Within the Pale

OCTOBER, 1911

BY MARY ANTIN

I

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 when the father departed for Russia one was expected to be sad and quiet for the rest of the day.

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, one called Vilna, one 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 other people in Polotzk; the people in Russia, one understood, were very different.

In answer to 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 did n’t. I went with her. I was put on the train, with my best dress tied up in a handkerchief, 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 station was a big place, much bigger than the railroad station in Polotzk. Several trains came in at once, instead of only one. Then 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 was n’t new to me 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 of 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 thinking, as a result of which I came to understand that the boundary between Polotzk and the rest of the world was not, as I had supposed, a physical barricade, like the fence which divided our garden from the street. But while Polotzk and Vitebsk were bound together by the continuity of the earth, between them and Russia a formidable barrier still interposed. When people went to Russia it was a sign of trouble: either they could not make a living, or they were drafted for the army, or they had a lawsuit. For in Russia lived the Czar, and in Russia were the dreadful prisons from which people never came back. No, it was not good to go to Russia. And next I learned gradually that much as Polotzk disliked to go to Russia, even more did Russia object to lett ing Polotzk come. People from Polotzk were sometimes turned back before they had finished their business, and often were cruelly treated on the way. It seemed there were certain places in Russia — St. Petersburg, and Moscow, and Kiev — where my uncle or my father or my neighbor must never come at all, no matter what important things invited them. The police would seize them and send them back to Polotzk in chains, like wicked prisoners, although they had never done any wrong.

It was strange enough that my relatives should be treated like this, but at least there was this excuse for sending them back to Polotzk, that they belonged there. For what reason were people driven out of St. Petersburg and Moscow who had their homes in those cities, and had no other place to go to? Ever so many people, men and women and even children, came to Polotzk, where they had no friends, with stories of cruel treatment in Russia; and although they were nobody’s relatives, they were taken in, and helped, and set up in business, like unfortunates after a fire.

It was very strange that the Czar and the police should want all Russia for themselves. It was a very big country; it took many days for a letter to reach one’s father in Russia —why might not everybody be there who wanted to?

I do not know when I became old enough to understand. The truth was borne in on me a dozen times a day, from the time I began to distinguish words from empty noises. My grandmother told me about it, when she put me to bed at night. My parents told me about it, when they gave me presents on holidays. My playmates told me, when they drew me back into a corner of the gateway to let a policeman pass. Vanka, the white-haired little boy, told me all about it, when he ran out of his mother’s laundry on purpose to throw mud after me, when I happened to pass. I heard about it during prayers, and when women quarreled in the market-place; and sometimes, waking in the night, I heard my parents whisper it in the dark.

There was no time in my life when I did not hear and see and feel the truth — the reason why Polotzk was cut off from the rest of Russia. It was the first lesson a little girl in Polotzk had to learn, but for a long time I did not understand. Then there came a time when I knew that Polotzk and Vitebsk and Vilna and some other places were grouped together as the ‘Pale of Settlement,’and within this area the Czar commanded me to stay, with my father and mother and friends, and all ot her people like us. We must not be found outside the Pale, because we were Jews.

So there was a fence around Polotzk, after all. The world was divided into Jews and Gentiles.

This knowledge came so gradually that it could not shock me. It trickled into my consciousness drop by drop. By the time I fully understood that I was a prisoner, the shackles had grown familiar to my flesh.

The first time Vanka threw mud at me I ran home and complained to my mother, who brushed off my dress and said, quite resignedly, ‘ How can I help you, my poor child? Vanka is a Gentile. The Gentiles do as they like with us Jews.’

The next time Vanka abused me I did not cry, but ran for shelter, saying to myself, ‘Vanka is a Gentile.’ The third time, when Vanka spat on me, I wiped my face and thought nothing at all. I accepted ill-usage from the Gentiles as one accepts the weather. The world was made in a certain way, and I had to live in it.

Not quite all the Gentiles were like Vanka. Next door to us lived a Gentile family which was very friendly. There was a girl as big as I, who never called me names, and gave me flowers from her father’s garden. And there were the Parphens, of whom my grandfather rented his store. They treated us kindly, as if we were not Jews at all. On our festival days they visited our house, and brought us presents, carefully choosing such things as Jewish children might accept; and they liked to have everything explained to them, about the wine and the fruit and the candles, and they even tried to say the appropriate greetings and blessings in Hebrew.

My father used to say that if all the Russians were like the Parphens, there would be no trouble between Gentiles and Jews; and Fedora Pavlovna, the landlady, would reply that the Russian people were not to blame. It was the priests, she said, who taught the people to hate the Jews. Of course she knew best, as she was a very pious Christian. She never passed a church without crossing herself.

The Gentiles were always crossing themselves: when they went into the church and when they came out, when they met a priest, or passed an image in the street. The dirty beggars on the church-steps never stopped crossing themselves; and even when they stood on the corner of a Jewish street, and received alms from Jewish people, they crossed themselves and mumbled Christian prayers.

In every Gentile house there was what they called an ikon, which was an image or picture of the Christian God, hung up in a corner, with a light always burning before it. In front of the ikon the Gentiles said their prayers, on their knees, crossing themselves all the time.

I tried not to look in the corner where the ikon was, when I came into a Gentile house. I was afraid of the cross. Everybody was, in Polotzk — all the Jews, I mean. For it was the cross that made the priests, and the priests made our troubles, as even some Christians admitted. The Gentiles said that we had killed their God, which was absurd, as they never had a God — nothing but images. Besides, what they accused us of had happened so long ago: the Gentiles themselves said it was long ago. Everybody had been dead for ages who could have had anything to do with it. Yet they put up crosses everywhere, and wore them on their necks, on purpose to remind themselves of these false things; and they considered it pious to hate and abuse us, insisting we had killed their God. To worship the cross and to torment a Jew was the same thing to them. That is why we feared the cross.

Another thing the Gentiles said about us was that we used the blood of murdered Christian children at the Passover festival. Of course that was a wicked lie. It made me sick to think of such a thing. I knew everything that was done for Passover, from the time I was a very little girl. The house was made clean and shining and holy, even in the corners where nobody ever looked. Vessels and dishes that were used all the year round were put away in the garret, and special vessels were brought out for the Passover week. I used to help unpack thenewdishes, and find my own blue mug. When the fresh curtains were put up, and the white floors were uncovered, and everybody in the house put on new clothes, and I sat down to the feast in my new dress, I felt clean inside and out. And when I asked the Four Questions, about the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs and the other things, and the family, reading from their books, answered me, did I not know all about Passover, and what was on the table, and why? It was wicked of the Gentiles to tell lies about us. The youngest child in the house knew how Passover was kept.

