IN THOSE DAYS
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 THE STORY OF AN OLD MAN 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE HEBREW BY 
 
 GEORGE JESHURUN 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA 
 1915
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1915, 
 
 BY 
 
 THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 THE STORY OF AN OLD MAN 
 I 
 
 When the time drew near for Samuel the 
 Beadle to let his son begin his term of military 
 service, he betook himself to the market, pur- 
 chased a regulation shirt, a knapsack, and a 
 few other things needed by a soldier and he 
 did not forget the main item : he ran and 
 fetched a bottle of liquor. Then he went home. 
 
 And there, in the presence of his neighbors, 
 of whom I had the privilege of being one, he 
 drank a glassful to " long life," and offered 
 another to Rebekah, his good wife. 
 
 " Drink, madam," said he, merrily. At this 
 Rebekah turned up her nose, as if ready to 
 blurt out with, " How often have you seen me 
 drink liquor? " 
 
 5
 
 6 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 Indeed, it was an affront which she would not 
 have passed over in silence at any other time, 
 but she had no heart for an open quarrel just 
 then, when about to part with her son, and 
 was satisfied with a silent refusal. 
 
 " Woman," said Samuel, angrily, " take it, 
 and do as you are told ! " But Rebekah was 
 not impressed by his angry tone, for in fact 
 Samuel was an easy " lord and master." As 
 to his loudness, it was but part of an old habit 
 of his, dating from the days of his own military 
 service, to bully his inferiors and to let those 
 above him in authority bully him. 
 
 " So are they all of his kind," she would 
 often explain to her neighbors. " They just 
 fuss, to blow off 'their tempers, and then one 
 may sit on them." 
 
 Rebekah persisted in her refusal, and Samuel 
 began in a softer tone : 
 
 "But why does it worry you so much?
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 7 
 
 Woman, woman, it is not to Shemad, God 
 forbid, that he is going! " 
 
 At the mention of conversion, Rebekah burst 
 into tears, for Samuel had unintentionally 
 touched her sore spot: there were rumors in 
 the town that her family was not without 
 blemish. 
 
 " Now that you are crying," exclaimed 
 Samuel, thoroughly angry, " you are not only 
 hard-headed, but also silly, simply silly ! * Long 
 of hair but short of sense.' To cry and cry, 
 and not know wherefore ! " With this Samuel 
 turned towards us, and began to plead his case. 
 
 " Have you ever seen such a cry-baby? Five 
 times in her life she filled the world with a hue 
 and cry, when she bore me a child, and every 
 time it was but an empty bubble : five girls she 
 brought me! Then, beginning with the sixth 
 birth, she was fortunate enough to get boys, 
 the real thing. Three sons she gave me as my
 
 8 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 old age was approaching. And now, when she 
 ought to thank Heaven for having been found 
 worthy of raising a soldier for the army, she 
 cries ! Think of it your son enters the army a 
 free man; but I, in my time, well, well, I 
 was taken by force when a mere youngster! " 
 
 Here the old man settled his account with 
 the bottle, and took leave of his crying wife and 
 his good neighbors, and in the company of his 
 son mounted the coach waiting outside, ready 
 to go to H., the capital of the district, where the 
 recruits had to report. 
 
 By special good fortune I was going to H. 
 by the same coach, and so I came to hear the 
 story of old Samuel's life from the beginning 
 till that day. 
 
 It was the rainy season; the roads were 
 muddy, and the horses moved with difficulty. 
 The driver made frequent stops, and whenever 
 the road showed the slightest inclination to go
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 9 
 
 uphill he would intimate that it might be well 
 for us to dismount and walk behind the coach 
 a little. 
 
 The cold drizzle penetrated to our very skin 
 and made our flesh creep. The warmth we had 
 brought with us from the house was evaporat- 
 ing, and with it went the merry humor of the 
 old man. He began to contemplate his son, 
 who sat opposite to him, looking him over up 
 and down. 
 
 The wise " lord and master," who had tried 
 to instruct his wife at home and celebrate the 
 fact of her having reared a soldier for the 
 army, he failed himself to stand the trial: he 
 began to feel the pangs of longing and lone- 
 someness. The imminent parting with his son, 
 to take place on the morrow, seemed to depress 
 him greatly. 
 
 Bent and silent he sat, and one could see that 
 he was lost in a maze of thoughts and emotions,
 
 io IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 which came crowding in upon him in spite of 
 himself. 
 
 I took a seat opposite to him, so that I might 
 enter into conversation with him. 
 
 " Do you remember all that happened to 
 you in those days? " I asked by way of start- 
 ing the conversation. 
 
 He seemed to welcome my question. In 
 that hour of trial the old man was eager to 
 unload his bosom, to share his thoughts with 
 some one, and return mentally to all the land- 
 marks of his own life, till he reached the period 
 corresponding to that into which he was intro- 
 ducing his son. The old man took out his well- 
 beloved short pipe. According to his story it 
 had been a present from his superior officer, 
 and it had served him ever since. He filled 
 the pipe, struck a match, and was enveloped in 
 smoke.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS n 
 
 II 
 
 You ask me whether I remember everything 
 he began from behind the smoke. Why, I 
 see it all as if it had happened yesterday. I do 
 not know exactly how old I was then. I remem- 
 ber only that my brother Solomon became a 
 Bar-Mitzwah at that time. Then there was 
 Dovidl, another brother, younger than Solo- 
 mon, but older than myself; but he had died 
 before that time. I must have been about 
 eleven years old. 
 
 Just then the mothers fell a-worrying: a 
 Catcher was coming to town. According to 
 some he had already arrived. 
 
 At the Heder the boys were telling one 
 another that the Catcher was a monster, who 
 caught boys, made soldiers out of them, and 
 turned them over to the Government, in place 
 of the Jewish grown-ups that were unwilling 
 and unable to serve. And the boys were divided
 
 12 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 in their opinions: some said that the Catcher 
 was a demon, one of those who had been 
 created at twilight on the eve of the Sabbath. 
 Others said that he was simply a " heathen," 
 and some others, that he was an " apostate." 
 Then, there were some who asserted that he 
 was merely a bad Jew, though a learned one 
 nevertheless ; that he wore the regular Jewish 
 costume, the long coat and the broad waistband, 
 and had the Tallis-Koton on his breast, so that 
 the curse of the righteous could not hurt him. 
 According to rumor, he was in the habit of dis- 
 tributing nuts and candy among Jewish boys; 
 and if any one tasted of them, he could not 
 move from the spot, until the Catcher put his 
 hand on him and " caught " him. I happened 
 to overhear a conversation between father and 
 mother, and I gathered from it that I need not 
 fear the Catcher. 
 
 It was a Saturday night, soon after the death
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 13 
 
 of my elder brother Dovidl, within the period 
 of the thirty days' mourning for him. Mother 
 would not be consoled, for Dovidl had been 
 her " very best." 
 
 Three brothers had I. The first-born, Sim- 
 hah, may he rest in peace, had been married 
 long before ; he was the junior Shohet in town, 
 and a candidate for the Rabbinate. Solomon 
 was more learned in the Torah, young though he 
 was, peace be unto him. . . . Well, they are 
 now in the world-of -truth, in the world-to-come, 
 both of them. But Dovidl, had he lived, would 
 have excelled them both. That is the way of 
 the Angel of Death, he chooses the very best. 
 As to myself why deny it? I was a dullard. 
 Somehow my soul was not attuned to the Torah. 
 
 As I said, mother was uttering complaints 
 against Heaven, always crying. Yes, in the 
 matter of tears they are experts. I have 
 pondered over it, and have found it out: fish
 
 i 4 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 were created out of the mud-puddle, and woman 
 out of tears. Father used to scold her mightily, 
 but she did not mind it; and she never ceased 
 bemoaning Dovidl and crying unto Heaven, 
 " who gave the Angel of Death power over 
 him." 
 
 On that night after the Sabbath, when father 
 had extinguished the taper in the dregs of the 
 Havdolah cup, he turned to mother, and said: 
 " Now man born of woman is unwise all his 
 life long. He knows not how to thank for the 
 sorrows that have been sweetened by His 
 mercy, blessed be He ! " 
 
 Mother did not understand, and looked at 
 father questioningly. " The Catcher is in 
 town," explained father. 
 
 " The Catcher ! " shuddered mother. 
 
 " But he takes only Fourths and upwards," 
 said father, reassuringly. 
 
 Fourths, Fifths, etc., those households were 
 called which had four, or five, or more sons.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 15 
 
 " And our household has only three sons at 
 present," continued father. " Do you under- 
 stand, woman? Three sons were left to us, and 
 our household is exempt from military duty. 
 Now do you see the mercy of the Lord, blessed 
 be He? Do you still murmur against Him, 
 blessed be He?" 
 
 So it was in those days. Every Jewish 
 community had to deliver a certain fixed num- 
 ber of recruits to the Government annually. 
 This number was apportioned among the fam- 
 ilies, and every family taxed the households 
 composing it. But not every household had 
 to supply a recruit. A household with a large 
 number of sons secured the exemption of a 
 household with fewer sons. For instance, a 
 household with four sons in it was exempted, 
 if there was a household with five sons to levy 
 from in the same family. And a household 
 of three sons was spared when there was, in the
 
 1 6 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 same family, a household of four sons. And so 
 forth. 
 
 And as father was speaking the old man 
 continued mother contemplated us, as one 
 that escapes from a fire contemplates the saved 
 remnants ; and her eyes overflowed with silent 
 tears. Those were the last tears shed over the 
 grave of Dovidl, and for those tears father had 
 no rebuke. We felt that Dovidl was a saint: 
 he had departed this life to save us from the 
 hand of the Catcher. It seemed to me that the 
 soul of Dovidl was flitting about the room, 
 listening to everything, and noticing that we 
 were pleased that he had died; and I felt 
 ashamed. 
 
 The next day I went to the Heder, some- 
 what proud of myself. I boasted before 
 my mates that I was a Third. The Fourths 
 envied me ; the Fifths envied the Fourths, and 
 all of us envied the Seconds and the only sons.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 17 
 
 So little chaps, youngsters who knew not what 
 their life was going to be, came to know early 
 that brothers, sons of one father, may at times 
 be a source of trouble to one another. 
 
 That was at the beginning of the summer. 
 
 The teachers decided that we remain within 
 the walls of the Heder most of the time, and 
 show ourselves outside as little as possible dur- 
 ing the period of danger. But a decree like that 
 was more than boys could stand, especially in 
 those beautiful summer days. 
 
 Meanwhile the Catcher came to town, and 
 set his eye on the son-in-law of the rich Reb 
 Yossel, peace be unto him. The name of the 
 young man was Avremel Hourvitz a fine, 
 genteel young man. He had run away from 
 his home in Poland and come to our town, and 
 was spending his time at the Klaus studying the 
 Torah. And Reb Yossel, may he rest in peace, 
 had to spend a pile of money before he got
 
 1 8 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 Avremel for his daughter. From the same 
 Polish town came the Catcher, to take Avremel 
 as the recruit of the family Hourvitz due to the 
 Jewish community of his city. When he laid 
 his hand on Avremel, the town was shocked. 
 The rabbi himself sent for the Catcher, and 
 promised to let him have, without any conten- 
 tion, some one else instead of Avremel. Then 
 they began to look for a household with the 
 family name of Hourvitz, and they found my 
 father's. Before that happened I had never sus- 
 pected that my father had anything like a 
 family name. For some time the deal remained 
 a deep secret. But no secret is proof against 
 a mother's intuition, and mother scented the 
 thing. She caught me by the arm I do not 
 know why she picked me out rushed with me 
 to the rabbi, and made it hot for him. 
 . " Is this justice, rabbi? Did I bear and rear 
 children, only to give up my son for the sake of 
 some Avremel ? 1 "
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 19 
 
 The rabbi sighed, cast down his eyes, and 
 argued, that said Avremel was not simply " an 
 Avremel," but a " veritable jewel," a profound 
 Lamdan, a noble-hearted man, destined to 
 become great in Israel. It was unjust to give 
 him away, when there was someone else to take 
 his place. Besides, Avremel was a married 
 man, and the father of an infant child. " Now 
 where is justice ? " demanded the rabbi. But 
 mother persisted. For all she knew, her own 
 sons might yet grow up to become ornaments to 
 Israel . . . And she, too, was observing the 
 ordinances of the Hallah and the Sabbath 
 candles, and the rest of the laws, no less than 
 Avremel's mother. 
 
 More arguments, more tears without argu- 
 ments till the rabbi softened: he could not 
 resist a woman. Then mother took me and 
 Solomon up to the garret, and ordered us not 
 to venture outside.
 
 20 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 Here the old man interrupted himself by a 
 soft sigh, and continued : 
 
 To a great extent it was my own fault, wild 
 boy that I was. I broke my mother's injunc- 
 tion. In the alley, near the house of my parents, 
 there lived a wine-dealer, Bendet by name. 
 Good wine was to be found in his cellar. For 
 this reason army officers and other persons of 
 rank frequented his place, and he was some- 
 what of a favorite with them. In short, though 
 he lived in a mean little alley, those important 
 personages were not averse to calling at his 
 house. That Bendet had an only child, a 
 daughter. She was considered beautiful and 
 educated. I had not known her. In my day 
 they spoke ill of her. Naturally, her father 
 loved her. Is there a father who loves not his 
 offspring? And how much more such a 
 daughter, whom everyone loved. However 
 that may be, one day Bendet's daughter broke
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 21 
 
 away, left her father's house, and renounced 
 her faith may we be spared such a fate ! And 
 many years after her father's death she re- 
 turned to our town, to take possession of her 
 portion of the inheritance. That happened at 
 the time when we were hiding in the garret. 
 The town was all agog : people ran from every 
 street to get a look at the renegade, who came 
 to take possession of a Jewish inheritance. I, 
 too, was seized with a wild desire to get a look 
 at her, to curse her, to spit in her face .... 
 And I forgot all the dangers that surrounded 
 me. 
 
 Young as I was, I considered myself as a 
 Jew responsible for the wayward one. I lost 
 control of myself, and ran out. But after I had 
 been in the street for some time, I was seized 
 with fear of the Catcher. Every stranger I 
 met seemed to me to be a Catcher. I shrank 
 into myself, walked unsteadily hither and
 
 22 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 thither, and did not know how to hide myself. 
 Then a man met me. His large beard and 
 curled side-locks made me think he was a good 
 man. I looked at him imploringly. " What 
 ails you, my boy? " he asked in a soft tone. " I 
 am afraid of the Catcher," said I, tearfully. 
 
 " Whose son are you ? " 
 
 I told him. 
 
 " Then come with me, and I shall hide you, 
 my boy. Don't be afraid. I am your uncle. 
 Don't you recognize me?" 
 
 He took me by the arm, and I went after 
 him. Then I noticed that the children of my 
 neighborhood were eyeing me terror-stricken. 
 The womenfolk saw me, wrung their hands, 
 and lamented aloud. 
 
 " What are they crying about? " I wondered. 
 
