University of Virginia Library

5. V.

SPRING was coming. The air was mild, pensive, yearning. Michalina was full of tears.

"Don't rail at the rabbis — don't!" she said, with unusual irritation, to Nehemiah at her house. "Do you think I can bear to hear it?"

She cried. Nehemiah's eyes also filled with tears.

"Don't, little kitten," he said; "I didn't mean to hurt you. Are you sorry you became a Christian?" he added, in an embarrassed whisper.

For the first time she recounted her story to him. When she had finished the atheist was walking up and down.

"Ai-ai-ai! Ai-ai!" All at once he stopped. "So it was out of revenge for your stepmother that you married Wincas!" he exclaimed. Then he dropped his voice to a shamefaced undertone. "I thought you had fallen in love with him."

"What's that got to do with him?" she flamed out.

His face changed. She went on:

"Anyhow, he is my husband, and I am his wife and a Gentile woman, an accursed soul, doomed to have no rest either in this world or in the other. May the sorceress have as much darkness on her heart as I have on mine!"

"Why should you speak like that, little kitten? Of course I am an atheist, and religion is humbug, but you are grieving for nothing. According to the Jewish law, you are neither his wife nor a Gentile woman. You are a Jewess. Mind, I don't believe in the Talmud; but, according to the Talmud, your marriage does not count. Yes, you are unmarried!" he repeated, noting her interest. "You are a maiden, free as the birds in the sky, my kitten. You can marry a Jew 'according to the laws of Moses and Israel,' and be happy."

His voice died away.

"Lau-au-ra!" he wailed, as he seized her hand and began to kiss its fingers.

"Stop — oh, stop! What has come to you!" she shrieked. Her face was crimson. After an awkward silence, she sobbed out: "Nobody will give me anything but misery — nobody, nobody, nobody! What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?" UNDER the pretense of consulting a celebrated physician, Michalina had obtained Wincas's permission to go to New York. In a secluded room, full of dust and old books, on the third floor of an Orchard street tenement-house, she found a gray-bearded man with a withered face. Before him were an open folio and a glass half filled with tea. His rusty skullcap was pushed back on his head.

The blood rushed to her face as she stepped to the table. She could not speak.

"A question of law?" asked the rabbi. "Come, my daughter, what is the trouble?"

Being addressed by the venerable man as a Jewess melted her embarrassment and her fear into tears.

"I have married a Gentile," she murmured, with bowed head.

"A Gentile! Woe is me!" exclaimed the rabbi, with a look of dismay and pity.

"And I have been baptized, too."

Here an old bonnetless woman came in with a chicken. The rabbi was annoyed. After hastily inspecting the fowl, he cried:

"Kosher! Kosher! You may eat it in good health."

When the old woman was gone he leaped up from his seat and bolted the door.

"Well, do you want to do penance?" he demanded, adjusting his skullcap.

She nodded ruefully.

"Well, where is the hindrance? Go ahead, my daughter; and if you do it from a pure heart, the Most High will help you."

"But how am I to become a Jewess again? Rabbi, a man told me I never ceased to be one. Is it true?"

"Foolish young woman! What, then, are you? A Frenchwoman? The God of Israel is not in the habit of refunding one's money. Oh, no! 'Once a Jew, forever a Jew' — that's the way he does business."

"But I am married to a Gentile," she urged, with new light in her black eyes.

"Married? Not in the eye of our faith, my child. You were born a Jewess, and a Jewess cannot marry a Gentile. Now, if your marriage is no marriage — what, then, is it? A sin! Leave the Gentile, if you want to return to God. Cease sinning, and live like a daughter of Israel. Of course — of course the laws of the land — of America — do you understand? — they look upon you as a married woman, and they must be obeyed. But the laws of our faith say you are not married, and were a Jew to put the ring of dedication on your finger, you would be his wife. Do you understand, my child?"

"And how about the baby, rabbi? Suppose I wanted to make a proselyte of her?"

"A proselyte! Your learning does not seem to go very far," laughed the old man. "Why, your little girl is even a better Jewess than you have been, for she has not sinned, while you have."

"But her father —"

"Her father! What of him? Did he go through the throes of childbirth when the girl was born to you? Don't be uneasy, my daughter. According to our faith, children follow their mother. You are a Jewess, and so is she. She is a pure child of Israel. What is her name? Marysia? Well, call her some Jewish name — say Mindele or Shayndele. What does it amount to?"

As Michalina was making her way down the dingy staircase, she hugged the child and kissed her convulsively.

"Sheindele! Sheindele! Pure child of Israel," she said between sobs, for the first time addressing her in Yiddish. "A Jewish girlie! A Jewish girlie!"