The Passover season, when we celebrated our deliverance from the land of Egypt, and felt so glad and thankful, as if it had only just happened, was the time our Gentile neighbors chose to remind us that Russia was another Egypt. That is what I heard people say, and it was true. It was not so bad in Polotzk, within the Pale; but in Russian cities, and even more in country districts, where Jewish families lived scattered, by special permission of the police, who were always changing their minds about letting them stay, the Gentiles made the Passover a time of horror for the Jews. Somebody would start up that lie about murdering Christian children, and the stupid peasants would get angry about it, and fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill the Jews. They attacked them with knives and clubs and scythes and axes, killed them or tortured them, and burned their houses. This was called a pogrom. Survivors of the pogroms came to Polotzk, with wounds on them, and horrible, horrible stories of little babies torn limb from limb before their mother’s eyes. Only to hear these stories made one sob and sob and choke with pain. People who saw such things never smiled any more, no matter how long they lived; and some became insane on the spot.

Often we heard that, the pogrom was led by a priest carrying a cross before the mob. Our enemies always held up the cross as the excuse for their cruelty to us. I never was in an actual pogrom, but there were times when it threatened us, even in Polotzk; and in all my fearful imaginings, as I hid in dark corners, thinking of the horrible things the Gentiles were going to do to me, I saw the cross, the cruel cross.

I remember a time when I thought a pogrom had broken out in our street, and I wonder that I did not die of fear. It was some Christian holiday, and we had been warned by the police to keep indoors. Gates were locked, shutters were barred. If a child cried, the nurse threatened to give it to the priest, who would soon be passing by. Fearful and yet curious, we looked through the cracks in the shutters. We saw a procession of peasants and townspeople led by a number of priests, carrying crosses and banners and images. In the place of honor was carried a casket, containing a relic from the monastery in the outskirts of Polotzk. Once a year the Gentiles paraded with this relic, and on that occasion the streets were considered too holy for Jews to be about, and we lived in fear till the end of the day, knowing that the least disturbance might start a riot, and a riot lead to a pogrom.

On the day when I saw the procession through a crack in the shutter, there were soldiers and police in the street. This was as usual, but I did not know it. I asked the nurse, who was pressing to the crack over my head, what the soldiers were for. Thoughtlessly she answered me, ‘In case of a pogrom.’ Yes, there were the crosses and the priests and the mob. The church-bells were pealing their loudest. Everything was ready. The Gentiles were going to tear me in pieces, with axes and knives and ropes. They were going to burn me alive. The cross — the cross! What would they do to me first?

There was one thing the Gentiles might do to me worse than burning or rending. It was what was done to unprotected Jewish children who fell into the hands of priests or nuns. They might baptize me. That would be worse than death by torture. Rather would I drown in the Dvina than that a drop of the baptismal water should touch my forehead. To be forced to kneel before the hideous images, to kiss the cross — sooner would I rush out to the mob that was passing and let them tear my vitals out. To forswear the One God, to bow before idols — rather would I be seized with the plague, and be eaten up by vermin. I was only a little girl, and not very brave; little pains made me ill, and I cried; but there was no pain that I would not bear — no, none — rather than submit to baptism.

Every Jewish child had that feeling. There were stories by the dozen of Jewish boys who were kidnaped by the Czar’s agents, and brought up in Gentile families till they were old enough to enter the army, where they served till forty years of age; and all those years the priests tried, by bribes and daily tortures, to force them to accept baptism, but in vain. This was in the time of Nicholas I; but men who had been through this service were not much older than my father, when I was a little girl; and they told their experience with their own lips, and one knew it was true, and it broke one’s heart with pain and pride.

There were men in Polotzk whose faces made you old in a minute. They had served Nicholas I, and come back unbaptized. The white church in the square — how did it look to them? I knew. I cursed the church in my heart every time I had to pass it; and I was afraid — afraid.

On a market day, when the peasants came to church, and the bells kept ringing by the hour, my heart was heavy in me, and I could find no rest. Even in my father’s house I did not feel safe. The church-bell boomed over the roofs of the houses, calling, calling, calling. I closed my eyes, and saw the people passing into the church: peasant women with bright embroidered aprons and glass beads; barefoot little girls with colored kerchiefs on their heads; boys with caps pulled too far down over their straight flaxen hair: rough men with plaited reed sandals and a rope around their waists, — crowds of them, moving slowly up the steps, crossing themselves again and again, till they are swallowed by the black doorway, and only the beggars are left squatting on the steps. Boom, boom! What are the people doing in the dark, with the waxen images and the horrid crucifixes? Boom, boom, boom! They are ringing the bell for me. Is it in the church they will torture me, when I refuse to kiss the cross?

They ought not to have told me those dreadful stories. They were long past. Alexander III was no friend of the Jews, still he did not order little boys to be taken from their mothers to be made into soldiers and Christians. With few exceptions, all men had to serve in the army for four years, and a Jewish recruit was always treated with severity, no matter if his behavior were perfect. But that was little compared to the dreadful conditions of the old régime.

The thing that really mattered was the necessity of breaking the Jewish laws of daily life while in the service. A soldier had to cat trefah¹ and work on the Sabbath. He had to shave his beard and do reverence to Christian things. He could not attend services at the synagogue; it was with difficulty that he managed to keep a Hebrew prayerbook with him all the time. He might resort to all sorts of tricks and schemes, still he was obliged to violate Jewish law. When he returned home, at the end of his term of service, he could not rid himself of the stigma of those enforced sins. For four years he had led the life of a Gentile.

There was a man in our town called David the Substitute, because he had gone as a soldier in another’s stead, he himself being exempt. He did it for a sum of money. I suppose his family was starving and he saw a chance to provide for them for a few years. But it was a sinful thing to do, to go as a soldier and be obliged to live like a Gentile, of his own free will. And David knew how wicked it was, for he was a pious man at heart. When he returned from service he was aged and broken, bowed down with the sense of his sins. And he set himself a penance, which was to go through the streets every Sabbath morning, calling the people to prayer. Now this was a hard thing to do, because David labored bitterly all the week, exposed to the weather, summer or winter; and on Sabbath morning there was nobody so tired and lame and sore as David. Yet he forced himself to leave his bed, before it was yet daylight, and go from street to street, all over Polotzk, calling on the people to wake and go to prayer. Many a Sabbath morning I awoke when David called, and lay listening to his voice as it passed and died away; it was so sad that it hurt, as beautiful music hurts. I was glad to feel my sister lying beside me, for it was lonely in the gray dawn, with only David and me awake, and God waiting for the people’s prayers.

The Gentiles used to wonder at us because we cared so much about religious things — about food and Sabbath and teaching the children Hebrew. They were angry with us for our obstinacy, as they called it, and mocked us and ridiculed the most sacred things. There were wise Gentiles who understood. These were educated people, like Fedora Pavlovna, who made friends with their Jewish neighbors. They were always respectful, and openly admired some of our ways. But most of the Gentiles were ignorant. There was one thing, however, the Gentiles always understood, and that was money. They would take any kind of bribe, at any time. They expected it. Peace cost so much a year, in Polotzk. If you did not keep on good terms with your Gentile neighbors, they had a hundred ways of molesting you. If you chased their pigs when they came rooting up vour garden, or objected to their children maltreating your children, they might complain against you to the police, stuffing their case with false accusations and false witnesses. If you had not made friends with the police, the case might go to court; and there you lost before the trial was called, unless the judge had reason to befriend you. The cheapest way to live in Polotzk was to pay as you went along. Even a little girl understood that.

