Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance

by Sholem Aleichem

  When she was still a child, and went to the school of Mottel Sprais to learn to write, she grew very much attached to Rochalle. They were never apart, and their love never waned.

  One Sabbath morning, when the two little girls were sitting in the window-seat, both of them dressed in their best clothes, Rochalle began to sing, while Chaya-Ettel listened:

  “Ah, you are going away—

  Ah, you are going away,

  And me you are leaving behind!”

  “Rochalle, my darling, my love, sing that again,” Chaya-Ettel begged of her.

  “Very well, I will begin it again if you wish.

  “Ah, you are going away—

  Ah, you are going away,

  And me you are leaving behind!”

  Chaya-Ettel was completely overcome. She fell forward, buried her face in her hands, and wept bitterly, her whole body heaving with agitation.

  “God help you, Chaya-Ettel, are you weeping? Why are you weeping? Tell me what was come over you that you bust out weeping all at once?”

  “Oh, Rochalle,” she managed to say at last, “it is your song—your little song.”

  “My little song? What is there in it to make you weep?”

  “Oh, Rochalle, do not ask me. Do not ask to me to tell you all that is in my embittered heart. A fire is burning within me—a terrible fire. Just here I feel it—just here, near my heart?”

  Chaya-Ettel put her hand to her heart, and Rochalle looked at her in bewilderment, and amazement.

  “Why do you look at me so, Rochalle? You do not understand what I am suffering. You can never understand what goes on within me. My heart feels as heavy as lead; and, I am so lonely, and so miserable. I carry about with me a load of sorrow. But, I will tell you everything—everything.

  Chaya-Ettel proceeded to tell Rochalle a whole story which one may hear from any Jewish man or woman almost any day of the week; but, a sad story for all that. She told Rochalle of the death of her two parents within a short time of one another; and how, since the day on which her uncle had taken her into his own house, she had suffered all sorts of ill-treatment. Her uncle was unkind to her, it was true; but her aunt was worse by far. And, had it not been for her uncle’s younger son, Benjamin, she would have run away long ago. More than this, she might have drowned herself in the river. Benjamin was so good to her that he consoled her almost entirely for what she had to suffer every day of the week. They had grown up together, and were more like sister and brother than cousins. But, at the end of some time, he went away, and left her all alone amongst total strangers; that is to say, not real strangers, but relatives who were worse to her than if they had been the blackest of black strangers.

  “I don’t see why one should weep when a friend goes away,” remarked Rochalle. “Even if he was to you a real broker, and he was not, you need not break your heart after him, nor cry your eyes out!”

  “Oh, Rochalle, you do not know how kind he was to me. And, his image is as deeply rooted in my heart as if he had really been my brother. Nay, even more than if he had been of my own flesh and blood. I tell you, Rochalle, when I saw Benjamin it was as if a candle had been lit in the darkness. Everything was bright. And when he went away—”

  “Benjamin had to go away, had he not? Didn’t he get married?”

  “Oh, Rochalle, do not mention it. I hate the word, ‘married.’ It seems to take the very life from me. When they tell me that Benjamin is married, it seems to me that the end of my days has come. You know nothing of such things, Rochalle, and I hope you never will. But, why do you look at me in such a curious way? Benjamin promised that he would marry me. He swore it!”

  Nu! And what if he did not marry you, Chaya-Ettel?”

  “You talk like a child, Rochalle. It was not my fate. It was another girl’s destiny to be so lucky as to marry him!”

  “But, had he not sworn to marry you?”

  “Well, and if he did swear it? He was always promising to ask his father’s permission; but, he kept putting it off from day to day. You know what sort of a man my uncle is? Benjamin was afraid to approach him. And, one day, he found himself betrothed to her. I talked to him about it; and, he made answer, hat as the day of the wedding is still far off, there was yet time for him to talk to his father. And, in this way, the weeks and the months flew by. And, the wedding day came round. I myself stood beside the canopy when they were married. With my own eyes I saw how they put the ring on her finger; and, with my own ears, I heard them pronounce the blessing. The Cantor and his choir sang a loud, joyful hymn. Benjamin drooped his eyes on to the floor, so that he might avoid meeting my eyes. But, I know that he saw me all the same. Oh, Rochalle, how can I live over all these miseries? How can I stand them all?”