 " Do you want some candy? Your uncle has 
 plenty of it," said he, bending over me, as if to 
 protect me. " Or maybe your feet hurt you ?
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 23 
 
 Let your uncle take you on his arms." As soon 
 as I heard " candy," I felt that the man was the 
 Catcher himself, and I tried to break away. 
 But the " uncle " held me fast. Then I began 
 to yell. It was near our house, and the people 
 of our alley rushed towards us, some yelling, 
 some crying, some armed with sticks. Pretty 
 soon I recognized my mother's voice in the 
 mixture of voices and noises. You see, peculiar 
 is the charm of a mother's voice : a knife may be 
 held to one's throat, but the mere sound of 
 mother's voice awakens new courage and begets 
 new hope. Mother made a way for herself, 
 and fell upon the Catcher like a wild beast. 
 She struck, she pinched, she scratched, she 
 pulled his hair, she bit him. But what can a 
 woman do in the line of beating? Nothing! 
 Her neighbors joined her, one, two, three; and 
 all tried hard to take me out of the hands of the 
 Catcher. What can a few women do against
 
 24 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 one able-bodied man? Nothing at all! That 
 happened during the dinner hour. One of our 
 neighbors got the best of the Catcher, a woman 
 who happened rather to dislike me and my 
 mother; they quarreled frequently. Perhaps 
 on account of this very dislike she was not over- 
 excited, and was able to hit upon the right 
 course to take at the critical moment. She went 
 to her house, took in one hand a potful of 
 roasted groats, ready for dinner, and in the 
 other a kettle of boiling water. Unnoticed 
 she approached the Catcher, spilled the hot 
 groats upon his hands, and at the same time she 
 poured the boiling water over them. A wild 
 yell escaped from the mouth of the Catcher 
 and I was free. 
 
 There was no more tobacco in the pipe, and 
 the old man lost his speech. That was the way 
 of Samuel the Beadle ; he could tell his story only 
 from behind the smoke of his pipe, when he
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 25 
 
 did not see his hearers, nor his hearers saw him. 
 In that way he found it easy to put his boyhood 
 before his mind's eye and conjure up the rem- 
 iniscences of those days. Meanwhile the horses 
 had stopped, and let us know that a high and 
 steep hill was ahead of us, and that it was our 
 turn to trudge through the mud. We had to 
 submit to the will of the animals, and we dis- 
 mounted. 
 
 Ill 
 
 After tramping a while alongside the coach, 
 the old man lit his pipe, emitted a cloud of 
 smoke, and continued : 
 
 I do not know what happened then. I cannot 
 tell who caught me, nor the place I was taken 
 to. I must have been in a trance all the while. 
 
 When I awoke, I found myself surrounded 
 by a flock of sheep, in a meadow near the woods. 
 Near me was my brother Solomon ; but I hardly
 
 26 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 recognized him. He wore peasant clothes: a 
 linen shirt turned out over linen breeches and 
 gathered in by a broad belt. I was eyeing my 
 brother, and he was eyeing me, both of us 
 equally bewildered, for I was disguised like 
 himself. 
 
 A little boy, a real peasant boy, was standing 
 near us. He smiled at us in a good-natured, 
 hospitable way. It was the chore-boy of the 
 Jewish quarter. On the Sabbaths of the winter 
 months he kept up the fires in the Jewish houses ; 
 that is why he could jabber a few words of 
 Yiddish. During the summer he took care of 
 the flocks of the peasants that lived in the 
 neighborhood. 
 
 When I awoke, my mother was with us too. 
 She kissed us amid tears, gave us some bread 
 and salt, and, departing, strictly forbade us to 
 speak any Yiddish. " For God's sake, speak no 
 Yiddish," said she, " you might be recognized ! 
 Hide here till the Catcher leaves town."
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 27 
 
 It was easy enough to say, " Speak no Yid- 
 dish " ; but did we know how to speak any other 
 language? 
 
 I saw then that I was in a sort of hiding-place 
 a hiding-place under the open sky ! I realized 
 that I had escaped from houses, garrets, and 
 cellars, merely to hide in the open field between 
 heaven and earth. I had fled from darkness, 
 to hide in broad daylight ! 
 
 Indeed, it was not light that I had to fear. 
 Nor was it the sun, the moon, or the sheep. 
 It was only man that I had to avoid. 
 
 Mother went away and left us under the pro- 
 tection of the little shepherd boy. And he was 
 a good boy, indeed. He watched us to the best 
 of his ability. As soon as he saw any one 
 approach our place, he called out loudly : " No, 
 no ; these boys are not Jewish boys at all ! On 
 my life, they are not ! " 
 
 As a matter of fact, a stranger did happen to
 
 28 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 visit our place ; but he was only a butcher, who 
 came to buy sheep for slaughtering. 
 
 Well, the sun had set, and night came. It 
 was my first night under the open sky. I suf- 
 fered greatly from fear, for there was no 
 Mezuzah anywhere near me. I put my hand 
 under my Shaatnez clothes, and felt my Tzitzis : 
 they, too, seemed to be in hiding, for they 
 shook in my hand. 
 
 Over us the dark night sky was spread 
 out, and it seemed to me that the stars were 
 so many omens whose meaning I could not 
 make out. But I felt certain that they meant 
 nothing good so far as I was concerned. All 
 kinds of whispers, sizzling sounds of the night, 
 reached my ears, and I knew not where they 
 came from. 
 
 Looking down, I saw sparks a-twinkling. I 
 knew they were stars reflected in the near-by 
 stream. But soon I thought it was not the
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 29 
 
 water and the stars : the sheen of the water be- 
 came the broad smile of some giant stretched 
 out flat upon the ground; and the sparks were 
 the twinkling of his eyes. And the sheep were 
 not sheep at all, but some strange creatures 
 moving to and fro, spreading out, and coming 
 together again in knotted masses. I imagined 
 they all were giants bewitched to appear as 
 sheep by day and to become giants again by 
 night. Then I knew too well that the thick, 
 dark forest was behind me; and what doesn't 
 one find in a forest? Is there an unholy spirit 
 that cannot be found there ? Z-z-z - a sud- 
 den sizzling whisper reached my ear, and I be- 
 gan to cry. 
 
 " Why don't you sleep ? " asked the shepherd 
 boy in his broken Yiddish. 
 
 "I am afraid!" 
 
 " What are you afraid of? " 
 
 Of of the woods .
 
 30 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 " Ha ha ha I have good dogs with the 
 flock!" 
 
 I wanted a Mezuzah, some talisman, a pro- 
 tection against evil spirits, and that fool offered 
 me barking dogs! All at once he whistled 
 loudly, and his dogs set up a barking that nearly 
 made me deaf. The flock was panic-stricken. I 
 thought at first that the earth had opened her 
 mouth, and packs of dogs were breaking out 
 from hell. 
 
 The noise the dogs made broke the awful 
 hush of the night, and my fears were somewhat 
 dispelled. 
 
 But there were other reasons why I liked to 
 hear the dogs bark. I was myself the owner of 
 a dog, which I had raised on the sly in my 
 father's house. Imagine the horror of my 
 brother Solomon, who as a real Jewish lad was 
 very much afraid of a dog! 
 
 In that way we spent a few days, hiding under
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 31 
 
 the open sky, disguised in our Shaatnez clothes. 
 Soon enough the time came when my parents 
 had to understand what they would not under- 
 stand when the rabbi wanted to give me up in 
 place of the famous Avremel. For they caught 
 my oldest brother Simhah, may he rest in peace. 
 And Simhah was a privileged person; he was 
 not only the Shohet of the community and a 
 great Lamdan, but also a married man, and 
 the father of four children to boot. Only then, 
 it seems, my parents understood what the rabbi 
 had understood before : that it was not fair to 
 deliver up my brother when I, the ignorant 
 fellow, the lover of dogs, might take his place. 
 A few days later mother came and took us 
 home. As to the rest, others had seen to it. ; 
 
 Here the old man stopped for a while. He 
 was puffing and snorting, tired from the hard 
 walk uphill. Having reached the summit, he 
 turned around, looked downhill, straightened
 
 32 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 up, and took a deep breath. " This is an excel- 
 lent way of getting rid of your tired feeling," 
 said he. "Turn around and look downhill: 
 then your strength will return to you." 
 
 IV 
 
 We had left the coach far behind, and had to 
 wait till it overtook us. Meanwhile I looked 
 downhill into the valley below: it was a ver- 
 itable sea of slush. The teams that followed 
 curs sank into it, and seemed not to be moving 
 at all. The oblique rays of the setting sun, 
 reflected and radiating in every direction, lent 
 a peculiar glitter to the slushy wagons and the 
 broken sheet of mire, as if pointing out their 
 beauty to the darkening sky. So much light 
 wasted, I thought. But on the summit of the 
 hill on which I was standing, the direct rays of 
 the sun promised a good hour more of day- 
 light.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 33 
 
 The old man drew breath, and continued his 
 story : 
 
 Well, I was caught, and put into prison. I 
 was not alone. Many young boys had been 
 brought there. Some were crying bitterly; 
 some looked at their companions wonderingly. 
 We were told that the next day we should be 
 taken away to some place, and that the rabbi 
 wished to come to see us, but was not permitted 
 to enter our prison. 
 
 Yes, a good man was the rabbi, may he rest 
 in peace; yet he was compelled to cheat for 
 once. And when an honest man is compelled 
 to cheat he may outdo the cleverest crook. Do 
 you want to know what the rabbi did ? He dis- 
 guised himself as a peasant, went out, and 
 walked the streets with the rolling gait of a 
 drunkard. The night guards stopped him, and 
 asked him what his business was. " I am a 
 thief," said the rabbi. Then the guards
 
 34 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 arrested him, and put him into the prison with 
 us. 
 
 In the darkness of that night the rabbi never 
 ceased talking to us, swallowing his own tears 
 all the while. He told us the story of Joseph 
 the righteous. It had been decreed in Heaven, 
 said the rabbi, that his brethren should sell 
 Joseph into slavery. And it was the will of the 
 Almighty that Joseph should come to Egypt, 
 to show the Egyptians that there is only one 
 God in Heaven, and that the Children of Israel 
 are the chosen people. 
 
 [Then the rabbi examined us : Did we know 
 our Modeh-Ani by heart? Did we know our 
 Shema ? 
 
 He told us that we should be taken very, very 
 far away, that we should be away many, many 
 years, and should become soldiers when grown 
 up. Then he warned us never to eat of any 
 food forbidden by the Jewish law, and never
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 35 
 
 to forget the God of Israel and our own people, 
 even if they tore our flesh with thorns. He 
 told us also the story of the Ten Martyrs, who 
 sacrificed their lives to sanctify the God of 
 Israel. He told us of the mother and her 
 seven children that were killed for having re- 
 fused to bow before idols; and he told us many 
 more such things. All those saints and 
 martyrs, he said, are now in Paradise, enjoying 
 the bliss of the Divine Presence. That night 
 I really envied those saints; I longed with all 
 my heart to be forced to bow to idols, to have 
 to withstand all sorts of trials, so as to enjoy, 
 after my death, the bliss of the Divine Presence 
 in Paradise. 
 
 Many more stories the rabbi told us; many 
 more words of warning, encouragement, and 
 praise came from his lips, till I really believed 
 I was the one whom God had picked out from 
 among my equals, to be put through great trials 
 and temptations. . . .
 
 3 6 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 Morning came, and the guard entered the 
 prison. Then the rabbi turned towards us, and 
 said: " Lambs of the God of Israel, we have 
 to part now : I am going to be lashed and im- 
 prisoned for having entered this place by a trick, 
 and you will be taken into exile, to undergo 
 your trials ! I may hardly expect to be found 
 worthy of surviving till you return. But there, 
 in the world-of-truth, we shall surely meet. 
 May it be the will of God that I may have no 
 reason to be ashamed of you there, before Him 
 and His angels, in Heaven ! " 
 
 We parted, and the words of the rabbi sank 
 deep into my heart. 
 
 Then they began dumping us into wagons. 
 The obstreperous boys, who tried to run away, 
 were many of them bound with ropes and 
 thrown into the wagon. Of course, we all 
 howled. 
 
 I did not hear my own voice, nor the voice of
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 37 
 
 my neighbor. It was all one great howl. A 
 crowd of men and women followed our wagon 
 the parents of the boys. Very likely they 
 cried, too; but we could not hear their voices. 
 The town, the fields, heaven and earth, seemed 
 to cry with us. 
 
 I caught sight of my parents, and my heart 
 was filled with something like anger and hatred. 
 I felt that I had been sacrificed for my brother. 
 
 My mother, among many other mothers, 
 approached the wagon, looked at me, and 
 apparently read my thoughts : she fainted away, 
 and fell to the ground. The accident held up 
 the crowd, which busied itself with reviving my 
 mother, while our wagon rolled away. 
 
 My heart was filled with a mixture of anger, 
 pity, and terror. In that mood of mixed feel- 
 ings I parted from my parents. 
 
 We cried and cried, got tired, and finally be- 
 came still from sheer exhaustion. Presently a
 
 38 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 noise reached our ears, something like the yell- 
 ing of children. We thought it was another 
 wagonload of boys like ourselves. But soon we 
 found out our mistake : it was but a wagonload 
 of sheep that were being taken to slaugh- 
 ter. . . . 
 
 Of course, we ate nothing the whole of that 
 day, though the mothers had not failed to pro- 
 vide us with food. Meanwhile the sun had set; 
 it got dark, and the boys, who had been bound 
 with ropes, were released by the guard: he 
 knew they would not attempt to escape at that 
 time. We fell asleep, but every now and then 
 one of the boys would wake up, crying, quietly 
 at first, then louder and louder. Then another 
 would join him; one more, and yet one more, 
 till we all were yelling in chorus, filling the 
 night air with our bitter cries. Even the guard 
 could not stand it; he scolded us, and be- 
 labored us with his whip. That crying of ours
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 39 
 
 reminds me of what we read in Lamentations : 
 " Weeping she hath wept in the night. . . ." 
 Morning came, and found us all awake : we 
 were waiting for daylight. We believed it 
 would bring us freedom, that angels would 
 descend from Heaven, just as they had de- 
 scended to our father Jacob, to smite our guard 
 and set us free. At the same time, the rising 
 sun brought us all a feeling of hunger. We 
 began to sigh, each and every one of us sepa- 
 rately. But the noise we made did not amount 
 even to the barking of a few dogs or the cawing 
 of a few crows. That is what hunger can do. 
 And when the guard had distributed among us 
 some of the food we had brought with us, we 
 ate it with relish, and felt satisfied. At the 
 same time we began to feel the discomfort we 
 were causing one another, cooped up as we were 
 in the wagon. I began to complain of my 
 neighbor, who was sitting on my legs. He
 
 40 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 claimed that I was pressing against him with 
 my shoulder. We all began to look up to the 
 guard, as if expecting that he could or would 
 prevent us from torturing one another. 
 
 Still I had some fun even on that day of 
 weeping. I happened to turn around, and 
 I noticed that Barker, my dog, was running 
 after our wagon. 
 
 " Too bad, foolish Barker," said I, laughing 
 at him in spite of my heartache. " Do you 
 think I am going to a feast? It is into exile that 
 I am going; and what do you run after me 
 for? " 
 
 This made old Samuel laugh; he laughed 
 like a child, as if the thing had just happened 
 before his eyes, and as if it were really comical. 
 Meanwhile our coach had reached the top of 
 the hill; we jumped into our seats, and pro- 
 ceeded to make one another uncomfortable. 
 
 The old man glanced at his son, who was
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 41 
 
 sitting opposite to him. It was a loving and 
 tender look, issuing from under long shaggy 
 eyebrows, a beautiful, gentle, almost motherly 
 look, out of accord with the hard-set face of an 
 irritable and stern father. 
 
 The old man made his son's seat comfortable 
 for him, and then fell silent. 
 
 V 
 
 I am going to pass over a long time re- 
 sumed the old man later. There was much 
 traveling and many stops; much tramping on 
 foot, with legs swollen ; but all that has nothing 
 to do with the subject. 
 
 Once in a while our guard would get angry 
 at us, curse us bitterly, and strike us with his 
 whip. " You cursed Jews," he would say, " do 
 I owe you anything that I should suffer so much 
 on your account, and undergo all the hardships 
 of travel?"
 
