In Those Days | Page 6

some
giant stretched out flat upon the ground; and the sparks were the
twinkling of his eyes. And the sheep were not sheep at all, but some
strange creatures moving to and fro, spreading out, and coming
together again in knotted masses. I imagined they all were giants
bewitched to appear as sheep by day and to become giants again by
night. Then I knew too well that the thick, dark forest was behind me;
and what doesn't one find in a forest? Is there an unholy spirit that
cannot be found there? Z-z-z- - - - a sudden sizzling whisper reached
my ear, and I began to cry.
"Why don't you sleep?" asked the shepherd boy in his broken Yiddish.
"I am afraid!"
"What are you afraid of?"
"Of--of--the woods . . . ."
"Ha--ha--ha--I have good dogs with the flock!"
I wanted a Mezuzah, some talisman, a protection against evil spirits,
and that fool offered me barking dogs! All at once he whistled loudly,
and his dogs set up a barking that nearly made me deaf. The flock was
panic-stricken. I thought at first that the earth had opened her mouth,
and packs of dogs were breaking out from hell.
The noise the dogs made broke the awful hush of the night, and my
fears were somewhat dispelled.

But there were other reasons why I liked to hear the dogs bark. I was
myself the owner of a dog, which I had raised on the sly in my father's
house. Imagine the horror of my brother Solomon, who as a real Jewish
lad was very much afraid of a dog!
In that way we spent a few days, hiding under the open sky, disguised
in our Shaatnez clothes. Soon enough the time came when my parents
had to understand what they would not understand when the rabbi
wanted to give me up in place of the famous Avremel. For they caught
my oldest brother Simhah, may he rest in peace. And Simhah was a
privileged person; he was not only the Shohet of the community and a
great Lamdan, but also a married man, and the father of four children to
boot. Only then, it seems, my parents understood what the rabbi had
understood before: that it was not fair to deliver up my brother when I,
the ignorant fellow, the lover of dogs, might take his place. A few days
later mother came and took us home. As to the rest, others had seen to
it.--

Here the old man stopped for a while. He was puffing and snorting,
tired from the hard walk uphill. Having reached the summit, he turned
around, looked downhill, straightened up, and took a deep breath. "This
is an excellent way of getting rid of your tired feeling," said he. "Turn
around and look downhill: then your strength will return to you."--

IV
We had left the coach far behind, and had to wait till it overtook us.
Meanwhile I looked downhill into the valley below: it was a veritable
sea of slush. The teams that followed ours sank into it, and seemed not
to be moving at all. The oblique rays of the setting sun, reflected and
radiating in every direction, lent a peculiar glitter to the slushy wagons
and the broken sheet of mire, as if pointing out their beauty to the
darkening sky. So much light wasted, I thought. But on the summit of
the hill on which I was standing, the direct rays of the sun promised a
good hour more of daylight.

The old man drew breath, and continued his story:--

Well, I was caught, and put into prison. I was not alone. Many young
boys had been brought there. Some were crying bitterly; some looked
at their companions wonderingly. We were told that the next day we
should be taken away to some place, and that the rabbi wished to come
to see us, but was not permitted to enter our prison.
Yes, a good man was the rabbi, may he rest in peace; yet he was
compelled to cheat for once. And when an honest man is compelled to
cheat he may outdo the cleverest crook. Do you want to know what the
rabbi did? He disguised himself as a peasant, went out, and walked the
streets with the rolling gait of a drunkard. The night guards stopped
him, and asked him what his business was. "I am a thief," said the rabbi.
Then the guards arrested him, and put him into the prison with us.
In the darkness of that night the rabbi never ceased talking to us,
swallowing his own tears all the while. He told us the story of Joseph
the righteous. It had been decreed in Heaven, said the rabbi,