The Amulet

I

WHEN Yankel was left a widower, his pious relatives felt that the Lord had stretched out his hand to remove an obstacle from the path of a godly man. This reflection cast no reproach on the memory of Yankel’s wife. No one spoke of Peshe Frede except with respect and pity. She had been a good wife — as good as God willed to have her. During the six years of her married life she had never given her husband any cause of complaint save one, and that was a matter for sorrow rather than complaint. Peshe Frede had no children, and what are prosperity and harmony and mutual devotion to a childless pair, in a community where parenthood is the great career? Their life was like a stage set for a play, but the characters never came on.

Yankel was away a great deal, looking after his lumber business, and whenever he came home he found his house in order, his favorite dishes steaming in the oven, and Peshe Frede, trim and smiling, ready to preside over his comfort. But there was a stillness in the orderly rooms that loving words failed to dispel, and Yankel had to exercise all the arts of kindness to wipe the guilty look out of Peshe Frede’s eyes.

No doubt it was harder on her, who had to stay at home with folded hands; and yet the mothers of Polotzk, while commiserating her barren lot, said she was greatly to be envied, because her husband kept her in honor and kindness and made light of their common disappointment. When she died, and the period of mourning was spent, Yankel’s friends began to look forward to his second marriage, certain that God would reward him at last for his unmurmuring patience.

A year passed after his second marriage, and Sorke, the nineteen-yearold bride, began to droop under the weight of the accumulated silence of her orderly house. A second year passed without hope; a third year ran its empty course. Yankel was thankful to remember that even in his secret soul he had never thought of divorcing Peshe Frede at the end of ten years, as by the Jewish law he would have had a right to do. It was he who was doomed, and not the wife. He lavished on Sorke even greater tenderness than he had spent on Peshe Frede, for now he had to atone for, as well as comfort, the empty heart.

Late on one afternoon in October, Sorke was sitting by the window, her head bent over one of those embroidery-frames that had become the symbol of her unwelcome leisure. When it was too dark to work, she wound the thread around her needle and folded her hands in her lap. There was nothing to see on the street; still Sorke remained in her place, a vanishing image against the twilight gloom. Why should she move? There was nothing waiting to be done. Chronic inertia had produced in her a weird power of remaining motionless. Even her thoughts were paralyzed. The stillness was like a wall around her. The irregular sounds that came from the kitchen brought no suggestion of current activity; they were the sounds that had filled her ears from the beginning of time.

Suddenly she jumped up, with a startled cry. From the empty gloom outside a face had sprung, a dark, bearded, laughing face, close beside her window. She ran to the door. Her husband sprang up the steps to meet her.

‘Yankel!’ she cried, in a voice half way between surprise and reproach.

‘Sorele!¹ I startled you. How are you, little wife?’

‘I did n’t expect you till the end of the week. How are you, Yankel?’

‘Fine! and mighty glad to get home, after two weeks of knocking about the dirty villages.’

‘Two weeks and three days,’ Sorke soberly corrected. ‘You went away on a Monday morning, and this is Wednesday.’

Yankel laughed.

‘I forgot that you count the days. Well, you like to be surprised? But why are you sitting in the dark? Here; let’s light the lamp. Let me see if my little wife is all there.’

There was something pathetic in the interest with which Sorke watched her husband’s trifling activity. She seemed glad to be caught up in the current of his energy. And Yankel, who had learned by experience the signs of a lonely woman’s moods, put his tender hands on her shoulders and studied her upturned face in the lamplight.

Sorke’s eyes had that look of unconscious beseeching that had haunted him all the years of his married life: the look of one who has found no answer to the questions of life. Peshe Frede had looked at him that way, and now Sorke — Sorke, whose eyes were so merry three years ago.

‘You have been lonely, Sorele. What have you been doing? Tell me everything while we have tea.’

Sorke was glad to be relieved of her husband’s scrutiny. She did not wish to make him sad on his return. She called to the housemaid to prepare the samovar, and herself set out the glasses on a tray.

Yankel watched her quiet movements through the open door of their bedroom, while he removed his heavy boots and washed the grime of travel from his face and hands. It seemed to him she was paler than usual, and he divined that the bits of neighborhood gossip she repeated in answer to his questions had no real interest for her.

‘ It’s good to be at home,’ he said, in his hearty manner, as he stretched his legs under the table opposite Sorke. ‘Are you sure you did n’t expect me? It seems to me you’re all dressed up.’