 42 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 Indeed, there was a good deal of truth in 
 what he said. For, willingly or unwillingly, 
 we did give him much trouble. Had we died, 
 say the year before, or even at that very 
 moment, he would not have been put to the 
 necessity of leading a crowd of half-dumb boys. 
 He would not have had to stand the hardships 
 of travel, and would not have been compelled 
 to listen to the wailings of children torn from 
 the arms of their parents. Or do you think it 
 is agreeable to feel that little children consider 
 you a hard and cruel man? When I grew up 
 and served in the army myself, and had people 
 below me in age and position under my com- 
 mand, I came to understand the troubles of our 
 guard; so that now, after having gone through 
 many experiences, after I have passed, as they 
 say, through fire and water, I may confess that 
 I bear no malice towards all those at whose 
 hands I suffered. There are many ex-Canton-
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 43 
 
 ists who cannot forget the birch-rod, for in- 
 stance. Well, so much is true : for every mis- 
 step, for every sign of disobedience a whip- 
 ping was due. If one of us refused to kneel in 
 prayer before the crucifix; if one of us refused 
 to eat pork; if one of us was caught mumbling 
 a Hebrew prayer or speaking Yiddish, he was 
 sure to get a flogging. Twenty, thirty, forty, 
 or even full fifty lashes were the punishment. 
 But, then, is it conceivable that they could have 
 treated us any other way? Why, hundreds of 
 Jewish children that did not understand a word 
 of Russian had been delivered into the hands of 
 a Russian official that did not understand a 
 word of Yiddish. He would say, Take off my 
 boots, and the boy would wash his hands. He 
 would say, Sit down, and the boy would stand 
 up. Were we not like dumb cattle? It was 
 only the rod that we understood well. And the 
 rod taught us to understand our master's orders 
 by the mere expression of his eyes.
 
 44 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 Then many of the ex-Cantonists still remem- 
 ber with horror the steam-bath they were com- 
 pelled to take. " The chamber of hell," they 
 called the bath. At first blush, it would really 
 seem to have been an awful thing. They would 
 pick out all the Cantonists that had so much as 
 a scratch on their bodies or the smallest sign 
 of an eruption, paint the wounds with tar, and 
 put the boys, stripped, on the highest shelf in 
 the steam-bath. And below was a row of at- 
 tendants armed with birch-rods. The kettle 
 was boiling fiercely, the stones were red-hot, and 
 the attendants emptied jars of boiling water 
 ceaselessly upon the stones. The steam would 
 rise, penetrate every pore of the skin, and 
 sting! sting! enter into the very flesh. The 
 pain was horrible ; it pricked, and pricked, and 
 there was no air to breathe. It was simply 
 choking. If the boy happened to roll down, 
 those below stood ready to meet him with the 
 rods.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 45 
 
 All this is true. At the same time, was it 
 mere cruelty? It is very simple : we were a lot 
 of Jewish lads snatched from the arms of our 
 mothers. On the eve of every Sabbath our 
 mothers would take us in hand, wash us, comb 
 our hair, change our underwear, and dress us 
 in our Sabbath clothes. All at once we were 
 taken into exile. Days, weeks, nay, months, we 
 passed in the dust of the roads, in perspiration 
 and dirt, and sleeping on the ground. Our 
 underwear had not been changed. No water 
 had touched our bodies. So we became afflicted 
 with all kinds of eruptions. That is why we 
 had to pass through what we called " the cham- 
 ber of hell." And this will give you an idea of 
 the rest. 
 
 To make a long story short : there were many 
 of us, and we were distributed in various places. 
 Many of the boys had taken ill ; many died on 
 the road. The survivors were distributed
 
 46 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 among the peasants, to be brought up by them 
 till they reached the age of entering the army. 
 I was among the latter. Many months, maybe 
 even years, I passed in knocking about from 
 village to village, from town to town, till, at 
 last, I came into the joint possession of a certain 
 Peter Semionovich Khlopov and his wife Anna 
 Petrovna. My master was neither old nor 
 young; he was neither a plain peasant nor a 
 nobleman. He was the clerk of the village. 
 In those days that was considered a genteel 
 occupation, honorable and well-paid. He had 
 no sons, but he had one daughter, Marusya by 
 name. She was then about fourteen years old, 
 very good-looking, gay, and rather wild. 
 
 According to the regulations, all the Can- 
 tonists in the village had to report daily for 
 military drill and exercise on the drill grounds 
 before the house of the sergeant. He lived in 
 the same village. At the request of my patron
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 47 
 
 Khlopov I was excused from the daily drill, 
 and had to report but once a week. You see, 
 Peter expected to derive some benefit from me 
 by employing me about the house and in the 
 field. 
 
 Now it was surely through the merits of my 
 ancestors that I happened to be placed in the 
 household of Peter Khlopov. Peter himself 
 spent but little of his time at home. Most of 
 the time he was at the office, and his free 
 moments he liked to spend at the tavern, which 
 was owned by the only Jew in the village, " our 
 Moshko " the Khlopovs used to call him. But 
 whenever he happened to be at home, Peter was 
 very kind to me, especially when he was just a 
 little tipsy. Perhaps he dreamt of adopting me 
 as his son : he had no sons of his own. And he 
 tried to make me like military service. '* When 
 you grow up," he used to say, " you will become 
 an officer, and wear a sword. Soldiers will
 
 48 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 stand at attention before you, and salute you. 
 You will win distinction in battle, and be found 
 worthy of being presented to the Czar." He 
 also told me stories of Russian military life. 
 By that time I had learned some Russian. They 
 were really nice stories, as far as I could under- 
 stand them; but they were made nicer yet by 
 what I could not understand of them. For then 
 I was free to add something to the stories my- 
 self, or change them according to my own fancy. 
 If you are a lover of stories, take the advice of 
 a plain old man like myself. Never pay any 
 attention to stories in which everything has 
 been prepared from the very start, and you can 
 tell the end as soon as you begin to read them 
 or listen to them. Such stories make one yawn 
 and fall asleep. Stories of this kind my daugh- 
 ter reads to me once in a while, and I always 
 
 
 fall asleep over them. Stories are good only 
 when told the way Khlopov used to tell them to 
 me.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 49 
 
 But that is all irrelevant. In short, Khlopov 
 was kind to me. 
 
 As to Anna, she was entirely different. She 
 was close-mouthed, ill-tempered, and a great 
 stay-at-home. She never visited her neighbors, 
 and they, in turn, called on her very rarely. In 
 the village she was spoken of as a snob and a 
 hypocrite. Peter was afraid of her as of the 
 plague, especially in his sober hours. All her 
 power lay in her eyes. When that strong man 
 he who had the whole village in the palm of 
 his hand felt her eye fixed on him, his strength 
 left him. It seemed as if some devil were ready 
 to jump out of that eye and turn the house 
 topsyturvy. You fellows are mere youngsters, 
 you have seen nothing of the world yet; but 
 take it from me, there are eyes that seem quite 
 harmless when you first look into them. But 
 just try to arouse their temper : you will see a 
 hellish fire spring up in them. Have you ever
 
 50 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 looked into my Rebekah's eyes ? Well, beware 
 of eyes. 
 
 The look Anna gave me when I first entered 
 her house promised me nothing good. She 
 hated me heartily. She never called me by my 
 own name. She called me " Zhid " all the time, 
 in a tone of deep hatred and contempt. 
 
 Among the orders the Cantonists had to 
 obey were the following: to speak no Yiddish; 
 to say no Jewish prayer; to recite daily a certain 
 prayer before the image of the Virgin and be- 
 fore the crucifix, and not to abstain from non- 
 kosher food. 
 
 With regard to all injunctions except the last, 
 Anna was very strict with me. But she was 
 not very particular as to the last injunction. 
 Out of sheer stinginess she fed me on bread and 
 vegetables, and that in the kitchen. Once she 
 did offer me some meat, and I refused to touch 
 it Then she got very angry, flew into a temper,
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 51 
 
 and -decided to complain to the sergeant. But 
 Peter did not let her be so cruel. " Let him 
 grow up, he will know better," said Peter, wav- 
 ing his hand at me. 
 
 Then Anna made up her mind to force me 
 to eat forbidden meat. But I was obstinate. 
 And she decided once more to complain to the 
 sergeant. Just at that time another Cantonist 
 had been found guilty of some offense. He 
 belonged to the same village; his name was 
 Jacob. I did not know him at that time. His 
 patron complained that Jacob persisted in recit- 
 ing Hebrew prayers, and that he abstained 
 from meat. Jacob was condemned to twenty 
 lashes with rods. An order was issued that all 
 Cantonists should assemble to witness the flog- 
 ging of the offender. 
 
 In the course of time we got used to such 
 sights; but the first time we were terribly 
 shocked. Just imagine : a lad of about fifteen is
 
 52 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 stripped, put on the ground face downwards; 
 one man sits on his head, and another on his feet. 
 Two men are put on either side of him, each 
 with a bundle of birch-rods in his hand. Ten 
 times each of them has to strike him with the 
 rods, to make up the twenty lashes. I looked at 
 the face of the culprit : it was as white as chalk. 
 His lips were moving. I thought he was recit- 
 ing the prayer: " And He, the Merciful, will 
 forgive sin, and will not destroy . . . ." Up 
 went the rods, down they went : a piercing cry 
 .... blood .... flaps of loose skin .... 
 cries .... " one, two, three " . . . . again 
 cries .... sudden silence .... more cries 
 .... again silence . . . . " four, five " . . . . 
 "stop!" 
 
 Because the culprit fainted, the sergeant in 
 the goodness of his heart divided the punish- 
 ment into two parts. Jacob was carried off to 
 the hospital, and it was put down in the book
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 53 
 
 that he was to get ten more lashes after his 
 recovery. 
 
 I went home. 
 
 Had Anna given me a piece of pork to eat 
 that evening, I do not know what I should have 
 done. 
 
 That night I saw the old rabbi in my dream. 
 He was standing before me, with bowed head 
 and tears dropping from his eyes 
 
 I do not remember the way Marusya treated 
 me at first. But I do remember the look she 
 gave me when I first entered her father's house. 
 There are trifling matters that one remembers 
 forever. Hers was a telltale look, wild and 
 merry. It is hard to describe it in words as 
 if she wanted to say, " Welcome, friend! You 
 did well in coming here. I need just you to 
 pass my leisure hours with me 1 " And she 
 really needed someone like myself, for she 
 never associated with the children of the village.
 
 54 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 The beautiful lively girl used to have her fits of 
 the blues. Then it was impossible to look at 
 her face without pitying her. At such times 
 her mother could not get a word out of her, and 
 the whole expression of her face was changed to 
 such an extent that she seemed to have aged 
 suddenly. She would look the very image of 
 her mother then. And a peculiar expression 
 would steal over her face, which estranged her 
 from other people, and perhaps brought her 
 nearer to me. During those fits of despondency 
 she was sure to follow me if I happened to leave 
 the room and go outside. She would join me 
 and spend hour after hour in childish prattle 
 with me, and her merriment and wildness knew 
 no limits. Little by little I got used to her, and 
 felt, in turn, a longing for her company during 
 my own fits of lonesomeness. 
 
 The day after I had witnessed Jacob's pun- 
 ishment I felt miserable. I was restless and
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 55 
 
 excitable, and did not know what to do with 
 myself. I thought my heart would burst within 
 me. I asked myself all kinds of questions: 
 What am I doing here ? What did I come here 
 for? What are all those people to me? As if 
 I had come there only the day before, and of 
 my own free will. . . . 
 
 Marusya looked sharply at me. Very likely 
 she recognized that something was worrying 
 me. I felt a -desire to share my feelings with 
 her. I got up and walked out into the garden 
 behind the house. In a moment she followed 
 me. I made a clean breast of it, and told her 
 all I had had to witness the day before. 
 
 She listened, shivering, and asked in a tremu- 
 lous voice : 
 
 " And what did they beat him for? " 
 
 " He said a Hebrew prayer, and refused to 
 eat meat." 
 
 " And why did he refuse to eat meat? "
 
 56 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 " It is forbidden." 
 
 "Forbidden? Why?" 
 
 I was silent. 
 
 She also became silent ; then she laid her hand 
 on me, and said with her usual merriment: 
 
 " They will not beat you." 
 
 " How do you know? " 
 
 " The sergeant is a good friend of ours." 
 
 " But if your mother should complain about 
 me?" 
 
 " Then I shall go in your stead, if they should 
 decide to switch you." 
 
 She laughed heartily at her own suggestion. 
 Her laughter made me laugh, too; we both 
 laughed, and laughed without knowing why. 
 And in a mood completely changed I returned 
 to the house. After that I felt very near to the 
 girl. 
 
 Well, time passed, months and years : I lost 
 track of them. But I do remember that the
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 57 
 
 time had come when I knew enough Russian 
 to make myself understood, was fit for any 
 kind of work about the house and in the field, 
 and could give my patron entire satisfaction. 
 
 One day, I remember, I tried very hard to 
 have my work well and promptly done, so as to 
 earn, for once, the good-will of Anna herself. I 
 felt a longing for the friendly smile of a mother. 
 But Anna kept going in and out, and did not 
 pay the least attention to me. I was sitting 
 on the bench outside the house alone. My dog 
 was lying at my feet, looking at me very in- 
 tently. His eyes seemed to be full of tears. 
 And let me tell you by the way, his lot in the 
 house was entirely different from mine. When 
 he first entered Peter's courtyard, the dogs met 
 him with howls. He tried to find shelter in the 
 kitchen, but was chased out with sticks. 
 ' Where did that tramp come from?" won- 
 dered the people. Then my Barker saw that he
 
 58 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 could expect no charity from the people, and he 
 put his trust in his own teeth. He stood up 
 bravely, and fought all the dogs of the house- 
 hold till blood flowed. Then only did the mas- 
 ters of the house appreciate his doggish virtues 
 and accomplishments. They befriended him, and 
 allowed him his rations. So my Barker saved 
 his skin. Yet his lot did not seem to please him. 
 He recognized, by some peculiar dog-sense, 
 that I, his fellow in exile, was unhappy myself 
 and sorry for him too. He felt that somehow 
 his own days of prosperity would not last long. 
 Whenever I sat about lonely and moping, he 
 would stretch himself at my feet, and look 
 straight into my eyes, with an expression of 
 earnestness and wonderment, as if he wanted 
 to ask me, How is that, why don't you fight for 
 your rights the way I did ? 
 
 Presently Anna came out, shot a glance at 
 me, and said:
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 59 
 
 " Well, now, there is the lazy Zhid sitting 
 idle, and I have to work and prepare meals for 
 him, so that he may find everything ready! " 
 I got up, and began to look around for some- 
 thing to do. 
 
 " Go, catch the little pig and bring it over 
 here," ordered Anna. 
 
 The day before I had overheard her say that 
 it was time to kill the little pig. I did not relish 
 the job by any means. I felt sorry for the 
 porkling: mere pig though it was, it had after 
 all grown up in our house. And it was hard 
 on me to have a hand in the affair. But one 
 angry word of Anna's set me a-going. In a 
 moment my hand was on the animal, which 
 trusted me and believed in me implicitly. Then 
 Anna handed me a rope to bind it. I did as 
 she wanted; the pig started to squeal and 
 squeak horribly. To me it sounded like " Zhid, 
 Zhid, is that the way to treat me? "
 
 60 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 Then Anna handed me a knife, and showed 
 me where to make the cut. . . . The pig 
 began to bleed fearfully, gurgling, and choking 
 with his own blood. Forthwith Anna ordered 
 wood to be brought, a fire to be kindled, and 
 the pig to be put upon it. I did all as I had 
 been ordered. My dog was watching me in- 
 tently, greatly bewildered ; the pig groaned and 
 groaned; the flames licked his body and em- 
 braced it and my dog was barking and yelp- 
 ing away up into the sky. 
 