In your father’s parlor hung a large colored portrait of Alexander III. The Czar was a cruel tyrant — oh, it was whispered when doors were locked and shutters tightly barred, at night — he was a Titus, a Hainan, a sworn foe of all Jews — and yet his portrait was seen in a place of honor in your father’s house. You knew why. It looked well when police or government officers came on business.

The Czar was always sending us commands,— you shall not do this and you shall not do that, — till there was very little left that we might do, except pay tribute and die. One positive command he gave us: You shall love and honor your Emperor. In every congregation a prayer must be said for the Czar’s health, or the chief of police would close the synagogue. On a royal birthday every house must fly a flag, or the owner would be dragged to a police station and be fined twenty-five rubles. A decrepit old woman, who lived all alone in a tumble-down shanty, supported by the charity of the neighborhood, crossed her paralyzed hands one day when flags were ordered up, and waited for her doom, because she had no flag. The vigilant policeman kicked the door open with his great boot, took the last pillow from the bed, sold it, and hoisted a flag above the rotten roof.

The Czar always got his dues, no matter if it ruined a family. There was a poor locksmith who owed the Czar three hundred rubles, because his brother had escaped from Russia before serving his time in the army. There was no such fine for Gentiles, only for Jews; and the whole family was liable. Now the locksmith never could have so much money, and he had no valuables to pawn. The police came and attached his household goods, everything he had, including his young bride’s trousseau; and the sale of the goods brought thirty-five rubles. After a year’s time the police came again, looking for the balance of the Czar’s dues. They put their seal on everything they found. The wife was in bed with her first baby, a boy. The circumcision would be next day. The police did not leave a sheet to wrap the child in when he is handed up for the operation.

Many bitter sayings came to your ears, if you were a Jewish little girl in Polotzk. ‘It is a false world,’ you heard, and you knew it was so, looking at the Czar’s portrait, and at the flags. ‘Never tell a police officer the truth,’ was another saying, and you knew it was good advice. That fine of three hundred rubles was a sentence of lifelong slavery for the poor locksmith, unless he freed himself by some trick. As fast as he could collect a few rags and sticks, the police would be after them.

Business really did not pay, when the price of goods was so swollen by taxes that the people could not buy. The only way to make business pay was to cheat — cheat the government of part of the duties. Playing tricks on the Czar was dangerous, with so many spies watching his interests. People who sold cigarettes without the government seal got more gray hairs than bank-notes out of their business. The constant risk, the worry, the dread of a police raid in the night, and the ruinous fines, in ease of detection, left very little margin of profit or comfort to the dealer in contraband goods. ‘ But what can one do?’the people said, with that shrug of the shoulders that expresses the helplessness of the Pale. ‘What can one do? One must live.’

It was not so easy to live, with such bitter competition as the congestion of population made inevitable. There were ten times as many stores as there should have been, ten times as many tailors, cobblers, barbers, tinsmiths. A Gentile, if he failed in Polotzk, could go elsewhere, where there was less competition. A Jew could make the circle of the Pale only to find the same conditions as at home. Outside the Pale he could only go to certain designated localities, on payment of prohibitive fees, which were augmented by a constant stream of bribes; and even then he lived at the mercy of the local chief of police.

Artisans had the right to reside outside the Pale on fulfillment of certain conditions which gave no real security. Merchants could buy the right of residence outside the Pale, permanent or temporary, on conditions which might at any time be changed. I used to picture an uncle of mine on his Russian travels, hurrying, hurrying to finish his business in the limited time; while a policeman marched behind him, ticking off the days and counting up the hours. That was a foolish fancy, but some of the things that were done in Russia really were very funny.

Perhaps I should not have had so many foolish fancies if I had not been so idle. If they had let me go to school — but of course they did n’t. There was one public school for boys, and one for girls, but Jewish children were admitted in limited numbers — only ten to a hundred; and even the lucky ones had their troubles.

First you had to have a tutor at home, who prepared you, and talked all the time about the examination you would have to pass, till you were scared. You heard on all sides that the brightest Jewish children were turned down if the examining officers did not like the turn of their noses. You went up to be examined with the other Jewish children, your heart heavy about that matter of your nose. There was a special examination for the Jewish candidates, of course: a nine-year-old Jewish child had to answer questions that a thirteen-year-old Gentile was hardly expected to answer. But that did not matter so much; you had been prepared for the thirteen-year-old test. You found the questions quite easy. You wrote your answers triumphantly — and you received a low rating, and there was no appeal.

I used to stand in the doorway of my father’s store munching an apple that did not taste good any more, and watch the pupils going home from school, in twos and threes; the girls in neat brown dresses and black aprons and little stiff hats, the boys in trim uniforms with many buttons. They had ever so many books in the satchels on their backs. They would take them out at home, and read and write, and learn all sorts of interesting things. They looked to me like beings from another world than mine. But those whom I envied had their own troubles, as I often heard. Their school life was one struggle against injustice from instructors, spiteful treatment from fellow students, and insults from everybody. They were rejected at the universities, where they were admitted in the ratio of three Jews to a hundred Gentiles, under the same debarring entranceconditions as at the high school: especially rigorous examinations, dishonest marking, or arbitrary rulings without disguise. No, the Czar did not want us in the schools.

II

As I look back to-day I see, within the wall raised around my birthplace by the vigilance of the police, another wall, higher, thicker, more impenetrable. This is the wall which the Czar with all his minions could not shake, the priests with their instruments of torture could not pierce, the mob with their firebrands could not destroy. This wall within the wall is the religious integrity of the Jews, a fortress erected by the prisoners of the Pale, in defiance of their jailers; a stronghold built of the ruins of their pillaged homes, cemented with the blood of their murdered children.

Harassed on every side, thwarted in every normal effort, pent up within narrow limits, all but dehumanized, the Russian Jew fell back upon the only thing that never failed him: his hereditary faith in God. In the pages of the Torah he found the balm for all his wounds; the minute observance of traditional rites became the expression of his spiritual cravings; and in the dream of a restoration to Palestine he forgot the world.

What did it matter to us, on a Sabbath or festival, when our life was centred in the synagogue, what Czar sat on the throne, what evil counselors whispered in his ear? They were concerned with revenues and policies and ephemeral trifles of all sorts, while we were intent on renewing our ancient covenant with God, to the end that His promise to the world should be fulfilled, and His justice overwhelm the nations.

