Yiddish Tales/Abraham Raisin/The Two Brothers
THE TWO BROTHERS
It is three months since Yainkele and Berele—two brothers, the first fourteen years old, the second sixteen— have been at the college that stands in the town of X—, five German miles from their birthplace Dalissovke, after which they are called the "Dalissovkers."
Yainkele is a slight, pale boy, with black eyes that peep slyly from beneath the two black eyebrows. Berele is taller and stouter than Yainkele, his eyes are lighter, and his glance is more defiant, as though he would say, "Let me alone, I shall laugh at you all yet!"
The two brothers lodged with a poor relation, a widow, a dealer in second-hand goods, who never came home till late at night. 'The two brothers had no bed, but a chest, which was broad enough, served instead, and the brothers slept sweetly on it, covered with their own torn clothes; and in their dreams they saw their native place, the little street, their home, their father with his long beard and dim eyes and bent back, and their mother with her long, pale, melancholy face, and they heard the little brothers and sisters quarrelling, as they fought over a bit of herring, and they dreamt other dreams of home, and early in the morning they were homesick, and then they used to run to the Dalissovke Inn, and ask the carrier if there were a letter for them from home.
The Dalissovke carriers were good Jews with soft hearts, and they were sorry for the two poor boys, who 398 RAISIN
were so anxious for news from home, whose eyes burned, and whose hearts beat so fast, so loud, but the carriers were very busy; they came charged with a thousand messages from the Dalissovke shopkeepers and traders, and they carried more letters than the post, but with infinitely less method. Letters were lost, and parcels were heard of no more, and the distracted carriers scratched the nape of their neck, and replied to every question :
"Directly, directly, I shall find it directly no, I don't seem to have anything for you "
That is how they answered the grown people who came to them; but our two little brothers stood and looked at Lezer the carrier a man in a wadded caftan, summer and winter with thirsty eyes and aching hearts; stood and waited, hoping he would notice them and say something, if only one word. But Lezer was always busy : now he had gone into the yard to feed the horse, now he had run into the inn, and entered into a conversation with the clerk of a great store, who had brought a list of goods wanted from a shop in Dal- issovke.
And the brothers used to stand and stand, till the elder one, Berele, lost patience. Biting his lips, and all but crying with vexation, he would just articulate :
"Reb Lezer, is there a letter from father?"
But Reb Lezer would either suddenly cease to exist, run out into the street with somebody or other, or be absorbed in a conversation, and Berele hardly expected the answer which Reb Lezer would give over his shoulder : THE TWO BROTHERS 399
"There isn't one there isn't one."
"There isn't one !" Berele would say with a deep sigh, and sadly call to Yainkele to come away. Mournfully, and with a broken spirit, they went to where the day's meal awaited them.
"I am sure he loses the letters !" Yainkele would say a few minutes later, as they walked along.
"He is a bad man!" Berele would mutter with vex- ation.
But one day Lezer handed them a letter and a small parcel.
The letter ran thus: "Dear Children,
Be good, boys, and learn with diligence. We send you herewith half a cheese and a quarter of a pound of sugar, and a little berry-juice in a bottle.
Eat it in health, and do not quarrel over it. From me, your father,
CHAYYIM HECHT."
That day Lezer the carrier was the best man in the world in their eyes, they would not have been ashamed to eat him up with horse and cart for very love. They wrote an answer at once for letter-paper they used to tear out, with fluttering hearts, the first, unprinted pages in the Gemoreh and gave it that evening to Lezer the carrier. Lezer took it coldly, pushed it into the breast of his coat, and muttered something like "All right !"
"What did he say, Berele?" asked Yainkele, anx- iously.
"I think he said 'all right,' " Berele answered doubt- fully. 400 RAISIN
"I think he said so, too," Yainkele persuaded himself. Then he gave a sigh, and added fearfully :
"He may lose the letter !"
"Bite your tongue out!" answered Berele, angrily, and they went sadly away to supper.
And three times a week, early in the morning, when Lezer the carrier came driving, the two brothers flew, not ran, to the Dalissovke Inn, to ask for an answer to their letter; and Lezer the carrier grew more pre- occupied and cross, and answered either with mumbled words, which the brothers could not understand, and dared not ask him to repeat, or else not at all, so that they went away with heavy hearts. But one day they heard Lezer the carrier speak distinctly, so that they understood quite well :
"What are you doing here, you two? What do you come plaguing me for? Letter? Fiddlesticks! How much do you pay me ? Am I a postman ? Eh ? Be off with you, and don't worry."
The brothers obeyed, but only in part: their hearts were like lead, their thin little legs shook, and tears fell from their eyes onto the ground. And they went no more to Lezer the carrier to ask for a letter.
"I wish he were dead and buried!" they exclaimed, but they did not mean it, and they longed all the time just to go and look at Lezer the carrier, his horse and cart. After all, they came from Dalissovke, and the two brothers loved them.
