Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance

by Sholem Aleichem

  “Here, Rochalle, taste this new kind of preserve that I have invented. I am sure you will like it,” was a favourite remark of hers.

  “But, I tell you I tasted it a hundred times already.”

  “Go away, child! You never tasted it before. You never set eyes on the likes of it in your life.”

  And, Rochalle was compelled to take another spoonful of the preserve that was already grown as distasteful to her as poison.

  “Rochalle, my love, you will be famished. Did you ever see anyone eating as you are eating? One would imagine that you were afraid of the spoon. I don’t know how you manage to exist at all. If anyone sees you, they will tear the eyes out of my head for starving you to death. They will curse me into the grave for starving my daughter-in-law. You must eat something, even if it is only to satisfy me that you are not starving. Woe is me!”

  “Please let me be. I am not hungry. I cannot eat a mouthful. May I never be more hungry in all my life than I am now.”

  “Well, do me a favour then. Sometimes a daughter-in-law does a favour to a mother-in-law. And, you must remember that I have a mother’s heart. Do not pain me by refusing to eat what I have brought you, even if it is only a mouthful.”

  Rochalle could never manage to get out of eating what Dvossa-Malka insisted she should eat. And, as she took bite after bite, under the watchful eyes of her mother-in-law, she felt that she must choke sooner or later.

  This mode of life, that was in itself a kind of bondage, grew intensely wearisome to Rochalle, despite the fact that she knew very well they were her true and faithful friends, and despite, too, the knowledge she had that they were quite ready to carry out the least of her wishes without an instant’s hesitation. She felt that if she asked for something which was as far out of their reach as were the stars in the sky they would make every effort, and strain every nerve to get it for her. There was no excuse; and when Rochalle asked for a thing she must have it at once.

  But, a human being is not a bull nor a goose that he or she should be satisfied to do nothing but eat. Nobody could possibly enjoy such a life. No one could feel comfortable in the least to have their footsteps dogged to every hour of the day—to have the road dusted for his feet to tread on, so to say—to feel that his footfalls were being counted, and his bites watched. And, Rochalle was heartily sick of having Dvossa-Malka hanging over her when she sat down, and sitting beside her even when she slept. She hated to feel that her whole life was entirely in the hands of others. She saw now that she had completely lost her independence.

  She was feeling bitterly the sad position in which she now found herself at the time when the reader made her acquaintance. She was lonely as well as tied down. She had not a single friend to whom she might unburden herself; and, her own parents were far off. Nor could she explain her position to them. They were full sure that she was happy as the day was long. Their letters to her contained nothing but rejoicings at her good fortune. They expressed their heartiest congratulations in detail to her, and sang loud hymns of thanksgiving for the good fortune that the Lord had sent her; and, expressed the deepest feelings of their hearts, which were that she might continue to enjoy her fortune for ever and ever. They often finished up their letters with the words:

  “In joy, and with much gratitude on your account, and with happy hearts. Amen! Selah!”

  Deep down in her heart, Rochalle carried a grudge against Moshe-Mendel because he kept her at a distance from him. It was as if he wished to show her that he was infinitely superior to her, and, that she was not on any account to imagine herself as his equal. It was not an unusual thing for a young man of his type to hold himself superior to his wife. In fact, all who were like him considered it beneath their dignity to depend on their wives for anything, and certainly never dreamt of consulting them at any time.

  But, in his secret heart, and after his own peculiar fashion, Moshe-Mendel was very fond of Rochalle. He was very faithful to her even in thought, and never entertained the least feeling towards her that was not kind as well as honest in every sense of the word.

  One day, not long after they were married, Rochalle was unwell and stayed in bed. And, Moshe-Mendel was filled with concern for her. He never left her side of a second. His heart ached to see how pale and ill she looked. Her sighed and thought to himself that he would gladly give up his last drop of blood if by doing so he could save her a single pang of pain.

  “It is heartrending,” he said to his mother, the tears glittering in his eyes. “We ought to call n the apothecary, or the Feldsher! I cannot bear to see her lying there and burning. It is heartrending!”

  She was much better the next morning, but, she did not lave her bed. And, Moshe-Mendel refused to leave her for a moment. He felt that he had now a good opportunity to have a long and pleasant chat with his beautiful wide. He had wished for such an opportunity. But, he had always been disturbed by either his father or mother. He felt that Rochalle, too, wished to talk to him quite as much as he wished to talk with her. He drew his chair closer to the bed, so close that her beautiful head was almost in his arms. She turned her blue eyes on him, and waited for him to speak. But, he did not know what to say, and his eyes sought the floor. It was only when she made a movement, as if she wished to turn towards the window, that he looked up. At that moment she looked up at him, and his eyes sought the window. In this way, fencing with glances, so to speak, some little time passed by.

