Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance

by Sholem Aleichem

  Between each of the weddings there was an interval of several days, during which Stempenyu had nothing at all to do. He went out amongst the families of the local musicians, and made the acquaintance of Isaiah the Fiddler’s daughter—a finely built girl of about twenty-two years old. She had a swarthy complexion, black hair like a raven’s wings, and dark eyes that had a green glitter in them. Stempenyu fell madly in love with her, after the fashion that was usual with him. He kissed her, and embraced her, and bought her presents; and, when the time came for him to go away, the young woman, whose name was Freidel, told him to make no mistake. She was not going to let him go until he had affianced himself to her, openly and publicly, according to the customs which obtained in the village. She was going to bind him to her as effectually as was possible. Stempenyu was not used to engaging himself publicly to any of the girls he made love to, and he tried to drag himself free from the net into which he had entangled himself. He twisted and turned, and argued at great length, and pulled this way and that; but, all to no purpose. Freidel was a girl with a strong will. She had made up her mind to keep Stempenyu by her side forever, now that she had him in her clutches, and would not dream of letting him escape from her. He was compelled to do as she wished. The formal engagement took place amidst great rejoicing. All the musicians of the village came together, and by their united forces, succeeded in making a grand spree in honour of the famous bridegroom. And, in the house of Isaiah the Fiddler, the rejoicings were kept up for three days on end.

  At last Stempenyu managed in getting free of the people, and he left the village to go on his rounds to the other places, where he was waited for.

  Naturally, he set out to forget his engagement as soon as possible—to shake himself free, metaphorically speaking, of Freidel and everybody and everything connected with her. And, he conducted himself quite as usual. That is to say, he flirted desperately in every village he came to, according to his old habit. He had a good time, wherever he found himself with his orchestra, and thought of nothing, when suddenly.…

  There is no such thing in the world as everlasting happiness. Everything changes sooner or later. Everything is only for a certain time. And, Stempenyu’s freedom was destined to be snatched from him for ever. And evil destiny had set out in pursuit of him. An evil spirit laid hands on him, and in a moment overthrew his careless, joyous youth forever. A great misfortune befell him.

  He was playing at a wedding in a little town somewhere in Malo-Russia, and was carrying on a love affair with a pretty girl of the village, the only daughter of Hirshka the Flautist, and was one day in the middle of making all sorts of promises to her to come back and marry her, when Michsa the Drummer with sleepy face came over to him, gave him a dig in the ribs, regardless of the presence of the village girl, winked at him and said to him, in a whisper which did not reach her:

  “Go, Stempenyu, there in the house a girl is waiting for you.”

  “A girl? What sort of girl?”

  “A dark girl with green eyes.”

  Stempenyu went over to the house, and found that the girl who was waiting for him was no other than his affianced wife, Freidel, the daughter of Isaiah the Fiddler Tasapevka.

  “Why do you look so hard at me, Stempenyu? Do you not know me? Ha! ha! How he squints and blinks his eyes at me. It is I, Stempenyu. Freidel, your own Freidel, Isaiah the Fiddler’s daughter.”

  “Well, I know that. And what then? I don’t know you? Of course I do. But how did you get here? And what have you come for?”

  “How did I get here? With my feet, Stempenyu—with my feet, I tell you. I asked my way at every step, until I came at last to the house of Hirksha the Flautist. And, where do I come from? From home, of course. How else could it be?”

  “Well, and what news is there at home? When did you leave?”

  “What news can there be, Stempenyu? There is no news. When did I leave home? I left home about six or seven weeks ago. We were everywhere you like. Wherever we came, we were told that you had been there, but had gone away again, until at last we arrived at the right place. Well, and how are you, Stempenyu? Are you well?”

  “What? I? How should it be with me? Come, Freidel. Why are we standing here?” he added, seeing that a group of musicians had gathered around him, and were staring at him with curiosity as well as the dark girl with the black hair who had just come into the village.

  “For my part, let us go,” she answered.