Sorke looked down on her gown, which was indeed one she seldom wore.

‘I had nothing to do, so I dressed up. Do you remember this dress? ’

‘Is n’t it a new one?’

She smiled.

‘Ask a man about clothes! This is the dress I wore when we visited your Aunt Rachel, the Passover before we were married.’

‘What! three years ago? How did you keep it so new? You are a very careful little woman.’

‘It is n’t that. I have so many dresses that I can’t wear them out.’ She lifted her head with a movement strange to her, a sort of subdued impatience. ‘Yankel, what’s the use of having so many dresses?’

He stared at her. ‘I swear by my beard and earlocks that I’m the only husband in Polotzk who ever heard such a speech from his wife. Too many dresses! Well, well! what, next?’

But Sorke would not meet his tone of raillery. He had surprised her in the depths of her melancholy, and her trouble cried out to be recognized. Loneliness and brooding had unsettled her nerves. Yankel’s cheerful, almost boisterous, manner jarred her into something like rebellion.

‘Too many dresses, yes, and too many things of all sorts. We have so much of everything, and what’s it all for? I can never get to the bottom of the linen chest — some of the things have never been used. The parlor is fixed up like a furniture store — there is n’t a scratch or stain on anything. And look at my clothes! I’ve given away enough for a poor bride’s trousseau; I never wear out anything. What’s the use of so many things? I wish we were poor. At least I’d have something to do, then.’

Her tone was almost vehement. Her color had risen; the beseeching look in her eyes was burned away by a gleam of protest.

Yankel watched her in mute surprise. He understood the inner meaning of her frivolous complaint, perhaps better than she did herself, but he had become so accustomed to her gentle patience that he did not at once know how to meet her sudden outburst.

Sorke waited a moment for him to speak, then went on, in a quieter manner, —

‘Really, Yankel, I think people are happier when they are n’t so well off. I’d rather do patching and darning than this everlasting fancy-work.’ She cast a look of distaste at the embroidery-frame in the corner. ‘I want something real to do. I don’t think you know how many hours there are in the day, you’re so busy with your affairs and seeing people and traveling. If I were n’t ashamed, I’d like to take lessons on the clavier, or something like that, to fill up the time.’

‘Why don’t you?’

Sorke looked her surprise.

‘A married woman take lessons? Everybody would point at me. I’m supposed to be busy with housekeeping. Busy?’ She smiled sadly. ‘I stay in bed till I’m lame from lying; I go to market, I stop wherever two women have their heads together, I eat my dinner, I dress myself as for a holiday; and it’s only noon! Sometimes I turn the house upside down, — closets and drawers and everything,—just to have something to do.’ She clasped her hands pleadingly. ‘Yankel! I’ve asked you a dozen times, I ask you again: send away the maid, and let me do the housework. I’ll be happy as a queen with my arms in the doughtub!’

She ended with a little smile, but Yankel continued to look gravely at her.

‘You might try it for a while,’ he said at length, ‘but it would n’t content you long.’

Sorke suppressed a sigh. Her husband’s words showed her that he knew her innermost thoughts, still she made another feeble effort to disguise them.

‘I’d like it,’ she said, in her normal tone; but she could not meet his earnest gaze.

Yankel got up and took a few steps across the room. With his hands in his pockets, he leaned against a tall chest opposite the table, and looked so long at Sorke that she felt oppressed by his scrutiny.

Her cry for something to do had gone to his heart like a subtle accusation. This was his second fruitless marriage. What atonement had he made this woman for her empty existence? No wonder she cried out at last at the gilded dross with which he had tried to beguile her.

‘ Sorele, I have tried to be good to you.’

It was all he found to say in self-excuse, but there was a world of sadness in his tone. Sorke’s heart was struck with compunction. She went over to him with penitent haste.

‘Yankel,’ she said, earnestly, pleadingly, ‘don’t look at me like that. You have been good to me — always, always. There is n’t another husband like you in Polotzk. Why, all the women envy me! You must n’t mind my foolish words. Don’t you know that a spoiled wife always has some complaint? Oh, Yankel! I deserve to be cudgeled for my silly talk.’

She drew close to him, with one hand on his cheek. Tears of remorse were in her eyes. Yankel put his hand over hers, but did not speak.

‘What are you thinking, Yankel? Won’t you forgive me?’

‘ I’m thinking that I’m a very selfish man.’

