But at Gedalyeh the baker's all is still cheerfulness. Girls and boys, in their unspent vigor, surround the tables, there is rolling and riddling and cleaning of clean rolling-pins with pieces of broken gla.s.s (from where ever do Jews get so much broken gla.s.s?), and the whole town is provided with kosher Matzes. Jokes and silver trills escape the lively young workers, the company is as merry as though the Exodus were to-morrow.

But it won't be to-morrow. Look at them well, because another day you will not find them so merry, they will not seem like the same.

One of the likely lads has left his place, and suddenly appeared at a table beside a pretty, curly-haired girl. He has hurried over his Matzes, and now he wants to help her.

She thanks him for his attention with a rolling-pin over the fingers, and there is such laughter among the spectators that Berke, the old overseer, exclaims, "What impertinence!"

But he cannot finish, because he has to laugh himself. There is a spark in the embers of his being which the girlish merriment around him kindles anew.

And the other lads are jealous of the beaten one. They know very well that no girl would hit a complete stranger, and that the blow only meant, "Impudent boy, why need the world know of anything between us?"

Shloimehle Shieber, armed with the shovels, stands still for a minute trying to distinguish Sossye's voice in the peals of laughter. The Matzes under his care are browning in the oven.

And Sossye takes it into her head to make her Matzes with one pointed corner, so that he may perhaps know them for hers, and laughs to herself as she does so.

There is one table to the side of the room which was not there last year; it was placed there for the formerly well-to-do housemistresses, who last year, when they came to bake their Matzes, gave Yom-tov money to the others. Here all goes on quietly; the laughter of the merry people breaks against the silence, and is swallowed up.

The work grows continually pleasanter and more animated. The riddler stamps two or three Matzes with hieroglyphs at once, in order to show off. Shloimeh at the oven cannot keep pace with him, and grows angry:

"May all bad...."

The wish is cut short in his mouth, he has caught a glance of Sossye's through the door of the baking-room, he answers with two, gets three back, Sossye pursing her lips to signify a kiss. Shloimeh folds his hands, which also means something.

Meantime ten Matzes get scorched, and one of Sossye's is pulled in two.

"Brennen brennt mir mein Harz," starts a worker singing in a plaintive key.

"Come! hush, hush!" scolds old Berke. "Songs, indeed! What next, you impudent boy?"

"My sorrows be on their head!" sighs a neighbor of Sossye's. "They'd soon be tired of their life, if they were me. I've left two children at home fit to scream their hearts out. The other is at the breast, I have brought it along. It is quiet just now, by good luck."

"What is the use of a poor woman's having children?" exclaims another, evidently "expecting" herself. Indeed, she has a child a year--and a seven-days' mourning a year afterwards.

"Do you suppose I ask for them? Do you think I cry my eyes out for them before G.o.d?"

"If she hasn't any, who's to inherit her place at the Matzes-baking--a hundred years hence?"

"All very well for you to talk, _you're_ a gra.s.s-widow (to no Jewish daughter may it apply!)!"

"May such a blow be to my enemies as he'll surely come back again!"

"It's about time! After three years!"

"Will you shut up, or do you want another beating?"

Sossye went off into a fresh peal of laughter, and the shovel fell out of Shloimeh's hand.

Again he caught a glance, but this time she wrinkled her nose at him, as much as to say, "Fie, you shameless boy! Can't you behave yourself even before other people?"

Hereupon the infant gave account of itself in a small, shrill voice, and the general commotion went on increasing. The overseer scolded, the Matzes-printing-wheel creaked and squeaked, the bits of gla.s.s were ground against the rolling-pins, there was a humming of songs and a proclaiming of secrets, followed by bursts of laughter, Sossye's voice ringing high above the rest.

And the sun shone into the room through the small window--a white spot jumped around and kissed everyone there.

Is it the Spirit of Israel delighting in her young men and maidens and whispering in their ears: "What if it _is_ Matzes-kneading, and what if it _is_ Exile? Only let us be all together, only let us all be merry!"

Or is it the Spring, transformed into a white patch of sunshine, in which all have equal share, and which has not forgotten to bring good news into the house of Gedalyeh the Matzeh-baker?

A beautiful sun was preparing to set, and promised another fine day for the morrow.

"Ding-dong, gul-gul-gul-gul-gul-gul!"

It was the convent bells calling the Christians to confession!

All tongues were silenced round the tables at Gedalyeh the baker's.

A streak of vapor dimmed the sun, and gloomy thoughts settled down upon the hearts of the workers.

"Easter! _Their_ Easter is coming on!" and mothers' eyes sought their children.

The white patch of sunshine suddenly gave a terrified leap across the ceiling and vanished in a corner.

"Kik-kik, kik-rik, kik-rik," whispered the hot Matzes. Who is to know what they say?

Who can tell, now that the Jews have baked this year's Matzes, how soon _they_ will set about providing them with material for the next?--"thoughts," and broken gla.s.s for the rolling-pins.

DAVID FRISCHMANN

Born, 1863, in Lodz, Russian Poland, of a family of merchants; education, Jewish and secular, the latter with special attention to foreign languages and literatures; has spent most of his life in Warsaw; Hebrew critic, editor, poet, satirist, and writer of fairy tales; translator of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda into Hebrew; contributor to Sholom-Alechem's Judische Volksbibliothek, Spektor's Hausfreund, and various periodicals; editor of monthly publication Reshafim; collected works in Hebrew, Ketabim Nibharim, 2 vols., Warsaw, 1899-1901, and Reshimot, 4 parts, Warsaw, 1911.

THREE WHO ATE

Once upon a time three people ate. I recall the event as one recalls a dream. Black clouds obscure the men, because it happened long ago.

Only sometimes it seems to me that there are no clouds, but a pillar of fire lighting up the men and their doings, and the fire grows bigger and brighter, and gives light and warmth to this day.

I have only a few words to tell you, two or three words: once upon a time three people ate. Not on a workday or an ordinary Sabbath, but on a Day of Atonement that fell on a Sabbath.

Not in a corner where no one sees or hears, but before all the people in the great Shool, in the princ.i.p.al Shool of the town.

Neither were they ordinary men, these three, but the chief Jews of the community: the Rabbi and his two Dayonim.

The townsfolk looked up to them as if they had been angels, and certainly held them to be saints. And now, as I write these words, I remember how difficult it was for me to understand, and how I sometimes used to think the Rabbi and his Dayonim had done wrong. But even then I felt that they were doing a tremendous thing, that they were holy men with holy instincts, and that it was not easy for them to act thus. Who knows how hard they fought with themselves, who knows how they suffered, and what they endured?