  Stempenyu snatched up his overcoat and his walking stick, and went out into the village by the side of Friedel the Black-One. He looked around to see that no one was within hearing distance, and he addressed her in a firm voice:

  “Tell me, I pray you, what this means?”

  “What do you mean by asking what this means?”

  “I mean—why have you come here?”

  “Listen to him!” she exclaimed. “One would imagine he was dead as a door-nail, or goodness knows only what!”

  “Do you hear, Freidel?” Stempenyu demanded. “Do you hear me, Freidel? I don’t like to have such tricks played on me. I asked you plainly what you are doing here, and you answered me with ridicule. I want none of that.”

  Freidel threw a sharp glance at him out of the corners of her green eyes, swept back the long plait which had fallen forward over her shoulder, and answered him in a serious voice:

  “You want to know what I am doing here? I came to see you Stempenyu. On the day of our betrothal, you said you would write to me the moment you set foot in the village for which you were bound. You promised that you would make arrangements immediately for our wedding to take place in two or three weeks’ time. I waited and waited to hear from you for more than two months, but, you wrote never so much as a word. So, we decided to go out into the world in search of you. And, we found that looking for you was like looking for the day before yesterday. We were in every corner of the world, and now at last the Lord took pity on us, and we—”

  “Tell me, Freidel, who are ‘we’? You said ‘we’ each time. ‘We’ went and ‘we’ came.”

  “We two. That is my mother and I, Stempenyu.”

  “Your mother!” cried Stempenyu. And, all at once he felt that he was a beaten man. “Your mother? What is she doing here?”

  “Hush! What are you shouting for, Stempenyu? What did you suppose? No girl travels by herself. It would be a nice thing to do, eh?”

  “True. But, what business has your mother with me?” asked Stempenyu, as he turned round, and retraced his steps back to the village.

  “She is my mother, and will become your mother-in-law. You must remember that, Stempenyu.”

  “And, do you really imagine, Freidel, that I am going to marry you?”

  “Well, and what do you think yourself, Stempenyu?”

  “Nonsense!”

  “Why is it nonsense?”

  “Because I never thought seriously of marrying you at all.”

  Freidel stopped, and gazed at Stempenyu, right into his eyes. Then she looked about her on all sides to see if there was anyone near them. She drew closer to Stempenyu, and whispered to him hurriedly:

  “Listen to me, Stempenyu. Don’t imagine that you have to do with a timid little girl who does not know anything of what foes on in the world. I know you well, Stempenyu. I know that you are a thorough-going charlatan. You would like to have a different girl to flirt with every day of the week. But, all this does not matter now. Everything has to come to an end at some time or another. Isn’t it so? In reality, you are not a bad sort, by any means. It is all because your heart is so soft. But, you are handsome, too—a man in ten thousand. And, your playing is marvelous. You can always provide for a wife. And, for these reasons, I want you. You must marry me, and that speedily. And, all your protests are in vain—a mere waste of breath. Bend your head a little lower, and I will tell you a secret.”

  Freidel’s secret sent a thrill through Stempenyu’s frame. He was unable to lift a hand or a foot. He was like turned to stone. He remaine
d standing stock still in the middle of the road, and could not even open his mouth to utter a single word. At this juncture there arrived upon the scene, panting and breathless, the red haired Michsa Drummer. He was looking for Stempenyu to tell him that the wealthiest man of the village was waiting for him to make arrangements to have him play at his daughter’s wedding.

  Stempenyu pared from Freidel with a sigh. His last words were:

  “We will meet again, Freidel.”

  “There is no doubt that we will meet again,” was Freidel’s reply. And, she parted from Stempenyu well satisfied with the progress of affairs.

  Everyone who saw Stempenyu when he played at that wedding was surprised at the pallor of his countenance, and the abstracted, glassy stare that was in his eyes. He looked far worse than many a man who was about to be laid in his grave. His carelessness and his joviality had been taken from him as with a hand. And, within himself, Stempenyu was feeling that the end of his old free life had come. He would never again be able to fly here and there like a bird of the high heavens. He was about to take upon his shoulders an everlasting yoke. Farewell to moonlight walks with pretty girls! Farewell to laughing eyes and ruddy lips! Farewell to silver, starlit nights of enchantment!