On a Friday afternoon the stores and markets closed early. The clatter of business ceased, the dust of worry was laid, and the Sabbath peace flooded the quiet streets. No hovel so mean but what its casement sent out its consecrated ray, so that a wayfarer passing in the twilight saw the spirit of God brooding over the lowly roof.

Care, and fear, and shrewishness dropped like a mask from every face. Eyes dimmed with weeping kindled with inmost joy. Wherever a head bent over a sacred page, there rested the halo of God’s presence.

Not on festivals alone, but also on the common days of the week, we lived by the Law that had been given us through our teacher Moses. How to eat, how to bathe, how to work — everything had been written down for us, and we strove to fulfill the Law. The study of the Torah was the most honored of all occupations, and they who engaged in it the most revered of all men.

My memory docs not go back to a time when I was too young to know that God had made the world, and had appointed teachers to tell the people how to live in it. First came Moses, and after him the great Rabbis, and finally the Rav of Polotzk, who read all day in the sacred books, so that he could tell me and my parents and my friends what to do whenever we were in doubt. If my mother cut up a chicken and found something wrong in it, — some hurt or mark that should not be, — she sent the housemaid with it to the rav, and I ran along, and saw the rav look in his big books, and whatever he decided was right. If he called the chicken trefah, I must not eat of it, no, not if I had to starve. And the rav knew about everything: about going on a journey, about business, about marrying, about purifying vessels for Passover.

Another great teacher was the dayyan, who heard people’s quarrels and settled them according to the Law, so that they should not have to go to the Gentile courts. The Gentiles were false, judges and witnesses and all. They favored the rich man against the poor, the Christian against the Jew. The dayyan always gave true judgments. Nochem Rabinovitch, the richest man in Polotzk, could not win a case against a servant-maid, unless he were in the right.

Besides the rav and the dayyan there were other men whose callings were holy — the shohat, who knew how cattle and fowl should be killed; the hazzan and other officers of the synagogue; the teachers of Hebrew, and the students. It did not matter how poor a man was, he was to be respected and set above other men, if he were learned in the Law.

In the synagogues scores of men sat all day long over the Hebrew books, studying and disputing together from early dawn till candles were brought in at night, and then as long as the candles lasted. These eager scholars were the students of seminary rank, with their zealous teachers. Most of the students were strangers in Polotzk, and had no home except the synagogue. They slept on benches, on tables, on the floors; they picked up their meals wherever they could. They had come from distant cities, so as to be under good teachers in Polotzk; and the people of Polotzk were proud to support them, by giving them clothing and food and sometimes money to visit their homes on holidays. But the poor students came in such numbers that there were not enough rich families to provide for all, so that some of them suffered privation. You could pick out a poor student in a crowd, by his pale face and shrunken form.

There was almost always a seminary student taking meals at our house. He was assigned a certain day, and on that day my grandmother took care to have something especially good for dinner. It was a very shabby guest who sat down with us at table, but we children watched him with respectful eyes. Grandmother had told us that he was a scholar, and we saw something holy in the way he ate his cabbage.

As everybody was anxious to have a scholar in the family, all the boys were sent to heder² almost as soon as they could speak. My brother was five years old when he entered on his studies. He was carried to the heder, on the first day, covered over with a praying shawl, so that nothing unholy should look on him; and he was presented with a bun, on which were written, in honey, these words: ‘The Torah left by Moses is the heritage of the children of Jacob.’

After a boy entered heder, he was the hero of the family. He was served before the other children at table, and nothing was too good for him. If the family were very poor, all the girls might go barefoot, but the heder boy must have shoes; he must have a plate of hot soup, though the others ate dry bread. When the rebbe³ came on Sabbath afternoon to examine the boy, in the hearing of the family, everybody sat around the table and nodded with satisfaction if he read his portion well; then he was given a great saucerful of preserves, and was praised and blessed, and made much of. No wonder he said, in his morning prayer, ‘I thank Thee, Lord, for having created me a male.’ Girls said no such thing in their prayers — of course we thanked God for everything else, but it was not much to be a girl. Girls could not be scholars and ravs.

There was nothing in what the boys did in heder that I could not have done — if I had not been a girl. For a girl it was enough if she could read her prayers in Hebrew, and follow the meaning by the Yiddish translation at the bottom of the page. It did not take long to learn this much, —a couple of terms with a female teacher, — and after that she was done with books.

A girl’s real schoolroom was her mother’s kitchen. She learned to bake and cook and manage, to knit, sew, and embroider; also to spin and weave, in country places. And while her hands were busy, her mother instructed her in the laws regulating a pious Jewish household, and in the conduct proper for a Jewish wife. For of course every girl hoped to be a wife. A girl was born for no other purpose.

How soon it came, the pious burden of wifehood! One day the girl is playing forfeits with her laughing friends, the next day she is missing from the circle. She has been summoned to a conference wit h a marriage-broker, who has been for months past advertising her housewifely talents, her piety, her good looks, her marriage portion, among families with marriageable sons. Her parents are pleased with the sonin-law proposed by the marriage-broker, and now, at the last, the girl is brought in, to be examined and appraised by prospective parents-in-law. If the negotiations go off smoothly, the marriage contract is written, presents are exchanged between the engaged couple, through their respective parents, and all that is left the girl of her maidenhood is a period of long preparation for the wedding.

It is a happy interval, spent in visits to the drapers and tailors, in collecting linens and feather-beds and vessels of copper and brass. The former playmates come to inspect the trousseau, enviously fingering the silks and velvets. The bride-elect tries on frocks and mantles before her glass, blushing at references to the wedding-day; and to the question, ‘How do you like the bridegroom?’ she replies, ‘How should I know? There was such a crowd at the betrothal that I did n’t see him.’

Marriage was a sacrament with us Jews in the Pale. To rear a family of children was to serve God. Every Jewish man and woman had a part in the fulfillment of the ancient promise given to Jacob, that his seed should be abundantly scattered over the earth. Parenthood, therefore, was the great career. But while men, in addition to begetting, might busy themselves with the study of the Law, woman’s only work was motherhood. To be left an old maid became, accordingly, the greatest misfortune that could threaten a girl; and toward off that calamity, the girl and her family and distant relatives would strain every nerve, whether by contributing to her dowry, or by hiding her defects from the marriage-broker, or by fasting and praying that God might send her a husband.

Not only must all the children of a family be mated, but they must marry in the order of their ages. A younger daughter must on no account marry before an elder. A houseful of daughters might be held up because the eldest failed to find favor in the eyes of prospective mothers-in-law.

A cousin of mine was guilty of the disloyalty of wishing to marry before her elder sister, who was unfortunate enough to be rejected by one motherin-law after another. My uncle feared that the younger daughter, who was of a firm and masterful nature, might carry out her plans, thereby disgracing her unhappy sister. Accordingly he hastened to conclude an alliance with a family far beneath him, and the girl was hastily married to a boy of whom little was known beyond the fact that he was inclined to consumption.

