The Imported Bridegroom | Page 5

an hour later he made his entry into his native town. Here he had
expected his agitation to pass the bounds of his physical strength; but it
did not. At this moment he was solemnly serene.
The town had changed little, and he recognized it at once. Every spot
greeted him, and his return of the salutation was a speechless
devotional pathos. He found several things which had faded out of his
enshrined picture of the place, and the sight of these moved his soul
even more powerfully than those he had looked forward to. Only in one
instance was he taken aback. Sure enough, this is Synagogue Lane, as
full of puddles as ever; but what has come over him? He well
remembers that little alley in the rear; and yet it runs quite the other
way. Length has turned into width.
And here is Leizer Poisner' s inn. "But how rickety it has become!"
Asriel's heart exclaims with a pang, as though at sight of a friend
prematurely aged and run to seed. He can almost smell the stable
occupying the entire length of the little building, and he remembers
every room Hello! The same market place, the same church with the
bailiff's office by its side! The sparse row of huts on the river bank, the
raft bridge, the tannery--everything was the same as he had left it; and
yet it all had an odd, mysterious, far-away air--like things seen in a
cyclorama. It was Pravly and at the same time it was not; or, rather, it
certainly was the same dear old Pravly, but added to it was something
else, through which it now gazed at Asriel. Thirty-five years lay
wrapped about the town.
Still, Stroon feels like Asrielke Thirteen Hairs, as his nickname had
been here. Then he relapses into the Mott Street landlord, and for a
moment he is an utter stranger in his birthplace. Why, he could buy it
all up now! He could discount all the rich men in town put together;
and yet there was a time when he was of the meanest hereabout. An
overpowering sense of triumph surged into his breast. Hey, there!

Where are your bigbugs--Zorach Latozky, Reb Lippe, Reb Nochum?
Are they alive? Thirty-five years ago Asrielke considered it an honor to
shake their palm branch on the Feast of Tabernacles, while now out
with your purses, you proud magnates, measure fortunes with Asrielke
the heckler, if you dare! His heart swells with exultation. And yet--the
black year take it!--it yearns and aches, does Asriel's heart. He looks at
Pravly, and his soul is pining for Pravly--for the one of thirty-five years
ago, of which this is only a reflection--for the one in which he was
known as a crack-brained rowdy of a mechanic, a poor devil living on
oatmeal and herring.
With the townspeople of his time Asriel's experience was somewhat
different from what he felt in the case of inanimate Pravly. As he
confronted them some faces lighted up with their identity at once; and
there were even some younger people in whom he instantly recognized
the transcribed images of their deceased parents. But many a
countenance was slow to catch the reflection of the past which shone
out of his eyes; and in a few instances it was not until the name was
revealed to Asriel that the retrospective likeness would begin to
struggle through the unfamiliar features before him.
"Shmulke!" he shrieked, the moment he caught sight of an old crony, as
though they had been parted for no more than a month. Shmulke is not
the blooming, sprightly young fellow of yore. He has a white beard and
looks somewhat decrepit. Asriel, however, feels as if the beard were
only glued to the smooth face he had known. But how Asriel's heart
does shrink in his bosom! The fever of activity in which he had passed
the thirty-five years had kept him deaf to the departing footsteps of
Time. Not until recently had he realized that the words "old man"
applied to him; but even then the fact never came home to him with
such convincing, with such terrible force, as it did now that he stood
face to face with Shmulke. Shmulke was his mirror.
"Shmulke, Angel of Death, an inflammation into your bones!" he
shouted, as he suddenly remembered his playmate's byname and fell on
his shoulder.
Shmulke feels awkward. He is ashamed of the long-forgotten nickname,

and is struggling to free himself from the unwelcome embrace; but
Asriel is much the stronger of the two, and he continues to squeeze him
and pat him, grunting and puffing for emotion as he does so.
Aunt Sarah-Rachel, whom Asriel had left an elderly but exceedingly
active and clever tradeswoman, he found a bag