An Obscure Apostle. Eliza Orzeszkowa

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СКАЧАТЬ with a look full of restrained anger and irony. When the melamed spoke of the fish Leviathan, so large that the whole world stood on it, and which, in the day of the Messiah, the scholars would eat from the head and the ignorant from the tail, a smile appeared on Meir's thin lips. It was a smile similar to the stiletto. It pierced the one on whose lips it appeared, and it seemed as though it would like to pierce the one who caused it. Ber answered this smile by a sigh. But the four young men who sat opposite Meir noticed it, and on their faces Meir's smile was reflected. After a period of silence, interrupted only by the clatter of knives on the plates and the loud movements of the melamed's jaws, old Saul said:

      "Those are great things, scholarly and dreadful, and we thank Reb Moshe for having told them to us. Listen to the learned men, who by their great knowledge sustain Israel's strength and glory, because it is written that the wise men are the world's foundation. 'Who respects them, and questions them often about obscure things with which they are familiar, to that one all sins shall be pardoned.'"

      Reb Moshe raised his face from the plate, and stuttered with his mouth full of food:

      "Good deeds bring upon man an inexhaustible stream of blessing and forgiveness. They open for him the secrets of the heavens and earth and carry his soul among the Sefirots!"

      A silence full of respect was the only answer. But after a few seconds it was interrupted by the sonorous voice of the youth:

      "Reb Moshe! what do you call a good deed? What must one do in order to save one's life from sin and draw upon one's self a great stream of grace?" asked Meir aloud.

      The melamed raised his eyes at the question. Their looks met again. The melamed's gray eyes shone angrily and threateningly. The gray, transparent eyes of the youth contained silvery streams of hidden smiles.

      "You, Meir, you were my pupil, and you can ask me about such things. Have I not told you a great many times that the best deed is acquiring depth in the holy science? To whom does that everything will be forgiven, and he who does not do that will be cursed and thrust out from the bosom of Israel, although his hands and heart are clean and white as the snow."

      Having said this he turned to Saul and said, pointing at Meir with his brown finger:

      "He don't know anything. He has forgotten everything I have taught him!"

      The old man slightly bent his wrinkled forehead before the melamed and said in a conciliatory voice:

      "Reb, forgive him! When wisdom shall come to him, then he will recognise that his mouth has been very daring, and I am sure he will be pious and scholarly, as were all the members of our family."

      He drew himself up, and pride sparkled in the eyes which age had long dimmed.

      "Listen to me, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Our family—the family of Ezofowich—is not a common family. We—thanks to God, whose holy name be blessed—have great riches in chests and on vessels. But we have still greater riches in the records of our family. Our ancestor was a Senior, a superior over all the Jews living in this country, and very much beloved by the king himself. And my father Hersh, the famous Hersh, had the friendship of the greatest lords, and they drove him in their carriages, and for his surprising wisdom they took him to the king to the diet which was then held in Warsaw."

      The old man became silent and looked around with eyes brightened with pride and triumph. The whole gathering looked on him as on a rainbow. The melamed became gloomy, and slowly sipped the wine from a big glass. The old great-grandmother, who was already slumbering, awakened at once, and peered with her golden eyes from behind half-closed lids, exclaiming in her soundless voice:

      "Hersh! Hersh! my Hersh!"

      After a while. Saul began to talk again:

      "We have in our family a great treasure—such a treasure as has no equal in all Israel. This treasure is a long document, written by our ancestor Michael the Senior, and left by him, and in which there are written noble and wise things. If we could get that document of wisdom we should be happy. The only trouble is that we don't know where it is."

      From the time Saul began to talk of the document left by his ancestor, among the many eyes looking at him two pairs sparkled passionately, with, however, quite contradictory sentiments. They were the eyes of the melamed, who laughed softly and maliciously, and the eyes of Meir who drew himself up in his chair and looked into his grandfather's face with burning curiosity.

      "This writing," Saul said further, "was hidden for two hundred years and nobody has touched it. And when the two hundred years were ended, my father, Hersh, found it. Where he found it no one but our old great-grandmother knows."

      Here he pointed to his mother, and then finished:

      "And she alone knows where he hid that writing, but as yet she has told no one."

      "And why did she tell no one?" laughed maliciously and softly the melamed.

      Saul answered in a sad voice:

      "Reb Nohim Todros—may his memory be blessed—has forbidden her to speak of it."

      "And you, Reb Saul, why have you not searched for that writing yourself?"

      Saul answered still more sadly:

      "Reb Baruch Todros, the son of Reb Nohim and Reb Isaak—may he live a hundred years—the son of Reb Baruch, have forbidden me to search for it!"

      "And no one dare search for it!" exclaimed the melamed with all his might, raising his hand armed with a fork, "nobody dare search for that writing, because it is full of blasphemy and filth. Reb Saul! You must forbid your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to search for that writing, and in case they find it they must give it up to the fire to be destroyed! For the one who shall find that writing, and shall read it aloud to the people—upon that one shall the herem fall. He shall be cast out from the bosom of Israel. Thus spake Reb Nohim and Reb Baruch—may their memory be blessed! Thus spake Reb Isaak—may he live a hundred years. In that writing is excommunication and great misfortune to the one who shall find it."

      A deep silence followed those words, spoken with the greatest enthusiasm by the melamed, and amidst this silence was heard a long, trembling passionate sighing. All looked around, desiring to learn from whose breast proceeded that noise as of the tearing out of desire, but no one could discover whence it came. They only perceived that Meir, with rigid figure, pale face and burning eyes was gazing into the great-grandmother's face. She, feeling the piercing look of her beloved child, raised her wrinkled eyelids and said:

      "Meir?"

      "Bobe?" answered the young man, in a voice filled with caressing tenderness.

      "Kleineskind!" whispered the great-grandmother and, smiling sweetly, she began to slumber again.

      The Sabbath feast was near its end when an incident occurred which would have appeared very strange to any foreign eye, but was an ordinary sight to those gathered there.

      Reb Moshe, whose dark cheeks burned from the effects of several glasses of wine hospitably poured out for him by the hosts, suddenly jumped from his chair and rushed to the centre of the room.

      "Sabbath! Sabbath! Sabbath!"—he shouted, shaking his head and arms violently. "Fried! Fried! Fried!" he repeated—"the whole celestial family rejoices and dances in the Heavens! David danced and jumped before the Arch—why СКАЧАТЬ