent red station house stood, staring frozenly into the deep unknown. ...