Yekl Part 9

"Remember now! If you _deshepoitn_ [disappoint] me this time, well!--look at me! I should think I was no Gentile woman, either. I am as pious as you _anyhull_, and come from no mean family, either. You know I hate to boast; _but_ my father--peace be upon him!--was fit to be a rabbi. _Vell_, and yet I am not afraid to go with my own hair. May no greater sins be committed! Then it would be _never min'_ enough.

Plenty of time for putting on the patch [meaning the wig] when I get old; _but_ as long as I am young, I am young _an' dot's ull_! It can not be helped; when one lives in an _edzecate_ country, one must live like _edzecate peoples_. As they play, so one dances, as the saying is.

But I think it is time for you to be going. Go, my little kitten," Mrs.

Kavarsky said, suddenly lapsing into accents of the most tender affection. "He may be up by this time and wanting _tea_. Go, my little lamb, go and _try_ to make yourself agreeable to him and the Uppermost will help. In America one must take care not to displease a husband.

Here one is to-day in New York and to-morrow in Chicago; do you understand? As if there were any shame or decency here! A father is no father, a wife, no wife--_not'ing_! Go now, my baby! Go and throw away your rag and be a nice woman, and everything will be _ull right_." And so hurrying Gitl to go, she detained her with ever a fresh torrent of loquacity for another ten minutes, till the young woman, standing on pins and needles and scarcely lending an ear, plucked up courage to plead her household duties and take a hasty departure.

She found Jake fast asleep. It was after eleven when he slowly awoke.

He got up with a heavy burden on his soul--a vague sense of having met with some horrible rebuff. In his semiconsciousness he was unaware, however, of his wife's and son's existence and of the change which their advent had produced in his life, feeling himself the same free bird that he had been a fortnight ago. He stared about the room, as if wondering where he was. Noticing Gitl, who at that moment came out of the bedroom, he instantly realized the situation, recalling Mamie, hat, perfumes, and all, and his heart sank within him. The atmosphere of the room became stifling to him. After sitting on the lounge for some time with a drooping head, he was tempted to fling himself on the pillow again, but instead of doing so he slipped on his hat and coat and went out.

Gitl was used to his goings and comings without explanation. Yet this time his slam of the door sent a sharp pang through her heart. She had no doubt but that he was bending his steps to another interview with the Polish witch, as she mentally branded Miss Fein.

Nor was she mistaken, for Jake did start, mechanically, in the direction of Chrystie Street, where Mamie lodged. He felt sure that she was away to some ball, but the very house in which she roomed seemed to draw him with magnetic force. Moreover, he had a lurking hope that he might, after all, find her about the building. Ah, if by a stroke of good luck he came upon her on the street! All he wished was to have a talk, and that for the sole purpose of amending her unfavourable impression of him. Then he would never so much as think of Mamie, for, indeed, she was hateful to him, he persuaded himself.

Arrived at his destination, and failing to find Mamie on the sidewalk, he was tempted to wait till she came from the ball, when he was seized with a sudden sense of the impropriety of his expedition, and he forthwith returned home, deciding in his mind, as he walked, to move with his wife and child to Chicago.

Meanwhile Mamie lay brooding in her cot-bed in the parlour, which she shared with her landlady's two daughters. She was in the most wretched frame of mind, ineffectually struggling to fall asleep. She had made her way down the stairs leading from the Podkovniks with a violently palpitating heart. She had been bound for no more imposing a place than Joe's academy, and before repairing thither she had had to betake herself home to change her stately toilet for a humbler attire. For, as a matter of fact, it was expressly for her visit to the Podkovniks that she had thus pranked herself out, and that would have been much too gorgeous an appearance to make at Joe's establishment on one of its regular dancing evenings. Having changed her toilet she did call at Joe's; but so full was her mind of Jake and his wife and, accordingly, she was so irritable, that in the middle of a quadrille she picked a quarrel with the dancing master, and abruptly left the hall.

The next day Jake's work fared badly. When it was at last over he did not go direct home as usual, but first repaired to Mamie's. He found her with her landlady in the kitchen. She looked careworn and was in a white blouse which lent her face a convalescent, touching effect.

