—Just look! Lipkis was still walking by her side! And she’d imagined that he’d gone home long ago.
When she did deign to notice him, she couldn’t stop herself from hurting him with a sharp remark:
—Lipkis, why do your moustaches grow so oddly? They never grow so oddly on anyone else.
Or:
—Generally speaking, you’re not bad looking, Lipkis, but when one studies you closely, you look fearfully like a Japanese.
At such times he felt inordinately ill at ease and was unable to respond. He could think of no reason why she kept silent, and many times decided that it was needful to say something encouraging to her about her father’s situation and the brouhaha that had erupted in their home. Once he finally began to stammer:
—To be sure, he understood very well that unhappiness didn’t derive primarily from money, and yet … He didn’t know why, but every time he’d called on them recently and seen her father there, a tragedy seemed to be taking place around him.
Without so much as glancing at him, Mirele silently fixed her blue eyes on the sunset in the distance, and remarked with cold indifference:
—Well, lend him twelve thousand rubles and he’ll free himself from his difficulties.
And with sorrow in her blue eyes she went on staring silently ahead, to the place where the sun was setting.
How odd: this delicately brought up creature even knew exactly how much her father needed to save himself. Quite possibly she knew also that had she not broken off her engagement to Velvl Burnes, his father, Avrom-Moyshe, would readily have supplied this sum. Quite possibly she’d given this matter much thought, which was why she could now say, so easily and simply:
—Well, lend him twelve thousand rubles and he’ll free himself from his difficulties.
These words abruptly reminded the crippled student Lipkis of his widowed mother whom he and his elder brother supported, and of the old overcoat that she’d carried out after him that time when, traveling to the provincial capital with Mirele, he’d hastily hobbled out to the conveyance in which she was waiting for him.
At the time it seemed that Mirel, seated on the phaeton, had smiled and glanced aside.
Why had she glanced aside then? Was it because at that moment her former fiancé had come driving up from town in his buggy? Or merely because every Sabbath Lipkis’s mother used that same old overcoat to wrap around her tsholnt* in the oven?
In reality, though, this spoiled and self-centered young woman was incapable of thinking seriously about anyone who lived outside the confines of a soul like her own, shrunken by the solipsism inevitable in an only child.
Lipkis began to understand this clearly only some time later and subsequently even reproached her for it in the many letters he failed to send her.
—He wondered—he protested in one of these unsent letters—whether her egoistic little heart was even capable of empathizing with the predicament of her own hard-pressed father, distracted by misfortune as he was, whom she, an adult woman, had felt no embarrassment in kissing before a room full of people?
The moderately cold air froze into unhearing silence, and the first snows settled over the dispirited shtetl and over the vacant, wintry district all around.
Unable any longer to endure her father’s house even for a single minute, Mirel wandered aimlessly about the surrounding windswept fields as long as the short periods of daylight lasted, leaving her footprints and those of Lipkis behind everywhere. At such times they looked odd in the chill, distant air between the dirty skies and the snow-white earth, two people wandering in silence across the vast encircling fields and rarely speaking to each other. The silence of bereavement was all around them, from a solitary peasant hut under a white-blanketed roof right down to a frozen stream somewhere in a nearby valley; dozing here and there in scattered corners of the horizon, those whitened coppices that had buried themselves deep in the snow appeared pristine and unfamiliar from where they stood, deceiving the eye of anyone who might on a rare occasion pass through on a swiftly moving sleigh:
—Look! The little oak coppices should be there, shouldn’t they?
No one noticed that by then she was on familiar terms with Lipkis and had started addressing him by his first name.
—Normally—Mirel remarked to him on one occasion, meandering aimlessly over these windswept fields—she had not the remotest feeling of love for him, but at times, for no reason, she felt pleased that he was walking by her side. Could Lipkis understand this or not?
And biting her lower lip, she began filliping his nose to help him understand, in this way forcing him to start grinning foolishly.
The sorrow in her blue eyes intensified, and from time to time it would gaze out with a melancholy glint; then she’d stare pensively into the partially blurred winter distance for a long, long time, and unpredictably pose bizarre questions:
—Lipkis, can you hear the way the world keeps silent?
Lipkis felt that he ought to say something about this silent world, made drawn-out preparations to do so in his throat and with his shoulders, and finally began:
—Yes, it would hardly be inappropriate if the two of them were to set off across these fields and never turn back again.
Paying not the slightest attention to what he said, she continued to stare straight ahead into the partially blurred distance, musingly developing her own thoughts:
—Could he imagine how alien and insignificant everything seemed to her now?
And a short while later, more of the same:
—If the whole of this frozen world, with herself in the middle of it, were now to be overturned, she wouldn’t even utter a cry of fright.
But at other times she was possessed of a strange joy linked to a wild longing for life; on these occasions nothing could persuade her to return home and she went on at length about her father’s creditors both local and distant who called on them daily, created an uproar, and banged on the table:
—These people were so disgusting … Her father was certainly to blame for having squandered their money, but this didn’t automatically give them the right to barge through their home at will, shouting for help and accusing him of robbery so loudly that they could be heard ten streets away.