‘ You selfish! ’ Sorke laughed. ‘Your worst enemy would n’t say that.’

He freed himself from her touch, and spoke from a little distance.

‘Sorke, I ought to set you free to take another husband.’

‘ Yankel! ’

Gesture and tone expressed her horror. Yankel put out a hand to her at once.

‘I did n’t mean to shock you, Sorele. I can never make up to you for — for what you miss. Eight years I lived with Peshe Frede, may she rest in peace! and since our marriage three years have passed. Sorele, you are young and fresh as a maiden. Why should you be doomed along with me?’

Sorke dropped to her knees, her full dress billowing up about her.

‘ Yankel, I beg you, unless you mean to divorce me, never say these things to me again.’

He raised her and held her close.

‘ You must n’t kneel. I ’ll never think of divorce unless you ask for it.’ There came a look into his eyes that made Sorke hold her breath. ‘Sorele, my wife, I love you.’

At that word, so foreign to the cars of orthodox Polotzk, Sorke hid her face. That he should find the word and she understand it, was a double miracle. For among the pious Jews of their time romantic love was unknown, being constantly anticipated by the marriage-broker. What Sorke knew of love and love-making she had learned from vague rumors emanating from venturesome circles where forbidden books were read. In her confusion under her husband’s ardor, there was more than a trace of shame.

‘Sorele, Sorele,’ repeated Yankel, ‘I love you.’

The wife of three years allowed herself to be embraced, with a sense of yielding to forbidden things. A strange thrill shot through her body, leaving her faint and dazed.

‘ Oh, Yankel!’ she whispered, burying her face on his arm, ‘I feel so — so strange. You are — you make me feel queer.’

‘Do I? Do I?’

He held her away from him and looked at her steadily, breathing through dilated nostrils. Her long lashes swept her flaming cheeks. She wavered toward him, but he would not meet her movement. At last, with a little gasp of emotion, she threw her arms around his neck. In the void left by her maternal failure, the exotic flower of love had sprung up, that heathen love for which there was no name in the vocabulary of the orthodox.

‘Are you happy, Sorele?’

His breath was warm on her neck. She nestled closer, but did not speak.

‘Are you?’ he persisted.

‘I don’t know why I’m happy all of a sudden.’

She spoke unwillingly, with a sort of childish pout. He raised her head and compelled her look.

‘You are so beautiful, Sorele. If you did n’t wear a wig, you’d be like a bride just before the wedding. Take it off. You have pretty hair.’

His fingers began to fumble with the hairpins. She caught them playfully.

‘Don’t, Yankel. Don’t look like that, and don’t say such queer things. What makes you?’

‘I don’t know, myself. Have I ever seen you before? You look new to me.’

She laughed like a child. Suddenly he pressed her closer to him, and kissed her again and again. The skull-cap fell from his thick brown curls. He looked like a youth of twenty.

‘My wife, my wife!’ he murmured; and Sorke ceased to struggle.

They were facing each other through a trembling mist of passion, the man and wife who had blundered on the tricks of love neglected by the customs of their race; and lo! it was only a more cunning disguise for the ultimate purpose which the conventions of their world had scarcely masked.

‘If God would only grant us a child now!’ whispered Sorke, summing up in one word both her old and her new ideas of bliss.

II

A month or so later they were again sitting close together in the lamplight, Yankel having just returned from a short trip. As soon as the door was shut on the inquisitive housemaid, they had drawn up their chairs to the fire, with that new instinct of mutual approach which was the sign of their belated love. But Yankel was not bent on love-making this evening. With an elation that seemed unwarranted by the prosaic facts he was reciting, he was giving Sorke a minute account of his return journey, and she, divining from his manner that he was leading up to some important revelation, listened with growing curiosity.

‘So there we were, six versts from the railroad station, the wagon in the ditch on top of the miserable horse, and the stupid peasant boy with just sense enough left to scratch his head. There was no hope now of catching my train; we could n’t raise the horse without help. After a while my dolt got his wits together and bethought himself of a little inn, kept by Jews, on a branch road half a verst from where we were spilled. It was the toughest half-mile I ever walked. The mud was up to my calves in places, and sticky as glue. The inn was a rotten shanty, but there were two men on the place, and I sent them out to help Stephanka raise the horse and wagon. I ordered something to eat while I waited, but, as I was washing my hands, I saw a queer creature, neither man nor beast, climb down from the stove ledge, steal up to the table, and snatch the loaf that was laid out for me. The innkeeper, a dried-up old woman with a wry face, caught the creature, beat him, and took the bread from him. She explained that he was an idiot from birth, her only living child, although she had had eight sound, healthy children.’

