And we, a congregation of four little Jews, stood up in the valley on the estate of Peter Khlopov, concealed by steep hills and by the darkness of the night: thieves for the benefit of our masters, and mourners of Zion on our own account. . . . And we chanted out of the depths of our hearts:

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, remembering Zion." . . .

We chanted the whole of it, sat down and wept, remembering at the same time all we had gone through ourselves, and also the position we were in at that time.—

Here old Samuel shuddered and stopped abruptly. The sun had set, and he reminded himself that he had forgotten to say his afternoon prayer. He jumped down hastily, washed his hands in a near-by pool, returned to his seat, and became absorbed in his devotion.

VI

By and by the streaks of light disappeared in the twilight sky, and the wintry night threw the mantle of thick and misty blackness over us.

Presently I heard the old man conclude his prayer: "When the world will be reclaimed through the kingship of the Almighty; when all mortals will acknowledge Thy name. . . . on that day the Lord will be One, and His name will be One!"

Out of the darkness came the devout words; they seemed to take wing, as though to pierce the shrouding mist and scatter it; but they themselves were finally dissolved in the triumph and blackness. . . .

I did not have to urge the old man to continue his tale. His prayers over, he picked up the thread of his narrative, as if something were driving him to give a full account of what he had passed through.—

The day I became acquainted with Jacob—continued the old man—I consider the beginning of a new period in my life. I became accustomed to consider him my superior, whose behavior had to be taken as an example. Jacob spoke as an authority whenever he did speak, and he never wavered in his decisions. Whenever he happened to be in doubt, his father would "instruct" him in his dreams. Thus we lived according to Jacob's decisions and dreams. I got used to eating forbidden food, to breaking the Sabbath, and trespassing against all the ordinances of the ritual without compunction. And yet Jacob used to preach to us, to bear floggings and all kinds of punishments rather than turn traitor to our faith. So I got the notion that our faith is neither prayers, nor a collection of ordinances of varying importance, but something I could not name, nor point to with my finger. Jacob, I thought, certainly knows all about it; but I do not. All I could was to feel it; so could Anna. Otherwise she would not have called me Zhid, and would not have hated me so much, in spite of seeing me break all the ordinances of the Jewish ritual.

At times I thought that I and my comrades were captains in God's army, that all His ordinances were not meant for us, but for the plain soldiers of the line. They, the rank and file, must be subjected to discipline, must know how to submit to authority; all of which does not apply to the commanding officers. It seemed to me that this was what the Holy One, blessed be He, had deigned to reveal to us through the dreams of Jacob: there is another religion for you, the elect. You will surely know what is forbidden, and what is permitted. . . .

Sometimes, again, I imagined that I might best prove true to my faith if I set my heart against the temptation that Satan had put before me in the person of Marusya. If I turned away from her, I thought, I might at once gain my share in the future world. So I armed myself against Marusya's influence in every possible way. I firmly resolved to throw back at her any food she might offer me. If she laid her hand on me, I would push it away from me, and tell her plainly that I was a Jew, and she—a nobody.

So I fought with her shadow, and, indeed, got the best of it as long as she herself was away. But the moment she appeared, all my weapons became useless. She made me feel like one drunk. I could not withstand the wild-fire of her eye, nor the charm of her merry talk, nor the wonderful attraction of her whole person. At the same time there was not a trace of deviltry about her: it was simply an attraction which I could not resist. And when she laid her soft hand on me, I bent under it, and gave myself up entirely. And she did what she wanted: where buttons were missing, she sewed them on; and where a patch was needed, she put it in. She was a little mother to me. She used to bring me all kinds of delicacies and order me to eat them; and I could not disobey her. In short, she made me forget Jacob and his teachings. But the moment I met Jacob I forgot Marusya's charms, and reminded myself that it was sinful to accept favors in exile. Then I would repent of my past actions from the very depths of my heart—till I again was face to face with Marusya. I was between the hammer and the anvil.

My meetings with Jacob were regular and frequent. After what according to Jacob's calendar was the Ninth of Av, we met nightly in the valley on Peter's estate, till a disagreement broke out among us. I would not permit the cattle of the whole neighborhood to browse on the estate of my patron, and Simeon and Reuben would not agree to let my patron's horses be brought to the meadows of their patrons. Our congregation nearly broke up. But here Jacob intervened with his expert decision.

"Boys," said he, "you must know that 'going out for the night' is really a form of stealing. True, we do not steal for our own benefit. Yet, as long as we have a hand in it, we must manage it in a fair way. So let us figure out how many horses every one of our patrons possesses. And let us arrange the nights according to the number of horses each of the patrons has. According to this calculation we shall change places. We shall spend more nights in the meadows of those who have more horses. That will make 'fair stealing.'"

The plan of Jacob was accepted, not as a proposition, but as an order. Since that time we began to "steal with justice." And our patrons slept peacefully, delighted with their unpunished thievery, till a Gentile boy, one Serge Ivanovich, joined us on one of his own "nights." He was the son of the village elder, and a cousin of Peter Khlopov. He was compelled to obey Jacob, but the next morning he blabbed about it all over the village.

Of course, our patrons were angry. Jacob took the whole blame on himself, and suffered punishment for all of us. Then "Jacob's Klaus" was closed, because our patrons gave up sending us out "for the night."