  “In that case, Chaya-Ettel, Benjamin is a great liar, and is not worth the ground he stands on.”

  “No, Rochalle, I tell you he is no liar. You do not know him. You have no idea what a diamond he is. He has a most loving heart. No one but my uncle is to blame for it all—he alone—the tyrant! May my dead father rise up and take revenge of him. Oh, lord, may the wrath of heaven come upon him!”

  “I can see, Chaya-Ettel, that your pain is great!”

  “Pain? I am dying. My strength is going from me! And, she calls it pain!”

  “And she, Chaya-Ettel, is she a beautiful woman?”

  “Is who a beautiful woman?”

  “She—Benjamin’s wife, I mean.”

  At these words Chaya-Ettel turned red as fire, and then became pale as death. She was all colours, as the phrase has it. Rochalle could not understand why she remained silent, refusing to answer the question. But, she felt instinctively that she ought to let it pass without repeating it. She thought that Chaya-Ettel did not wish to make any remarks about the woman who had ousted her. She had no doubt that it would pain her to speak of the affair any more.

  Long afterwards, Rochalle came upon Chaya-Ettel at a wedding—her own wedding, in fact. And, to Rochalle she was a bride just like any other bride—very still, and silent, and agitated.

  Next day, after having sat amongst the guests who had been feasting in her honour all the night, Chaya-Ettel took off all her finery, her wedding-dress, and her veil, and everything else which she had to wear as a bride, and gave herself up to resignation. She was pale as death, and a good deal abstracted; but, that did not matter. Nor did it seem to matter that she was not at all joyful, as she ought to have been. She thought bitterly that everything was as it should be. Surely, no one could expect her to dance, and sing, and hop about like a bird on her wedding?

  But it was evident that her heart was full of emotion. Who can tell what her real feelings were? The heart of a Jewish woman is a secret. It is as a box to which no one has a key. No one may see into it. And, according to the traditions which are so strongly adhered to in the villages and towns of the Russian Pale, it is neither seemly nor desirable that any man should concern himself with the heart of a woman. It is as if she had no heart, and no secrets buried in it.

  X ROCHALLE AGAIN

  Rochalle mused long on the question of what Chaya-Ettel must be thinking of on the day of her wedding. Rochalle made no remark to anybody, nor did she ask a single question. But, her own sense told her that there must be something very unusual taking place in Chaya-Ettel’s heart. She was certainly not in the best form, as she sat beside the man whom her uncle had destined for her mate, but who was a complete stranger to her. All the more must she have been filled with emotions of a conflicting nature because of the fact that Benjamin and his wife seemed to have gone out of her life altogether. But, Rochalle believed that Chaya-Ettel was in reality thinking of Benjamin now, at the very moment when she ought to have been thinking of no one else but the man who was now her husband.

  Rochalle would have liked to ask her what she had heard last from Benjamin, or if she had heard anything at all. She drew closer to the bride in order to ask the question; but, when she saw how pale she was, and heard her sighing to herself,
Rochalle could not find it in her heart to gratify her curiosity—to ask her anything about Benjamin.

  Hitherto, Rochalle felt and understood and knew very little about life itself. She had never come into contact with anything which might have struck a deep chord in her heart. But, she was stirred to the depths now by the very same facts of life which had hitherto left her unstirred. Though she was only an ordinary, commonplace girl, without education, she was not a fool. She understood what was going on around her. It was true also that she knew nothing of the heroes and romances. But, she had a clear conscience, and a pure heart; and therefore, she could sympathize readily with another’s grief and pain. She felt that she herself was filled with the sorrow which vexed the heart of her friend.

  On the moment when she caught the first glimpse into the workings of Chaya-Ettel’s heart, Rochalle seemed to have added many years to her age—ten years at the very least. Thanks to the knowledge she had of Chaya-Ettel’s unhappy attachment, Rochalle was an old woman, thought she had been a fresh young creature only a little while before.

  At that time, at the time when she was attended Chaya-Ettel’s wedding, Rochalle was herself already betrothed to Moshe-Mendel, of whom she had heard so much, whose praises were sung so frequently and by so many mouths that she began to look upon herself as the luckiest girl in the whole world.