  It was true that Stempenyu did not give in to his bondage without a struggle. But, he was as a fish that is caught in a net, and, no amount of struggling was of the least avail.

  Freidel and her mother were arrayed in battle against him, and he could not hope to fight them down. Indeed, he was afraid to say a word. Especially was he afraid of Freidel’s mother. She was in the habit of screwing up her tiny black face until it almost disappeared from sight, and only her black eyes were to be seen burning in her head like two living coals. She looked so vicious that Stempenyu was afraid she would pounce down upon him, and tear him to pieces as a wild cat tears its prey, scratching the eyes out of his head, and clawing him all over. He felt that she kept herself from falling upon him only because Freidel held her back from doing so. He knew that she would not permit it. He was as sure of it as if he had actually heard her say:

  “Do not interfere, mother. You will only make things worse. You had better do nothing and say nothing. Just look on in silence. But, be sure to keep a strict watch over him at every step he takes. He is a slippery customer, and may succeed in tearing himself free from our grip, in spite of all our precautions. But, and all will be well, mother, all will be well. Stempenyu is mine—he is mine!”

  XVI SAMSON IN THE LAP OF DELILAH

  Freidel had held out stubbornly, and in the end succeeded in getting what she wanted. She married Stempenyu according to all the laws and customs which were the most binding—that might serve to tighten the grip she had on him already. And, very soon after the wedding-day, she took him in hand, and began to tyrannize over him to her heart’s content, aided considerably by her mother, who could hardly contain herself in patience till the great day came round at last when she was the mother of a married daughter.

  And, Stempenyu tasted the bitterness of hell, and got to know the taste of it thoroughly. He was now wide awake to the minutest thing that concerned him, and soon got to know every separate shade of difference which existed between his old free life and his new life, that was one long bondage.

  After they were married, the young couple went and settled in the village of Tasapevka, to which she belonged. He and his company made the village their permanent headquarters.

  There was no more going about for Stempenyu, no more wandering joyously and carelessly over the face of the earth. Freidel took care to impress upon him the fact that she was altogether opposed to his wandering life. He was her slave now, and he had to obey her slightest wish, though it was true that she managed him only through kindness, and by means of gentle persuasion.

  And, there began for Stemepenyu a new life—a brand new life, as one might say. Before his marriage, he had been a mad of great pride and independence of spirit; but, no sooner had he become Freidel’s husband than he lost both his pride and his independence. All his strength was gone from him as well as his good-humour, and his sparkle of wit. In his own house, Stempenyu had no authority whatever.

  “Keep in mind only what concerns you,” was Freidel’s argument. “Your business is with the orchestra and with the music, and with weddings and other parties where you are asked to play. What do you want money for, you little fool?”

  After this fashion did Freidel succeed in extracting from him every single kopek he ever earned anywhere.

  She was very fond of money. She had been brought up in extreme poverty, and had had very few opportunities of handling even the smallest sum of money. As a girl she had found it extremely difficult to procure of a piece of ribbon for her hair, or a comb, such as all the other girls wore. She never got anything she wanted before she had shed a little flood of tears of the bitterest and most despairing kind. Until she was fifteen years old, she went about barefooted and almost in rags. Her mother had gone out as a nurse to other families, talking care of tiny children. And, Freidel got many beatings from her mother and father, Isaiah the Fiddler, who had a decided weakness for strong drink. Though she had never enough to eat, Freidel was early filled with a passion for money. Her greed knew no bounds, and was only aggravated because of her wretched poverty. It was only at the Feast of the Purim, when she earned a few coppers on her own account, that she had an opportunity of holding some coins in her hand for a length of time. These coppers were given to her by the people for whom she carried out the customary Purim gifts to friends, from one end of the village to another. She used to hide her coppers in the bosom of her bodice so that her mother might have no chance of dragging them out of her on any pretense whatever. At night, she slept with the coins under her pillow, and in the day, she clutched them to her greedily. And, when the Festival of Pesach came round at last, Freidel rushed off to the fair to buy with her money the ribbons and other ornaments of personal adornment that she had long wished for and dreamt of in her wildest dreams.