Well, if you please, their dissatisfaction was not entirely groundless: they found themselves fooled by us, and cheated in a way. For every one of them had been thinking that his horse would bring him some profit every night, equal to the value of the horse's browsing. Seven nights, seven times that profit; thirty nights, thirty times that profit. . . . All at once these "profits" had vanished: it turned out that every horse had been browsing at the expense of his own master; so the expected profits became a total loss. Of course, stealing is stealing. But then, they argued, had the Zhid youngsters any right to meddle with their affairs? Was it their property that was being stolen? As one of my Gentile acquaintances told me once: "The trouble with the Jews is that they are always pushing themselves in where they are not wanted at all."

Indeed, it was this fault of ours that Serge kept pointing out to me and berating us for. Well, Jacob's Klaus had been closed. But we managed to get together in different places. Once in a while we came to see one another at our patron's houses, and they did not object.

I do not know who told Marusya what kind of a chap Jacob was, and what he thought of her; but she hated him from the moment she first saw him, when he came to visit me.

"He is a real savage," she would say. "I never saw such a Jew. I am simply afraid of him. I am afraid of those wild eyes of his. I detest him, anyway." That is what she used to tell me.

Whenever Jacob came to see me, and Marusya happened to be in the room, she would walk out immediately, and would not return before he was out of the house. I rather liked it. I could not be giving in to both of them at the same time.

Such were the surroundings that shaped my life during those days. Peter befriended me; but Anna kept on worrying me and making me miserable. Marusya loved me as a sister loves a brother, and the fire of her eyes ate into my heart. Jacob kept preaching to me that it was wrong to accept favors from Gentiles, and that we had to fight for our faith. Serge became my bitter enemy from the time he betrayed our scheme of "honest stealing."

To top it all, my sergeant tried to put me through the paces of the military drill, and succeeded.

But my own self seemed to have been totally forgotten and left out of the account.

By and by the summer passed, and most of the following winter; and in the Khlopov household preparations were made for some holiday, I forget which. Those days of preparation were our most miserable days in exile. When Anna was busy on the eve of a holiday, I could not help remembering our own Sabbath eves at home, the Sabbath days in the Klaus, as well as the other holidays, and all the things that are so dear to the heart of the Jewish boy. That was the time when I felt especially lonely and homesick; it was as though a fever were burning within me. Then neither tears nor even Marusya's company did me any good. I felt as if red-hot coals had been packed up right here in my breast. Did you ever feel that way? I felt like rolling on the ground and pressing my chest against something hard. I felt I was going mad. I felt like jumping, crying, singing, and fighting all at once. I felt as if even lashes would be welcome, simply to get rid of that horrible heartache.

On that particular day Khlopov was late in coming home. Marusya remarked that she had seen her father enter the tavern. Then Anna began to curse "our Moshko," the tavern keeper. Marusya objected:

"Tut, tut, mother, is it any of Moshko's fault? Does he compel papa to go there? Does he compel him to drink?"

Then Anna few into a temper, and poured out a torrent of curses and insults on Marusya. I don't know what happened to me then. My blood was up; my fists tightened. It was a dangerous moment; I was ready to pounce upon Anna. I did not know that Marusya had been watching me all the while from behind, and understood all that was passing within me. Presently the door opened, and Khlopov entered, rather tipsy, hopping and jigging. That was his way when in his cups. When he was under the influence of liquor, his soul seemed to spread beyond its usual limits and light up his face with smiles. At such moments he would be ready to hug, to kiss, or to cry; or else to curse, to fight, and to laugh at the same time.

Right here you can see the difference between the Jew and the Gentile. The finer soul of the Jew may contract and settle on the very point of his nose. But the grosser soul of the Gentile needs, as it were, more space to spread over. This, I believe, is why Khlopov never failed to get a clean shave on the eve of every holiday.

As soon as Khlopov had entered the room, he began to play with me and Marusya. He gave us candy, and insisted on dancing a jig with us.

Anna met him with a frown: "Drunk again?" But this time her eyes seemed to have no power over Khlopov. He could not stand it any longer, and gave tit for tat. "Zhidovka!" he shouted. I looked at Anna: she turned red. Marusya blushed. Khlopov sobered up, and his soul shrank to its usual size. Anna went to her room. The spell was broken.

The word "Zhidovka" hurled at Anna made me start back. What could it mean, I wondered. I felt sorry for Khlopov, for Marusya, for Anna, and for the holiday mood that had been spoilt by a single word. And it seemed to me it was my fault to some extent. Who, I thought, had anything in common with Zhidovka if not myself? Or was it Khlopov?—

Here the old man was interrupted by the neighing of the horses.

The forward horse seemed to be getting proud of the comparative freedom he enjoyed, and bit his neighbor, only to remind him of it. The latter, unable to turn around in the harness, resented the insult by kicking. But then the driver plied the whip, and there was peace again.

"Would you take the trouble to dismount? Just walk up that hill: it will do you good to warm yourselves up a little after sitting so long in one place."

That was the driver's suggestion; and as no one refuses obedience to drivers on the road, we dismounted.

VII

The next day—resumed the old man—the situation became a little clearer to me. Marusya told me that according to the gossip of the village her mother was a converted Jewess. She, Marusya, was not so sure of it. Her father would call her mother a Jewess once in a while, but that happened only when he was drunk. So she did not know whether he merely repeated the village gossip, or had his own information in the matter. And when she asked her mother, the latter would fly into a temper.