"Good-eveni'g, Mrs. Bunetzky! Good-eveni'g, Mamie!" he fairly roared, as he playfully fillipped his hat backward. And after addressing a pleasantry or two to the mistress of the house, he boldly proposed to her boarder to go out with him for a talk. For a moment Mamie hesitated, fearing lest her landlady had become aware of the existence of a Mrs. Podkovnik; but instantly flinging all considerations to the wind, she followed him out into the street.

"You'sh afraid I vouldn't pay you, Mamie?" he began, with bravado, in spite of his intention to start on a different line, he knew not exactly which.

Mamie was no less disappointed by the opening of the conversation than he. "I ain't afraid a bit," she answered, sullenly.

"Do you think my _kshpenshesh_ are larger now?" he resumed in Yiddish.

"May I lose as much through sickness. On the countrary, I _shpend_ even much less than I used to. We have two nice boarders--I keep them only for company's sake--and I have a _shteada job_--_a puddin' of a job_. I shall have still more money to _shpend outs.h.i.+te_," he added, falteringly.

"Outside?"--and she burst into an artificial laugh which sent the blood to Jake's face.

"Why, do you think I sha'n't go to Joe's, nor to the theatre, nor anywhere any more? Still oftener than before! _Hoy much vill you bet?_"

"_Rats!_ A married man, a papa go to a dancing school! Not unless your wife drags along with you and never lets go of your skirts," she said sneeringly, adding the declaration that Jake's "bluffs" gave her a "regula' pain in de neck."

Jake, writhing under her lashes, protested his freedom as emphatically as he could; but it only served to whet Mamie's spite, and against her will she went on twitting him as a henpecked husband and an old-fas.h.i.+oned Jew. Finally she reverted to the subject of his debt, whereupon he took fire, and after an interchange of threats and some quite forcible language they parted company.

From that evening the spectre of Mamie dressed in her white blouse almost unremittingly preyed on Jake's mind. The mournful sneer which had lit her pale, invalid-looking face on their last interview, when she wore that blouse, relentlessly stared down into his heart; gnawed at it with tantalizing deliberation; "drew out his soul," as he once put it to himself, dropping his arms and head in despair. "Is this what they call love?" he wondered, thinking of the strange, hitherto unexperienced kind of malady, which seemed to be gradually consuming his whole being. He felt as if Mamie had breathed a delicious poison into his veins, which was now taking effect, spreading a devouring fire through his soul, and kindling him with a frantic thirst for more of the same virus. His features became distended, as it were, and acquired a feverish effect; his eyes had a pitiable, beseeching look, like those of a child in the period of teething.

He grew more irritable with Gitl every day, the energy failing him to dissemble his hatred for her. There were moments when, in his hopeless craving for the presence of Mamie, he would consciously seek refuge in a feeling of compunction and of pity for his wife; and on several such occasions he made an effort to take an affectionate tone with her. But the unnatural sound of his voice each time only accentuated to himself the depth of his repugnance, while the hysterical promptness of her answers, the servile grat.i.tude which trembled in her voice and shone out of her radiant face would, at such instances, make him breathless with rage. Poor Gitl! she strained every effort to please him; she tried to charm him by all the simple-minded little coquetries she knew, by every art which her artless brain could invent; and only succeeded in making herself more offensive than ever.

As to Jake's feelings for Joey, they now alternated between periods of indifference and gusts of exaggerated affection; while, in some instances, when the boy let himself be fondled by his mother or returned her caresses in his childish way, he would appear to Jake as siding with his enemy, and share with Gitl his father's odium.

One afternoon, shortly after Jake's interview with Mamie in front of the Chrystie Street tenement house, f.a.n.n.y called on Gitl.

"Are you Mrs. Podkovnik?" she inquired, with an embarra.s.sed air.

"Yes; why?" Mrs. Podkovnik replied, turning pale. "She is come to tell me that Jake has eloped with that Polish girl," flashed upon her overwrought mind. At the same moment f.a.n.n.y, sizing her up, exclaimed inwardly, "So this is the kind of woman she is, poor thing!"

"Nothing. I _just_ want to speak to you," the visitor uttered, mysteriously.

"What is it?"

