The Treasure

Category: ISAAC LOeB PEREZ

To sleep, in summer time, in a room four yards square, together with a
wife and eight children, is anything but a pleasure, even on a Friday
night--and Shmerel the woodcutter rises from his bed, though only half
through with the night, hot and gasping, hastily pours some water over
his finger-tips, flings on his dressing-gown, and escapes barefoot from
the parched Gehenna of his dwelling. He steps into the street--all
quiet, all the shutters closed, and over the sleeping town is a distant,
serene, and starry sky. He feels as if he were all alone with God,
blessed is He, and he says, looking up at the sky, "Now, Lord of the
Universe, now is the time to hear me and to bless me with a treasure out
of Thy treasure-house!"

As he says this, he sees something like a little flame coming along out
of the town, and he knows, That is it! He is about to pursue it, when he
remembers it is Sabbath, when one mustn't turn. So he goes after it
walking. And as he walks slowly along, the little flame begins to move
slowly, too, so that the distance between them does not increase, though
it does not shorten, either. He walks on. Now and then an inward voice
calls to him: "Shmerel, don't be a fool! Take off the dressing-gown.
Give a jump and throw it over the flame!" But he knows it is the Evil
Inclination speaking. He throws off the dressing-gown onto his arm, but
to spite the Evil Inclination he takes still smaller steps, and
rejoices to see that, as soon as he takes these smaller steps, the
little flame moves more slowly, too.

Thus he follows the flame, and follows it, till he gradually finds
himself outside the town. The road twists and turns across fields and
meadows, and the distance between him and the flame grows no longer, no
shorter. Were he to throw the dressing-gown, it would not reach the
flame. Meantime the thought revolves in his mind: Were he indeed to
become possessed of the treasure, he need no longer be a woodcutter,
now, in his later years; he has no longer the strength for the work he
had once. He would rent a seat for his wife in the women's Shool, so
that her Sabbaths and holidays should not be spoiled by their not
allowing her to sit here or to sit there. On New Year's Day and the Day
of Atonement it is all she can do to stand through the service. Her many
children have exhausted her! And he would order her a new dress, and buy
her a few strings of pearls. The children should be sent to better
Chedorim, and he would cast about for a match for his eldest girl. As it
is, the poor child carries her mother's fruit baskets, and never has
time so much as to comb her hair thoroughly, and she has long, long
plaits, and eyes like a deer.

"It would be a meritorious act to pounce upon the treasure!"

The Evil Inclination again, he thinks. If it is not to be, well, then it
isn't! If it were in the week, he would soon know what to do! Or if his
Yainkel were there, he would have had something to say. Children
nowadays! Who knows what they don't do on Sabbath, as it is! And the
younger one is no better: he makes fun of the teacher in Cheder. When
the teacher is about to administer a blow, they pull his beard. And
who's going to find time to see after them--chopping and sawing a whole
day through.

He sighs and walks on and on, now and then glancing up into the sky:
"Lord of the Universe, of whom are you making trial? Shmerel Woodcutter?
If you do mean to give me the treasure, give it me!" It seems to him
that the flame proceeds more slowly, but at this very moment he hears a
dog bark, and it has a bark he knows--that is the dog in Vissoke.
Vissoke is the first village you come to on leaving the town, and he
sees white patches twinkle in the dewy morning atmosphere, those are the
Vissoke peasant cottages. Then it occurs to him that he has gone a
Sabbath day's journey, and he stops short.

"Yes, I have gone a Sabbath day's journey," he thinks, and says,
speaking into the air: "You won't lead me astray! It is not a
God-send! God does not make sport of us--it is the work of a demon." And
he feels a little angry with the thing, and turns and hurries toward the
town, thinking: "I won't say anything about it at home, because, first,
they won't believe me, and if they do, they'll laugh at me. And what
have I done to be proud of? The Creator knows how it was, and that is
enough for me. Besides, she might be angry, who can tell? The children
are certainly naked and barefoot, poor little things! Why should they be
made to transgress the command to honor one's father?"

No, he won't breathe a word. He won't even ever remind the Almighty of
it. If he really has been good, the Almighty will remember without being
told.

And suddenly he is conscious of a strange, lightsome, inward calm, and
there is a delicious sensation in his limbs. Money is, after all, dross,
riches may even lead a man from the right way, and he feels inclined to
thank God for not having brought him into temptation by granting him his
wish. He would like, if only--to sing a song! "Our Father, our King" is
one he remembers from his early years, but he feels ashamed before
himself, and breaks off. He tries to recollect one of the cantor's
melodies, a Sinai tune--when suddenly he sees that the identical little
flame which he left behind him is once more preceding him, and moving
slowly townward, townward, and the distance between them neither
increases nor diminishes, as though the flame were taking a walk, and he
were taking a walk, just taking a little walk in honor of Sabbath. He is
glad in his heart and watches it. The sky pales, the stars begin to go
out, the east flushes, a narrow pink stream flows lengthwise over his
head, and still the flame flickers onward into the town, enters his own
street. There is his house. The door, he sees, is open. Apparently he
forgot to shut it. And, lo and behold! the flame goes in, the flame goes
in at his own house door! He follows, and sees it disappear beneath the
bed. All are asleep. He goes softly up to the bed, stoops down, and sees
the flame spinning round underneath it, like a top, always in the same
place; takes his dressing-gown, and throws it down under the bed, and
covers up the flame. No one hears him, and now a golden morning beam
steals in through the chink in the shutter.

He sits down on the bed, and makes a vow not to say a word to anyone
till Sabbath is over--not half a word, lest it cause desecration of the
Sabbath. She could never hold her tongue, and the children certainly
not; they would at once want to count the treasure, to know how much
there was, and very soon the secret would be out of the house and into
the Shool, the house-of-study, and all the streets, and people would
talk about his treasure, about luck, and people would not say their
prayers, or wash their hands, or say grace, as they should, and he would
have led his household and half the town into sin. No, not a whisper!
And he stretches himself out on the bed, and pretends to be asleep.

And this was his reward: When, after concluding the Sabbath, he stooped
down and lifted up the dressing-gown under the bed, there lay a sack
with a million of gulden, an almost endless number--the bed was a large
one--and he became one of the richest men in the place.

And he lived happily all the years of his life.

Only, his wife was continually bringing up against him: "Lord of the
World, how could a man have such a heart of stone, as to sit a whole
summer day and not say a word, not a word, not to his own wife, not one
single word! And there was I" (she remembers) "crying over my prayer as
I said God of Abraham--and crying so--for there wasn't a dreier left in
the house."

Then he consoles her, and says with a smile:

"Who knows? Perhaps it was all thanks to your 'God of Abraham' that it
went off so well."

Next: It Is Well
Previous: A Woman's Wrath

Report
Privacy

SHARE

BOOKMARK

Viewed 69

Yiddish Tales

The Treasure