Sorke shuddered slightly.

‘Poor woman!’ she murmured.

‘It’s no wonder she looks like a witch,’ Yankel resumed, ‘with such a history. It turned me just to look at that monster. He was almost naked, — dressed in a single tattered shirt, — hairy all over like a beast, with wild eyes; and he smelt like a filthy animal.’

‘Och, what a horrid creature! Could he talk?’

‘No more than the beasts. He whined and jabbered when the innkeeper beat him, and suddenly he wrenched himself out of her clutch, and as she tried to grab him again, she caught hold of something he wore on a st ring around his neck, the string broke, and the thing was left in her hand. At that the woman seemed terribly upset, and wailed and wrung her hands. “ It’s a sign,” she moaned, “a bad sign. Something is going to happen.” I asked her what it was she had torn off the idiot’s neck, and she said it was an amulet he had worn since he was a baby.”

Yankel interrupted himself to ask a question.

‘Do you believe in amulets, Sorke?’

‘ Believe in amulets? Of course I do. All sorts of troubles are cured by amulets, and they bring good luck, everybody knows. But they’re getting rare now; the rebbes don’t do such wonders as they used to. The people are too sinful.’

Sorke spoke with the simplicity of the believer. She came of a family of devout Hasidim, who believed in miracles as they believed in the Law of Moses.

‘It may be,’ said Yankel, in answer to her remark. ‘This amulet, now — where do you think it came from?’

Sorke shrugged her shoulders.

‘Do I know? Tell me all about it.’

‘Well, the innkeeper’s sister gave it to the idiot boy when she was dying. She took it from her own neck and gave it to him. She thought it might cure him — make him human.’

‘Where did she get it?’

‘She had it from the Rebbe of Kadino.’

Sorke jumped in her place.

‘From the Rebbe of Kadino!’ she exclaimed, in a reverent undertone. ‘An amulet from the Rebbe of Kadino! Oh, Yankel, if I could only touch it! What did she have it for? Did the innkeeper say?’

‘It did n’t cure the idiot, you see; the innkeeper said he was never any different.’

‘But the Rebbe gave it for something different, I suppose. His amulets never failed. If he were living now, I’d have gone to him long ago.’

Yankel bent close to her.

‘What for, Sorele? what for?’

She flushed, and her eyes fell.

‘For a cure for barrenness,’ she replied in a low voice. ‘ He helped many women.’

Yankel stealthily put his hand into his pocket and drew out a small dark object, which he gently placed on Sorke’s lap.

Her hands unclasped themselves, but remained poised over her lap. She looked up with a white face.

‘The amulet!’ she whispered.

Her husband nodded.

‘It was given her for barrenness. She had been married six years without bearing. She made a pilgrimage to Kadino, got this amulet from the Rebbe, and within the year she had a child.’

They looked at each other in a silence heavy with awe. Through the little dark object lying on Sorke’s lap their prayers were to be answered at last. The parasite superstition which had overgrown the noble tree of the faith of the Ghetto yielded a drop of honey along with its poisonous sap. Yankel and Sorke, sharing between them the token of the sainted Rebbe, tasted a form of ecstasy that only the credulous can know.

Presently Sorke began to murmur, taking up the amulet with reverent fingers, pressing it to her bosom, to her lips.

‘Oh, God, dear God! why are You so good to me? A little child — I shall have a little child! What pious deeds must I do in return for this? I will feed the hungry, I will tend the sick, I will give alms, I will fast and pray. God has answered my petitions.’

And Yankel spoke as tensely as she.

‘ I did so want a child, Sorke. I had got used to wanting — I thought I was resigned. But lately, since — because you are so dear to me, I wanted it more than ever. No matter where I go, I see your face, and still I miss something that belongs to you. I can’t explain it; I’m ashamed of it sometimes — a man to be always thinking of what cannot be! But now, if God wills — What a happiness, Sorele!’

All that might come with the ripening months they would owe to the blessed talisman!