 That night I dreamt that my brother the 
 Shohet and I were on trial in Heaven before 
 the seat of judgment, with various animals 
 complaining against us. Only clean fowl, such 
 as geese, pigeons, and the like were complain- 
 ing against my brother, and they all pleaded 
 in clear, good Hebrew, saying, "Was it for 
 your own consumption that you killed us all ? " 
 .... But it was only the pig that complained
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 61 
 
 against me, and it pleaded in screeches and 
 grunts that nobody could understand. . . . 
 
 The next morning Anna got up early, and 
 made me stand before the ikon of the Virgin and 
 recite a certain prayer. At dinner she seated me 
 alongside of Peter, gave me some roast pork, 
 and looked sharply at me. I guess, while mak- 
 ing all those preparations, Anna had only one 
 thing in mind: to put Peter up against me while 
 he was drunk. I took fright, and began to 
 chew away at the pork. But then the screeches 
 and the grunts of the pig rang in my ears, and 
 I thought they came right from within my in- 
 sides; I wondered how they could listen to all 
 that, and yet eat the pork in perfect comfort. 
 Suddenly a lump in my throat began to choke 
 me. . . . Nausea, retching .... and some- 
 thing happened to me: I vomited everything 
 out, right on the table. Everybody jumped 
 away from the table in disgust and anger. I 
 
 5
 
 62 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 met Marusya's eye, and was ashamed to look 
 into it. Anna got up, boiling with rage, took 
 me by the ear, and pulled me outside : " Get out 
 of here, you dirty Zhid; and don't you dare 
 enter my house any more ! " 
 
 Well, she chased me out. Peter and Marusya 
 kept quiet. Thoroughly miserable, I dropped 
 down on the bench behind the house; my dog 
 stretched himself out on the ground at my feet 
 and looked into my eyes. Then I began to talk 
 to my fellow in misfortune : " Do you hear, 
 doggie, we have been chased out. . . . What 
 does that mean ? Did we come here of our own 
 free will ? It is by force that we were brought 
 here; so what sense is there in chasing us out? " 
 
 And I thought my dog understood me; a 
 sound came from the depths of his throat, and 
 died away there. Then a thought began to 
 haunt me : Maybe it is really time to run away. 
 If they run after me and overtake me, I shall
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 63 
 
 simply say that my patron chased me out of his 
 house. And the thought, Home! to your 
 parents! took possession of me, and tortured 
 me ceaselessly. Said I to myself: "If they 
 chase me out, I am certainly free ! " But then, 
 just see the power of the birch-rod: I knew 
 well that much time would pass before my 
 patron would notice my absence ; and before the 
 sergeant was informed, and people were dis- 
 patched to pursue me, more time would pass. 
 Then I should be far away from the place. By 
 that time I was quite hardened : I was not afraid 
 to hide in the woods; devils and evil spirits I 
 did not fear any more. I had learned well 
 enough that no devil will ever trouble a man 
 as much as one human being can trouble an- 
 other. And yet, when I remembered the swish 
 of the rods over the naked flesh, the spurting 
 blood, the loose flaps of skin, and the futile 
 outcries, I was paralyzed with fear. No, it was
 
 64 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 not really fear: it was a sort of submissive 
 adoration. Had a birch-rod been lying near 
 me, I should have kissed it with fear and re- 
 spect. It is hard for me to explain to you. 
 You youngsters are not capable of under- 
 standing. 
 
 And as I was sitting there, full of gloomy 
 thoughts, I did not notice that the sun had set, 
 and night had come. It got so dark that I 
 could not see my dog lying at my feet. Sud- 
 denly I felt something touch me and pass lightly 
 over my hair. I thought it was an ant or a night 
 moth, and I raised my hand to chase it away. 
 Then it changed its place, and I felt it at the 
 nape of my neck. I tried to catch the thing 
 that was making my neck itch, and caught a 
 hand, soft and warm. I shuddered and started 
 back: before me was Marusya, bending over 
 me. I wanted to get up, but she put her hands 
 on me heavily, sat down at my side, all the while 
 pressing my hand between hers.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 65 
 
 " Why are you sitting here ? " she asked. 
 
 " Didn't your mother chase me out? " 
 
 " That is nothing. Don't you know her 
 temper? That is her way." 
 
 " She keeps nagging at me all the time, and 
 calls me nothing but Zhid, Zhid." 
 
 " Andwhatof it? Aren't you a Jew ? Should 
 I feel insulted if some one were to call me 
 Christian?!" 
 
 I had nothing to say. And it dawned upon 
 me at that moment that I was really insulting 
 myself by objecting to being called Zhid. True, 
 Anna meant to jeer at me and insult me; but 
 did it depend on her alone? 
 
 " And what are you going to do now ? " asked 
 Marusya. 
 
 " I want to run away." 
 
 " Without telling me ? " 
 
 She peered into my face, and I felt as if two 
 streams of warmth had emptied themselves into
 
 66 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 me. My eyes had become somewhat accus- 
 tomed to the darkness, and I could discern every 
 movement of her body. A delicate smile was 
 playing around her mouth, and my feeling of 
 despondency was giving way before it. I felt 
 that after all I had a friend in the house, a 
 good, loving, and beautiful friend. 
 
 I shuddered and broke out into tears. Then 
 she began to play caressingly with my hair and 
 pat me on my neck and face. She did well to 
 let me have my cry out. By and by I felt re- 
 lieved. She wanted to withdraw her hand, but 
 then I held it fast. 
 
 " So you were going to run away, and that 
 without my knowledge? " said she. 
 
 " No," I said with a deep sigh. 
 
 " And if I should ever call you Zhid, will 
 you be angry with me? " 
 
 " No," answered I, thoroughly vanquished. 
 
 " Well, then you are a dear boy, and I like 
 you!"
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 67 
 
 I felt the touch of soft, warm lips on my 
 neck .... I closed my eyes, that the dark 
 night sky and the shining stars might not see 
 me. And when I recognized what had hap- 
 pened to me, I felt ashamed. Marusya dis- 
 appeared, and soon returned with a bag in her 
 hand. 
 
 " Papa said you should go out with the 
 horses for the night. Here is some food in the 
 bag. Take it and go out." 
 
 This she shot out quickly, and in a tone of 
 authority, as befits the daughter of the patron, 
 and as if what had passed between us were 
 nothing but a dream. 
 
 " Going out for the night " was a peculiar 
 custom. You can have no idea of what it 
 meant The logic of it was this: The cattle 
 that had been worked the whole of the day 
 were, to be sure, earning their fodder for the 
 day. And the owners felt under obligation
 
 68 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 and necessity to feed them during their working 
 hours. But how about the night, when the 
 animals rested, and did no work? Where 
 should the fodder for the night time come 
 from? So the custom developed of letting the 
 animals browse in some neighbor's meadow 
 during the night. That was cheaper. But that 
 neighbor also had cattle; he, too, had horses 
 that did not earn their feed during the night. 
 Do you know what that neighbor did? He did 
 the same. He, too, sent out his horses stealth- 
 ily, into his neighbor's meadow. So, in the 
 long run, every one had his cattle browse 
 secretly in some neighbor's meadow, and all 
 were happy. But when the trespassing shep- 
 herd happened to be caught poaching, he got a 
 whipping. And yet, strictly speaking, it was 
 not stealing; it was a mere usage. The land- 
 owners seemed to have agreed beforehand: 
 "If you happen to catch my shepherd poach-
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 69 
 
 ing, you may whip him, provided you do not 
 object if I give a whipping to your shepherd 
 on a similar occasion." In spite of all this I 
 rather liked " going out for the night." I loved 
 those nights in the open field. When the moon 
 gave but little light, and one could see but a 
 few steps away, I forgot my immediate sur- 
 roundings, and my imagination was free! I 
 would peer into the open sky, would bring be- 
 fore my mind's eye father and mother and all 
 who were dear to me, and would feel near to 
 them ; for the sky that spread over all of us was 
 the very same. I could imagine my father cele- 
 brating the new moon with a prayer. I could 
 imagine my mother watching for the same star 
 I was looking at; I could imagine that we were 
 really looking at the same spot. . . . Then 
 tears would come into my eyes. My mother, I 
 would think, was crying, too. And the night 
 listened to me, and the stars listened to me. . . .
 
 70 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 The crickets chirped, and if I chose, I could 
 believe they shared my sorrows with me, and 
 were sighing over my fate. . . . 
 
 Idle fancy, nonsense, you think; but when 
 one has nothing real to look up to, dreams are 
 very sweet. A light breeze would steal over 
 me, refresh me, and bring me new hope; and 
 I trusted I should not be a prisoner always, 
 the day of my release would surely come. At 
 such happy moments I would fall asleep gazing 
 at the stars. And if the sudden whip of the 
 landowner did not put an end to my dreams, I 
 would dream away, and see things no language 
 could describe. 
 
 Well, I took the bag and led the horses out 
 into the open field. But that time, out of sheer 
 spite or for some other reason, I did not go 
 into our neighbor's field, but descended right 
 into the valley that my patron had left lying 
 fallow, and stretched myself upon the soft grass 
 of the hospitable turf.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 71 
 
 That night I longed to bring father and 
 mother before my mind's eye and have an 
 imaginary talk with them. But I did not suc- 
 ceed. Instead, the figure of the old rabbi 
 hovered before my eyes. It seemed to me that 
 he was looking at me angrily, and telling me 
 the story of Joseph the righteous : how he lived 
 in the house of Potiphar, and ate nothing but 
 vegetables. 
 
 But when I reminded myself of Joseph the 
 righteous, I felt my heart sink at the thought of 
 what Marusya had done to me. I could not 
 deny that the good looks of the Gentile girl 
 were endearing her to me, that out of her hands 
 I would eat pork ten times a day, and that in 
 fact I myself was trying to put up a defense of 
 her. I took all the responsibility on myself. I 
 was ready to believe that she did not seek my 
 company, but that it was I who called her to 
 myself. I was a sinner in my own estimation,
 
 72 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 and I could not even cry. Then it seemed to 
 me that the sky was much darker than usual, 
 and the stars did not shine at all. With such 
 thoughts in my mind I fell asleep. 
 
 I awoke at the sound of voices. Some one is 
 crying, I thought. The sound seemed near 
 enough. It rose and rose and filled the valley. 
 It made me shudder. The soft, plaintive chant 
 swelled and grew louder, as if addressed to me. 
 It gripped my very heart. I stood up all in a 
 shiver, and started to walk in the direction of 
 the sound. But around me, up and down, on 
 every side, was total darkness. The moon had 
 set long ago. I moved away only a few steps 
 from the horses, and could not make them out 
 any more. By and by I could distinguish some 
 words, and I recognized the heart-gripping 
 chant of a Hebrew Psalm. . . . 
 " For the Lord knoweth the path of the 
 
 righteous, 
 And the path of the wicked shall perish. "...
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 73 
 
 My fears vanished, and gave place to a feel- 
 ing of surprise. 
 
 " Where can that chanting come from," 
 thought I, " and here in exile, too? " 
 
 Then I began to doubt it all, thinking it was 
 but a dream. 
 
 " Why do the nations rage, 
 And the peoples imagine a vain thing? " 
 
 The voices were drawing me forward irresist- 
 ibly, and I decided to join the chorus, come 
 what might. And I continued the Psalm in a 
 Joud voice : 
 " The kings of the earth stood up . . . . ' 
 
 The chanting ceased ; I heard steps approach- 
 ing me. 
 
 " Who is there ? " asked a voice, in Yiddish. 
 
 " It is I,'* answered I, " and who are you? " 
 
 " It is we ! " shouted many voices in chorus. 
 
 "Cantonists?" 
 
 "A Cantonist, too?"
 
 74 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 Thus exchanging questions, we met. They 
 turned out to be three Cantonists, who lived in a 
 village at some distance from Peter's house. I 
 had never met them before. They, too, had 
 " gone out for the night," and we had happened 
 to use the same valley. 
 
 I love to mention their names. The oldest 
 of them was Jacob, whom you remember from 
 the punishment he underwent. The others 
 were Simeon and Reuben. But there in the 
 valley they introduced themselves to me with 
 the names they were called by at home : Yekil, 
 Shimele, and Ruvek. I found out later that 
 the valley was their meeting-place. It was a 
 sort of Klaus, " Rabbi Yekil's Klaus " the boys 
 called it. Yekil was a boy of about fifteen, who 
 was well-equipped with knowledge of the 
 Torah when he was taken away from his home. 
 
 In the long years of our exile we had forgot- 
 ten the Jewish calendar completely. But Yekil
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 75 
 
 prided himself on being able to distinguish the 
 days " by their color and smell," especially 
 Fridays; and his friends confirmed his state- 
 ments. He used to boast that he could keep 
 track of every day of the year, and never miss 
 a single day of the Jewish holidays. Every 
 Jewish holiday they'met in the valley on Peter's 
 estate. According to Yekil's calendar, the eve 
 of the Fast of the Ninth of Av fell on that very 
 day. That is why they had gathered in the 
 valley that night. " If so," said I, " what is 
 the use of reciting that Psalm? Were it not 
 more proper to recite Lamentations? " 
 
 " We do not know Lamentations by heart," 
 explained Yekil, with the authority of a rabbi, 
 " but we do know some Psalms, and these we 
 recite on every holiday. For, at bottom, are 
 mere words the main thing? Your real prayer 
 is not what you say with your lips, but what 
 you feel with the whole of your heart. As long
 
 76 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 as the words are in the holy tongue, it all de- 
 pends on the feelings you wish to put into them. 
 As my father, may he rest in peace, used to in- 
 struct me, the second Psalm is the same as the 
 festival hymn, * Thou hast chosen us from 
 among the nations,' if you feel that way; or it 
 may be the same as Lamentations. It all de- 
 pends on the feelings in our heart, and on the 
 meaning we wish to put into the words ! " 
 
 Yekil's talk and the sounds of Yiddish speech, 
 which I had not heard since I left home, im- 
 pressed me in a wonderful way. Here I found 
 myself all at once in the company of Jews like 
 father and mother. But I felt very much below 
 that wonderful boy who could decide questions 
 of Jewish law like some great rabbi. Indeed, 
 he seemed to me little short of a rabbi in our 
 small congregation. Then I began to feel more 
 despondent than ever. I considered myself the 
 sinner of our little community. I knew I was
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 77 
 
 guilty of eating pork and of other grave tres- 
 passes, and I felt quite unworthy of being a 
 member of the pious congregation. 
 
 Meanwhile little Reuben discovered the con- 
 tents of my bag. 
 
 " Boys, grub ! " exclaimed he, excitedly. At 
 the word " grub " the congregation was thrown 
 into a flutter. That was the way of the Can- 
 tonists. They could not help getting excited 
 at the sight of any article of food, even when 
 they were not hungry at all. In the long run 
 our patrons fed us well enough, and on the 
 whole we could not complain of lack of food. 
 But we were fed according to the calculations 
 of our patrons, and not according to our own 
 appetites. So it became our habit to eat when- 
 ever victuals were put before us, even on a full 
 stomach. " Eat whenever you have something 
 to eat, so as not to go hungry when there may 
 be no rations." That was a standing rule 
 6
 
 78 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 among the Cantonists. They began fumbling 
 in my bag, and I was dying with shame at the 
 thought that soon they would discover the 
 piece of pork, and that my sin would become 
 known to the pious congregation. Then I 
 broke down, and with tears began to confess 
 my sins. 
 
