A Tale of the Russian Ghetto in the Eighties
SIE was the rabbi's daughter—was “Teibele.” Everyone in Zlidnovka, the town in Little Russia where Reb Gimpel, Teibele's father officiated—everyone said that her name suited her as perfectly as the Shtreimel suited her father's head. “for” said the neighbors,—(in Zlidnovka everybody is everybody else's neighbor, since the whole town consists of one street)—“Teibele is a perfect dove.”
"Is she modest?" asked Basheh, the baker's wife, of Chajah the widow. Basheh knew the merits of the rabbi's daughter as well as Chajah, but Basheh had a fondness for repetition.
"Modest is she?" Chaja puckered up her lips, shook her head to one side, then to the other, and looked at her neighbor—"not even to her mother would she speak aloud in public. No wonder, is she not a rabbi's daughter, and does she not know that it is written in the Talmud (here Chajah assumed a superior air) that it is a disgrace for a woman to lift her voice in public?"
Is Teibele learned? Basheh was too fondof the topic to cut it short. She likedgossip when it was served in choice, smallbits. Her appetite was such that she nevergot enough. “Ha, ha, if Teibele is learned! go Basheh, go, how canst thou ask suchKashes (questions)? Didst thou forget lastTisha B’av? Teibele was reading theMaaneh Loshon* over her grandmother’s(she was my Nochim’s, peace be upon him,cousin) grave, and every word she utteredwas as sweet as honey. I thought myheart would melt as I listened—I couldn’thelp listening, Basheh. for my Nochimlies just two graves away from Teibele’s
* Prayers recited over graves of relatives.
grandmother. The girl is a pearl, I tellthee, a real blessing to her mother. Godwas merciful to our rabbi. He has givenhim no son, but his daughter is as good asten sons, so may I live, she is. But sayBasheh, I forgot to ask thee—isn’t Teibelebetrothed yet? She’ll be sixteen next RoshChodesh. I remember it like to-day; sheis just two years, three weeks and one dayyounger than my Shmayah, may he livea hundred and twenty years! In my days,Basheh, it was different. I was led to theChuppah before I was fifteen. To-day,Besane rabbon, (for our many sins) ourdaughters are not wedded before they areeighteen and twenty! Sone Yisrael;(enemies of Israel!) what times we havelived to see! There is Zippah—”
Basheh did not wait to hear the rest of Chajah's cunning comment, for her Bashe's daughter, Maita, was past seventeen and no zidog (mate) had yet been found for her. She felt certain that Chajah would never have mentioned Teibele, had she not wanted to "pierce her eys" about Maita. "Not enough that God punishes me," muttered Basheh to herself as she ran from her neighbor's hints—"comes she yet and throws salt on my wound. As if I didn't know that her mother,"—Basheh bit her lip, it occurred to her that she could not yet afford to displease God with thinking evil of her neighbor. She must remain on good terms with the Almighty, at least as long as Maita was not mated yet. Afterwards she could perhaps venture a little quarrel with the Lord; yes, afterwards, but not now!
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Zlidnovka, like many another Russian town, was chiefly conspicuous for what it lacked. rather than possessed of architectural beauty. If perfect ugliness deserves