The consumptive tendency was no such horror, in an age when superstition was more in vogue than science. For one patient who went to a physician, in Polotsk, there were ten who called in unlicensed practitioners and miracle-workers. If my mother had an obstinate toothache that honored household remedies failed to relieve, she went to Dvoshe, the pious woman, who cured by means of a flint and steel and a secret prayer pronounced as the sparks flew up. During an epidemic of scarlet fever, we protected ourselves by wearing a piece of red woolen tape around the neck. Pepper and salt tied in a corner of the pocket was effective in warding off the evil eye. There were lucky signs, lucky dreams, spirits and hobgoblins, a grisly collection, gathered by our wandering ancestors from the demonologies of mediæval Europe.

Antiquated as our popular follies was the organization of our small society. It was a caste system with social levels sharply marked off, and families united by clannish ties. The rich looked down on the poor, the merchants looked down on the artisans, and within the ranks of the artisans higher and lower grades were distinguished. A shoemaker’s daughter could not hope to marry the son of a shopkeeper, unless she brought an extra large dowry; and she had to make up her mind to be snubbed by the sistersand cousins-inlaw all her life.

One qualification only could raise a man above his social level, and that was scholarship. A boy born in the gutter need not despair of entering the houses of the rich if he had a good mind and an appetite for sacred learning. A poor scholar would be preferred, in the marriage market, to a rich ignoramus. In the phrase of our grandmothers, a boy stuffed with learning was worth more than a girl stuffed with banknotes.

What was the substance behind the show of the Judaism of the Pale? Stripped of its grotesque mask of forms, rites, and mediæval superstitions, the religion of these fanatics was simply the belief that God was, had been, and ever would be; and that they, the children of Jacob, were His chosen messengers to carry His law to all the nations. Beneath the mountainous volumes of the Talmudists and commentators the Mosaic tablets remained intact. Out of the mazes of the Kabbalah the pure doctrine of ancient Judaism found its way to the hearts of the faithful. Sects and schools might rise and fall, confounding the simple with the clamor of their disputes; still the Jew, retiring within his own soul, heard the voice of the God of Abraham. Prophets, messiahs, miracleworkers might have their day; still the Jew was conscious that between himself and God no go-between was needed; that he, as well as every one of his million brothers, had his portion of God’s work to do. And this close relation to God was the source of the strength that sustained the Jew through all the trials of his life in the Pale. Consciously or unconsciously, the Jew identified himself with the cause of righteousness on earth; and hence the heroism with which he met the battalions of tyrants.

No empty forms could have impressed the unborn children of the Pale so deeply that they were prepared for willing martyrdom almost as soon as they were weaned from their mother’s breast. The flame of the burning bush that had dazzled Moses still lighted the gloomy prison of the Pale. Behind the mummeries, ceremonials, and symbolic accessories, the object of the Jew’s adoration was the face of God.

This has been many times proven by those who escaped from the Pale, and, excited by sudden freedom, thought to rid themselves, by one impatient effort, of every strand of their ancient bonds. Eager to be merged in the better world in which they found themselves, the escaped prisoners determined on a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of manner. They rejoiced in their transformation, thinking that every mark of their former slavery was obliterated. And then, one day, caught in the vise of some crucial test, the Jew fixed his alarmed gaze on his inmost soul, and found there the image of his father’s God.

Merrily played the fiddlers at the wedding of my father, who was the grandson of Israel Kimanayer of sainted memory. The most pious men in Polotzk danced the night through, their earlocks dangling, the tails of their long coats flying in a pious ecstasy. Beggars swarmed among the bidden guests, sure of an easy harvest where so many hearts were melted by piety. The wedding jester excelled himself in apt allusions to the friends and relatives who brought up their wedding presents at his merry invitation. The sixteen-year-old bride, suffocated beneath her heavy veil, blushed unseen at thenumerous healths drunk to the future sons and daughters. The whole town was a-flutter with joy, because the pious scion of a godly race had found a pious wife, and a young branch of the tree of Judah was to bear fruit.

When I came to lie on my mother’s breast, she sang me lullabies on lofty themes. I heard the names of Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah as early as the names of father, mother, and nurse. My baby soul was enthralled by sad and noble cadences, as my mother sang of my ancient home in Palestine, and mourned over the desolation of Zion. With the first rattle that wars placed in my hand, a_ prayer was pronounced over me, a petition that a pious man might take me to wife, and a messiah be among my sons.

I was fed on dreams, instructed by means of prophecies, trained to hear and see mystical things that callous senses could not perceive. I was taught to call myself a princess, in memory of my forefathers who had ruled a nation. Though I went in the disguise of an outcast, I felt a halo resting on my brow. Sat upon by brutal enemies, unjustly hated, persecuted, annihilated a hundred times, I yet arose and held my head high, sure that I should find my kingdom in the end, although I had lost my way in exile; for He who had brought my ancestors safe through a thousand perils, was guiding my feet as well. God needed me and I needed Him, for we two together had a work to do, according to an ancient covenant between Him and my forefathers.

This is the dream to which I was heir, in common with every sad-eyed child of the Pale. This is the living seed which I found among my heirlooms, when I learned how to strip from them the prickly husk in which they were passed down to me. And what is the fruit of such seed as that, and whither lead such dreams? If it be mine to give the answer, let my words be true and brave.

III

Among the mediæval customs which were preserved in the Pale when the rest of the world had long forgotten them was the use of popular sobriquets in place of surnames proper. Family names existed only in official documents, such as passports. For the most part people were known by nicknames, prosaic or picturesque, derived trom their occupations, their physical peculiarities, or distinctive achievements. Among my neighbors in Polotzk were Yankel the Wig-Maker, Mulye the Blind, Moshe the Six-fingered; and members of their respective families were referred to by these nicknames: as, for example, ‘Mirele, niece of Moshe the Six-fingered.’

Let me spread out my family tree, raise aloft my coat-of-arms, and see what heroes have left a mark by which I may be distinguished. Let me hunt for my name in the chronicles of the Pale.

In the village of Yuchovitch, about sixty versts above Polotzk, when my father was a boy, the oldest inhabitant still remembered my father’s greatgrandfather. Lebe the Innkeeper, he was called, and no reproach was coupled with the name. His son Chayim succeeded to the business, but later he took up the glazier’s trade, and developed a knack for all sorts of tinkering, whereby he was able to increase his too scanty earnings.

Chayim the Glazier is reputed to have been a man of fine countenance, wise in homely counsel, honest in all his dealings. Rachel Leah, his wife, had a reputation for practical wisdom even greater than his. She was the advicegiver of the village in every perplexity of life. My father remembers his grandmother as a tall, trim, handsome old woman, active and independent. Satin head-bands and lace-trimmed bonnets not having been invented in her day, Rachel Leah wore the stately knupf or turban on her shaven head. On Sabbaths and holidays she went to the synagogue with a long, straight mantle hanging from neck to ankle; and she wore it with an air, on one sleeve only, the other dangling empty from her shoulder.