III

A month passed, two, three, four months. They smiled at each other in undiminished hope. Sorke wore the amulet round her neck day and night, except when she made her ritual ablutions. The thing they longed for would surely come to pass. What if they had to wait another month, and another? It was so much more time in which to make their lives pure and holy. They had always been counted among the pious; now they redoubled their acts of devotion and charity. And always they knew that the thing they longed for would come to pass.

And so it did. One day, returning from an absence of eight weeks, Yankel was greeted at the gate by a speechless, tremulous Sorke, who blushed the news to him before they had got indoors. Shimke, the money-lender, who lived in the next house on the right, reported in the market-place that she saw through a crack in the fence how Yankel snatched up the blushing wife and carried her like a baby into the house.

‘No wonder,’ said the mothers of Polotzk, when Sorke’s news was out, ‘no wonder the man went out of his head at the tidings, after waiting so long. Sorke, she will be as one newborn. The poor young thing was worn almost to a shadow, what with pining and fasting and running about from one wise woman to another. There is n’t a remedy she had n’t tried. She was always thinking of the other one, t hey say — Peshe Frede, peace be to her soul! —who went childless to her grave. Well, God took pity on her, and it does one good to think of her joy.’

The months that followed were the happiest in Sorke’s life. Her husband surrounded her with all the comforts that his means could command, and the matrons of the neigborhood watched over her and taught her all their maternal secrets. Yankel engaged a little Gentile girl especially to wait on her, ‘as if she were a queen,’ the women said; and as Sorke’s time drew near, he was unwilling to leave her side, sometimes letting his business suffer rather than spend a night away from home.

’He’s afraid the Messiah will be born in his absence,’ the neighbors laughed, taking note of Yankel’s anxiety; but the hearts of the fathers were with him, remembering the time when they had awaited each his own firstborn; and the prayers of the women were with his wife, as they recalled the first fears and shocks and raptures of motherhood.

One day, finding himself within a few versts of the neglected inn where he had come across the magical amulet, Yankel was moved to go and report the happy effect of the charm. His heart was running over with gratitude to God and benevolence to all the world. He suddenly felt that he had not rewarded the woman sufficiently for the priceless gift of the amulet. He had paid her ten rubles — a fortune in her eyes; but what was ten rubles in return for his blissful expectations?

The old woman was knitting by the window when Yankel’s wagon turned into the yard. Before he had set a foot on the ground, she burst through the door, and ran to meet him with gestures of excitement.

‘Oh, Master Jew, Master Jew!’ she cried, grasping his arm with her two bony hands. ‘You have come — thank God you have come! Every day since you were here I’ve sat by the window watching for you. I did n’t know your name, or where you came from, so I could n’t send you a message. I hoped I would see that peasant boy again who upset you in the ditch, but he did n’t come this way — nobody ever comes this way — it’s a castaway corner — nothing but an accident brought you in the first place. You were lost in the big world, and I could n’t find you.’

Yankel listened to her with amazement. The words came whistling out of her toothless mouth like the wind through a keyhole. Her drawn cheeks were stained purple with excitement.

‘ What’s the matter ? ’ he said, gently disengaging his arm. ‘What did you want with me, that you sat at the window, waiting so?’

‘The amulet — what have you done with the amulet?’

Yankel thought she repented of her bargain.

‘You sold it to me for ten rubles. If that was n’t enough, I’ll give you more. That’s what I came for to-day.’

‘No, no, I don’t want more money,’ the woman protested. ‘See, I have n’t changed the other bill yet.’ She put her hand into her bosom and pulled out a rag tied up into a knot. ‘Here it is — I was afraid to touch it. What have you done with the amulet?’

Her mysterious insistence began to annoy him.

‘It was mine,’ he said, with a touch of impatience, ‘and I did what I wanted with it. You told me it would cure barrenness. I gave it to my wife to wear. We had been married over three years without a child.’

‘And now?’

The woman’s voice was thick with suspense.

‘It was with my wife as with your sister. Thank God, she expects a child. But what ails you, woman?’

The innkeeper had turned ashy pale. She clapped her bony hands together and turned her eyes to heaven.

‘God’s will be done,’ she whispered. ‘It’s too late now. May the Lord save her from all evil.’

Watching her, Yankel felt his heart cont ract with apprehension. He grasped her by the arm, and spoke sternly, almost fiercely.

‘Listen, woman! If you have anything to tell me, out with it. What is it you’re moaning about?’

The innkeeper collected herself.