"Papa himself," said Marusya, "likes Jews; but mother hates them. I like papa more than mamma; I also like Jews; I often play with Moshko's girls when mother is not around. I do not understand why mother dislikes Jews so much."

Then Marusya insisted I should tell her the real truth about the Jews, as they are at home: were they like myself, or like Jacob, the wild one? But I stopped listening to her chatter, and began to think of what she had told me about her mother. For in case it was true that Anna was a convert, then—why, then Marusya herself was half a Jewess. I decided to solve the mystery.

Now let me tell you that as a result of our Cantonist training we were not only as bold as eagles, as courageous as lions, as swift as the deer in doing the will of our patrons, but also as sly as foxes in finding a way out of a difficulty. And, by the way, that was also the opinion of our late commander, Colonel Pavel Akimovich. A keen-eyed commander and a kind-hearted master was he, may his lot be in Paradise among the godly men of the Gentile tribes. Yes, if he was an eagle, we were his chicks; if he was a lion, we were his whelps! This is what he used to say: "In time of need, you have no better soldier than the Jew. But then you must know how to use him. Do not give him too many instructions, and do not try to explain it all to him from beginning to end. If you instruct him too much, he will be afraid to do any scheming on his own hook, and you will be the loser. Just give him your order, and tell him what the order is for. Then you may be sure he will get it for you, even if he should have to go to hell for it!" This is what Colonel Pavel Akimovich used to say of us.

Now, once I decided to find out Anna's secret, I thought it all out beforehand, as a Cantonist should; and I hit upon a plan.

That was at the beginning of spring. One day Khlopov left on a journey to the neighboring villages to collect the taxes. He had to stay away some time. The whole of that day Anna kept worrying me as usual. She sent me on unnecessary errands, she wanted me to be in two places at the same time. She yelled, she cursed, she shook me, and mauled me, she pulled me by the ears. She knew well how to make one miserable. When night came, I went to sleep in the anteroom; that was my bedroom. Anna was abed, but not asleep. Marusya had long been asleep. Then Anna remembered that she had forgotten to close the door leading to the anteroom, and she ordered me to get up and close it. I made believe I was sleeping soundly, and began to snore loudly. She kept on calling me, but I kept on snoring. Suddenly I began to cry, as if from the sleep: "O mother, leave Anna alone. She too is a mother! Pity her family!"

Anna became silent. I half opened my eyes and looked at her through the open door. A candle was burning on the table near her bed, and I could see that she was frightened, and was listening intently. then I continued, somewhat differently: "I beg of you, mother, is it her fault? Doesn't she feed me? Isn't she a mother too?"

Then I began to cry as if in my sleep. "What?" I asked suddenly,
"Anna?! Anna—a Jewess too?!"

Then I noticed that Anna was watching Marusya's bed. I saw she was
afraid Marusya might overhear what was not intended for her ears.
She put on her night robe, came to my bed, and began in a whisper:
"Are you sleeping? Get up, my boy, wake up!"

I did "wake up," and put on a frightened appearance. "What did you cry about?" she asked. "I dreamt something terrible." "What did you dream about" I kept silent. "Tell me, tell me!" she insisted. "I saw my mother in a dream." "Is she alive yet?" I told a lie. I said my mother was long dead. "And what did she tell you?" "She said that . . . ." "Tell me, tell me!" "I cannot repeat that in Russian." "Then say it in Yiddish." I looked with make-believe surprise at Anna. "She said: 'I shall come to Anna at night and choke her, if she doesn't give up abusing you.'" At this Anna turned red. I continued: "And she said also, 'Anna ought to have pity on Jewish children, because she is a Jewess herself.'" . . . .

My scheme worked well. Anna began to treat me in an entirely different way, and my position in the house not only improved, but became the opposite of what it had been. At times, when no one was around, she even spoke Yiddish to me. Apparently she liked to remain alone in the house with me and chat with me. You must know, her position in the village was all but agreeable. She had very few acquaintances; and she would have been better off without any. When she happened to have visitors, a mutual suspicion at once became apparent, in their behavior and their talk. There was much more flattery, much more sweetness of speech than is common among people. One could see that each spoke only to hide her innermost thoughts. Every conversation ended as it began: with gossip about women who were not zealous enough in matters of church attendance. And when it came to that, Anna invariably blushed, simply because she was afraid she might blush. Then, feeling the blood coming to her face, she would try to hide her confusion, and would chatter away ceaselessly, to show how punctual she was herself in church matters. On taking leave, Anna's friends would exchange significant glances, and Anna would have been either too stupid or else too wise not to notice the sting of those sly looks.

As to Peter, he treated Anna fairly well; and when they happened to quarrel, it was mostly her own fault. One night—it was long after I had found out Anna's secret—I happened to be sleepless, and I overheard Anna talking angrily to Peter. She was scolding him for having forgotten to prepare oil for the lamp before the ikon of some saint. It was that saint's day, and Khlopov had either forgotten or neglected it. He was very careless in church matters, and Anna never got tired of taking him to task for it. This time she didn't leave off nagging him, till he lost patience, and said: "Were I really as religious as you want me to be, I should have taken to wife a woman who—well, who is a real Christian herself." Perhaps Peter never meant to insult Anna by reminding her of that which she wished to forget. Or perhaps Peter thought he had offered a valid excuse. But Anna was offended and turned around crying.