Chayim begot Joseph, and Joseph begot Pinchus, my father. Joseph inherited the trade, good name, and meagre portion of his father, and maintained the family tradition of honesty and poverty unbroken to the day of his death. For that matter, Yuchovitch never heard of any connection of the family, not even a doubtful cousin, who was not steeped to the earlocks in poverty. But that was no distinction in Yuchovitch: the whole village was poor almost to beggary.

Joseph was an indifferent workman and an indifferent scholar. At one thing only was he strikingly good, and that was at grumbling. Although not unkind, he had a temper that boiled over at small provocation, and even in his most placid moods he took very little satisfaction in the world. My mother tells how, at the wedding of his only son, my father, Joseph sat the whole night through in a corner, never so much as cracking a smile, while the wedding guests danced, laughed, and rejoiced.

It may have been through distrust of the marital state that Joseph remained single till the advanced age of twenty-five. Then he took unto himself an orphan girl as poor as he, namely, Rachel, the daughter of Israel Kimanayer of pious memory.

My grandmother was such a gentle, cheerful soul when I knew her, that I imagine she must have been a merry bride. But from all reports it appears that her husband was never pleased, and if he did not make his wife unhappy it was because he was away from home so much.

He was absent the greater part of the time; for a glazier, even if he were a better workman than my grandfather, could not make a living in Yuchovitch. He became a country peddler, trading between Polotzk and Yuchovitch and taking in all the desolate little hamlets scattered along the route.

Fifteen rubles’ worth of goods was a big bill to carry out of Polotzk. The stock consisted of cheap pottery, tobacco, matches, boot-grease, and axlegrease. These he bartered for country produce, including grains in small quantity, bristles, rags, and bones. Money was seldom handled in these transactions.

A rough enough life my grandfather led, on the road at all seasons, in all weathers, knocking about at smoky little inns, glad sometimes of the hospitality of some peasant’s hut, where the pigs slept with the family. He was doing well if he got home for the holidays with a little white flour for a cake, and money enough to take his best coat out of pawn. The best coat, and the candlesticks, too, would be repawned promptly on the first work-day; for it was not for the like of Joseph of Yuchovitch to live with idle riches around him.

For the credit of Yuchovitch it must be recorded that my grandfather never had to stay away from the synagogue for want of his one decent coat to wear. Isaac, the village money-lender, never refused to give up the pledged articles on a Sabbath eve, even if the cash due was not forthcoming. Many Sabbath coats besides my grandfather’s, and many candlesticks besides my grandmother’s, passed most of their existence under Isaac’s roof, waiting to be redeemed. But on the eve of Sabbath or holiday Isaac delivered them to their respective owners, came they emptyhanded or otherwise; and at the expiration of the festival the grateful owners brought them promptly back, for another season of retirement.

While my grandfather was on the road, my grandmother conducted her humble household in a capable, housewifely way. Of her six children, three died young, leaving an only son, my father, and two daughters. My grandmother fed and dressed her children the best she could, and taught them to thank God for what they had not, as well as for what they had. Piety was about the only positive doctrine she attempted to drill them in, leaving the rest of their education to life and the rebbe.

/. Promptly when custom prescribed, Pinchus, the petted only son, was sent to heder. My grandfather being on the road at the time, my grandmother herself carried the boy in her arms, as was usual on the first day. My father distinctly remembers that she wept on the way to school; partly, I suppose, from joy at starting her son on a holy life, and partly from sadness at being too poor to set forth the wine and honey-cake proper to the occasion. For Grandma Rachel, schooled though she was to pious contentment, probably had her moments of human pettiness like the rest of us.

My father distinguished himself for scholarship from the first. Five years old when he entered heder, at eleven he was already a student in the seminary. The rebbe never had occasion to use the birch on him. On the contrary, he held him up as an example to the dull or lazy pupils, praised him in the village, and carried his fame to Polotzk.

My grandmother’s cup of pious joy was overfilled. Everything her boy did was pleasant in her sight, for Pinchus was going to be a scholar, a godly man, a credit to the memory of his devout grandfather, Israel Kimanayer. She let nothing interfere with his schooling. When times were bad, and her husband came home with his goods unsold, she borrowed and begged, till the rebbe’s fee was produced. If bad luck continued, she pleaded with the rebbe for time. She pawned not only the candlesticks, but her shawl and Sabbath cap, to secure the scant rations that gave the young scholar strength to study. More than once in the bitter winter, as my father remembers, she carried him to heder on her back, because he had no shoes, she herself walking almost barefoot in the cruel snow. No sacrifice was too great for her in the pious cause of her boy’s education. And when there was no rebbe inYuchovitch learned enough to guide him in the advanced studies, my father was sent to Polotzk, where he lived with his poor relations, who were not too poor to help support a future rav. In Polotzk he continued to distinguish himself for scholarship, till people began to prophesy that he would live to be famous; and everybody who remembered Israel Kimanayer regarded the promising grandson with doubled respect.

At the age of fifteen my father was qualified to teach beginners in Hebrew, and he was engaged as tutor in two families living six versts apart in the country. The boy tutor had to make himself useful, after lesson hours, by caring for the horse, hauling water from the frozen pond, and lending a hand at everything. When the little sister of one of his pupils died, in the middle of the winter, it fell to my father’s lot to take the body to the nearest Jewish cemetery, through miles of desolate country, no living soul accompanying him.

After teaching one term, the young scholar tried to go on with his studies, sometimes in Yuchovitch, sometimes in Polotzk, as opportunity dictated. He made the journey to Polotzk beside his father, joggling along in the springless wagon, on the rutty roads. He took a boy’s pleasure in the gypsy life, the green wood, and the summer storm; while his father sat moody beside him, seeing nothing but the spavins on the horse’s hocks, and the mud in the road ahead.

There is little else to tell of my father’s boyhood, as most of his time was spent in the schoolroom. Outside the schoolroom he was conspicuous for high spirits in play, daring in mischief, and independence in everything. But a boy’s playtime was so short in Yuchovitch, and his resources so limited, that even a lad of spirit came to the edge of his premature manhood without a regret for his nipped youth. So my father, at the age of sixteen and a half, lent a willing ear to the cooing voice of the marriage-broker.

And indeed it was high time for him to marry. His parents had kept him so far, but they had two daughters to marry off, and not a groschen laid by for their dowries. The cost of my father’s schooling, as he advanced, had mounted to seventeen rubles a term, and the poor rebbe was seldom paid in full. Of course my father’s scholarship was his fortune — in time it would be his support; but in the mean while the burden of feeding and clothing him lay heavy on his parents’ shoulders. The time had come to find him a well-to-do father-in-law, who should support him and his wife and children, while he continued to study in the seminary.