Once, on an ordinary misty day, a religiously observant, scholarly, and extremely naïve young man, an unadventurous stay-at-home with a little black beard and a pale, sickly, jaundiced complexion, came to their house from some neighboring shtetl. For a long time he sat silently in their dining room, waiting in a state of shock. Several times their relative, the worldly and devoted bookkeeper, loudly repeated the same thing to him, as though speaking to the deaf:
—Reb Gedalye was currently abroad, visiting his sister who owned her own village there; that’s where he was now.
And the young man with the jaundiced complexion, still in a state of shock, went on asking in his soft, hoarse, feeble voice:
—Does this mean that the money Reb Gedalye owes me is lost? … Truly lost?
He appeared utterly devastated, this young man with the jaundiced complexion, and apparently regarded it as impossible to return home and go on living:
On that occasion Mirel ate no midday meal but spent an entire winter’s day dragging herself about outdoors with Lipkis.
—He could well imagine how hungry she was—she repeatedly remarked to Lipkis—but that stunned young man was still sitting in their house. He looked so unhappy that she couldn’t bear to look at him.
She kept sending Lipkis in to check whether the young man had left, impatiently waited for his return not far from the house, and then called out to him from a distance:
—Well? What? Is he still sitting there?
Night fell, and lamps were lighted in the town’s houses. Lamps were also lighted in their house and at length, with her face red and frozen, she came indoors and without taking off her winter outdoor garments began comforting the young man with the jaundiced complexion:
—He could
be certain: she’d do everything in her power to ensure that his two thousand rubles were returned to him.
Afterward she even accompanied him outside to his sleigh, expressed concern that his legs would be cold, and with her own hands helped him wrap them in sacking.
—He should tie this end of the sacking under himself … And he shouldn’t hesitate to pull up his fur collar … like that.
For a long time afterward she followed his sleigh with her eyes, completely forgetting about herself and her hunger:
—Did he have any conception of how unhappy this man was?—she inquired pensively of Lipkis.
Lipkis was deeply troubled by the fact that he hadn’t attended a single one of his lectures all that day, and felt decidedly odd, as though he were strictly observant and had suddenly recalled as night fell that he hadn’t donned prayer shawl and phylacteries* earlier. More than usual he was infuriated and resentful, totally out of patience, and very nearly lost his temper over the thought:
—Would she ever go indoors or not?
But she continued to gaze pensively in the direction in which the sleigh carrying the young man was disappearing into the farthest end of the town, and was unable to forget his jaundiced complexion:
—He’s so unhappy—she repeated quietly to herself.—Obviously no one’s ever loved him, and now his small capital’s been reduced by more than two thousand rubles.
2.2
From abroad, meanwhile, new letters kept arriving from Reb Gedalye.
Wholly preoccupied, he was unable to relax at his sister’s, and he wanted to return as soon as possible to the tumult of his trading affairs and begged for mercy, as though from bandits:
—They’d taken and buried him alive.
Both his wife Gitele and his devoted relative the bookkeeper replied, taking trouble to set his mind at rest:
—Everything was sorting itself out, thank God. Little by little they were coming to terms with his creditors; because of good sleigh roads, the income from the Kashperivke woods had greatly improved; the bank had extended credit for three thousand rubles on the Count’s note of hand; and Mirele, long might she live, was well, all praise to God. The stock of winter wheat in the Ternov mill was still registered in the name of the landowner, and the price of flour was rising daily. With God’s help, Reb Gedalye would soon be able to return home; meanwhile, his wishes were being carried out and both the Kuzari and the first volume of Abravanel’s commentaries were being sent to him by post.*
Meanwhile, for days at a time all was hushed and serene indoors; often all that could be heard was the bookkeeper scratching his pen over the accounts in the study, and the regular ticking of the pendulum on the great wall clock in the dining room as it counted off the minutes of the short, darkly overcast winter’s day.
For days at a time no one now called at the house apart from one or another tardy creditor and Libke, the rabbi’s young wife, a tall, freckled, half-masculine redhead who regarded herself and her husband as Reb Gedalye’s closest friends and who always wore a half smile to irritate her enemies.
With needlework in hand, she could sit for hours here in the dining room next to the polite and uncommunicative Gitele, and with merciless slowness relate details of her husband’s communal affairs:
—She argued with him, with her Avreml: What’s it to you that the town doesn’t want the assistant rabbi Shloyme’s son as their ritual slaughterer?
She smiled far too much every time Lipkis inquired after Mirele in the hallway, while Gitele examined her fingernails far too closely whenever the rabbi’s wife scratched her ritual wig with a blunt knitting needle and was plainly eager to ask her:
—Long life to you, but are you really not bothered at all that this fellow—to say nothing worse about him—keeps creeping into your house?