The trouble with Anna was that she was very sensitive. That was a trait of hers. When she heard something said about herself, she never was satisfied with the plain meaning of what was said, but tried to give the words every other possible meaning. Every chance remark she happened to overhear she took to be meant for herself. Well, this same sensitiveness one may find in most of the Cantonists. For instance, in the regiment of General Luders, in which I served once, we had many Tatars, some Karaites, and a goodly number of Jews. To all appearances there was no trouble; but let one soldier call another "Antichrist," and every Jew in the regiment would get excited. The Tatars and the Karaites rather liked to call their comrades Antichrist, even if they happened to be Christians. But it was only the Jews whom the word set a-shivering. It is as I tell you—the Jew is painfully sensitive. Well, to cut my story short, Anna did not have a happy time of it. She was all alone, surrounded though she was by many people. She became taciturn in spite of herself. And this is a great misfortune when it happens with womenfolk. Women are naturally great talkers, and you may do them much harm, if you do not give them a chance to talk. So I became her crony as soon as I discovered her secret. Then she tried to make up for the many years of silence by chattering incessantly. In her long talks she often said things she had denied before. Once she told me that she felt a longing to see her relations and townspeople. But the next time she said that she hated them mightily. Very likely she did not hate them. We all dislike that which has caused us pain and harm. So Anna disliked her relations for having caused her remorse, homesickness, and perhaps shame. Once her tongue was loosed, she did not stop until she had poured out the proverbial nine measures given to woman as her share of the ten measures of speech in the world. She spoke Yiddish even in the presence of Marusya and of Jacob, who used to visit me once in a while. By and by Anna began to treat him in a very friendly way. Only Marusya avoided him, and never spoke a word to him. She simply hated him.

Thus in time the house of Anna became something like a Jewish settlement, or rather like some sort of a Klaus, especially when Pater was away from home. We all used to gather there, and talk Yiddish, just as in a Klaus. For under Anna's roof we felt perfectly free. She became a mother to the homeless Cantonists. Even marusya took to jabbering a little Yiddish. Jacob began to feel that the leadership of our little community was passing into the hands of Anna, and he became jealous. He did not see that the very fact that he too was falling under her spell was influencing our community greatly, and that thus he was stamping it with his own character.

Anna liked him more than she did any one of us. Moreover, she respected him. At times it looked as if she were somewhat afraid of him.

Now you must know that at bottom Anna had never deserted her religion. Instead, she carried the burdens of both religions; to the fear of the Jewish hell she seemed to have added the fear of the Christian hell. I suspect that she was still in the habit of reciting her Hebrew prayer before going to sleep. She also believed in dreams. In this respect all women are the same. Of course, she had her dreams, and Jacob thought himself able to interpret them; he used to seek her company for that purpose.

So we all began to feel very much at home in Anna's house.

Once it happened that Peter entered the house at a moment when we were all so much absorbed in our Yiddish conversation that we did not notice his presence. He sat down quietly among us and took part in our talk, smiling in his usual manner. He asked us some questions, and we answered him. Then we asked him something, and he answered us in pure, good Yiddish, as if there were nothing new or surprising about it. At last Marusya awoke, and exclaimed with glad surprise: "Papa, can you speak Yiddish too?" We all shuddered, as if caught stealing. Peter's smile broadened, covering the whole of his face.

"Did you imagine that I do not know it? I wish you could speak it as well as I do."

That made me suspect that Peter might have been himself a convert from Judaism, and I decided to ask Anna bout it. She cleared up my doubts very soon. She told me that Peter had been brought up in an exclusively Jewish town; he had been employed there as a clerk in the Town Hall. As he always had to deal with jews, he finally learned their language. She told me at the same time that Peter rather liked Jews, and that he was a man of more than ordinary ability; otherwise, she said, it would have been very foolish on her part to leave the religion of her father for the sake of Peter.

"What did you say was the name of your native town?" I asked out of sheer curiosity. She named my native town. I felt a shiver go through me. "And what was your father's name?" I asked again, trembling.

"Bendet."

"Was he a wine-dealer?"

"Yes; and how do you know it? Are you of the same town?"

I told her my father's name, and we clasped hands in surprise.—

While the old man was telling his tale, the clouds dispersed. I looked upwards: the dark sky spread vaultlike above us studded with stars, some in groups, some far apart. Then I remembered what the Lord had promised to our father Abraham: "And I shall multiply thy seed as the stars in heaven." And I thought I saw in the sky naught but so many groups of Jews: some kept in exile, some confined within the nebulae of the Milky Way. . . . But even then, it seemed to me, there was a strong attraction, a deep sympathy between them all, far apart and scattered though they were. Even so they formed aggregations of shining stars—far apart, yet near. . . .