  During the whole of the time they had been married, they had no opportunity of talking together by themselves. And, now that the opportunity had arisen, they felt constrained and ill at ease. They did not know what to say to one another, nor how to say it, supposing that they did know.

  Rochalle, being a woman, had to leave the initiative in the hands of Moshe-Mendel; whilst he, as a refined and well-bred young man, waited to hear what she might wish to say to him. Meanwhile they were both silent, and only exchanged glances.

  “What is it, Moshe-Mendel?”

  “What is what?”

  “Why do you look at me so?”

  “Who looked at you?”

  “You looked at me.”

  “I looked?”

  “Who else looked?”

  Rochalle turned away from him; and he, taking the ends of his little beard in his hand, and biting them between his teeth for want of some other way of showing his agitation, sat quite still and looked at her for a long, long time. And, as he looked, he sighed, until, attracted by his sighs, Rochalle turned round suddenly, and caught his eyes fixed on her face.

  “What is it, Moshe-Mendel?”

  “What is what?”

  “Why are you sighing?”

  “Who is sighing?”

  “I am sighing?”

  “Who else is sighing?”

  And, they both lapsed into silence, once again. Moshe-Mendel drew still closer to Rochalle. He coughed, and was about to say something.

  “Listen, Rochalle.… I mean in connection with what you said.…”

  The door opened suddenly and Dvossa-Malka rushed in, her eyes gleaming with excitement, and her speech rapid and almost incoherent.

  “What do you think? I never knew that the turkeys would go to pieces in the dish. But, I want a plate. In the middle of everything I must go and get him some turkey. And, how do you feel now, Rochalle? I am afraid you caught a heavy cold already. I told you not to stay out in the air without a shawl. I sent again to the apothecary. Isaac-Naphtali has gone himself.”

  “Let me be, mother. It will pass away. I have never been like this before. And, besides, everybody has a cold now. It is going.”

  “Everything is always all right with you. Go, child, you are talking nonsense. Colds are not going now. Nobody else is laid up. But, I had better sit down a little while.” So saying, Dvossa-Malka drew a stool over to the bed and sat down.

  “Do you know what, mother?” Moshe-Mendel ventured to remark. “Do you know what? You go to the shop, and I will stay here with Rochalle.”

&n
bsp; His eyes met Rochalle’s eyes, and he was glad. They seemed to say to him:

  “You are perfectly right, Moshe-Mendel.”

  “I don’t know what you are saying. What is there for you to do in the shop? There is nothing in it to look after. I wish my enemies to have no more than there is in the shop this day. But, Moshe-Mendel, you must go to your room, and lie down for a while on your father’s bed. You have not slept the whole night.”

  And, in this way did the happy but fettered Rochalle and Moshe-Mendel spend their lives. They wanted for nothing but the moment’s liberty that they never could manage to get for themselves. They never got an opportunity to understand one another because of the constant care and kindness of the two old people. But, neither of them ever said a word about it. Neither did they explain their feelings in the matter to one another. Moshe-Mendel did not feel the situation so keenly. He spent his time in reading now and again, and in going to and from his father’s shop. He had frequent intercourse with his comrades, and spent many an amusing hour with them. In a word, he managed to keep himself alive somehow.

  But, Rochalle did not live at all. She ate, and drank, and tasted her mother-in-law’s preserves a dozen times a day. She never dipped her finger in cold water, and never came in contact with a single soul. It was not seemly that the daughter-in-law of Isaac-Naphtali should hobnob with everybody and anybody. Whilst, on the other hand, anybody who was a somebody would have nothing at all to do with Isaac-Naphtali’s daughter-in-law, because the “somebody” would be sure to hold him, or her, self far above Isaac-Naphtali, both in station as in wealth, just as Isaac-Naphtali himself considered himself far above the other householders of Tasapevka.

  And, so it came about that Rochalle’s days and months dragged on, as if she were a prisoner. It was again eat, and again sleep, again the cup of coffee, and again Dvoska-Malka with her preserves, from week end to weekend.

  XII ROCHALLE SINGS HER LITTLE SONGS

  That was how Rochalle lived her life at the period when she first came upon Stempenyu, at the wedding of Chayam-Benzion’s daughter.

  We left her standing at the door, on the morning after the wedding, gazing dreamily at the scene before her—the market square of Tasapevka—the shops, the booths, and the wagon drawn by oxen, and the peasant boy in the large hat.

  That was the life she was leading when, for the first time, she heard the wonderful sounds that came forth from Stempenyu’s fiddle.

  She was passionately fond of music, and she had always wanted to hear a good musician, and to know him personally, if possible. When she heard anyone playing or singing, she tried to repeat the melody afterwards in her low, sweet voice. Her parents used to say of her that it was a great pity she was born a woman. She had a man’s talents in a woman’s body. If she were a man she would have set the world on fire.