After the usual conferences between parents and marriage-brokers, he was betrothed to an undertaker’s daughter in Polotzk. The girl was too old, —she was every day of twenty years, — but three hundred rubles in dowry, with board after marriage, not to mention handsome presents to the bridegroom, easily offset the bride’s age. My father’s family, to the humblest cousin, felt themselves set up by the match; and the boy was happy enough displaying a watch and chain for the first time in his life, and a good coat on week-days. As for his fiancée, he could have no objection to her, as he had seen her only at a distance, and had never spoken to her.

When it was time for the wedding preparations to begin, news came to Yuchovitch of the death of the brideelect, and my father’s prospects seemed to have fallen to the ground. But the undertaker had another daughter, a girl of thirteen, and he pressed my father to take her in her sister’s place. At the same time the marriage-broker proposed another match; and my father’s cousins bristled with importance once more.

Somehow or other my father succeeded in getting in a word at the family councils that ensued. He even had the temerity to express a preference. He did not want any more of the undertaker’s daughters; he wanted to consider the rival match. There were no serious objections from the cousins, and my father became engaged to my mother.

This second choice was Chane Chaye, only daughter of Raphael, called the Russian, from his travels outside the Pale. She had had a very different bringing-up from Pinchus, the grandson of Israel Kimanayer. She had never known a day of want, had never gone barefoot from necessity. Her family had a solid position in Polotzk, her father being the owner of a comfortable home and a good business. But prosperity is prosaic, so I shall skip briefly over the history of my mother’s house.

My grandfather Raphael, early left an orphan, was brought up by an elder brother, in a village at no great distance from Polotzk. The brother dutifully sent him to the village school, and at an early age betrothed him to Edle Dvereh, daughter of one Solomon, a dealer in grain and cattle.

Edle Dvereh was not yet in her teens at the time of the betrothal, and so foolish was she that she was afraid of her affianced husband. One day, when she was coming from the store with a bottle of liquid yeast, she suddenly came face to face with her betrothed, which gave her such a fright that she dropped the bottle, spilling the yeast on her pretty dress; and she ran home crying all the way.

At thirteen she was married, which had a good effect on her deportment. I hear no more of her running away from her husband.

Among the interesting things belonging to my grandmother, at the time of the marriage, was her family. Her father was so original that he kept a tutor for his daughters — sons he had none — and allowed them to be instructed in the rudiments of three or four languages, and the elements of arithmetic. Even more unconventional was her sister Hode. She had married a fiddler, who traveled constantly, playing at hotels and inns, all through ‘far Russia.’ Having no children, Hode should have spent her days in fasting, praying, and lamenting. Instead of this, she accompanied her husband on his travels, and even had the heart to enjoy the excitement and variety of their restless life.

I ought to be the last to blame my great-aunt, for the irregularity of her conduct afforded my grandfather the opening for his career, the fruits of which made my own childhood so pleasant. For several years my grandfather traveled in Hode’s train, in the capacity of butcher, providing kosher meat for the little troupe in the unholy wilds of ‘far Russia’; and the grateful couple rewarded him so generously that he soon had a fortune of eighty rubles laid by.

My grandfather thought it time to settle down now, but he did not know how to invest his wealth. To resolve his perplexity he made a pilgrimage to one of the holy men who were accepted as oracles by the pious; namely, the celebrated Rav of Kopistch. He advised my grandfather to open a store in Polotzk, and gave him a blessed groschen to keep in the money-drawer for good luck.

The blessing of the ‘Good Jew’ proved fruitful. My grandfather’s business prospered, and my grandmother bore him children, several sons and one daughter. The sons were sent to heder, like all other respectable boys; and they were taught, in addition, writing and arithmetic enough to conduct a business. With this my grandfather was content; more than this he considered incompatible with piety, for he was one of those who strenuously opposed the influence of the public school. When he sent his sons to a private tutor, where they could study Russian with their hats on, he felt, no doubt, that he was giving them all the education necessary to a successful business career, without violating piety too grossly.

If reading and writing were enough for the sons, even less would suffice the daughter. A female teacher was engaged for my mother, at three kopecks ⁴ a week, to teach her the Hebrew prayers; and my grandmother, herself a better scholar than this teacher, taught her writing.

My mother was very quick to learn, and expressed an ambition to study Russian. She teased and coaxed, and her mother pleaded for her, till my grandmother was persuaded to send her to a tutor. But the fates were opposed to my mother’s education. On the first day at school, a sudden inflammation of the eyes blinded her temporarily; and although the distemper vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, it was taken as an omen, and she was not allowed to return to her lessons.

Still she did not give up. She saved every groschen that was given her to buy sweets, and bribed her brother Solomon, who was proud of his scholarship, to give her lessons in secret. The two strove earnestly with book and quill, in their hiding-place under the rafters, till my mother could read and write Russian, and translate a simple passage of Hebrew.

My grandmother, although herself a good housewife, took no pains to teach her only daughter the domestic arts. She only petted and coddled her and sent her out to play. But my mother was as ambitious to learn housework as she was to learn writing. She coaxed the housemaid to let her mix the bread. She learned knitting from watching her playmates. She was healthy and active, quick at everything, and restless with unspent energy. Therefore she was quite willing, at ten years of age, to go into her father’s business as his chief assistant.

As the years went by she developed a decided talent for business, so that her father could safely leave all his affairs in her hands, if he had to go out of town. Her devotion, ability, and tireless energy made her, in time, indispensable. My grandfather was obliged to admit that the little learning she had stolen was turned to good account when he saw how well she could keep his books, and how smoothly she got along with Russian and Polish customers. Perhaps that was the argument that induced him, after obstinate years, to remove his veto from my mother’s petitions, and let her take up lessons again. For while piety was my grandfather’s chief concern on the godly side, on the worldly side he set success in business above everything.

My mother was fifteen years old when she entered on a career of higher education. For two hours daily she was released from the store, and in that interval she strove with might and main to conquer the world of knowledge. Katrina Petrovna, her teacher, praised and encouraged her; and there was no reason why the promising pupil should not have developed into a young lady of culture, with her teacher instructing her in Russian, German, crocheting, and singing, — yes, out of a book, to the accompaniment of a clavier, — all for a fee of seventy-five kopecks a week.

Did I say there was no reason? And what about the marriage-broker? Chane Chaye, only daughter of Raphael the Russian, going on sixteen, buxom, bright, capable, and well educated, could not escape the matchmaker’s eye. A fine thing it would be to let such a likely girl grow old over a book! To the canopy with her, while she could fetch the highest price in the marriage market!

My mother was very unwilling to think of marriage at this time. She had nothing to gain by marriage, for already she had everything that she desired, especially since she was permitted to study. While her father was rather stern, her mother spoiled and petted her; and she was the idol of her Aunt Hode, the fiddler’s wife.