  “What luck!” they cried. “May no Evil Eye interfere to upset her happiness. She has come upon a valley of fatness! How on earth did she manage to lay hold of him? His father, Isaac-Naphtali, is the foremost Jew of all the Jews of Tasapevka. And, Moshe-Mendel himself is an only child. And, what a son he is, what a son! There’s luck for you!”

  And, in truth, Moshe-Mendel was a nice young man whom anyone could like. He was pleasant, and clever, and smart. He knew a good deal of the Talmud, and his witty sayings were taken up and repeated and handed round, so to speak, from one end of the village to the other. He wrote so well, such a beautiful hand, that even Mottel Sprais himself, the girls’ teacher, who was certainly the best writer in the district—even he was compelled to take note of Moshe-Mendel’s calligraphy. One day the old man saddled his nose with his silver-rimmed spectacles, and examined closely and carefully the specimen of Moshe-Mendel’s handwriting which had been submitted to him for approval. He did his best to find fault with it; but, in the end, he had to admit that Moshe-Mendel could lay some claim to the possession of the great ideal—“a golden hand,” as the old phrase had it. But, Mottel-Sprais took good care to qualify his praise. He expressed the opinion that Moshe-Mendel was certainly clever; and that, in the course of time, with much practice, if God willed, he would be able to write fairly well. He was promising in that direction.

  Rochalle had not much chance of finding out for herself the good qualities of Moshe-Mendel. But, then, how could she when she had so little opportunity of coming face to face with him? He remained in his village, in Tasapevka, and she in hers, Yehupetz, which was several miles off. And they had seen each other only once, and then in the presence of a whole houseful of people, for a couple hours. She was in one part of the room, and he in the other, so that they could hardly say with truth they knew what they each looked like—she in his eyes, and he in hers. But, for that again, they wrote to each other regularly once a week for a whole year, until they were married. What is the use in denying the truth? Mottel Sprais took a large part in Rochalle’s letter-writing; for, Moshe-Mendel’s letters were written so well, and in three languages—Hebrew, Russian, and German—that Rochalle was compelled to ask the help of Mottel Sprais in answering. She had no wish to show her ignorance. Mottel was more than willing to help her. He wished to let the whole world know that from his school the girls did not come out ignorant dunces, as happened in the case of other schools. In fact, he was so eager to advance the merits of his school that he did not scruple to add to the letter he wrote at Rochalle’s dictation many French words, to show that he knew the French language as well as the German.

  In short, one might say that for a whole year Moshe-Mendel and Rochalle did nothing else but write letters to one another. They only left off when they were about to go under the wedding canopy.

  The wedding came off in the usual fashion, which means that the relatives on both sides grumbled a good deal about the way this and that was managed. Each one said that there was too much selfishness shown. And the bridegroom’s people went so far as to call the bride’s father the name of an unclean animal that is forbidden by Jewish law. But, when the wedding was completely at an end, they forgave one another freely, and parted the best of friends, each set of families going its way in peace.

  A few days afterwards, Rochalle drove off from her father’s house to the village of Tasapevka to take up her residence with her husband and his parents.

  XI ROCHALLE YET AGAIN

  There in her new home, Rochalle began an entirely new life. Rochalle, the wife of their only child, and the beautiful Rochalle that she was besides, at once won the hearts of every person with whom she came into contact. But, she was the particular favourite of Moshe-Mendel’s parents. They took care of her, and kept guard over her every hour of the day, lest so much as a speck of dust fall on her.

  Dvossa-Malka, who had counted the days until her son should bring home a wife, was ready and willing to lay down her life for Rochalle, if she thought that it would contribute to her welfare. It was always, Rochalle this, and Rochalle that! Whenever she came upon anything in the shape of a dainty—something which was not to be had every day of the week—she was sure to bring it home for Rochalle. And, she went out of her way to procure these dainties as frequently as possible; for, she looked upon Rochalle as one looks upon a child that is delicate and full of strange caprices. The moment Rochalle opened her eyes in the mornings, she found that her mother-in-law had already placed something for her to eat by her bedside, so that she might see it the very moment she opened her eyes. It did not seem to matter to Dvossa-Malka that she had such a great lot of work to do besides all these labours of love which she was always ready to undertake for Rochalle’s comfort. Nothing seemed to matter to her but the one thing—that Rochalle should have the very best that money could buy or labour create. Though she had to attend to her business of selling her wares at the market, she felt that the only thing which really concerned her was the care of Rochalle.