  It seemed that her parents did not understand that Rochalle had within her a certain power—a certain something which we, in our day, call by the name of Talent. But to them, her parents, it seemed that Rochalle’s power of picking up a melody, and afterwards repeating it accurately—this power, they thought, lay in her brain, and not in her quick ear. They thought she could do this remarkable thing because she had the cleverness which had, from time immemorial, been the special prerogative of the male sex.

  Amongst us Jews, brains play the most important parting the regulation of our lives—much more so than the rest of our capacities, and our limbs and bones and muscles combined—the two hundred forty parts, as well call them.

  A good head! A good little head! That is the finest thing among us.

  To return to our story:

  Rochalle sand until she was about fifteen or sixteen years old, as if she were a little bird to whom the whole universe was as free as the air itself. No matter what she heard, whether it was the Cantor singing in the synagogue, or a simple ballad sung by a wandering minstrel—a beggar, or a song which the people around her were in the habit of singing, or a melody that no one else could play but the orchestras which came into the village when there was a wedding—no matter what it was, Rochalle was sure to sing it soon after, in her low, clear and sweet voice. It was worth while listening to her, and the village looked upon her as a source of amusement. But, the moment she was the affianced wife of Moshe-Mendel, her mother said to her:

  “Phew! It is enough, my daughter! You will have to give up singing now. When you are living with your parents in law, how will it look if you suddenly start squealing like a bird? What would the people say to that?”

  Rochalle recognized that it was considered unseemly to sing. She took her mother’s advice, and never sang any more. Not that she never sang at all. Quite unconsciously, she used to break into song now and again.

  It was not her fault if she sometimes forgot what was expected of her. If she sang, it was not because she wished to shame her husband’s relatives. When one comes upon the source of a river one may stop it from flowing. But when one does not see—when one does not know whence it comes, one cannot stop it. Not only during the time when she was merely engaged to Moshe-Mendel, but even after she was married to him, it happened many times that she forgot herself completely, and began to sing as of old, just as she used to do when she was a little girl, and cold sing as much as she liked without fear of breaking the code of laws laid down for married women. On one or two occasions she forgot that her mother-in-law was in the room, and that she heard every word she sang:

  “Oh, there, of, there,

  On yonder spot,

  Two little doves are standing.

  They talk and they kiss—

  But what can they have to say?

  They kiss and they talk—

  But what have they to say?”

  “Oh, goodness gracious me! See what I have done!” cried Rochalle, pulling herself up short, as her eyes fell on her mother-in-law.

  “Well, well, I don’t know!” was the other’s reassuring answer. She swung out her arms and thrust her nose forward. “See, Rochalle,” she added, “I am afraid the gooseberries are almost too ripe for the jam. Last year that happened to me, and I lost half a load of gooseberries.”

  As for singing before Moshe-Mendel—nothing on earth would have induced her to do it. She felt that it would be altogether too extravagant a thing to go and open her mouth in front of her husband, and to sing into his eyes. She was sure that such a thing had never been heard of. It may be that Moshe-Mendel would not have refused to listen to her. Indeed, he might even have gone so far as to show is appreciation of her voice. He had heard her sing an odd note at different times; and he knew that she had a sweet voice. But, how would it have looked if he had suddenly taken it into his head to stay at home and listen to his wife singing little songs? A nice thing for a respectable man to occupy himself with! It would mean that he deliberately gave the villagers something to talk about, putting it into their very mouths.

  On the few occasions when Rochalle had been singing in his hearing she had not known that he was near to her. He had listened to her for a little while, and then he coughed discreetly, to show her that he had only arrived on the spot, after which he came boldly forward into the middle of the room.

  A whole year passed by. Rochalle was surrounded by good friends and true; but, in spite of that, she felt very lonely. She was neither happy nor unhappy. Her strongest feelings were of loneliness, despite the goodness and the kindness which met her on all sides.

  Often, as she sat over her needlework, she would forget where she was, and would start singing. And, always the song reminded her of home and childhood. Her heart melted within her as the memories crowded fast on top of one another.

  “It flies, and it flies,

  The golden bird,

  Over a thousand seas!

  Oh, carry my greetings,

  Oh, golden bird,

  To my mother so far from me!”

  Dvossa-Malka was in the habit of stealing over on tip-toe until she was close enough to Rochalle to hea
r was she was singing. And, when she took in he meaning of the doggered verse, she would say:

  “What is the matter, Rochalle? Are you longing for your old home?”

  “Oh, no, no, no! I was just singing a little song to myself! Rochalle made haste to reply. She smiled up to Dvossa-Malka—a wistful, tender smile, as she forced back the tears which were rising to her eyes.

  XIII ROCHALLE GETS A LETTER

  We left Rochalle, on the morning after the wedding, standing at the door, and looking out upon the market-square of the village. She was absorbed in reverie, and forgot her surroundings. But, she was soon brought back to reality by our hero—Stempenyu.