 " I have sinned," said I, sobbing, " it is pork. 
 I could not withstand the temptation." 
 
 At that moment it seemed to me that Yekil 
 was the judge, and the boys who had found the 
 pork were the witnesses against me. Yekil list- 
 ened to my partial confession, and the two " wit- 
 nesses " hung their heads, and hid their faces 
 in shame, as if they were the accused. But I 
 sobbed and cried bitterly. 
 
 " Now, listen, little one," Yekil turned to 
 me. " I do not know whether you have suffered 
 the horrors of hell that we have suffered. Did 
 they paint your body with tar, and put you up
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 79 
 
 on the highest shelf in the steam-bath, and 
 choke you with burning steam? Did they flog 
 you with birch-rods for having been caught 
 mumbling a Hebrew prayer? Did they make 
 you kneel for hours on sharp stones for having 
 refused to kiss the ikon and the crucifix? Did 
 they discover you secretly kissing the Arba- 
 Kanfos, and give you as many lashes as there 
 are threads in the Tzitzis? If you have not 
 passed through all that, uncover our backs, and 
 count the welts that still mark them ! And to 
 this you must add the number of blows I have 
 still to get, simply because my little body could 
 not take in at once all it was expected to take in. 
 And yet, not a day passed without our having 
 recited our Modeh-Ani. As to eating pork, we 
 abstained from it in spite of the rods. Then 
 they gave up flogging us; but, instead of that 
 punishment, they gave us nothing but pork to 
 eat. Two days we held out ; we did not touch
 
 8o IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 any food. We did not get even a drink of 
 water. Do you see little Simeon? Well, he 
 tried to eat the grass in the courtyard. . . . 
 On the third day of our fast I saw my father in 
 my dream. He was dressed in his holiday 
 clothes, and holding the Bible in his hands he 
 quoted the passage, ' Be ye mindful of your 
 lives.' Suddenly, the earth burst open, and 
 the Angel of Death appeared. He had rods 
 in one hand and a piece of swine's flesh in the 
 other. He put the piece of pork into my mouth. 
 I looked up, terror-stricken, to my father, but 
 he smiled. His smile filled the place with light. 
 He said to me, ' Eatest thou this of thy own 
 free will? ' Then he began to soar upwards, 
 and called out to me from afar: * Tell all thy 
 comrades, the Cantonists: Your reward is 
 great. Every sigh of yours is a prayer, every 
 good thought of yours is a good action ! Only 
 beware, lest you die of hunger; then surely 
 you will merit eternal punishment ! *
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 81 
 
 " I awoke. Since then we eat all kinds of 
 forbidden food. The main thing is that we 
 have remained Jews, and that as Jews we shall 
 return home to our parents. It is clear to me 
 now that the Holy One, blessed be He, will not 
 consider all that a sin on our part I " 
 
 I felt as if a heavy load had been taken off 
 my shoulders. My eyes began to flow with 
 tears of gladness. Then, having once started 
 my confession, I decided to confess to my second 
 sin also. Meanwhile Simeon had pulled the 
 bread and the meat out of my bag. 
 
 " Glutton ! " exclaimed Yekil, angrily. 
 " Have you forgotten that it is the night of the 
 Fast of the Ninth of Av? " 
 
 The boy, abashed, returned the things to the 
 bag, and moved away a few steps. Then I told 
 Yekii all that had passed between me and 
 Marusya, and tried unconsciously to defend her 
 in every way. I think I exaggerated a good
 
 82 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 deal when I tried to show that Marusya liked 
 the Jews very much, indeed. 
 
 " And what was the end of it? " asked Yekil, 
 with some fear. " Did she really kiss you? " 
 The other boys echoed the question. I looked 
 down, and said nothing. 
 
 " Is she good-looking? " 
 
 I still gave no answer. 
 
 " I have forgotten your name. What is it? " 
 
 " Samuel." 
 
 " Now listen, Samuel, this is a very serious 
 affair. It is much worse than what is told of 
 Joseph the righteous. Do you understand? I 
 do not really know how to make it clear to you. 
 It is very dangerous to find good and true 
 friends right here in exile, in the very ranks of 
 our enemies." 
 
 " Why? " wondered I. 
 
 " I cannot tell you, but this is how I feel. 
 Insulted and outraged we have been brought
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 83 
 
 here; insulted and outraged we should depart 
 from here. Ours is the right of the oppressed; 
 and that right we must cherish till we return 
 home." 
 
 " I do not understand! " 
 
 Jacob looked at me sharply, and said: 
 " Well, I have warned you; keep away from 
 her." 
 
 His words entered into the depths of my 
 heart. I bowed my head before Yekil, and 
 submitted to his authority. That was the way 
 we all felt: Yekil had only to look at us to 
 subject us to his will. It was hard to resist him. 
 
 I felt a great change in myself : I had been 
 relieved of the weight of two sins. Of one I 
 had been absolved completely, and the other 
 I had confessed in public and repented of. I 
 gladly joined the little congregation, and we 
 returned to our Psalms, which we recited in- 
 stead of Lamentations. At the conclusion I
 
 84 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 proposed that we chant the Psalm " By the 
 rivers of Babylon," which we all knew by heart. 
 
 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 
 very 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 after- 
 noon prayer. He jumped down hastily, washed
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 85 
 
 his hands in a near-by pool, returned to his 
 seat, and became absorbed in his devotions. 
 
 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 tri- 
 umphant blackness. . . . 
 
 I did not have to urge the old man to con- 
 tinue his tale. His prayers over, he picked up
 
 86 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 begin- 
 ning 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. When- 
 ever 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 com- 
 punction. 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,
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 87 
 
 nor a collection of ordinances of varying im- 
 portance, but something I could not name, nor 
 point to with my finger. Jacob, I thought, cer- 
 tainly knows all about it; but I do not. All I 
 could do was to feel it ; so could Anna. Other- 
 wise 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 ordi- 
 nances 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. . . .
 
 88 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 be- 
 fore 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 pos- 
 sible 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 per- 
 son. At the same time there was not a trace
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 89 
 
 of deviltry about her: it was simply an attrac- 
 tion 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 my- 
 self 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
 
 90 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 in the valley on Peter's estate, till a disagree- 
 ment 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 de- 
 cision. 
 
 " Boys," said he, " you must know that * go- 
 ing out for the night ' is really a form of steal- 
 ing. 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.' "
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 91 
 
 This 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 com- 
 pelled 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
 
 92 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 to the value of a 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 patrons' houses, and they did not object.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 93 
 
 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 
 7
 
 94 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 house- 
 hold 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
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 95 
 
 was the time when I felt especially lonely and 
 homesick; it was as though a fever were burn- 
 ing 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, sing- 
 ing, 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? "
 
 96 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 Then Anna flew 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 he 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
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 97 
 
 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 I " 
 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 
 Marusyaj for Anna, and for the holiday mood
 
 98 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 his 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.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 99 
 
 VII 
 
 The next day resumed the old man the 
 situation became a little clearer to me. Ma- 
 rusya 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 dis- 
 likes the Jews so much." 
 
 Then Marusya insisted I should tell her the 
 real truth about the Jews, as they are at home :
 
 ioo IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 101 
 
 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 in- 
 struct 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 neighbor- 
 ing 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
 
 102 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 
 en calling me, but I kept on snoring. Suddenly 
 I began to cry, as if from my sleep: "O 
 mother, leave Anna* alone. She too is ai 
 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,
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 103 
 
 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 sleep- 
 ing? 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 my 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
 
 io 4 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 . . . ." " Tell me, tell me! " " I cannot re- 
 peat that in Russian." " Then say it in Yid- 
 dish." 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 abus- 
 ing you.' ' At this Anna turned red. I con- 
 tinued : " 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 re- 
 main 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
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 105 
 
 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;
 
 io6 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 hap- 
 pened 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 for- 
 gotten 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.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 107 
 
 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 in- 
 stance, 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 hap- 
 pened 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,
 
 io8 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 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
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 109 
 
 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 some- 
 thing like a Jewish settlement, or rather like 
 some sort of a Klaus, especially when Peter 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 be- 
 came a mother to the homeless Cantonists. 
 Even Marusya took to jabbering a little Yid- 
 dish. Jacob began to feel that the leadership 
 of our little community was passing into the 
 hands of Anna, and he became jealous. He 
 
 8
 
 no ' IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 did not see that the very fact that he too was 
 falling under her spell was influencing our com- 
 munity 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 in- 
 terpret them ; he used to seek her company for 
 that purpose. 
 
 So we all began to feel very much at home in 
 Anna's house.
 
 Ill 
 
 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 about it. She cleared up 
 my doubts very soon. She told me that Peter
 
 ii2 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 mentioned 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.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 113 
 
 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 con- 
 fined within the nebulas 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 :
 
 ii 4 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 115 
 
 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 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
 
 n6 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 from a non-Jew. And this he preached with- 
 out 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
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 117 
 
 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
 
 n8 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 
 fhe 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 com- 
 mand 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 for- 
 ward. On that day we were kept at the first 
 pace unusually long. My muscles began to
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 119 
 
 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 contrari- 
 ness, 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,
 
 120 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 re- 
 port 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 privi- 
 lege 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 other-
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 121 
 
 wise. A temporary relief it certainly was; but 
 in the end the relief was worse than the punish- 
 ment itself. Between the first half of the 
 punishment and the other half, life was a bur- 
 den 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
 
 122 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 atten- 
 tion, saluted, and said :
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 123 
 
 " 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 an- 
 other as Jacob loves his guilty friend ! But you 
 must know that your sergeant is not to be 
 fooled; his eyes are everywhere, and he cer- 
 tainly 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
 
 i2 4 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 were crawling over my flesh. I got up early 
 the next morning. Marusya was yet in bed, 
 half awake. 
 
 " Where arc 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. On 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
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 125 
 
 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, expostu- 
 lations, again arguments. Somebody was talk- 
 ing 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 hospi- 
 tal 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 post- 
 poned for a little while. In short, I was divided 
 
 9
 
 126 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 against myself: I had two wishes, one exclud- 
 ing the other. Suddenly the door opened, and 
 on the threshold was standing do you know 
 who ? Marusya ! Yes, dear God, it was Ma- 
 rusya. 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.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 127 
 
 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
 
 128 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 think- 
 ing of something. Her handkerchief fell from 
 her hand. She sighed deeply, picked up the 
 handkerchief, and resumed her walk. I re- 
 turned 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-driver is bound to work 
 with his whip. Let him be disturbed, no matter
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 129 
 
 when, even when he drops into a doze in his 
 Klaus on a Yom-Kippur night he will in- 
 variably shake his hand at the intruder as if 
 swinging his whip. 
 
 As the horses increased their speed, the bay- 
 ing 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
 
 130 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 driver 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 in-
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 131 
 
 debted 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 be- 
 coming 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 pres- 
 ence 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, per- 
 formed 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
 
 132 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 prove to me that the Turks, being the sons of 
 Ishmael, were our cousins. But I did not be- 
 lieve 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 some- 
 thing I can grant? " Then Jacob saluted, and 
 asked to be permitted to recite his Hebrew
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 133 
 
 prayers daily and rest on Saturdays. The 
 sergeant smiled, and granted Jacob's request. 
 
 I may just as well tell you now that long be- 
 fore 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 morn- 
 ing. 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
 
 134 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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-win- 
 ter I saw the rabbi's daughter-in-law pass 
 through the streets bareheaded. In mid-sum- 
 mer she drank hot tea, and caught a cold in her 
 teeth. It is all the way I am telling you : the 
 world 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 :
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 135 
 
 heavy snowfalls, snow-storms, and no roads. 
 The peasants could not go outside of the vil- 
 lage; 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 in- 
 deed. 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 hap-
 
 136 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 pened 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
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 137 
 
 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
 
 138 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 feel- 
 ing 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 in- 
 quisitive looks, which seemed to pierce her 
 very body and make Her look like a sieve, as it
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 139 
 
 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 their 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 Ivan- 
 ovich, my old enemy, stood up behind Marusya, 
 and shouted with all his might, " Zhidovka! "
 
 140 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 so 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 wish- 
 ing to say, " Well done ! " This prevented the 
 young men from attacking me. 
 
 Marusya left the house, and I followed her.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 141 
 
 Once outside, she broke out into tears. She said 
 something between sobs, but I could not make 
 out what she meant. I thought she was com- 
 plaining 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? "
 
 1 42 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 de- 
 cided? 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
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 143 
 
 Jews. After a brief silence Marusya turned to 
 me: 
 
 ;< Why does mother dislike the Jews so 
 much? She surely knows them better than 
 papa does." 
 
 { Very likely she fears being called Zhid- 
 ovka, as they called you." 
 
 " But, then, why did she get herself into that 
 trouble?" 
 
 " Ask her yourself ; she may tell you." .... 
 
 Never mind what passed between us after- 
 wards. 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.
 
 144 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 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 eigh- 
 , 
 
 teen 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: 
 
 X 
 
 Hard as Anna's lot was, Peter himself was 
 not very happy either. I do not know how 
 things are managed nowadays. As I told you 
 before, new times bring new people with new 
 ways. It never happened in our day that a 
 Jewish maiden, no matter what class she be- 
 longed to, should throw herself at a young 
 Gentile, and tell him, " Now, I am ready to 
 leave my faith and my people, if you will marry
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 145 
 
 me." In our day there never was a case of 
 apostasy except after a good deal of courting. 
 No Jewish girl ever left her faith, unless there 
 was a proposal of marriage accompanied by 
 much coaxing. It required a great deal of 
 coaxing and enticing on the part of the man. 
 Only extravagant promises and assurances, 
 which never could be made good, could prompt 
 a Jewish maiden to leave her faith. And such 
 had been the case with Khlopov, as Anna told 
 me afterwards. 
 
 Anna, or, as she had been called as a Jewess, 
 Hannah, had spent her girlhood under the rule 
 of a stepmother. Peter was a young man earn- 
 ing a fair salary as a clerk at the Town Hall. 
 He was a frequent visitor at Bendet's wine-shop. 
 And Peter was an expert judge of the comeli- 
 ness of Jewish maidens in general and of Anna's 
 beauty in particular. So, when Peter did come, 
 he came as a veritable angel-protector. He
 
 146 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 came to save her from the yoke of a stepmother 
 and make her his wife. He promised her 
 " golden castles " and a " paradise on earth." 
 All that would be hers but for one obstacle: 
 she had to renounce her faith. At first Anna 
 was unwilling. But the stepmother made Anna 
 as miserable as only human beings know how. 
 Then Bendet's business began to go from bad 
 to worse, so that Anna had very slim prospects 
 of ever exchanging the yoke of a stepmother 
 for that of a husband. At the same time Peter 
 urged his suit, coaxing her more and more. 
 Anna warned Peter, that in her new life she 
 might find misery instead of happiness. She 
 was sure she would be a stranger to the people 
 with whom she would have to come in contact. 
 Should she happen to be below the other 
 women, they would despise her. Should she 
 happen to be above them, they would envy and 
 hate her. Here she certainly spoke like a
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 147 
 
 prophetess. But Peter kept on assuring her that 
 she was the very best of all women, and that he 
 would be her protector in all possible troubles. 
 Then she argued that he might not be happy 
 himself; that he would have to fight many a 
 battle. His parents would surely not agree 
 with him. His relations would shun him. In 
 short, he would be isolated. Peter laughed at 
 her, and told her that all her fears were nothing 
 but the imagination of an unhappy maiden who 
 did not believe in the possibility of ever being 
 happy. He told her also that not all the women 
 in the world were as bad as her stepmother. 
 Still Hannah was unwilling. Then Peter at- 
 tacked her with a new weapon. He made be- 
 lieve he was ill, and let her know that if he 
 should die, it would be her fault; and if he did 
 not die, he would commit suicide, and his last 
 thought would be that the Jews are cruel, and 
 rejoice in the misfortune of a Christian. Then
 
 148 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 Hannah gave in, did as she was urged, and 
 was renamed Anna. 
 
