The Collected Stories

visited him in his attic. Naturally the peasants didn’t like this and Mendel had been warned that one of these days they would chop off his head, but he ignored these threats and wallowed deeper and deeper in carnality. There wasn’t a village that he had visited with Reb Bunim where he didn’t have his “wives” and families. It almost seemed true that a whistle from him was sufficient sorcery to bring some girl flying to his side. Mendel, however, didn’t discuss his power over women. He drank no whiskey, avoided fights, and stayed away from the shoemakers, tailors, hoopers and brushmakers that comprised the poorer population of Kreshev. Nor did they regard him as one of them. He didn’t even bother much about money. Reb Bunim, it was said, supplied him with room and board only. But when a Kreshev teamster wanted to hire him and pay him real wages, Mendel remained loyal to the house of Reb Bunim. He apparently did not mind being a slave. His horses and his boots, his pigeons and his girls were the only things that concerned him. So the townspeople gave up on Mendel the coachman.
    “A lost soul,” they commented. “A Jewish Gentile.”
    And gradually they became accustomed to him and then forgot him.
    III
The Articles of Engagement

    As soon as Lise turned fifteen, conjecture began about whom she would marry. Shifrah Tammar was sick, and relations between her and Reb Bunim were strained, so Reb Bunim decided to discuss the matter with his daughter. When the subject was mentioned, Lise became shy and would reply that she would do what her father thought best.
    “You have two possibilities,” Reb Bunim said during one of these conversations. “The first is a young man from Lublin who comes of a very wealthy family but is no scholar. The other is from Warsaw and a real prodigy. But I must warn you that he doesn’t have a cent. Now speak up, girl. The decision is up to you. Which would you prefer?”
    “Oh, money,” Lise said scornfully. “What value does it have? Money can be lost, but not knowledge.” And she turned her gaze downward.
    “Then, if I understand you correctly, you prefer the boy from Warsaw?” Reb Bunim said, stroking his long, black beard.
    “You know best, Father,” Lise whispered.
    “One thing in addition that I should mention,” he went on, “is that the rich man is very handsome—tall and with blond hair. The scholar is extremely short—a full head shorter than you.”
    Lise grasped both of her braids and her face turned red and then quickly lost all color. She bit her lip.
    “Well, what have you decided, daughter?” Reb Bunim demanded. “You mustn’t be ashamed to speak.”
    Lise began to stammer and her knees trembled from shame. “Where is he?” she asked. “I mean, what does he do?” Where is he studying?”
    “The Warsaw boy? He is, may God preserve us, an orphan, and he is at present studying at the Zusmir yeshiva. I am told that he knows the entire Talmud by heart and that he is also a philosopher and a student of the Cabala. He has already written a commentary on Maimonides, I believe.”
    “Yes,” Lise mumbled.
    “Does that mean that you want him?”
    “Only if you approve, Father.”
    And she covered her face with both of her hands and ran from the room. Reb Bunim followed her with his eyes. She delighted him—her beauty, chastity, intelligence. She was closer to him than to her mother, and although almost fully grown, would cuddle close to him and run her fingers through his beard. Fridays before he went off to the bathhouse she would have a clean shirt ready for him and on his return before the lighting of the candles she would serve him freshly baked cake and plum stew. He never heard her laughing raucously as did the other young girls nor did she ever go barefoot in his presence. After the Sabbath meal, when he napped, she would walk on tiptoe so as not to wake him. When he was ill, she would put her hand on his forehead to see whether he had fever and would bring all sorts of medicine and tidbits. On more than one occasion Reb Bunim had envied the happy young man who would have her as a wife.
    Some days later the people of Kreshev learned that Lise’s prospective husband had arrived in town. The young man came in a wagon by himself and he stayed at the house of Rabbi Ozer. Everyone was surprised to see what a scrawny fellow he was, small and thin, with black tousled sidelocks, a pale face and a pointed chin which was barely covered by a few