‘The warning, Master Jew — I forgot to tell you the warning. It was so long ago — my sister’s first child is himself a father now. I forgot about the warning, and you went away and I saw you no more until now.’

Yankel set his teeth and waited for her to work round to the point.

‘The Rebbe said that if it was twins, one of them would die,’ the woman said, chanting the words like a text of Scripture; ‘if it was a boy, all would go well; if it was a girl, the mother might not live to nurse her.’

Yankel turned white under his beard.

‘Lord of all!’ he cried; ’I gave it to my Sorke to wear.’

At sight of his terror, the woman turned comforter.

‘You must have faith, Master Jew,’ she said. ‘What! have you no faith at all? It may be a boy, and then all will be well. My sister — may she rest in peace! — was not afraid to put it on, because she trusted in God.’

‘Did she know?’

‘Sure she did. Am I not telling you that the Rebbe gave her this warning with the amulet? She trusted in God, and He rewarded her. A boy she had — may all Jewish mothers have the like. Everything is in God’s hands.’

But Yankel could not shake off the horror that had seized him. ‘If it is a girl, the mother may not live to nurse her.’ The words repeated themselves in his ear. He climbed back into the wagon and ordered his man to drive to the railroad station as fast as he could. There was a train in an hour. He could be in Polotzk before midnight. He could see Sorke — he could assure himself that she was as well as when he had left her.

The innkeeper stood in the road and watched him drive off.

‘Don’t blame me, Master Jew,’ she called after him. ‘I’ve sat by the window every day watching for you. And you must trust in God. It will be a boy — a boy — a boy! ’

Twenty rods or so below the inn, a wild creature broke through the thicket by the roadside and ran grinning and gibbering across the road, right under the horse’s nose. It was the idiot who had worn the amulet before Sorke. Yankel shuddered and ordered his man to drive faster. The country was peopled with hobgoblins. On every side he saw evil omens.

IV

He did not tell Sorke of his visit to the inn. He kept his fears to himself, and his heart grew heavier as the days went by. He redoubled his attentions to his wife, - watched over her by day, and prayed over her by night. In his inexperience, he saw signs of approaching doom in her growing inactivity and lassitude, which were, indeed, due chiefly to the fact that his attentions left her no opportunity for exertion. She smiled at him from her easy chair, chattered gaily of neighborhood events, or fell into sweet abstraction, her hands serenely folded in her lap.

One evening, as she sat on the edge of her bed plaiting her soft black hair for the night, she watched him arrange her pillows as solicitously as a nurse might have done.

‘Yankel,’ she said, suddenly, ‘what would you do if you woke up some morning and did n’t find me here? You spend all your time taking care of me. What would you do without me?’

He turned pale at her playful words. His voice was hoarse when he spoke.

‘Sorele, don’t talk like that! Why do you have such fancies? I shall always have you — God grant it. I could n’t live without you, Sorele; it’s a sin to say so, but I could n’t.’ He sat down beside her and took her hand. ‘My wife, you are dearer to me than anything else I have, or anything I ever could have.’

Sorke was somewhat awed by his earnestness, but her playfulness was not all spent.

‘You ’ve forgotten something you ’re going to have,’ she said, archly, blushing slightly at her thoughts. ‘You would n’t give that for other things — not even for me, perhaps.’

‘Sorele, you are more to me than the child I hope to have.’

She gazed at him with a sort of reverent wonder, then she sighed.

‘I don’t know why God is so good to me. I feel as if something must happen to us; we are too happy.’

Once more superstitious terror clutched at Yankel’s heart. He had asked too much of God; he might be called upon to part with a portion of his riches, that he might learn humility. He had had more to be thankful for than most men: a happy boyhood, with loving parents and good teachers; a prosperous manhood, and a dignified place in the community. Twice a pious, well-dowered maid was given him to wife. Why was he not content? Why had he asked for what God chose to withhold? In his love for Sorke it had been given him to taste of a bliss he had never dreamed of — whose existence in the world he had not even suspected. It was as if for him alone, of all the men he knew, this exquisite essence of happiness had been distilled out of the common elements of life. And he had asked for more! He had gone meddling with charms for the purpose of thwarting God’s will. What if the Almighty, in his divine displeasure, should chastise him through the thing he valued most of all?

‘Sorele, Sorele!’ pleaded Yankel, pressing her hands to his heart, ‘ I beg of you not to say these things — do not think them even. Pray with me that God will spare you, no matter what else He takes from me. You would be happy with me, would n’t you, even it there were no child?’