Hode had bought a fine estate in Polotzk, after my grandfather settled there, and made it her home whenever she became tired of traveling. She lived in state, with servants and dependents, wearing silk dresses on weekdays, and setting silver plate before the meanest guest. The women of Polotzk were breathless over her wardrobe, counting up how many pairs of embroidered boots she had, at fifteen rubles a pair. And Hode’s manners were as much a subject of gossip as her clothes, for she had picked up strange ways in her travels. Although she was so pious that she was never tempted to eat trefah, no matter if she had to go hungry, her conduct in other respects was not strictly orthodox. For one thing, she was in the habit of shaking hands with men, looking them straight in the face. She spoke Russian like a Gentile woman, she kept a poodle, and she had no children.

Nobody meant to blame the rich woman for being childless, because it was well known in Polotzk that Hode the Russian, as she was called, would give all her wealth for one scrawny baby. But Hode was to blame for voluntarily exiling herself from Jewish society for years at a time, to live among pork-eaters, and copy the bold ways of Gentile women. And so, while they pitied her childlessness, the women of Polotzk regarded her misfortune as perhaps no more than a due punishment.

Hode, poor woman, felt a hungry heart beneath her satin robes. She wanted to adopt one of my grandmother’s children, but my grandmot her would not hear of it. Hode was particularly taken with my mother, and my grandmother, in compassion, loaned her the child for days at a time; and those were happy days for both aunt and niece. Hode would treat my mother to every delicacy in her sumptuous pantry, tell her wonderful stories of life in distant parts, show her all her beautiful dresses and jewels, and load her with presents.

As my mother developed into girlhood, her aunt grew more and more covetous of her. Following a secret plan, she adopted a boy from the poorhouse, and brought him up with every advantage that money could buy. My mother, on her visits, was thrown a great deal into this boy’s society; but she liked him less than the poodle. This grieved her aunt, who cherished in her heart the hope that my mother would marry her adopted son, and so become her daughter after all. And in order to accustom her to think well of the match, Hode dinned the boy’s name in my mother’s ears day and night, praising him and showing him off. She would open her jewel-boxes and take out the flashing diamonds, heavy chains, and tinkling bracelets, and dress my mother in them in front of the mirror, telling her that they would all be hers — all her own — when she became the bride of Mulke.

My mother still describes the necklace of pearls and diamonds, which her aunt used to clasp around her plump throat, with a light in her eyes that is reminiscent of girlish pleasure. But to all her aunt’s teasing references to the future, my mother answered with a giggle and a shake of her black curls, and went on enjoying herself, thinking that the day of judgment was very, very far away. But it swooped down on her sooner than she expected — the momentous hour when she must choose between the pearl necklace with Mulke, and a penniless stranger from Yuchovitch who was reputed to be a fine scholar.

Mulke she would not have, though all the pearls in the ocean came with him. The boy was stupid and unteachable, and of unspeakable origin. Picked up from the dirty floor of the poor-house, his father was identified as the lazy sack-carrier who sometimes chopped a cord of wood for my grandmother; and his sisters were slovenly housemaids scattered through Polotzk. No; Mulke was not to be considered. But why consider anybody? Why think of a bridegroom at all, when she was so content? My mother ran away every time the marriage-broker came, and she begged to be left as she was, and cried, and invoked her mother’s support. But her mother, for the first time in her history, refused to take the daughter’s part. She joined the enemy — the family and the matchmaker — and my mother saw that she was doomed.

Of course she submitted. What else could a dutiful daughter do, in Polotzk? She submitted to being weighed, measured, and appraised before her face, and resigned herself to what was to come.

When that which was to come did come, she did not recognize it. She was all alone in the store one day, when a beardless young man, in top boots that wanted grease, and a coat too thin for the weather, came in for a package of cigarettes. My mother climbed up on the counter, with one foot, on a shelf, to reach down the cigarettes. The customer gave her the right change, and went out. And my mother never suspected that that was the proposed bridegroom, who came to look her over and see if she was likely to last. For my father considered himself a man of experience now, this being his second match; and he was determined to have a hand in this affair himself.

No sooner was the bridegroom out of the store, than his mother, also unknown to the innocent storekeeper, came in for a pound of tallow candles. She offered a torn bill in payment, and my mother accepted it and gave change; showing that she was wise enough in money matters to know that a torn bill was good currency.

After the woman there shuffled in a poor man evidently from the country, and in a shy and yet challenging manner asked for a package of cheap tobacco. My mother produced the goods with her usual despatch, gave the correct change, and stood at attention for more trade.

Parents and son held a council around the corner, the object of their espionage never dreaming that she had been put to a triple test and not found wanting. But in the evening of the same day she was enlightened. She was summoned to her elder brother’s house, for a conference on the subject of the proposed match, and there she found the young man who had bought the cigarettes. For my mother’s family, if they forced her to marry, were willing to make her path easier by letting her meet the suitor, convinced that she must be won over by his good looks and learned conversation.

It does not really matter how my mother felt, as she sat, with a protecting niece in her lap, at one end of a long table, the suitor fidgeting at the other end. The marriage contract would be written anyway, no matter what she thought.

And the contract was duly written, in the presence of the assembled families of both parties, after plenty of open discussion, in which everybody had a part except the prospective bride and groom.

One voice in particular broke repeatedly into the consultations of the parents and the marriage-broker, and that was the voice of the Chyene Rezel, one of my father’s numerous poor cousins who had come to the betrothal in a frowzy wig decorated with an artificial red flower.

But the meddlesome cousin was silenced at last, the contract was signed, the happiness of the engaged couple was pledged in wine, the guests dispersed. And all this while my mother had not opened her mouth, and my father had scarcely been heard.

That is the way my fate was sealed. It gives me a shudder of wonder to think what a narrow escape I had: I came so near not being born at all. If the beggarly cousin with the frowzy wig had prevailed upon her family, and broken off the match, then my mother would not have married my father, and I should at this moment be an unborn possibility in a philosopher’s brain. It is right that I should pick my words most carefully, and meditate over every comma, because I am describing miracles too great for careless utterance. If I had died after my first breath, my history would still be worth recording. For before I could lie on my mother’s breast, the earth had to be prepared, and the stars had to take their places; a million races had to die, testing the laws of life; and a boy and a girl had to be bound for life to watch together for my coming. I was millions of years on the way, and I came through the seas of chance, over the fiery mountain of law, by the zigzag path of human possibility. Multitudes were pushed back into the abyss of non-existence, that I should have way to creep into being. And at the last, when I stood at the gate of life, a weazen-faced fish-wife who had not wit enough to support herself came near shutting me out.

Such creatures of accident are we, liable to a thousand deaths before we are born. But once we are here, we may create our own world, if we choose. Since I have stood on my own feet, I have never met my master. For every time I choose a friend I determine my fate anew. I can think of no cataclysm that could have the force to move me from my path. Fire or flood or the envy of men may tear the roof off my house, but my soul would still be at home under the lofty mountain pines that dip their heads in star-dust. Even life, that was so difficult to attain, may serve me merely as a wayside inn, if I choose to go on eternally. However I came here, it is mine to be.

[In the November issue Mary Antin will begin the story of her own life. — THE EDITORS.]