VIII

The wind began to grow cold; we pressed close to one another to keep warm. The old man drew his old coat tightly about him, and continued his story:—

Well, we of our little community threw off the yoke of the old Torah, yet refused to accept the yoke of the new Torah. Nevertheless our lives were far from being barren. Our longing for the things we were forbidden to practise prompted us to invent a good many new usages. For instance, long before we had the freedom of Anna's house, we managed to meet every Saturday to exchange a few words in Yiddish; two or three words were sufficient to satisfy our sense of duty. Those meetings were among the things for the sake of which we were ready to run any risk of discovery. Of course, we dared not recite our Modeh-Ani: our patrons might have overheard us, and that meant a sure flogging. But we practised repeating the prayer mentally, and we always managed to do it with our faces turned in the direction from which we thought we had come, and where our native towns were situated. Jacob had a little piece of cloth, a remnant of an Arba-Kanfos. The Tzitzis had long been torn away, to prevent discovery and avoid punishment; but what was left of it we kept secretly, and we used to kiss it at opportune moments, as if it were a scroll of the Torah.

Then we made a point of abstaining from work at least one hour every Saturday and on the days that were the Jewish holidays according to Jacob's calendar. On the other hand, work was considered obligatory on Sundays and on Christian holidays. Tearing up some papers or starting a fire was thought sufficient.

These and many other usages we invented, slowly, one after another. In time we got into the habit of observing them very punctiliously, even after we had made ourselves at home in Anna's house. But over and above all Jacob never gave up preaching to me that it was wrong on the part of an oppressed Jew to accept favors from a non-Jew. And this he preached without ever noticing that he was himself giving in to temptation when he accepted favors and kindnesses from Anna. As to Marusya, he always found a pretext to separate us whenever he met me in her company. I was very angry with him for that, but I could not tell him so openly. At last it came to such a pass that Marusya lost all patience, and made me the scapegoat. She stopped having anything to do with me.

Now that was a real misfortune as far as I was concerned. For only then did I come to realize how much I was attached to the girl. I felt an utter emptiness in my heart; I began to feel myself a total stranger in the house. When everybody was talking merrily, I kept quiet, as if I were a mourner. I was always looking for Marusya, I was always trying to catch her eye. I hoped that our eyes would meet, that she would at least look at me. But she kept on avoiding me. No, she did not avoid me: she simply did not seem to know that I was in the house. I was exasperated; and when once I came face to face with Jacob, I lost my temper, and berated him roundly, attacking him on his weakest side:

"Is it on me that you are spying? How many favors, if you please, have you accepted yourself from Anna? Perhaps your father gave you a special dispensation in your dreams?"

To all of this Jacob replied very calmly: "First of all, your analogy does not hold, for you and Marusya are both youngsters. And, second, even supposing I were sinning, it is your fault then, too; for it is clearly your duty to warn me. At the same time, you can imagine how much the whole thing grieves me."

Well, after all, I was ready to forgive him his sins, provided he overlooked mine. . . . .

Yes, that happened on a Saturday. We were all standing in line on the drill grounds. I was in the first line, and Jacob was directly behind me in the second line. We were going through the paces of the so-called three-step exercise. It was this way: the soldier had to stretch his left leg forward on a somewhat oblique line, so that the sole of his foot touched the ground without resting on it. That was the first pace, the hardest of all, as we had to stand on one leg, with the other a dead weight. In this position we had to keep standing till the command was given for the second pace. At that moment we had to shift to our left leg, and quickly bend the right leg at the knee-joint at a right angle. Thus we had to stand till the command was given for the third pace, when we had to unbend the right leg and bring it forward. On that day we were kept at the first pace unusually long. My muscles began to twitch, and I felt as if needles were pricking me from under the skin. Suddenly I felt as if I had lost my footing, and was suspended in the air. Then I fell. This was my first mishap on that day. The sergeant made believe that he did not notice it, and I congratulated myself, hoping it would pass unremarked.

The sergeant was busy with the last of our line: somehow he did not like the way he was standing. Just then, in a crazy fit of contrariness, I felt a sudden desire to fulfil my duty of talking a few words of Yiddish on Saturday. I turned my head and whispered to Jacob in Yiddish: "He is going to keep us here the whole day! When shall we have our hour's rest?" At that moment the sergeant passed between the lines, and overheard me speaking Yiddish. O yes, they have sharp ears, those drill-masters. As you know, speaking Yiddish was considered a great breach of discipline, which never passed unpunished. It always meant a whipping. So I had made myself guilty of two offenses. On that day I did not go home empty-handed: I got an order to report the next morning to receive my twenty lashes. I received my order like a soldier, saluted, and seemed cool about it—for the time being. That pleased the sergeant greatly; he was a thorough soldier himself, and heartily hated tenderfeet and cowards. He looked at me approvingly, and said: "Because you have always been a good soldier, I shall make the punishment easier for you. You have the privilege of dividing the number of lashes in two: ten you get to-morrow, and ten you may put off for some other time." That was the customary way of making the punishment easier in the cases when the Cantonist was either too weak to take in the whole number of lashes at once, or was thought to deserve consideration otherwise. A temporary relief it certainly was; but in the end the relief was worse than the punishment itself. Between the first half of the punishment and the other half, life was a burden to the culprit: he could neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep in peace. Every moment he felt as if his back were not his own, that he merely had borrowed it for a while, and sooner or later he would have to stretch himself on the ground, to bear the weight of a rider on his neck and of another on his feet, and have the rods fall on him with a swish: one, two, three. . . .

