"And yet it's true; our rabbi corresponds with all the Geonim[49] in the world. Questions and answers concerning the most important matters come and go--everything is arranged somehow--it just depends. Not long ago, for instance, an elderly gra.s.s-widow was released from the marriage-tie.

Well, of course, the main thing is not the gra.s.s-widow, but the dialectics!"[50]

He goes on:

"All the Einiklich[51] know of our town. They come, praise G.o.d, often--and, praise G.o.d, not in vain."

"It is the first time I ever heard of a dead town."

"That's rather strange! I suppose you keep yourself rather aloof.....

And yet it is a truly Jewish town, a real Jewish metropolis. It has everything a town needs, even two or three lunatics! And it has a reputation for commerce, too!"

"Is anything taken in or out?"

"What? What do you say?" asks the Jew, not quite clear as to my meaning.

"Are you speaking of articles of trade?"

I nod my head.

"Certainly!" he answers. "They take away prayer-scarfs and leather belts, and bring in Corfu Esrogim and earth of Palestine. But that isn't the chief thing, the chief thing is the business done in the town itself! Drink-shops, lodging homes for travellers, old clothes--according to custom--"

"A poor town?"

"What do you mean by rich and poor? There is Parnosseh! The very poor go about begging either in the place or in the neighborhood--mostly in the place itself! Whoever holds out a hand is given something! Others try for some easy work, they do broker-business, or pick up things in the streets and earn an honest crust. The Almighty is faithful! The orphans are given free meals by the householders and study in the Talmud Torah.

The orphan girls become maid-servants, cooks, or find a living elsewhere. Widows, divorced women, and gra.s.s-widows (there have been a lot of gra.s.s-widows lately[52]) sit over charcoal braziers, and when the fumes go to their head, they dream that rolls hang on the trees ready baked. Others live _quite_ decently!"

"On what?"

"On what? What do other people live on? A poor man hopes; a trader swallows air, and the one who digs--graves, I mean--is never out of employment--"

Is he joking, the dried-up, little, old Jew, the bag-of-bones with the odd gleam in his deeply sunken eyes? On his bony face, covered with a skin like yellow parchment, not the trace of a smile! Only his voice has something odd about it.

"What sort of a town _is_ it, anyway?" I ask again.

"What do you mean? It's a town like any other! There's a Shool, and they say that once there were all sorts of animals painted on the walls, beasts and birds--out of Perek Shirah[53]--and on the ceiling all sorts of musical instruments, such as were played upon by King David, on whom be peace. I never saw it so, but the old men tell of it."

"And nowadays?"

"Nowadays? Dust and spider-webs. There's only a wooden chain, carved out of one piece, that hangs from the beam, and falls very prettily to one side of the Ark to the right of the curtain, which was itself the gift of pious women. n.o.body remembers who made the chain, but it was an artist, there's no doubt! Such a chain!

"In the Shool," he continued, "you see only the common people, artisans, except tailors, who form a congregation apart, and butchers and drivers, who have hired a place of their own to pray in. The Shool can hardly read Hebrew! The well-to-do householders--sons of the Law--a.s.semble in the house-of-study, a large one with piles of books! The Cha.s.sidim, again, pray in rooms apart!"

"And are there dissensions?"

"Many men, many minds! In the grave, on the other hand, there is peace; one burial ground for all; and the men's bath--the women's bath--are there for all alike."

"What else have you in your town?"

"What more would you have? There was a refuge for wayfarers, and it was given up; wayfarers can sleep in the house-of-study--at night it's empty--and we have a Hekdesh."

"A hospital, you mean?"

"Not a hospital at all, just a Hekdesh, two rooms. At one time they were occupied by the bather, then it was arranged that the bather should content himself with one room, and that the other should be used for the Hekdesh; there are not more than three sick women in it altogether: one poor thing, an old woman with paralyzed legs, who lies all of a heap; a second with all her limbs paralyzed, and beside these, a crazy gra.s.s-widow. Three corners are taken up with beds, in the fourth stands a chimney-stove; in the middle there is a dead-house, in case of need!"

"You are laughing at me, friend," I break in, "that is Tziachnovke!

Tziachnovke itself with its commerce and charities and good works! Why do you call it the dead town?"

"Because it is a dead town! I am speaking of a town which, from the day it was built, hung by a hair, and now the hair has snapt, it hangs in the air. It hangs by nothing at all. And because it hangs by nothing and floats in mid-air, it is a dead town; if you like, I will tell you about it."

"By all means--most interesting!"

Meanwhile night is falling, one half of the sky grows blood-red and fiery, over there is the sunset. On our other hand, the moon is swimming into view out of a light mist, like the face of a bride peeping out of her white veil. The pale beams, as they spread over the earth, mix with the quivering shadows of the sad, still night.

Uncanny!--

We drive into a wood. The moon-rays steal in after us between the trembling leaves.

On the ground, among the fallen leaves and twigs, there dance little circles of light, like silver coins. There is something magical in the illumination, in the low breathing of the wood.

I glance at the wayfaring Jew, his appearance has changed. It is melancholy and serious, and his expression is so simple and honest. Can it all be true?

_Ha!_ I will listen to what he has to say.

"The town hung by a hair from the first," said the narrator, "because it was started in a part where no Jewish town was allowed to be! It was not till the first Minyan was complete that people held a meeting and decided to reckon themselves as belonging to a town in the neighborhood.

On this pretense they built a bath, a Shool, and after that, a men's bath, and bought a piece of land for a burial ground.

"And when all that was finished, they sent people of backstair influence to have it all endorsed."

"Head downward?"

"Isn't that always the way with us? How should it be otherwise?"

"I don't know!"

"However, that's how it was! And the thing was not so underhand as you suppose.

"There was a Jew who was very rich, and this rich Jew, as is usually the case, was a little, not to say very much, in with the authorities, and everything was in his name; it was _his_ Shool, _his_ bath, _his_ women's bath--even to _his_ burial ground--and nothing was said; as I tell you, he was a person of influence!

"And when the paper came from high quarters, he was to transcribe it in the name of the community and stop paying sop-money to the local police."

"And then the rich man said: 'To my account'?"

"No, my dear sir, such rich people didn't exist in those days. 'To my account' was a thing unknown; but hear what happened, what things may come to pa.s.s!

"It was not the Gevir, but the envoy who caused the trouble. He made off, half-way, with the money and the papers, and left the freshly-baked community like a gra.s.s-widow with a family."

"Did they send another?"

"Not so soon as all that! Before it was known that the first had absconded, or anything about it, the Gevir died and left, among other things, an heir who was a minor; he couldn't sign a paper till he was twenty-one!"