In the same silence that filled the unheated salon Mirele lay in her own room, did not so much as glance at Lipkis as he came in and didn’t even change her position to acknowledge him. With sorrow in her blue eyes, she stared for a morosely long time into the corner of the ceiling directly opposite and found herself totally under the influence of the brand-new book that lay open beside her.
—Did he think—she merely asked him—that she’d ever fall in love with anyone again?
This question immediately filled Lipkis with profound regret that he’d come at all, so he went over to the window and angrily took to staring out into the winter landscape. He was even prepared to answer her question by assuring her that she’d never fall in love, and was on the point of beginning, venomously:
—Generally speaking … we really ought to examine the true meaning of this phrase, “fall in love.”
But Mirel was already standing next to the furious young man in a frivolously lighthearted mood, gently pulling his hair:
—You’re such a fool, such a fool—she whispered softly into his ear through childishly clenched teeth.
Soon she started putting on her outdoor winter garments and swearing all manner of oaths:
—If that red-haired dummy—she meant the rabbi’s wife—didn’t clear out of the dining room soon, she’d rip the winter seals off one of the windows and leap outside with him.
Short, damp days followed in quick succession, driving the shtetl ever deeper into winter. Neither indoors nor outdoors offered anything to awaken interest, stirring instead the same indifferent discontent toward everything around, so that one might as well stop every overgrown girl who occasionally strolled down the main street in smartly dressed self-importance, vent one’s frustration on her, and rebuke her in the voice of an older, deeply discontented woman:
—Why are you so choosy, you? … Why don’t you get married? Why?
For vast distances all around, the treasures of wind were imprisoned in the gray mists hanging in the air; they grew heavier and heavier, spreading over the frozen, snow-covered earth that grew dirtier from day to day. The skies were hidden, the horizon erased. The people had no sight of them and the shtetl had no need of them. Like great beasts, houses hunkered down ponderously under their heavy, snow-covered roofs and dozed in an unending reverie.
It seemed:
These houses had ears, hidden, highly attentive ears, continually listening to the great silence that bore down on everything around both from close by and from far away.
It seemed:
They were ready, in response to the slightest, most remote rustle from the fields, to spring up and in great rage and haste rush to confront it, like those starving dogs that race forward to challenge some alien intruder of their own species, an unwelcome guest.
Smoke puffed from the chimney of one of the houses, but instead of rising up into the sky it sank downward, feebly described circles in the air, and finally spread itself over the snow.
In the empty marketplace, several people with nothing to do stood around a sleigh that had brought reeds to sell as fuel. They mocked the stubborn peasant with his exorbitant prices and exasperated him with their sharp-tongued witticisms. And the shopkeepers, muffled up in winter clothing and lounging in boredom at the entranceways of their shops, watched all this from a distance, took pleasure in it, and laughed.
The marketplace was filled with vacancy, and only on the small square in front of the house of Avrom-Moyshe Burnes, the man who would’ve been Mirele’s father-in-law, stood five or six expensive sleighs, fully harnessed and waiting for their owners who had business indoors. These sleighs were attended by their energetic, fur-clad drivers who, having nothing else to do, examined one another’s horses and passed judgment on them:
—Just look at this one—it’ll go blind in its left eye.
—And what about that one? … Even at rest it can’t put weight on its hind leg.
And the horses stood where they were and did what came naturally to them; from time to time they shook themselves, trying to throw off the congealed sweat while numerous small bells tinkled on their necks, telling the outside world everything that was taking place within the hou
se:
—Rich landowners were visiting, arranging loans for themselves in the smoke-filled study.
—Worldly merchants were there, speculators who weren’t afraid to make purchases a year in advance, and the spacious, half-lit entrance hall was packed with estate stewards and couriers prepared at any moment to appear before their departing employers, ready to receive their instructions and drive out in all directions.
Whenever he had occasion to pass this house with Mirele, Lipkis did not feel entirely comfortable.
He tried in every possible way to forget about it, and to this end had even made strenuous efforts to fix his mind on serious thoughts:
—In two years’ time he’d complete his studies in the faculty of medicine …
As though out of spite, however, Mirele insisted on staring at this house every time they passed and refused to leave him in peace:
—Could he explain it? Why on earth had they painted the outer shutters blue? That was so garish to look at.*
Or:
—All of them: Avrom-Moyshe Burnes, Brokhe and Feyge, her former fiancé’s sisters … they were all such refined people … she’d once loved them very much. Even now she sometimes had a strong desire to see them.
Lipkis was outraged and could no longer restrain himself:
—He had absolutely no idea to whom she was referring in such exalted terms.
—And anyway, creatures were generally divided into only two categories: human beings and animals.
Thus, the next question followed logically:
—If these pigs were human beings, then what was he, Lipkis? …
Mirele turned to him with a strange look:
—Milostivi gosudar, most gracious sir, would you be so kind as to keep your philosophical speculations in check until tomorrow?
After this, he did not speak again the whole way, walked beside her in great anger, and tormented himself:
The End of Everything (New Yiddish Library Series) Page 8