The Messenger
Translated from the Yiddish by M. S. Mandell
I N spite of the cold wind blowing against him, he walked steadily onward. Often he pressed his right hand against his left side. It pained him there, but that he did not want to admit; he tried to persuade himself that he was only feeling for his pocket.
“I hope that I shall not lose the contract and the money!” he said, as though that were the only cause of his fear.
“And suppose it does pain me, it is foolish to mind it! I have—blessed be His name!—strength enough for such an errand. Other messengers at my age could not walk a mile, but I, praised be the Lord! need no one’s assistance, and can earn my own living. Thank God I am trusted with money!
“If I owned as much money,” he thought, “as is intrusted to my care, I would not need to be a messenger at the age of seventy; but if it is the will of God, it pleases me!”
Heavy snowflakes began to fall; he was often forced to wipe them from his face.
“I have,” he said to himself, “altogether about four miles left—that’s nothing! It’s not a great distance! I am nearer to the point of my destination than to the place whence I started!”
He turned around, but he could see neither the tower-clock, nor the pinnacle of the church.
“Well, Smarje, move on!” said he to himself.
And Smarje moved on in the wet snow, heavily treading it with his weary feet. “Blessed be His name, the wind is not too violent!”
By “too violent,” apparently, he meant a gale; but the storm was severe enough and blew right in his face, so that it caught his breath; it brought tears to his old eyes, which ached with inflammation. But he was always suffering with his eyes.
“The first money I can spare,” was the thought that forced itself on his mind, “I will invest in a pair of road-glasses,—those big, round ones; they would well protect my eyes.
“Would that it were the will of God,” he thought, “that I could obtain even so much! If I only had an errand every day, and far, far to go! To walk, thank God, I am able; then I could save up enough to buy me a pair of spectacles.”
He also needed a sheepskin coat. His chest would have been better protected; but he considered his overcoat good and warm for the present.
“If it would only last, it would be all right.” A smile of satisfaction appeared on his face. “This,” he said, casting a downward glance on his coat, “is not a modern fabric, which is good for nothing, but an old-time textile; it will