And the pain was awful. It felt as if the skin were being torn away in strips. A new lash on the fresh cut, and another strip was torn out; then another strip across the two. One felt like yelling, but the throat was dry. One felt like scratching the ground, but the finger nails had long become soft. One felt like biting one's own flesh, but one had no power over himself so long as a man was sitting on his neck and pinning it tight to the ground. It was hard enough to stand the ordeal itself, as hard as hell. But it was still harder to bear in mind that such a punishment was coming. It felt as if one was being flogged every moment. So, in the stress of the moment, I found my speech. "Sir," said I, saluting, "I would rather stand twenty-five lashes at once than have the twenty lashes divided in two parts."

"Why?" asked the sergeant.

"Because a Russian soldier has no time to keep accounts that concern only his own back. He has no right to forget his military duties even for a single moment."

Here the sergeant gave me an approving smile, and reduced the twenty lashes to ten. Then Jacob stepped forward, stood at attention, saluted, and said:

"Sir, it is not his fault, but mine. It was I who spoke to him. He was silent. As to his falling during the drill, that was also my fault: I made him stumble. I am ready to stand the punishment, because I am the guilty one."

The sergeant threw a quick, admiring glance at Jacob, and said:

"Your intentions are certainly good, because you wish to sacrifice yourself for your friend. You might serve as a model for all the young soldiers. Boys, do you hear? Love one another as Jacob loves his guilty friend! But you must know that your sergeant is not to be fooled; his eyes are everywhere, and he certainly knows the guilty one!"

When I went home, I felt neither glad nor despondent; I felt as if I did not exist at all—as if my very body did not belong to me, but had been borrowed for a few hours. That night I woke up many times; I felt as if snakes were crawling over my flesh. I got up early the next morning. Marusya was yet in bed, half awake.

"Where are you going?" asked Anna, standing in my way. I kept silent for a while, then I made a clean breast of it all. Anna shook her head at me, and said with tears glistening in her eyes: "Poor fellow, and where are you going to?"

"I am going to the sergeant's; if it has been decreed, let it be done quickly."

"Why should you go hungry?"

"That does not matter." I waved my hand, and walked away slowly. One the way I met some people, but I did not greet them; some people overtook me, but I did not even notice them pass. I had nothing in my mind except my own shoulders and the stinging rods. And for a moment I really lost heart; I acted like a tenderfoot instead of a Cantonist. I was ready to cry; my tears were choking me, as if I were mamma's only darling. It was about a two hours' walk to the sergeant's. When I arrived there, I stood outside and waited for him. Then I thought I heard the sound of some not unfamiliar voice: arguments, expostulations, again arguments. Somebody was talking earnestly behind the closed door. I could not make out what was said. Neither did I have any desire to know what it was all about. I was very impatient. I longed for the sergeant to come out and do the thing he had to do to me. I wished for all to be over and done with—that I had already been carried to the hospital and been bandaged; that the days in the hospital had gone; that I had recovered and had been dismissed. But at the same time I hoped the sergeant might be a little slow in coming out, and that my pain might be postponed for a little while. In short, I was divided against myself: I had two wishes, one excluding the other. Suddenly the door opened, and on the threshold was standing—do you know who? Marusya! Yes, dear God, it was Marusya. She was standing at the right of the sergeant. With one hand he was playing with her locks, and in the other he was holding both her hands. Then he turned to me:

"Hourvitz, this young lady has interceded in your favor. And a soldier is in honor bound to respect the request of such a nice girl. So, for her sake, all is forgiven this time. Go home!"

At that moment I was ready to take forty lashes, if only I might remove the sergeant's hands from off Marusya. I went home at a very slow pace, so that Marusya might overtake me on the road. I thought she might talk to me then. I meant to ask her how she had gotten ahead of me without my noticing her. The minutes seemed hours; I thought she would never come out of the house. Then a crazy idea struck me—to return to the sergeant's house and see what had happened to Marusya. After all, I thought, what can the sergeant do to me more than have me whipped? At that moment I thought little of the rods; it seemed to me just then that the rods did not hurt so much after all, and the pain they caused was only temporary; it was hardly worth while giving the matter much thought. And, I am sure, for the moment I had lost all sense of pain. Had they flogged me then, I should not have felt any pain. I turned back. Luckily I did not have to go as far as the sergeant's house; I met Marusya on the way. She passed me, looking right and left, as if I were a mere stone lying on the roadside.

"Marusya!" I called after her. But she kept on walking ahead, as if she had not heard me. "Marusya," I cried again, "is that the way you are going to treat me?! Why, then, did you save me from the rods?"

She stopped for a moment, as though thinking of something. Her handkerchief fell from her hand. She sighed deeply, picked up the handkerchief, and resumed her walk. I returned to the village alone. Anna met me with tears of joy in her eyes. I broke out into tears myself, without really knowing why. I caught Marusya's eye, but her look was a puzzle to me.—

Presently our horses began to trot at a lively pace; they felt the road sloping downhill. The driver, who had long been nodding in his seat, was suddenly shaken out of his slumbers. He woke up with a start, and flourished his whip; which is a habit acquired in his trade. Uphill or downhill, your coach-drive is bound to work with his whip. Let him be disturbed, no matter when,—even when he drops into a doze in his Klaus on a Yom-Kippur night—he will invariably shake his hand at the intruder as if swinging his whip.

