Joseph Roth - Tarabas

“Here’s a candle,” said Tarabas.

“I can’t light it,” answered the old man. “You must do it yourself.”

Tarabas lit the candle-end and stuck it on the narrow window-sill.

“Why wouldn’t you light it?” he asked, looking at the old wanderer with a touch of envy, because he was so much older and looked so much more ravaged by suffering than Tarabas. Ah, this was a general in the army of the wretched! Tarabas was but a lieutenant still.

“This is Friday night,” said the other. “I am a Jew, and we are not allowed to make a fire on the Sabbath.”

“How is it that you aren’t in a warm house tonight?” asked Tarabas, and now his envy filled him to the brim, as formerly only his rages could. “All other Jews eat and sleep in their houses when the Sabbath comes. I have never met a Jewish beggar before on Friday night or Saturday.”

“Well, you see,” said the aged Jew, sitting down on the seat opposite Tarabas, “with me it’s different. I was a respected man in my community. I celebrated every Sabbath as God commands. But many other things that He commands, I did not do. It’s eight years now since I have been a wanderer like this. I was on the road all the years of the war. And those were by no means the worst. I’ve been a long way round, and seen many parts of Russia. And sometimes I was very close to the front. Close to the troops there was always something interesting going on, and always something to spare for a beggar.”

“But why have you given up observing your Sabbath?” asked Tarabas.

The old man passed his hand through his beard, leaned forward to take a nearer look at Tarabas, and said:

“Move a bit nearer to the light, so that I can get a look at you.”

Tarabas did so.

“Good!” said the old Jew. “I think you’re one that I can tell my story to. To be frank, I like telling it. But there are some folk you can talk to, and all they say is ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘Is that so?’ or else they only smile, or are altogether deaf and dumb and say nothing at all. They only turn over and begin to snore at you. Now, heaven knows, I’m not a vain man, and I don’t want applause — on the contrary, I want others to know me as I am, exactly as I am. And unless they take my whole nature into consideration, it’s no use my telling them my tale at all.”

“Quite right,” said Tarabas. “I understand.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” continued the Jew — and to Tarabas’s astonishment he spoke the language of the country with perfect fluency, not like the other Jews. “I’ll tell you to begin with that I was a very rich man once. My name is Samuel Yedliner. And everybody in this country for miles around knows me. But I don’t advise you to mention me to anyone, for they’ll only curse you if you say my name. Remember that. Especially if you should ever come to Koropta. That’s where I used to live.”

“Koropta?” asked Tarabas.

“Yes. Do you know it?”

“Slightly,” said Tarabas.

“Yes,” said the aged Yedliner. “I had a house there, as big as the Koropta inn, Kristianpoller’s inn. I had a beautiful wife, strong, and buxom; and two sons. I traded in timber, I must tell you, and made a pile of money. You sell a lot of wood when the winter’s hard, like this one now, for instance. I wasn’t the only timber-merchant in the place; but I was the smartest of them all. It’s this way: in spring, when no one ever thinks that there will ever be a winter, I go to the owner of the big estate and look at his forest, and have this tree marked, and that one, and pay him something on account. Then I have my trees cut down. I don’t rely on the owner — let him cut down what he likes. I have my own wood-cutters. The trees are delivered in my yard. I let them lie out of doors when it’s wet, and when it’s dry I cover them over. That’s how you bring up the weight. For my one great principle was sale by weight, and as far as possible already sawn and chopped up small. You see? — Why should the people have men come and chop up their logs, and pay them extra for it? If they buy by the cord or by the foot they only have to get the trees sawed up for them. No, that’s not my way. I sell wood ready for use, and by weight. Now that was an absolutely original method in our part of the country.”

The old man broke off. Perhaps he reflected that this passion which he still could feel for his abandoned calling was no longer right or proper. He interrupted his description.

“Well, it was like that — more or less. It doesn’t matter any more. At any rate, I was a rich man. I had money in the house and in the bank. I had one son at the university. I sent my wife abroad every year, to Austria, to Franzensbad, because the doctor said she must have some internal trouble to account for the pains in her back, that he could find no reason for. But the devil pinched me. All summer long I earned no money, and I had no patience to wait until the autumn came. Besides, sometimes the autumns were fine and dry and very late, and no one thought about the winter — and my wood got lighter and lighter. That was pretty galling. Then that Yurych came to me one day, and made me a proposal. …”

Yedliner paused, sighed, and then went on.

“And from that day on, I was a well-paid spy in the service of the police. To begin with I only denounced people that I knew something positive against; but then I went on to others where I could only guess; and finally, anyone I had a personal grudge against I simply reported. I developed a tremendous imagination, and I was good at putting two and two together. They believed me without question. Once or twice I had luck; it turned out that everything I said was true, although I had simply gone on guess-work. But then one day Yurych went to Kristianpoller’s bar and got drunk, and said that I was earning a great deal more money than he himself.

“Well, I don’t want to bore you. To make a long story short, they fetched me out one night. Two strong Jewish butchers and the inn-keeper Kristianpoller, who’s no weakling either, beat me half to death. They forced me to leave my home and the town. My wife wouldn’t go with me. My sons spat at me. The rabbi called a Jewish court together; three very learned men sat in it. I saw what I’d done — at least twenty Jews from Koropta and round about were in prison on my account. And at least ten of them were innocent. And I swore to the Jews of Koropta that I would give up everything and go away. And that I would join the beggars of the country. And to myself I vowed and resolved that I would never again spend Sabbath in a Jewish house.

“That’s why I’m here. And that is my story.”

“And I,” said Tarabas, “got into a fury with one of your people, and pulled out his beard.”

They sat there facing each other. The stump of candle on the window-sill had gone out long ago.

When the morning came, an icy morning — its red and fiery dawn announced another snowstorm — they left the train-carriage, shook each other’s hand, and went their separate ways, in different directions.

ON that forenoon Tarabas came to the market-village of Turka. Old Yedliner’s story had given him a desire to saw up tree-trunks and chop them into logs.

Therefore he went in Turka from one house to another, asking if there was wood to chop. He found what he was looking for, half a cord of oak to be made small.

“What do you want for your work?” asked the owner of the wood.

“I shall be satisfied with any wage,” Tarabas answered.

“Very well,” said the master of the house.

He was a well-to-do man, a horse-dealer. He brought Tarabas into the yard and showed him where the wood was, brought axe and saw out of the shed and the wooden sawhorse which the people here call the “scissors.” Before he went into the yard, the horse-dealer had put on a fur coat lined with beaver, with a collar of beautiful curly astrakhan. His face was ruddy and smooth with good nourishment, his legs were encased in fur-lined high boots, he held his hands in his warm pockets. Tarabas, on the other hand, frozen in his military coat, blew upon his numb hands, and tried to cover first his right and then his left ear with the inadequate cap, for the frost was pricking both with innumerable pins and needles. The horse-dealer looked at him suspiciously. Tarabas’s face was covered with an unkempt blond beard which began at the cheekbones and bushed out over the collar of his coat. Other tramps, at least so long as they were still young, like this one here, went to the trouble of shaving once a fortnight or so. This one surely has something to hide, reflected the horse-dealer. What tell-tale murderous or thievish feature is he hiding underneath that beard? He might take the axe and saw, and simply make off with them! The cautious man decided that he would keep an eye on this stranger while he worked.