 Now what Anna found in actual life far 
 exceeded what Hannah had prophesied. The 
 women of the village kept aloof from her, and 
 for many reasons. The first reason was that 
 she never visited the village tavern. She never 
 drank any liquor herself, nor treated her 
 visitors with it. ' And nothing in the world 
 brings such people together as liquor does. 
 Then the men hated her for the purity and 
 chastity which she brought from her father's 
 house. Besides, men and women alike envied 
 the prosperity of Khlopov's household, which 
 was due only to Anna's thrift. All those 
 reasons, as well as many others, were included 
 in the one word " Zhidovka." So that word 
 may stand for anything you choose. As to 
 Peter's brothers and relatives, they not only 
 kept away from him, but also became his open 
 or secret enemies.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 149 
 
 By and by Peter recognized that Hannah's 
 fears were not the result of mere imagination, 
 but the true prophecy of a mature young 
 woman, who had foreseen her own future, and 
 he could not help feeling hurt. That bitter 
 thought was possibly the only reason why he 
 frequented the establishment of " our Mosh- 
 ko." He wanted to get rid of the accursed 
 thought; but he did not succeed. He pined for 
 the time when he lived among Jews; but Anna 
 could not possibly return to live among them. 
 In the meantime Peter sickened, and took to 
 bed. Anna knew there was still some litigation 
 pending between Khlopov and his relations, and 
 his title to the property he held by inheritance 
 was disputed. And she always feared the worst : 
 should she survive Peter, his relations would 
 start proceedings against her, dispossess her 
 and Marusya, and let them shift for themselves. 
 Many a time did Anna mention the matter to
 
 150 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 Peter in a casual, off-hand way; but he merely 
 smiled his usual smile, listened, and forgot all 
 about it the next morning. 
 
 Well, that was a weakness of Peter's. Writ- 
 ing official papers had been his lifework, and 
 when he had to do writing in his own behalf, 
 he felt disgusted. He could not touch the pen 
 when his own affairs were involved. Even the 
 writing of a simple letter he used to put off from 
 day to day. And when it came to clear up the 
 title to his holding, he would have had to write 
 papers and fill out documents enough to load 
 two pack-donkeys. Small wonder, then, that 
 he kept putting it off. 
 
 But the time came when it was necessary 
 that Anna should speak to him about the mat- 
 ter; and yet she could not muster up enough 
 courage to do it. For at times she thought her- 
 self nothing but a stranger in the place. Who 
 was she anyway, to inherit the property left by
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 151 
 
 old Simeon Khlopov, deceased? On one occa- 
 sion she asked me to call Peter's attention to the 
 matter of his title to the property. I entered 
 the sick-room and began to discuss the matter 
 cautiously, in a roundabout way, so as not to 
 excite the patient by implying that his end might 
 be near. But my precautions were unnecessary. 
 He spoke very coolly of the possibility of his 
 end coming at any moment, but at the same time 
 he insisted that there was really no need to 
 hurry, a proper time to settle the matter would 
 be found. 
 
 Now here you see one more difference be- 
 tween Jews and Gentiles. To look at th Gen- 
 tiles, would you ever think them all fools? 
 Why, you may find many a shrewd man among 
 them, many a man who could get me and you 
 into his net, as the spider the fly. But when it 
 comes to taking care of the next day, the future, 
 they are rather foolish. They do not foresee
 
 152 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 things as clearly as the Jew does. For instance, 
 do I not work hard to save up money for my 
 daughter's dowry, even though I hardly expect 
 her to get married for two years at least? Do I 
 not try hard to pay off the mortgage on my 
 house, so as to leave it to my children free and 
 clear? Say what you will, I hold to my opinion, 
 that Gentile-folk do not feel the " to-morrow " 
 as keenly as we do. If you like, the whole life 
 of a Jew is nothing but an anticipation of " to- 
 morrow." Many a time I went without a meal 
 simply because I forgot to eat, or thought I had 
 eaten already. But I never forget anything that 
 concerns the coming day. I can hardly explain 
 it to you, but many a time I thought, dull as my 
 brains were made by my soldier's grub, that the 
 Jew is altogether a creature of " to-morrow." 
 Well, Peter listened to me; he saw there was 
 reason in what I told him ; and yet he did not 
 feel that way. He did not feel the necessity of 
 acting immediately, and he put it off.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 153 
 
 Now, it seems to me that when things come 
 to such a pass between a Gentile husband and 
 his Jewish wife, the results are bound to be 
 strange, unusual, and anything but agreeable. 
 It is all something like let me see something 
 like what is written in the Bible about the con- 
 fusion of tongues, when one could not under- 
 stand the speech of his fellow. Indeed, had 
 Peter known that it was Anna who sent me to 
 him, he would have resented it surely, and 
 would have thought that she cared more for 
 his inheritance than she cared for him. 
 
 And Peter died, after a long illness. 
 
 Then Anna had to go through an ordeal she 
 had not yet experienced in her life of apos- 
 tasy: she had to go through the ceremony of 
 mourning according to the prescribed rules. 
 And her fears regarding the house turned out 
 to have been but too well founded. The village 
 elder, in the name of the rest of the relatives,
 
 154 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 disputed Peter's title to the property. Anna 
 was given a small sum of money, and the whole 
 piece of property was deeded over to Serge 
 Ivanovich. As to Anna and Marusya, they had 
 to be satisfied with the little money they re- 
 ceived. 
 
 In the end it turned out that there was a 
 deeper purpose at the bottom of the whole 
 affair. That scamp, Serge Ivanovich, under- 
 stood very well that in every respect Marusya 
 was above the rest of the village girls, and he 
 made up his mind to marry her. To be sure, 
 he hated the Jews: they always managed to 
 intrude where they were least wanted; and he 
 never missed an opportunity of insulting Anna 
 and her daughter. But that is just the way 
 they all are : they will spit to-day, to lick it off 
 to-morrow. At the same time he knew well 
 enough that Marusya would not be willing to 
 have him. Yet, in spite of it all, he sent some
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 155 
 
 friends with the formal message of a proposal. 
 As an inducement he promised to deed the 
 whole property to Anna and Marusya. Anna 
 seemed willing enough to accept the offer. 
 Then Marusya turned to me. I began to side 
 with Anna. 
 
 " You are a liar ! " shouted Marusya, turn- 
 ing to me. And she was right. Indeed, I did 
 not wish at all to see Marusya marry Serge. 
 But I cannot tell why I had said the opposite. 
 Then Marusya curtly dismissed the representa- 
 tives of the suitor. 
 
 I decided not to part from the two un- 
 happy women just then and leave them alone 
 in their misfortune. But Heaven willed other- 
 wise. The Crimean War had been decided 
 upon, and our regiment was the first to be sent 
 to the front. So I was taken from my dear 
 friends just when they needed me most.
 
 156 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 XI 
 
 A mixture of light and darkness appeared 
 in a corner of the eastern sky, something like 
 the reflection of a distant conflagration. The 
 light spread farther and farther, and swal- 
 lowed many a star. It looked as if some half- 
 extinguished firebrand of a world had blazed 
 up again, and was burning brightly once more. 
 But no! that was neither a world-catastrophe 
 nor a conflagration: some mysterious new 
 creation was struggling into existence. And 
 after the noiseless storm and battle of lights, 
 the moon appeared, angry-looking and ragged- 
 edged. In the light of the moon the speaker 
 too looked strange and fantastic, like a relic 
 of a world that is no more. 
 
 The old man continued: 
 
 Well, on that day we turned a new leaf in 
 our lives. Till then we had been like people 
 who live against their own will, without aim
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 157 
 
 or object. We had to get up in the morning, 
 because we had gone to bed the night before. 
 We ate, because we were hungry. We went 
 to our drills, because we were ordered to 
 go. And we went to sleep at night, because 
 we felt tired. All our existence seemed to be 
 only for the sake of discipline; and that disci- 
 pline, again, seemed a thing in itself. But the 
 moment they told us of mobilization and war, 
 our riddle was solved. It suddenly became 
 clear to us why we had been caught and brought 
 to where we were, and why we had been suf- 
 fering all the time. It looked as if year in, 
 year out, we had been walking in the darkness 
 of some cave, and all of a sudden our path be- 
 came light. And we were happy. 
 
 I saw Jacob: he, too, looked happy, which 
 had not been his way for the last few years. 
 From the moment he had received permission 
 to pray in Hebrew and observe the Sabbath,
 
 158 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 his mood changed for the worse : he looked as 
 if he were " possessed." He complained that 
 his prayers were not so sweet to him any more 
 as they had been before; and the Sabbath rest 
 was a real burden upon him. Then, his father 
 did not appear in his dreams any more. Be- 
 sides, he confessed that he forgot his prayers 
 many a time, and was not very strict as to the 
 Sabbath. He feared his prayers were no longer 
 acceptable in Heaven. No, said he, that was 
 not his destiny: the Jewishness of a Cantonist 
 lay only in suffering martyrdom. But with 
 the news of the coming war, a change came 
 over him. He became gay as a child. 
 
 One morning, when we were assembled on 
 the drill grounds before the house of the 
 sergeant, I was called into the house. " Hour- 
 vitz," said my good sergeant, turning to me, 
 " three beautiful creatures ask me not to send 
 you to the fighting line but to appoint you to
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 159 
 
 some auxiliary company. Ask, and I shall do 
 so." 
 
 " Sir," said I, " if this be your order, I have 
 but to obey; but if my wish counts for anything, 
 I should prefer to stay with the colors and go 
 to the fighting line. Otherwise what was our 
 preparation for and our training of many 
 years? " 
 
 A smile of satisfaction appeared on the face 
 of the sergeant. 
 
 "And if you fall in battle?" 
 
 " I shall not fall, sir, before I make others 
 fall." 
 
 " What makes you feel so sure of it? " 
 
 " I cannot tell, sir; but it is enough if I am 
 sure of it." 
 
 " Well, I agree with you. Now let us hear 
 what your fair advocates have to say." 
 
 He opened the door of an adjoining room, 
 and Anna, Marusya, and the sergeant's wife
 
 160 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 appeared. Then a dispute began. They in- 
 sisted on their opinion, and I on mine. 
 
 " Let us count votes," said the sergeant. 
 " I grant you two votes; together with my own 
 vote it makes three against three." 
 
 Then I looked at Marusya. She thought a 
 little, and added her vote to mine. So the 
 majority prevailed. When I went outside, 
 Marusya followed me, and handed me a small 
 parcel. What I found there, among other 
 things, was a small Hebrew prayer book, which 
 Marusya must have gotten at Moshko's, and 
 a small silver cross which she had always worn 
 around her neck. We looked at each other and 
 kept silent: was there anything to be said? 
 
 After she had walked away a few steps, she 
 turned around, as if she had forgotten some- 
 thing. 
 
 " And if you return ... ? " 
 
 " Then to you I return," was my answer.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 161 
 
 She went on, and I turned to look back in her 
 direction: she also looked back at me. Later 
 I turned again to look at her, and she, too, kept 
 looking back, until we lost sight of each other. 
 Before Anna could be dispossessed, Heaven 
 wrought a miracle : Serge Ivanovich was 
 drafted into the army. He was attached to 
 our regiment, and we served in the same com- 
 pany. In the meantime Anna remained in 
 possession of the house. 
 
 XII 
 
 So, after all, they had not been mere sport, 
 those years of drilling, of exercising, of train- 
 ing to " stand up," to " lie down," to " run," 
 etc., etc. . . . 
 
 It had been all for the sake of war, and it 
 was to war that we were going. My companion 
 in exile, I mean my Barker, did not wish to 
 part from me. Ashamed though I am, I must
 
 1 62 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 yet call him " my true friend." Human beings 
 as a rule forget favors rendered. This is the 
 way God has made them. In very truth, it 
 is only your soldier, your fellow in exile, and 
 your dog that are able to serve you and love 
 you at the risk of their own lives. I chased 
 Barker away, but he kept on following me. I 
 struck him : he took the blows, and licked my 
 hands. I struck him over the legs with the 
 stock of my gun. He broke out in a whine, 
 and ran after me, limping. Marusya caught 
 him and locked him up in the stable. I thought 
 I had gotten rid of him. But some hours later 
 I saw him limping after me. Then I realized 
 that the dog was fated to share all the troubles 
 of campaign life with me. And my Barker 
 became a highly respectable dog. The first 
 day he eyed everybody with a look of suspicion. 
 The bright buttons and the blue uniforms 
 scared him; possibly because buttons and uni-
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 163 
 
 forms went with stocks of guns like the one 
 that had given him the lame leg. By and by 
 Barker picked me and Jacob out from among 
 the soldiers, and kept near us. They used to 
 say in our company that Barker was a particu- 
 lar friend of Jews, and he knew a Jew when 
 he saw one. Very likely that was so. But 
 then they never knew how many slices of bread 
 and meat Barker had gotten from Jewish 
 hands before he knew the difference. 
 
 Just about that time we got other new com- 
 panions. One of them was a certain Pole, 
 Vassil Stefanovich Zagrubsky, blessed be his 
 memory, Jew-hater though he was. 
 
 The beginning of our acquaintance promised 
 no good. That particular Pole was poor but 
 proud a poor fellow with many wants. Then 
 he was a smoker, too. I also enjoyed a smoke 
 when I had an extra copper in my pocket. But 
 Zagrubsky had a passion for smoking, and
 
 1 64 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 when he had no tobacco of his own, he de- 
 manded it of others. That was his way: he 
 could not beg; he could only demand. Three 
 of us shared one tent: Zagrubsky, Serge, and 
 myself. Serge was a soldier in comfortable cir- 
 cumstances. He had taken some money with 
 him from home, and received a monthly allow- 
 ance from his parents. He always had excel- 
 lent tobacco. Once, when he happened to open 
 his tobacco pouch to roll a cigarette, Zagrubsky 
 took notice of it, and put forth his hand to 
 take some tobacco. That was his way: when- 
 ever he saw a tobacco pouch open, he would 
 try to help himself to some of its contents. But 
 Serge was one of those peasants whose ambition 
 extends beyond their class. He was painfully 
 proud, prouder than any of the nobles. Be- 
 fore entering the service he had made up his 
 mind to " rise." He wanted to become an 
 officer, so that the villagers would have to
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 165 
 
 stand at attention before him when he returned 
 home. Therefore he gave Zagrubsky a super- 
 cilious look of contempt, and unceremoniously 
 closed the pouch when the Pole wanted to take 
 some tobacco. I was sorry for the Pole, and 
 offered him some of my own tobacco. He did 
 not fail to take it, but at the same time I heard 
 him sizzle out " Zhid " from between his 
 tightly closed lips. I looked at him in amaze- 
 ment: how on earth could he guess I was a 
 Jew, when I spoke my Russian with the right 
 accent and inflection, while his was lame, 
 broken, and half mixed with Polish? That 
 was a riddle to me. But I had no time to 
 puzzle it out, and I forgot it on the spot. 
 
