The Promised Land | Page 3

a living, as a matter of family history. Happening when
it did, the emigration became of the most vital importance to me
personally. All the processes of uprooting, transportation, replanting,
acclimatization, and development took place in my own soul. I felt the
pang, the fear, the wonder, and the joy of it. I can never forget, for I
bear the scars. But I want to forget--sometimes I long to forget. I think I
have thoroughly assimilated my past--I have done its bidding--I want
now to be of to-day. It is painful to be consciously of two worlds. The
Wandering Jew in me seeks forgetfulness. I am not afraid to live on and
on, if only I do not have to remember too much. A long past vividly
remembered is like a heavy garment that clings to your limbs when you
would run. And I have thought of a charm that should release me from
the folds of my clinging past. I take the hint from the Ancient Mariner,
who told his tale in order to be rid of it. I, too, will tell my tale, for once,
and never hark back any more. I will write a bold "Finis" at the end,
and shut the book with a bang!

THE PROMISED LAND
CHAPTER I
WITHIN THE PALE
When I was a little girl, the world was divided into two parts; namely,
Polotzk, the place where I lived, and a strange land called Russia. All
the little girls I knew lived in Polotzk, with their fathers and mothers
and friends. Russia was the place where one's father went on business.
It was so far off, and so many bad things happened there, that one's
mother and grandmother and grown-up aunts cried at the railroad
station, and one was expected to be sad and quiet for the rest of the day,
when the father departed for Russia.
After a while there came to my knowledge the existence of another
division, a region intermediate between Polotzk and Russia. It seemed
there was a place called Vitebsk, and one called Vilna, and Riga, and
some others. From those places came photographs of uncles and

cousins one had never seen, and letters, and sometimes the uncles
themselves. These uncles were just like people in Polotzk; the people in
Russia, one understood, were very different. In answer to one's
questions, the visiting uncles said all sorts of silly things, to make
everybody laugh; and so one never found out why Vitebsk and Vilna,
since they were not Polotzk, were not as sad as Russia. Mother hardly
cried at all when the uncles went away.
One time, when I was about eight years old, one of my grown-up
cousins went to Vitebsk. Everybody went to see her off, but I didn't. I
went with her. I was put on the train, with my best dress tied up in a
bandana, and I stayed on the train for hours and hours, and came to
Vitebsk. I could not tell, as we rushed along, where the end of Polotzk
was. There were a great many places on the way, with strange names,
but it was very plain when we got to Vitebsk.
The railroad station was a big place, much bigger than the one in
Polotzk. Several trains came in at once, instead of only one. There was
an immense buffet, with fruits and confections, and a place where
books were sold. My cousin never let go my hand, on account of the
crowd. Then we rode in a cab for ever so long, and I saw the most
beautiful streets and shops and houses, much bigger and finer than any
in Polotzk.
We remained in Vitebsk several days, and I saw many wonderful things,
but what gave me my one great surprise was something that wasn't new
at all. It was the river--the river Dvina. Now the Dvina is in Polotzk.
All my life I had seen the Dvina. How, then, could the Dvina be in
Vitebsk? My cousin and I had come on the train, but everybody knew
that a train could go everywhere, even to Russia. It became clear to me
that the Dvina went on and on, like a railroad track, whereas I had
always supposed that it stopped where Polotzk stopped. I had never
seen the end of Polotzk; I meant to, when I was bigger. But how could
there be an end to Polotzk now? Polotzk was everything on both sides
of the Dvina, as all my life I had known; and the Dvina, it now turned
out, never broke off at all. It was very curious that the Dvina should
remain the same, while Polotzk changed into Vitebsk!

The mystery of this transmutation led to much fruitful thinking. The
boundary between Polotzk and