  No one took the least notice of Freidel until she was about eighteen years old, when she suddenly sprang up, as a gourd in the night, from a little girl to a tall, dark, heavily-built young woman of mature physique.

  When she became engaged to Stempenyu, she herself did not realize the good fortune which had befallen her. But, her mother saw everything with her lynx eyes. A hundred times a day, she explained to Freidel that Stempenyu was a treasure—a little gold-mine in himself, even thought he was a charlatan and a good-for-nothing as well, into the bargain, so to speak. He was a man to whom the roubles were of no value; and, hence, she must make it her business to manage him in all things as she herself had always managed her husband, Freidel’s father, Isaiah the Fiddler.

  After Freidel had married Stempenyu, she remembered and applied every word of advice which her mother had given her—had drilled into her, rather. Gradually and completely, she took all the authority out of Stempenyu’s hands. She proved to him times out of number that a woman must know everything connected with her husband, that a man’s wife was not a stranger to him, and that a daughter of the Jewish people was not the kind of woman who created for herself different interests from those which concerned her husband. No, she was at one with him in everything. He must know that. He must realize clearly, once and for all, that he was she, and she was he. In short, he must not fail to see that he had a wife who was only his second self.

  When Freidel became the mistress of the house, she saw that Stempenyu was always making more and more money. He often brought home a handful of silver roubles. She threw herself upon them with the greed of a hungry person before whom has been set a tasty dish, and an appetizing one. But, the money itself brought her neither pleasure nor satisfaction. She was continually harassed by the fear that there might be no more on the morrow. Perhaps her husband might one day be incapacitated from ever earning another kopek again! So she tied up the money in many knots and not only that, but she began to scrape together
one kopek on top of the other with a sort of feverish anxiety.

  “Why are you always complaining and protesting that we can’t afford this and that?” asked Stempenyu, whenever he heard her talk of the terrible possibilities which stood before her eyes like ghosts, haunting her by day as well as by night. And, she answered him evasively:

  “If you knew everything you would grow old before your time. Never mind, Stempenyu,” she added, with a smile. But, she went on doing as she thought it was her duty to do—saving, and stinting, and economizing in a thousand different ways. On all sides she kept reducing her household expenses. She bought in as little as possible, kept a badly filled larder, and cut down the number and variety of the day’s meals to a minimum. She herself often refrained from eating and drinking, so that she might add another few coins to her hoard at the end of a few days. Presently, she began to do business with the money she had saved. She lent it out on securities of different kinds, and so succeeded in earning a percentage on the money which, otherwise, might have brought her no profit. She began the business by lending a few roubles to a neighbor in a friendly way. Why not? she asked herself. And, as time went on, she saw that capital was not touched; but that, on the contrary, one rouble soon grew into two, almost without the least bother. It was not long before she had entered heart and soul into the business of lending money as a regular means of making money. And, as her business grew, her rapacity, her usury grew also. She developed all the cunning and all the meanness which have from time immemorial been connected with money-lending. She was like so many of our wealthy folks who follow the same calling, and are not ashamed of it.

  It was remarkable that Freidel should have within her such a terrible love of money. She could not have inherited the passion from her father, Isaiah the Fiddler. Neither could she have acquired this feeling by imitating her father’s friends, the other musicians, for amongst them there was not one who cared very much about the roubles, or who kept a tight hold on the kopeks. A Jewish musician, at that period, was something like a nigger, a wandering gipsy rather. He belonged to a distinct and separate species of mankind. He had even a jargon of his own which no one else understood; and, he had his own peculiar manners, and customs, and traditions.