As the horses increased their speed, the baying of dogs became audible; a village was not far off. Cheering and inviting as the distant chorus sounded, it resolved itself by and by into single barks, and every bark seemed to say, "Away with you," "Stand back," "No strangers admitted," and the like. A gust of wind brought to our nostrils warmish air laden with all kinds of smells: smells of smouldering dung, of garbage, and of humanity in general. Soon lights began to twinkle from huddled shanties and from broad-faced houses, as if welcoming our arrival. It looked as if the village were priding itself on its lights, and boasting before Heaven: "See how much stronger I am: sunk in the deep slush of a dirty valley, I have my own lights, and my own stars within myself."

The village seemed to have shrunk within the limits of its own nest, glad that it need not know the ills and the hardships of travel.

The driver ordered an hour's rest.

IX

After we had warmed ourselves a little in the village inn, we returned to our seats in the coach, and the drive continued his "talk" with the horses. The old man resumed his story:—

Well, I had fallen into debt; and my two creditors were very hard to satisfy. Jacob had offered, though vainly, to sacrifice his skin for mine and suffer the lashes intended for me. Marusya took the trouble to walk all the way to the sergeant's house and talk with him, to save me from punishment. Thus I was indebted to both of them, but with a difference. While trying to belittle the good intentions of jacob, I tried at the same time to belittle my obligation to him, whose authority was fast becoming irksome. Marusya, on the other hand, refused to accept my thanks. . . . .

Well, by that time I had long considered myself a good young soldier. I knew I was growing in the favor of my superiors. The sergeant had praised me repeatedly, in my presence and in my absence. I began to feel my own worth, to cherish military aspirations, and to burn with the ambition of a soldier. Many a time I dreamt I was promoted from the ranks, had become a colonel, and was promoted to a higher rank still. . . . I fought in battles, performed wonderful feats. . . .

About that time they began to talk in the army about the Turks. Jacob and I had our differences with respect to them. He tried to prove to me that the Turks, being the sons of Ishmael, were our cousins. But I did not believe it. I did not wish to believe it, in spite of everything. He claimed that the children of Ishmael were heroes, brave as lions. But I used to say, "Just give me ten Turks, and I shall put them out of business with one shot!"

On account of these talks Jacob and I began to avoid one another's company. He was too hard on me, with his endless contradictions, admonitions, and warnings.

One day we went out target shooting. Jacob fired twelve shots in succession, at long range, and every shot was a bull's eye. He outdid all his comrades on that day. Then the sergeant put his hand on Jacob's shoulder, and said: "Bravo, Jacob! I see a coming officer in you! Have you a petition to make of me for something I can grant?" Then Jacob saluted, and asked to be permitted to recite his Hebrew prayers daily and rest on Saturdays. The sergeant smiled, and granted Jacob's request.

I may just as well tell you now that long before this incident the authorities had lost all hope of getting us converted to the ruling faith. They became convinced that we did not budge so much as an inch, in spite of all the pressure and tortures we had to stand. they realized at last that only compulsion could make us say certain prayers before the crucifix every morning. So by and by they gave it up. And Jacob's request was not so hard to grant after all.

From that moment Jacob became a bitter enemy of the Turks. He pictured them as midgets, and named his patron's dog "Turk." Aside from all this there was a general change in Jacob's disposition; it was something that one could only feel, but not exactly see.

We had a very hard winter that year, quite different from what we have now. Nowadays the very seasons of the year seem to have softened: new generations—new people; new times—new winters. Why, only last mid-winter I saw the rabbi's daughter-in-law pass through the streets bareheaded. In the mid-summer she drank hot tea, and caught a cold in her teeth. It is all the way I am telling you: the word is turned topsyturvy. In olden times a married woman would not dare uncover her hair even in the presence of her husband; it was also thought dangerous even for a man to go out bareheaded in winter time; and nobody ever caught a cold in midsummer. Nowadays things are different: only last winter I saw soldiers shiver with cold, while in our time a soldier was ashamed to show he was afraid of the cold. Yes, new generations, new soldiers; new times, new seasons. . . .

In short, that winter was a very hard one: heavy snowfalls, snow-storms, and no roads. The peasants could not go outside of the village; they had to stay home, and being idle and lonesome, they celebrated their weddings at that convenient season. Many people used to go to their weddings merely as sight-seers, I among them, for my sergeant gave me plenty of freedom. I had been excused from a large part of the drill; it was really superfluous as far as I was concerned. I had long learned all there was to learn. So I had much leisure to knock about in. Well, my sergeant rather liked us grown-up Cantonists. We were, with hardly an exception, very good soldiers indeed. And, after all, what was the hope of the sergeant, if not the praise of his superior, "Bravo, sergeant!" He liked to hear it, just as we ourselves liked to hear his "Bravo, boys, well done!"