‘Why, yes, Yankel, I think I would. Once I used to be very lonely — I wanted children, like other women — but after — lately — Oh, but we’ll always be happy! All of us: you and I and the baby!’

V

The neighborhood was apprised that Sorke’s hour had come, when, early one morning in the autumn, Yankel was seen dashing out of his gateway in a state of dishevelment, making straight for the quarter where Itke, the midwife, lived. Half an hour later he was seen returning, this time in a droshka, standing up all the way, urging the isvostchik to drive faster. The familiar face of the midwife bobbed in the seat behind him.

The news was flashed from house to house. The women neglected their morning tasks, and found excuses to go visiting from one end of the street to the other, exchanging opinions and prophecies as to Sorke’s chances.

‘It’s a little soon,’ it was said in one circle. ‘Sorke hadn’t reckoned to be delivered for another week or so.’

‘ It was a sudden call, as I live,’ said Shimke of the watchful eye. ‘Yankel ran out with his sleeves rolled up and soapsuds in his beard, — did n’t have time to finish washing,—and he was pale as a cloth. And did you see the droshka flinging around the corner? Yankel must have tipped the driver well. Bobe Itke was so shaken that she could n’t finish buttoning her bodice. I guess Yankel pulled her out of bed. God be with her in her need!’ Shimke finished, piously though ambiguously.

‘God be with her!’ echoed the gossips; and one or two applied a corner of their kerchiefs to their eyes.

Before noon there was every sign that Sorke’s case was going badly. Anusha, the little maid, was seen running on many errands, and to shouted inquiries she answered only 1 Bog znayet !’ (God knows!) It was observed that certain vessels, seldom needed by the sprightly mothers of Polotzk, were borrowed from a distant quarter. And then, most ominous of all signs, the well-known carriage of Dr. Isserson, the best physician in Polotzk, drew up before Yankel’s gate, and remained there for hours. Itke, the experienced midwife, who had ushered two generations of babies into Polotzk, despised the doctors with their fussy, elaborate ways, and never called them in except in desperate cases. No wonder that pious old Zelde, who commanded a view of the street from her litt le window, noticing the arrival of Dr. Isserson, dropped her knitting, snatched up her shawl, and hobbled off to the synagogue to pray.

To the synagogue repaired also Yankel, driven thither by Itke, who scolded him for being in the way. It was bad enough to have one man around, she complained, with an unfriendly look at the doctor’s back; men were no good except to pray.

And Yankel prayed, and collected ten men to recite the Psalms with him, and people passing outside the synagogue heard his voice above the rest; and the wailing, pleading tones of it melted every Jewish heart.

One by one the men he had summoned left the synagogue and returned to their vulgar affairs, but Yankel did not notice their going. Wrapped in his praying shawl, he leaned his arms on a lectern by the window and let his soul float away from him. He was a fair scholar, but never before had he opened a sacred book with such overmastering longing to understand. He longed to lose his fears, to give up his will. He cried to the God of Israel, not to secure to him that which he prized, but to fill him with the faith that would make his portion acceptable to him.

‘ Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee.’

Yankel’s voice gathered volume as he chanted, till the Hebrew syllables echoed in every corner of the empty synagogue. The long shadows trooped in, obscuring the polished benches, the carved pulpit in the centre, the faint frescoes on the walk A last sunbeam slanted down from a little window in the women’s gallery, drew a prismatic flash from the crystal chandelier, glinted on the golden fringe of the curtains before the ark, and expired in the smothering shadows.

‘ I will abide in Thy tabernacle forever; I will trust in the covert of Thy wings.'

Yankel’s voice had lost the tremor of passion. His brow was smooth under the shadow of the praying shawl. He closed his eyes and was silent, only his body swayed gently with the melody of the psalm.

The printed page was blurred when he came to himself with a shock, to find a small boy plucking him by the arm.

‘Reb’ Yankel, there’s a Gentile girl outside wants to speak to you.’

Through the gloom of the empty synagogue he took six long strides to the door. Across the yard he flew, the praying shawl swelling like a sail around him, his boots clicking on the paving stones. A small figure was standing in the street, barefoot, silent, gray as the dusk. It was Sorke’s little maid, and her kerchief was pulled far over her face.

‘Anusha!’

Terror and pleading were in his voice.

‘Master, O master! it’s a little boy, and the mistress will be well.’