"As I say, nothing at all. Is there n.o.body else in the house?" f.a.n.n.y demanded, looking about.

"May I not live till to-morrow if there is a living soul except my boy, and he is asleep. You may speak; never fear. But first tell me who you are; do not take ill my question. Be seated."

The girl's appearance and manner began to inspire Gitl with confidence.

"My name is Rosy--Rosy Blank," said f.a.n.n.y, as she took a seat on the further end of the lounge. "_'F cou'se_, you don't know me, how should you? But I know you well enough, never mind that we have never seen each other before. I used to work with your husband in one shop. I have come to tell you such an important thing! You must know it. It makes no difference that you don't know who I am. May G.o.d grant me as good a year as my friends.h.i.+p is for you."

"Something about Jake?" Gitl blurted out, all anxiety, and instantly regretted the question.

"How did you guess? About Jake it is! About him and somebody else. But see how you did guess! Swear that you won't tell anybody that I have been here."

"May I be left speechless, may my arms and legs be paralyzed, if I ever say a word!" Gitl recited vehemently, thrilling with anxiety and impatience. "So it is! they have eloped!" she added in her heart, seating herself close to her caller. "A darkness upon my years! What will become of me and Yossele now?"

"Remember, now, not a word, either to Jake or to anybody else in the world. I had a mountain of _trouble_ before I found out where you lived, and I _stopped_ work on purpose to come and speak to you. As true as you see me alive. I wanted to call when I was sure to find you alone, you understand. Is there really n.o.body about?" And after a preliminary glance at the door and exacting another oath of discretion from Mrs. Podkovnik, f.a.n.n.y began in an undertone:

"There is a girl; well, her name is Mamie; well, she and your husband used to go to the same dancing school--that is a place where _fellers_ and _ladies_ learn to dance," she explained. "I go there, too; but I know your husband from the shop."

"But that _lada_ has also worked in the same shop with him, hasn't she?" Gitl broke in, with a desolate look in her eye.

"Why, did Jake tell you she had?" f.a.n.n.y asked in surprise.

"No, not at all, not at all! I am just asking. May I be sick if I know anything."

"The idea! How could they work together, seeing that she is a s.h.i.+rtmaker and he a cloakmaker. Ah, if you knew what a witch she is!

She has set her mind on your husband, and is bound to take him away from you. She hitched on to him long ago. But since you came I thought she would have G.o.d in her heart, and be ashamed of people. Not she! She be ashamed! You may sling a cat into her face and she won't mind it.

The black year knows where she grew up. I tell you there is not a girl in the whole dancing school but can not bear the sight of that Polish lizard!"

"Why, do they meet and kiss?" Gitl moaned out. "Tell me, do tell me all, my little crown, keep nothing from me, tell me my whole dark lot."

"_Ull right_, but be sure not to speak to anybody. I'll tell you the truth: My name is not Rosy Blank at all. It is f.a.n.n.y Scutelsky. You see, I am telling you the whole truth. The other evening they stood near the house where she _boards_, on Chrystie Street; so they were looking into each other's eyes and talking like a pair of little doves.

A _lady_ who is a _particla_ friend of mine saw them; so she says a child could have guessed that she was making love to him and _trying_ to get him away from you. _'F cou'se_ it is none of my _business_. Is it my _business_, then? What do _I care_? It is only _becuss_ I pity you. It is like the nature I have; I can not bear to see anybody in trouble. Other people would not _care_, but I do. Such is my nature. So I thought to myself I must go and tell Mrs. Podkovnik all about it, in order that she might know what to do."

For several moments Gitl sat speechless, her head hung down, and her bosom heaving rapidly. Then she fell to swaying her frame sidewise, and vehemently wringing her hands.

"_Oi! Oi!_ Little mother! A pain to me!" she moaned. "What is to be done? Lord of the world, what is to be done? Come to the rescue!

People, do take pity, come to the rescue!" She broke into a fit of low sobbing, which shook her whole form and was followed by a torrent of tears.

Whereupon f.a.n.n.y also burst out crying, and falling upon Gitl's shoulder she murmured: "My little heart! you don't know what a friend I am to you! Oh, if you knew what a serpent that Polish thief is!"