One of the weddings of that season happened to take place in the house of the richest peasant of the village, one of those peasants who try to rise above their class. It goes without saying that among the invited guests was the very cream of the village society: the few Government officials, the village elder, the clerk of the village, our sergeant, etc. Yes, as to our sergeant, he was a jolly sort of fellow. He enjoyed a good laugh himself, and liked to hear others laugh. He liked to pass jokes with his soldiers, too. But then he was always the first to laugh at his own jokes; it seemed as if he might laugh himself to death. Of course, his hearty laughter made one laugh with him, joke or no joke. Yes, he was a good fellow; may he, too, have his place among the righteous in Paradise. True, he had us switched once in a while; but that was the way of the world in those days. For he, too, grew up and had been promoted from under the birch-rods. You know what all this reminds me of? take this driver, for instance: he is used to belabor his horses with the whip; and yet he likes them, you may be sure. Of course, our sergeant would scold us once in a while, too. But then his scolding seemed to hurt him more than us: he looked as if he had gotten the scolding himself. The jokers of our company used to say of him, that he stood up every morning before his own uniform, and saluted it as it hung on the wall. . . .

In short, he liked to mingle with people and to make merry; then he was always the happiest of all.

Of course, he also had been invited to that wedding.

Marusya, too, was there, and that was against her habit. She kept away from all kinds of public gatherings and festivities. And right she was, too, in staying away. For it was in the company of other girls that her brooding, melancholy disposition showed itself most clearly. Did I say melancholy? No it was not exactly melancholy. It was rather the feeling of total isolation, which one could not help reading on her face. And a total stranger she certainly was in that throng. When she kept quiet, her very silence betrayed her presence among the chattering girls. One could almost hear her silence. And when she did take part in the conversation, her voice somehow sounded strange and far away in the chorus of voices. Her very dress seemed different, though she was dressed just like any other of the village girls. It was in her gait, her deportment, in her very being that she differed from the rest of the girls. From the moment she entered the house she had to run the gauntlet of inquisitive looks, which seemed to pierce her very body and made her look like a sieve, as it were. I looked at Marusya, and it seemed to me that her face had become longer and her lips more compressed; her eyes seemed wider open and lying deeper in her sockets. She looked shrunken and contracted, very much like my mother on the eve of the Ninth of Av, when she read aloud the Lamentations for the benefit of her illiterate women-friends.

Well, that evening the sergeant danced with Marusya, neglecting the other girls entirely. They kept on refusing the invitations of the cavaliers, in the hope that they might yet have a chance to dance with the sergeant. The result was that the cavaliers were angry with the girls; the girls, with Marusya; and I, with the sergeant.

And when a recess was called, something happened: one of the bachelors, Serge Ivanovich, my old enemy, stood up behind Marusya, and shouted with all his might, "Zhidovka!" Then the envious girls broke out into a malicious giggle.

Marusya turned crimson. She looked first at the sergeant: he was curling his mustache, and tried to look angry. Then Marusya turned away from him, and I caught her eye. Well, that was too much for me. I could not stand it any longer. I sprang at Serge and dragged him to Marusya. I struck him once and twice, got him by the neck, and belabored him with the hilt of my sword.

"Apologize!" said I.

Now, no one is obedient as your Gentile once you have him down. And Serge Ivanovich did not balk. He apologized in the very words that I dictated to him. Then I let him go. The sergeant looked at me approvingly, as if wishing to say, "Well done!" This prevented the young men from attacking me.

Marusya left the house, and I followed her. Once outside, she broke into tears. She said something between sobs, but I could not make out what she meant. I thought she was complaining of someone, probably her mother. I wished very much to comfort her, but I did not know how. So we walked on in silence. The hard, crisp snow was squeaking rhythmically under our feet, as if we were trying to play a tune. And from the house snatches of music reached us, mixed with sounds of quarreling and merry-making. It seemed as if all those sounds were pursuing us: "Zhid! Zhid!" Suddenly a sense of resentment overtook me, as if I had been called upon to defend the Jews. And I blurted out:

"If it is so hard to be insulted once by a youngster who cannot count his own years yet, how much harder is it to hear insults day in and day out, year in and year out?"

Marusya looked at me with sparkling eyes. She thought I was angry with her and meant her. Then she wanted to soothe my feelings, and she said wonderingly:

"Years? What, pray, did I do to you? I only wanted you not to listen to Jacob. He is a bad man. He hates me. He is forever on the lookout to separate us!"

"He is afraid," said I, "I might yet get converted."

At this Marusya gave me an irresistible look, the look of a mother, of a loving sister.

"No," she said decidedly, "I shall not let you do that. You and your daughters will be unhappy forever. You know what I have decided? I have decided never to get married. For I know that my own daughters will always be called Zhidovka." At this point I became sorry for the turn our conversation had taken, and I cared no more for the defense of the Jews. After a brief silence Marusya turned to me:

"Why does mother dislike Jews so much? She surely knows them better than papa does."

"Very likely she fears being called Zhidovka, as they called you."

"But, then, why did she get herself into that trouble?"

"Ask yourself; she may tell you." . . . .

Never mind what passed between us afterwards. It does not suit a man of my age to go into particulars, the way the story-writers do. Suffice it to tell you that our relations became very much complicated. Marusya attached herself to me; she became a sister to me.

So, after all, Jacob's fears had been well founded from the very beginning. I felt I had gotten myself into a tangle, but I did nothing to escape from it; on the contrary, I was getting myself deeper and deeper into it.—

Here the old man's eyes flashed with a fire that fairly penetrated the darkness, and for a moment I thought it was but a youth of eighteen who was sitting opposite me. I was glad that the dark hid the whiteness of the old man's beard from my view. The white beard was entirely out of harmony with the youthful ardor of its owner's speech.

There was a silence of a few minutes, and the old man continued his story:—