One day, two or three weeks after the carrier sent them about their business in the way described, the two THE TWO BROTHERS 401
brothers were sitting in the house of the poor relation and talking about home. It was summer-time, and a Friday afternoon.
"I wonder what father is doing now," said Yainkele, staring at the small panes in the small window.
"He must be cutting his nails/' answered Berele, with a melancholy smile.
"He must be chopping up lambs' feet," imagined Yainkele, "and Mother is combing Chainele, and Chainele is crying."
"Now we've talked nonsense enough !" decided Berele. "How can we know what is going on there ?"
"Perhaps somebody's dead !" added Yainkele, in sud- den terror.
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Berele. "When people die, they let one know "
"Perhaps they wrote, and the carrier won't give us the letter"
"Ai, that's chatter enough !" Berele was quite cross. "Shut up, donkey ! You make me laugh," he went on, to reassure Yainkele, "they are all alive and well."
Yainkele became cheerful again, and all at once he gave a bound into the air, and exclaimed with eager eyes:
"Berele, do what I say ! Let's write by the post !"
"Right you are!" agreed Berele. "Only I've no money."
"I have four kopeks; they are over from the ten I got last night. You know, at my 'Thursday' they give me ten kopeks for supper, and I have four over. 402 KAISIN
"And I have one kopek," said Berele, "just enough for a post-card."
"But which of us will write it ?" asked Yainkele.
"I," answered Berele, "I am the eldest, I'm a first- born son."
"But I gave four kopeks !"
"A first-born is worth more than four kopeks."
"No! I'll write half, and you'll write half, ha?"
"Very well. Come and buy a card."
And the two brothers ran to buy a card at the post- office.
"There will be no room for anything!" complained Yainkele, on the way home, as he contemplated the small post-card. "We will make little tiny letters, teeny weeny ones !" advised Berele.
"Father won't be able to read them!"
"Never mind ! He will put on his spectacles. Come along quicker!" urged Yainkele. His heart was already full of words, like a sea, and he wanted to pour it out onto the bit of paper, the scrap on which he had spent his entire fortune.
They reached their lodging, and settled down to write.
Berele began, and Yainkele stood and looked on.
"Begin higher up ! There is room there for a whole line. Why did you put 'to my beloved Father' so low down?" shrieked Yainkele.
"Where am I to put it, then ? In the sky, eh ?" asked Berele, and pushed Yainkele aside.
"Go away, I will leave you half. Don't confuse me ! You be quiet!" and Yainkele moved away, and stared with terrified eyes at Berele, as he sat there, bent double, THE TWO BROTHERS 403
and wrote and wrote, knitted his brows, and dipped the pen, and reflected, and wrote again.
"That's enough !" screamed Yainkele, after a few minutes.
"It's not the half yet," answered Berele, writing on.
"But I ought to have more than half I" said Yainkele, crossly. The longing to write, to pour out his heart on- to the post-card, was overwhelming him.
But Berele did not even hear: he had launched out into such rhetorical Hebrew expressions as "First of all, I let you know that I am alive and well," which he had learnt in "The Perfect Letter- Writer," and his little bits of news remained unwritten. He had yet to abuse Lezer the carrier, to tell how many pages of the Gemoreh he had learnt, to let them know they were to send another parcel, because they had no "Monday" and no "Wednesday," and the "Tuesday" was no better than nothing.
And Berele writes and writes, and Yainkele can no longer contain himself he sees that Berele is taking up more than half the card.
"Enough !" He ran forward with a cry, and seized the penholder.
"Three words more !" begged Berele.
"But remember, not more than three !" and Yainkele's eyes flashed. Berele set to work to write the three words; but that which he wished to express required yet ten to fifteen words, and Berele, excited by the fact of writing, pecked away at the paper, and took up yet another bit of the other half. 404 EAISIN
"You stop !" shrieked Yainkele, and broke into hys- terical sobs, as he saw what a small space remained for him.
"Hush ! Just 'from me, thy son,' " begged Berele, "nothing else I"
But Yainkele, remembering that he had given a whole vierer toward the post-card, and that they would read so much of Berele at home, and so little of him, flew into a passion, and came and tried to tear away the card from under Berele's hands. "Let me put 'from me, thy son' !" implored Berele.
"It will do without 'from me, thy son'!" screamed Yainkele, although he felt that one ought to put it. His anger rose, and he began tugging at the card. Berele held tight, but Yainkele gave such a pull that the card tore in two.
"What have you done, villain !" cried Berele, glaring at Yainkele.
"I meant to do it!" wailed Yainkele.
"Oh, but why did you?" cried Berele, gazing in despair at the two torn halves of the post-card.
But Yainkele could not answer. The tears choked him, and he threw himself against the wall, tearing his hair. Then Berele gave way, too, and the little room resounded with lamentations.