 We had long been occupying the same posi- 
 tion, waiting for a merry beginning. All that 
 time seemed to us something like a preparation 
 for a holiday; but the long tiresome wait 
 was disgusting. In the meantime something
 
 1 66 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 extraordinary happened in our camp. Our 
 camp was surrounded by a cordon of sentries. 
 At some distance from the cordon was the 
 camp of the purveyors, the merchants who 
 supplied the soldiers with all kinds of neces- 
 saries. Without a special permit no purveyor 
 could pass the line of sentries and enter the 
 camp. 
 
 It happened that one of those purveyors ex- 
 cited the suspicion of Jacob. Without really 
 knowing why, Jacob came to consider him a 
 suspicious character. Even Barker, timid dog 
 that he was, once viciously attacked that par- 
 ticular man, as if to tear him to pieces. And 
 it was with great difficulty that Jacob saved 
 him from Barker's teeth. But from that time 
 on Jacob began to watch the man closely. That 
 very day we were told that General Luders was 
 going to visit our camp. Jacob was doing 
 sentry duty. Just then the suspicious purveyor
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 167 
 
 appeared suddenly, as if he had sprung out of 
 the ground. Jacob had his eye on him. Pres- 
 ently Jacob noticed that the fellow was hiding 
 behind a bank of earth; he saw him take out a 
 pistol from his pocket and aim it somewhere 
 into space. That very moment General Luders 
 appeared on the grounds. Without thinking 
 much, Jacob aimed his gun at the purveyor and 
 shot him dead. On investigation it turned out 
 that the purveyor was a Pole, who had smug- 
 gled himself into the camp in order to assassin- 
 ate the General. 
 
 Then they began to gossip in the regiment 
 about Jacob's " rising." General Luders pat- 
 ted him on the shoulder, and said, " Bravo, 
 officer!" 
 
 A few days later I met Jacob : he looked pale 
 and worn out. His smile was more like the 
 frozen smile of the agony of death. I told 
 him I had dreamt he was drowning in a river
 
 1 68 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 of oil. Then he told me confidentially that he 
 had promised his superiors to renounce his 
 faith. 
 
 Well, in the long run, it appeared that there 
 was much truth in Jacob's idea, that a Jew in 
 exile must not accept favors from Gentiles. 
 And the temptation to which Jacob had been 
 exposed was certainly much harder to stand 
 than a thousand lashes, or even, for that mat- 
 ter, the whole bitter life of a Cantonist. The 
 pity of it I 
 
 A few days later Zagrubsky was appointed 
 to serve Jacob. But when Zagrubsky reported 
 for duty, Jacob dismissed him. It was against 
 Jacob's nature to have others do for him what 
 he could do himself. 
 
 Zagrubsky departed, hissing " Zhid " under 
 his breath. It was the way he had treated me. 
 My patience was gone. I put myself in his 
 way, stopped him, and asked him : " Now
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 169 
 
 listen, you Pollack, how do you come to find 
 out so quickly who is a Jew, and who is not? 
 As far as I can see, you cannot speak Russian 
 correctly yourself: why, then, do you spy on 
 others? I have not yet forgotten that it was 
 on account of my tobacco that you recognized 
 I was a Zhid, too." 
 
 " O, that is all very simple," said he. " I 
 never saw such lickspittles as the Jews are. 
 They are always ready to oblige others with 
 their favors and refuse honors due to them- 
 selves. That is why the authorities favor them 
 so much. Do you wish to know what a Jew is ? 
 A Jew is a spendthrift, a liar, a whip-kisser, a 
 sneak. He likes to be trampled on much more 
 than others like to trample on him. He makes 
 a slave of himself in order to be able to enslave 
 everybody else. I hate the Jews, especially 
 those from whom I ever get any favors." 
 
 Well, by this time I am ready myself to agree
 
 1 70 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 with many of the Pole's assertions. The Jew 
 is very lavish in his dealings with Gentiles. He 
 is subservient, and always ready to give up 
 what is his due. All that is a puzzle to the 
 Gentiles, and every Jew who has been brought 
 up and educated among them knows that as 
 well as I do. Sometimes they have a queer 
 explanation for it. A Gentile who has ever 
 tasted of Jewish kindness and unselfishness will 
 say to himself, " Very likely the Jew feels that 
 he owes me much more." 
 
 To be brief: Zagrubsky and I became very 
 much attached to each other. But we never 
 tried to disguise our feelings. I knew he was 
 my enemy, and he knew that I was repaying 
 him in kind, with open enmity. That was just 
 what Zagrubsky liked. We loved our mutual 
 cordial hatred. When one feels like giving 
 vent to his feelings, like hating, cursing, or 
 detesting somebody or something, one's enemy 
 becomes dearer than a hundred friends.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 171 
 
 Then there came a certain day, and that 
 day brought us close together for a moment, 
 closer than we should ever be again. It 
 happened at night .... cursed be that 
 night! swallowed up the following day! . . . . 
 
 We soldiers had long become tired of our 
 drill and our manoeuvres; we got tired of 
 " attacking " under the feint of a " retreat," 
 and of " retreating " under the feint of an " at- 
 tack." We were disgusted with standing in 
 line and discharging our guns into the air, with- 
 out ever seeing the enemy. In our days a 
 soldier hated feints and make-believes. " Get 
 at your enemy and crush his head, or lie down 
 yourself a crushed ' cadaver ' " that was our 
 way of fighting, and that was the way we won 
 victories. As our general used to say: " The 
 bullet is a blind fool, but the bayonet is the 
 real thing." 
 
 At last, at last, we heard the quick, nervous 
 notes of the bugle, and the hurried beats of the
 
 172 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 drum, the same we used to hear year in, year 
 out. But till that moment it was all " make- 
 believe " drill. It was like what we mean by 
 the passage in the Passover Haggodah: " Any 
 one who is in need may come, and partake of 
 the Passah-lamb. ..." Till that moment 
 we used to attack the air with our bayonets and 
 pierce space right and left, " as if " the enemy 
 had been before us, ready for our steel. We 
 were accustomed to pierce and to vanquish the 
 air and spirits, and that is all. At the same 
 time there was something wonderful, sweet, 
 and terrible in those blasts of the bugle, some- 
 thing that was the very secret of soldiery, some- 
 thing that went right into our souls when we 
 returned home from our drill. . . . 
 
 But on that day it was not drill any more, 
 and not make-believe any more, no ! Before us 
 was the real enemy, looking into our very eyes 
 and thirsting for our blood.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 173 
 
 Then, just for a moment, I thought of my- 
 self, of my own flesh, which was not made 
 proof against the sharp steel. I remembered 
 that I had many an account to settle in this 
 world; that I had started many a thing and 
 had not finished it; and that there was much 
 more to start. I thought of my own enemies, 
 whom I had not harmed as yet. I thought of 
 my friends, to whom I had so far done no good. 
 In short, I thought I was just in the middle of 
 my lifework, and that the proper moment to 
 die had not yet come. But all that came as a 
 mere flash. For in the line of battle my own 
 self was dissolved, as it were, and was lost, 
 just like the selves of all who were there. I 
 became a new creature with new feelings and a 
 new consciousness. But the thing cannot be 
 described : one has to be a soldier and stand in 
 the line of battle to feel it. You may say, if 
 you like, that I believe that the angel-pro- 
 
 12
 
 i 7 4 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 tectors of warring nations descend from on 
 high, and in the hour of battle enter as new 
 souls into the soldiers of the line. 
 
 Then and there an end came also to the 
 vicissitudes of my Barker. I found him dead, 
 stretched out at full length on a bank of earth, 
 which was the monument over the grave of the 
 heroes of the first day's fighting. In the morn- 
 ing they all went to battle in the full flowering 
 of strength and thirsty for victory, only to be 
 dragged down at night into that hole, to be 
 buried there. Well, the earth knows no dis- 
 tinction between one race and another; its 
 worms feed alike on Jew and Gentile. But 
 there, in Heaven, they surely know the differ- 
 ence between one soul and another, and each 
 one is sent to its appointed place. 
 
 I was told that Jacob was among those 
 buried in the common grave. Quite likely. I 
 whispered a Kaddish over the grave, giving 
 it the benefit of the doubt.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 175 
 
 Of course, I was not foolish enough to cry 
 over the cadaver of a dog; and yet it was a 
 pity. After all, it was a living creature, too; 
 it had shared all kinds of things with me : exile, 
 hunger, rations, blows. And it had loved me, 
 too. . . . 
 
 The next morning we were out again. In 
 a moment line faced line, man faced man, 
 enemy faced enemy. It was a mutual mur- 
 derous attraction, a bloodthirsty love, a desire 
 to embrace and to kill. 
 
 It was very much like the pull I felt towards 
 Marusya. 
 
 .... Lightning. . . . shots. . . . thunder. . . . 
 The talk of the angel-protectors it is. ... 
 .... Snakes of fire flying upward, spread- 
 ing out .... shrapnel .... bombs a-burst- 
 ing .... soldiers standing .... reeling .... 
 falling .... crushed, or lapping their own
 
 i 7 6 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 blood. . . . Thinning lines .... breast to 
 breast. . . . Hellish howls over the field. . . . 
 
 Crashing comes the Russian music, drown- 
 ing all that hellish chorus, pouring vigor, 
 might, and hope into the hearts of men. . . . 
 
 Alas, the music breaks off. . . . Where is 
 the bugle? .... The trumpet is silenced. 
 . . . The trombone breaks off in the middle 
 of a note. . . . Only one horn is left. . . . 
 Higher and higher rise its ringing blasts, chant- 
 ing, as it were, " Yea, though I walk through 
 the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear 
 no evil ; for Thou art with me ! " 
 
 In mighty embrace men clasp one another. 
 . . . Stabbing, being stabbed .... killing, 
 being killed. . . . 
 
 I work away right and left, I expect my 
 death-blow every moment, but I seem to be 
 charmed: swords and bayonets surround me, 
 but never touch me.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 177 
 
 Yes, it was a critical moment; it could not 
 last much longer; one side had to give way. 
 
 But the Russians could not retreat, because 
 in their very midst the priest was standing, the 
 ikon of the Virgin in one hand and the crucifix 
 in the other. 
 
 The soldiers looked at the images, got up 
 new courage, and did wonders. 
 
 Do you remember the Biblical story of the 
 brazen serpent? That was just like it. 
 
 Well, a bullet came flying, whistling, 
 through the air, and the priest fell. Then the 
 ikon and the crucifix began to wobble this way 
 and that way, and fell down, too. The soldiers 
 saw it, lost heart, and wanted to run. 
 
 At that moment I felt as if I were made of 
 three different men. 
 
 Just imagine : Samuel the individual, Samuel 
 the soldier, and Samuel the Jew. 
 
 Says Samuel the individual: "You have
 
 178 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 done well enough, and it is all over now. Run 
 for dear life." 
 
 Says Samuel the soldier: " Shame on you, 
 where is your bravery? The regimental images 
 are falling. Try, perhaps they may be saved 
 yet." 
 
 Says Samuel the Jew: "Of course, save; 
 for a Jew must ever do more than is expected 
 of him." 
 
 But Samuel the individual replies: " Do you 
 remember how many lashes you have suffered 
 on account of these very images? " 
 
 Says Samuel the Jew again : " Do you know 
 what these images are, and to what race they 
 belong? " 
 
 Many such thoughts flashed through my 
 brain; but it was all in a moment. And in a 
 moment I was at the side of the priest. He was 
 alive; he was wounded only in his hand. I 
 raised him to his feet, put the images into his 
 hands, lifted them up, and supported -them.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 179 
 
 " This way, Russians! " 
 
 I do not know who shouted these words. 
 Perhaps I did ; perhaps some one else ; perhaps 
 it was from Heaven. 
 
 However, the victory was ours. 
 
 But I did not remain on my feet a long time ; 
 a bullet struck me, and I fell 
 
 What happened then, I cannot tell. All I 
 know is that I dreamt something very agree- 
 able: I was a little boy again, hanging on to 
 my father's coat-tails, and standing beside him 
 in the Klaus on a Yom-Kippur eve, during the 
 most tearful prayers, and a mischievous little 
 boy began to play with me, pricking my leg 
 with a needle every now and then. . . . 
 
 When I came to my senses, I found myself 
 in a sea of howls, groans, and cries, which 
 seemed to be issuing from the very depths of 
 the earth. For a moment I thought I was in 
 purgatory, among the sinners who undergo
 
 180 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 punishment. But pretty soon I recognized 
 everything. I turned my head, and saw 
 Zagrubsky lying near me, wounded and groan- 
 ing. He looked at me, and there was love and 
 hatred mixed in that look. " Zhid," said he, 
 with his last breath, and gave up the ghost. 
 
 Rest in peace, thou beloved enemy of mine ! 
 
 From behind I heard someone groaning and 
 moaning; but the voice sounded full and strong. 
 I turned my head in the direction of the voice, 
 and I saw that Serge Ivanovich was lying on 
 his side and moaning. He looked around, 
 stood up for a while, and lay down again. This 
 manoeuvre he repeated several times in suc- 
 cession. You see, the rascal was scheming to 
 his own advantage. He knew very well that 
 in the end he would have to fall down and 
 groan for good. So he thought it was much 
 cheaper and wiser to do it of his own free will, 
 than to wait for something to throw him down.
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 181 
 
 The scamp had seen what I had done before 
 I fell. A thought came to him. He helped me 
 to my feet, bandaged my wound, and said : 
 
 "Now listen, Samuel: you have certainly 
 done a very great thing; but it is worth nothing 
 to you personally. Nay, worse : they might 
 again try to make you renounce your faith. So 
 it is really a danger to you. But, if you wish, 
 just say that I have done it, and I shall repay 
 you handsomely for it. The priest will not 
 know the difference." 
 
 Well, it is this way: I always hated get- 
 rich-quick schemes. I never cared a rap for a 
 penny I had not expected and was not ready 
 to earn. Take, for instance, what I did with 
 the priest: Did I ever expect any honors or 
 profits out of it? Such possible honors and 
 profits I certainly did not like, and did not look 
 for. Besides, who could assure me that they 
 would not try again to coax me into renouncing
 
 1 82 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 my faith? Why, then, should I put myself into 
 such trouble ? And I said to Serge : 
 
 " You want it badly, Serge, do you? You'd 
 like to see yourself promoted, to be an officer ? 
 Is that so? Very well, then. Make out a 
 paper assigning the house to Marusya." 
 
 " I promise faithfully." 
 
 " I believe no promises." 
 
 "What shall I do?" 
 
 " You have paper and pencil in your 
 pocket? " 
 
 "Certainly!" 
 
 I turned around, supported myself on both 
 my arms and one knee, and made a sort of a 
 rickety table of myself. And on my back Serge 
 wrote out his paper, and signed it. But all 
 that was really unnecessary. He would have 
 kept his word anyway. For he was always 
 afraid I might blurt out the whole story. Not
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 183 
 
 I, though. May I never have anything in com- 
 mon with those who profit by falsehoods! 
 
 As to what happened later, I cannot tell you 
 exactly. For I was taken away, first to a 
 temporary hospital, and then to a permanent 
 one. I fell into a fever, and lost consciousness. 
 I do not know how many days or weeks passed 
 by: I was in a different world all that time. 
 How can I describe it to you ? Well, it was a 
 world of chaos. It was all jumbled together: 
 father, mother, military service, ikons, lashes, 
 lambs slaughtered, Peter, bullets, etc., etc. 
 
 It was all in a jumble, all topsyturvy. And 
 in the midst of that chaos I felt as if I were a 
 thing apart from myself. My head ached, 
 and yet it felt as if it did not belong to me. . . . 
 Finally I thought I felt mother bathing me ; a 
 delicious feeling of moisture spread over my 
 flesh, and my headache disappeared. Then I
 
 1 84 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 felt a warm, soft hand pass over my forehead, 
 cheeks, and neck. . . . 
 