  “Why should you trouble yourself about me?” asked Rochalle, a hundred times a week.

  “What harm is it? You eat this, Rochalle; it is good. And, drink this, Rochalle, it is refreshing.” And, Dvossa-Malka kept on fussing around Rochalle day and night. Many times she set the whole house into a commotion by rushing in from the market, breathless, with haste and excitement, to see if Rochalle had got this or that. It was a usual thing for her to pour out a volume of abuse on the unoffending heard of her serving-maid because of her neglect of Rochalle—neglect which was often as imaginary as real. One would think that Dvossa-Malka was trying to run away from a highwayman, from the manner in which she flew into the house sometimes.

  “What is it, mother?” Rochalle would ask, fearing that some disaster had befallen her.

  “What else should it be but the fool of a girl forgot to take the milk that I left to boil for you off the fire. Oh, may her breath boil within her. I thought she would forget, and so leave you without your hot milk, through letting it burn or boil over. The moment I remembered the milk, I ran off from my stall towards home, as if a mad animal were chasing me. That is how it is. I pay her to do the work, and I a worried to death because she is sure to forget every single thing, unless I am here to keep watch over her. God help me, I don’t know where in the world I am at all. I left the shop by itself. And, there stands that ne’er-do-well with his hands folded behind his back, as if there was nothing at all for him to do—as if he were the principal guest at a wedding-feast, and had only to wait for people to attend on him. I asked him to run over with these little cakes for you; but, he would not stir. Here, eat them, Rochalle; they
are very good. I got them for you from Leah-Bass, the baker woman. I never buy them from anyone else—not even if I were to be given their weight in gold for nothing. God help Leah-Bass for all that she differs through her drunkard of a husband! How the earth holds such a creature I do not understand. He is a disgrace to every-body, and his poor father must be put to shame in the other world through him. Yes, what was I going to say? My head is confused! Ha, there she goes, the lazy, good-for-nothing girl! Where were you, devil?”

  At sight of her, Dvossa-Malka let out a long series of abuses and curses and loud, ear-splitting yells. She cries that Rochalle’s breakfast was delayed, the coffee spoiled, and a dozen other misdeeds performed by the girl, all of them bearing more or less on the subject or Rochalle’s comfort. In short, the whole house is in a state of irruption through Rochalle. Even Isaac-Naphtali himself, who was always deeply engrossed in his own affairs, often paused to look at Rochalle, and to ask whether she had this or that.

  All this anxiety about her, and the constant attendance on the very least of her wants, was highly distasteful to Rochalle. She felt that they only bothered her, and deprived her of her personal freedom to do what she liked, and when she liked, and how. And, over all lay the great truth—that she was not at all as deeply attached to her parents-in-law-as they were to her. She left Moshe-Mendel out of her reckoning, though he was the principal person to her. He was hardly more to her than a mere figure—a name. Between her and him the relations were such that they could be called neither bad nor good. They said little or nothing to one another. A young man of Moshe-Mendel’s caliber could not be expected to sit down and talk with his wife in the middle of the say, as if there was nothing more important, or more interesting, for him to occupy himself with. He went here and there, telling stories, watching the business that went on in the market, or else listening to a discourse at the House of Leaning. And, when he came home at night, he could never get a single moment in which to talk to Rochalle without being interrupted. Isaac-Naphtali was sure to pop his head inside of the door to see what “the children” were doing, or else Dvossa-Malka came into the room, bringing something with her for Rochalle. She was sure to have in her hand a plate, or a jug, or a bowl, or a glass. Or, if she had nothing in the way of a dainty to offer Rochalle, she would bring her in a shawl to protect her shoulders from the cold air. And, she was always enthusiastic, always at fever point, for fear that Rochalle should fail to get the very best of everything.