She and the old gentleman look at me in astonishment.[134]

"In the gymnasiums of those days," I hasten to add, "there was no studying--they used to practice gymnastics, naked, men and women together--"

The two pairs of eyes lower their gaze, but the young house-master raises his with a flash.

"_What_ did you say?"

I make no reply, but go on to speak of the theatres where men fought wild beasts and oxen, and of other Greek manners and customs which must have been contrary to Jewish tradition.

"The Greeks thought nothing of all this; they were bent on effacing every trace of independent national existence. They set up an altar in the street with an 'Avodeh zoroh,'[135] and commanded us to sacrifice to it."

"What is that?" she asks in Polish.

I explain; and the old man adds excitedly:

"And a swine, too! We were to sacrifice a swine to it!"

"And there was found a Jew to approach the altar with an offering.

"But that same day, the old Maccabeus, with his five sons, had come down from the hills, and before the Greek soldiers could intervene, the miserable apostate was lying in his blood, and the altar was torn down.

In one second the rebellion was ablaze. The Maccabees, with a handful of men, drove out the far more numerous Greek garrisons. The people were set free!

"It is that victory we celebrate with our poor, little illumination, with our Chanukah lights."

"What?" and the old man, trembling with rage, springs out of his chair.

"_That_ is the Chanukah light? Come here, wretched boy!" he screams to his grandson, who, instead of obeying, shrinks from him in terror.

The old man brings his fist down on the table, so that the gla.s.ses ring again.

"It means--when we had driven out the unclean sons of Javan, there was only one little cruse of holy olive-oil left...."

But a fit of coughing stops his breath, and his son hastens up, and a.s.sists him into the next room.

I wish to leave, but she detains me.

"You are against a.s.similation, then?" she asks.

"To a.s.similate," I reply, "is to consume, to eat, to digest. We a.s.similate beef and bread, and others wish to a.s.similate _us_--to eat us up like bread and meat."

She is silent for a few seconds, and then she asks anxiously:

"But will there always, always be wars and dissensions between the nations?"

"O no!" I answer, "one point they _must_ all agree--in the end."

"And that is?"

"Humanity. When each is free to follow his own bent, then they will all agree."

She is lost in thought, she has more to say, but there comes a tap at the door--

"Mamma!" she exclaims under her breath, and escapes, after giving me her hand--for the first time!

On the next day but one, while I was still in bed, I received a letter by the postman.

The envelope bore the name of her father's firm: "Jacob Berenholz."

My heart beat like a sledge-hammer. Inside there were only ten rubles--my pay for the month that was not yet complete.

Good-bye, lesson!

XXIII

THE POOR LITTLE BOY

(Told by a "man" on a "committee")

"Give me five kopeks for a night's shelter!"

"No!" I answer sharply and walk away. He runs after me with a look of canine entreaty in his burning eyes, he kisses my sleeve--in vain!

"I cannot afford to give so much every day...."

The poor, I reflect, as I leave the soup-kitchen, eat their fill quickly....

The first time I saw the dirty, wizened little face with the sunken eyes, darkly-burning, sorrowful, and yet intelligent eyes, it went to my heart.

I had not even heard his request before an impulse seized me and a groschen flew out of my pocket into his thin little hands. I remember quite well that my hand acted of its own accord, without waiting to ask my heart for its pity, or my reason whether with a pension of forty-one rubles, sixty-six kopeks a month, I could afford to give five kopeks in charity.

His entreaty was an electric spark that fired every limb in my body and every cell in every limb, and my reason was not informed of the fresh outlay till later, when the little boy, with a hop, skip, and a jump, had left the soup-kitchen.

Busy with my own and other people's affairs, I soon forgot the little boy.

And yet not altogether. Somewhere inside my head, and without my knowing anything about it, there must have been held a meeting of practical thoughts.

Because the very next evening, when the little boy stopped me again, the same little boy with the broken, quavering accents, and asked me once more for a night's shelter and bed, the following considerations rose up from somewhere, ready prepared, to the surface of my mind:

A boy seven or eight years old ought not to beg--he ought not to hang about soup-kitchens; feeding on sc.r.a.ps, before the plates are collected and removed, would make a vagabond of him, a beggar--he would never come to any good if he went on like that.

My hand had found its way into my pocket, but _I_ caught it there and held it fast.

Had I been "pious," I should have reasoned thus: "Is the merit I shall acquire really worth five kopeks? Should I not gain just as much by repeating the evening prayers? or by giving a hoa.r.s.e groan during their recital?"