 I opened my eyes, the first time since I lost 
 consciousness, and I exclaimed: 
 
 "Marusya!?" 
 
 " Yes, yes," said she, with a smile, while her 
 eyes brimmed with tears, " it is I." And be- 
 hind her was another face: 
 
 "Anna?!" 
 
 " Rest, rest," said they, warningly. 
 " Thanks to God, the crisis is over." 
 
 I doubted, I thought it was all a dream. But 
 it was no dream. It was all very simple : Anna 
 and Marusya had enlisted and were serving as 
 volunteer nurses at the military hospital, and 
 I had known nothing of it. 
 
 " Marusya," said I, " please tell me how do 
 I happen to be here? " 
 
 Then she began to tell me how they brought 
 me there, and took me down from the wagon
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 185 
 
 as insensible as a log. But she could not finish 
 her story; she began to choke with tears, and 
 Anna finished what Marusya wanted to tell me. 
 
 I turned to Marusya : 
 
 " Where are my clothes? " 
 
 ;< What do you want them for? " 
 
 " There is a paper there." 
 
 I insisted, and she brought the paper. 
 
 " Read the paper, Marusya," said I. She 
 read the document in which Serge assigned the 
 house to Marusya. The two women looked at 
 me with glad surprise. 
 
 " How did you ever get it? " 
 
 But I had decided to keep the thing a secret 
 from them, and I did. 
 
 When I was discharged from the hospital, 
 the war was long over, and a treaty of peace 
 had been signed. Had they asked me, I should 
 not have signed it.
 
 1 86 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 XIII 
 
 Here the old man stopped for a while. 
 Apparently he skipped many an incident, and 
 omitted many a thing that he did not care to 
 mention. I saw he was touching upon them 
 mentally. He resumed: 
 
 Just so, just so. ... Many, many a thing 
 may take place within us, without our ever 
 knowing it. I never suspected that I had been 
 longing to see my parents. I never wrote to 
 them, simply because I had never learned to 
 write my Jewish well enough. Of course, had 
 my brother Solomon been taken, he would 
 surely have written regularly, for he was a great 
 penman, may he rest in peace. As to Russian, 
 I certainly might have written in that language ; 
 but then it would have been very much like 
 offering salt water to a thirsty person. And 
 that is why I did not write. I thought I had
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 187 
 
 forgotten my parents. But no ! Even that was 
 merely a matter of habit. I had gotten so used 
 to my feeling of longing that I was not aware 
 of having it. That is the way I explain it to 
 myself. By and by there opened in my heart 
 a dark little corner that had been closed for 
 many a year. That was the longing for my 
 parents, for my home, mixed with just a trace 
 of anger-and resentment. I began to picture to 
 myself how my folks would meet me: there 
 would be kisses, embraces, tears, neighbors. 
 . . . For, like a silly child, I imagined they 
 were all alive and well yet, and that the Angel 
 of Death would wait till I came and repaid 
 them for all the worry I had caused them. 
 . . . And, indeed, would they not have been 
 greatly wronged, had they been allowed to die 
 unconsoled, after they had rent Heaven with 
 their prayers and lamentations? 
 
 But the nearer I came to my native town,
 
 1 88 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 the less grew my desire to see it. A feeling of 
 estrangement crept over me at the sight of the 
 neighborhood. No, it was not exactly a feel- 
 ing of estrangement, but some other feeling, 
 something akin to what we feel at the recollec- 
 tion of the pain caused by long-forgotten 
 troubles. I can hardly make it clear to you; 
 it was not unlike what an old man feels after 
 a bad dream of the days of his youth. 
 
 It was about this time of the year. The 
 roads were just as bad as now, the slush just as 
 deep. And it was as nauseating to sit in the 
 coach only to watch the glittering mud and 
 count the slow steps of the horses. In a season 
 like this it is certainly much more agreeable to 
 dismount and walk. That was just what I did. 
 My native town was not far away: only once 
 uphill, once downhill, and there was the inevit- 
 able cemetery, which must be passed when one 
 enters a Jewish village. The horses could
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 189 
 
 hardly move, and I overtook them very soon, 
 as I took a short cut, and struck into a path 
 across the peasants' fields. I allowed myself that 
 privilege, because at that time I was still wear- 
 ing my uniform with the brass buttons shining 
 brightly. When I descended into the valley, 
 I decided to cross the cemetery, and so shorten 
 my way. The coach was far behind, and I was 
 walking very slowly, that it might reach me 
 at the other side of the cemetery. My path lay 
 among the gravestones, some of them gray 
 with age, dilapidated, bent forward, as if try- 
 ing to overhear the talk of the nether world: 
 some clean and upright, as if gazing proudly 
 heavenwards. It was a world of silence I was 
 in; and heavy indeed is the silence of the grave- 
 yard: it is really a speaking silence. I think 
 there is something real in the belief that the 
 dead talk in their graves. To me it seemed as if 
 the gravestones were casting evil glances at me 
 13
 
 1 90 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 for my having disturbed the silent place with 
 the glitter of my buttons. And it was with 
 difficulty that I could decipher the inscriptions 
 on the stones. I do not know why it was so: 
 either my Hebrew had got rusty, or else grave- 
 yard inscriptions make hard reading in general. 
 
 " Here lieth .... the righteous man .... 
 modest, pious .... Rabbi Simhah .... 
 Shohet. ..." 
 
 I read it all, and shuddered: why, under 
 that very stone lay the remains of my own 
 brother Simhah ! 
 
 I wanted to shed tears, but my tears did 
 not obey me. I read it again and again, and 
 when I came to the words " modest," " pious," 
 I mumbled something to myself, something 
 angry and envious. Then I thought I felt the 
 tombstone move, the ground shake under me, 
 as if a shiver were passing through the air. . . 
 
 " Forgive me, forgive me I "
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 191 
 
 It was not my ears that caught those words ; 
 it was my heart. I understood that it was the 
 soul of my brother apologizing to me for the 
 action of my parents. Tears began to flow 
 from my eyes. I did not care to read any 
 further, from fear of finding something I did 
 not wish to find. I was thinking of my parents. 
 
 And when I entered the house of my parents, 
 I could hardly recognize them. Wrinkled, 
 bent, with sunken cheeks, they had changed 
 entirely in appearance. 
 
 Father looked at my buttons, removed his 
 cap, and stood bent before me. Mother was 
 busying herself at the oven, and began to speak 
 to father in a mixture of Hebrew and Yiddish : 
 " Sure enough, some sort of taxes again. . . . 
 Much do we need it now. . . ." Then, in a 
 fit of spitefulness, I made believe I was a 
 stranger. 
 
 " Old people," said I, " I have brought you
 
 1 92 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 news from your son Samuel." As soon as 
 father heard me speak Yiddish, he rah to the 
 window, rubbed his hands against the moist 
 pane, by way of washing them, and shook 
 hands with me. 
 
 " Peace be with you, young man," said he. 
 Mother left her corner and stood up before 
 me. Father began fumbling for his glasses, 
 and asked me : " News from my son, you say? 
 Where did you see him last? " 
 
 "And when did you see him?" asked 
 mother, shivering. 
 
 I mentioned some imaginary place and date. 
 
 " How does he feel? Was he in the war? 
 Is he well? Does he expect to come home? " 
 
 Many such questions followed one another 
 in quick succession. Meanwhile father took 
 me aside, and whispered into my ear: " How 
 about .... how about religion?" Out of 
 sheer spitefulness I wanted to worry the poor
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 193 
 
 old folks a little ; may the Lord not consider it 
 a sin on my part. 
 
 I said: "Had Rabbi Simhah the Shohet 
 been in his place, he surely would have with- 
 stood all temptations !".... 
 
 "What, converted?!" 
 
 I kept silent, and the old people took it as a 
 sign of affirmation. 
 
 They hung their heads despondently, and 
 kept silent, too. Then father asked me once 
 more: 
 
 "Married a Gentile? Has children?" I 
 still kept silent. My old mother wept quietly. 
 My heart melted within me, but I braced my- 
 self up and kept silent. I felt as if a lump in 
 my throat was choking me, but I swallowed it. 
 I heard mother talking to herself: " O Master 
 of the Universe, Father who art in Heaven, 
 Thou Merciful and Righteous!" .... As 
 she said it, she shook her head, as if accepting
 
 i 9 4 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 God's verdict and complaining at the same 
 time. 
 
 The old man stood up, his beard a-quiver. 
 His hand shook nervously, and he said in a 
 tone of dry, cold despair: 
 
 " Ett. . . . Blessed be the righteous 
 Judge ! " as though I had told him the news of 
 his son's death. With that he took out a pocket 
 knife, and wanted to make the " mourning 
 cut." At that moment my ear caught the 
 sound of the heartrending singsong of the 
 Psalms. The voice was old and tremulous. It 
 was an old man, evidently a lodger, who was 
 reading his Psalter in an adjoining room: 
 
 " For the Lord knoweth the path of the 
 righteous. ..." 
 
 The memories of the long past overtook me, 
 and I told my parents who I was. . . . . 
 
 And yet continued Samuel after some 
 thought and yet they were not at peace, fear-
 
 IN THOSE DAYS 195 
 
 ing I had deceived them. And they never 
 rested till they got me married to my Rebekah, 
 " according to the law of Moses and Israel." 
 
 Well, two years passed after my wedding, 
 and troubles began; I got a toothache, may 
 you be spared the pain ! That is the way of the 
 Jew : no sooner does he wed a woman and be- 
 get children, than all kinds of ills come upon 
 him. 
 
 Some one told me, there was a nurse at the 
 city hospital who knew how to treat aching 
 teeth and all kinds of ills better than a full- 
 fledged doctor. 
 
 I went to the hospital, and asked for the 
 nurse. 
 
 A young woman came out. . . . 
 
 "Marusya?!" 
 
 "Samuel?!" 
 
 We were both taken aback. 
 
 " And where is your husband, Marusya ? " 
 asked I, after I had. caught my breath.
 
 196 IN THOSE DAYS 
 
 " And you, Samuel, are you married? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " But I am single yet." 
 
 Yes, yes, she was a good soul ! She died long 
 ago. . . . May it please the Lord to give her 
 a goodly portion in Paradise ! 
 
 Here the old man broke off his story with a 
 deep sigh escaping from his breast. 
 
 He waved his hand at his son, who was 
 dozing away unconcerned, lurching from side 
 to side. The old man looked at his son, shook' 
 his head, and said: 
 
 " Yes, yes, those were times, those were 
 soldiers. ... It is all different now: new 
 times, new people, new soldiers. . . . 
 
 " It is all make-believe nowadays ! . . . . "
 
 NOTES 
 
 BY THE TRANSLATOR 
 Av. The month in the Jewish BAR-MITZWAH. L ite r a 1 1 y, 
 
 calendar corresponding 
 to July-August. On the 
 ninth day of Av the 
 Temple was taken and 
 destroyed by Titus. 
 ARBA-KANFOS. Literally, 
 " four corners." A rec- 
 tangular piece of cloth 
 about one foot wide and 
 three feet long, with an 
 aperture in the middle 
 large enough to pass it 
 over the head. The 
 front part of the gar- 
 ment falls over the chest, 
 the other part covers the 
 shoulders. To its four 
 corners " Tzitzis," o r 
 fringes, are attached in 
 prescribed manner. 
 When made of wool, the 
 Arba-Kanfos is usually 
 called TALLIS-KOTON 
 (which see). 
 
 " man of duty." A Jew- 
 ish boy who has passed 
 his thirteenth birthday, 
 and has thus attained 
 his religious majority. 
 BEADLE. The functions of 
 this officer in a Jewish 
 community were some- 
 what similar to those of 
 the constable in some 
 American villages. 
 
 CANDLES. The Sabbath is 
 ushered in by lighting 
 the Sabbath candles, ac- 
 companied by a short 
 prayer. 
 
 CANTONISTS. A term applied 
 to Jewish boys drafted 
 into military service dur- 
 ing the reign of Nicholas 
 I of Russia (1825-1855). 
 Every Jewish community 
 had to supply its quota; 
 
 197
 
 198 
 
 NOTES 
 
 but as parents did not 
 surrender their children 
 willingly, they were se- 
 cured b y kidnappers 
 specially appointed by 
 the Community for the 
 purpose. See CATCHER. 
 The same term was ap- 
 plied to the children of 
 Russian soldiers who 
 were educated for the 
 army in the so-called 
 District, o r Canton, 
 Schools. Hence the name. 
 CATCHER. An agent of the 
 Jewish Community prior 
 to the introduction, in 
 1874, of general military 
 duty in Russia. 
 
 HAVDOLAH. Ceremonial with 
 wine, candle, and spices, 
 accompanied by a prayer, 
 at the end of the Sabbath. 
 
 HAGGODAH. The ritual used 
 at the Passover eve 
 home service. 
 
 HALLAH. In commemoration 
 of the priest's tithe at the 
 time of the Temple. The 
 ceremonial consists of 
 taking a piece of the 
 bread dough before it is 
 
 baked and throwing it 
 into the fire; a prayer is 
 recited at the same time. 
 HEDER. Literally, " a room." 
 Specifically, a school in 
 which Bible and Talmud 
 are taught. 
 
 KADDISH. Literally, " sanc- 
 tification." A prayer re- 
 cited in commemoration 
 of the dead. 
 
 KARAITES. Members of a 
 Jewish sect that does not 
 recognize the authority 
 of the Talmud. 
 
 KOSHER. Literally, " right," 
 " fit" Specifically ap- 
 plied to food prepared 
 in accordance with the 
 Jewish dietary laws. 
 
 KLAUS. A synagogue to which 
 students of the Talmud 
 resort for study and dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 LAMDAN. A scholar learned 
 in the Torah. 
 
 MEZUZAH. Literally, " door- 
 post." A piece of parch- 
 ment, inscribed with the 
 SHEMA (which see), to-
 
 NOTES 
 
 199 
 
 gether with Deut. n : 13- 
 21, rolled up, and en- 
 closed in an oblong box, 
 which is attached in a 
 prescribed way to the 
 door-post of a dwelling. 
 MoDEH-Aui. Literally, " I 
 affirm." The opening 
 words of a brief confes- 
 sion of faith. 
 
 SHAATNEZ. Cloth or a gar- 
 ment made of linen and 
 wool woven together; or 
 a wool garment sewed 
 with linen thread; or a 
 linen garment sewed 
 with wool. 
 
 SHEMA. Literally, " listen." 
 The opening words of 
 Deut. 6:4-9. 
 
 SHEMAD. Literally, " exter- 
 mination." Applied fig- 
 uratively to renunciation 
 of the .Jewish faith, 
 whether forced or vol- 
 untary. 
 
 SHOHET. A slaughterer of 
 cattle licensed by a 
 rabbi. He must ex- 
 amine the viscera of cat- 
 tle according to the rules 
 laid down in the Tal- 
 mud. 
 
 TALLIS-KOTON. Literally, 
 "the little Tallis," or 
 prayer shawl. Worn by 
 some Jews. See ARBA- 
 KANFOS. 
 
 TORAH. Literally, " doctrine." 
 A term applied to the 
 Pentateuch, and to the 
 Talmud with its com- 
 mentaries. 
 
 TZITZIS. See ARBA-KANFOS. 
 
 YoM-KippuR. Day of Atone- 
 ment 
 
 ZHID (fern. Zhidovka: zh 
 sounded like z in azure). 
 Literally, "Judean." 
 Russian equivalent of 
 English " sheeny."
 
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