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When I was born and how old I am–I don't know. And even my mother doesn't know when the world merited my appearance. My mother can't remember because her mind was spinning from more pressing matters. She had to provide food for ten hungry mouths.

My mother was a widow. Anything of value in our house was either pawned or sold. When everything was gone, she began to sell liquor, that is, she opened an underground little place without a permit. Her income was quite small, and she always had to worry about the warden, who often used to wander in and make a perfunctory search and take the last little bit of liquor.

But there is a little hint there. My mother would remember that on that same day, or in the same month, our neighbor Avraham Leyzer's Yenta-Grina–her goat gave birth. And another hint: in that year, people expected cholera, but God had pity on our shtetl and replaced cholera with hunger.

So in what year did Avraham Leyzer's Yenta-Grina's goat have her kids? Unfortunately no one remembers, just as no one remembers the year when people went hungry. Because poor people–which describes our shtetl–went hungry pretty much every year, so that the year in which I was born doesn't stand out to anyone, since I wasn't the son of a king and not even an only child.

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Yehuda Penn

…What can I tell you? I took a leading role in cheder as I did at home. When we would play at soldiers, I was always made the “king,” because I was better looking than the other children. To be the king, one had only to tuck his sidecurls behind his ears and turn the visor of his hat back to his neck. And there I was: who was my equal? But my greatness

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brought me to another level, so that afterward I could never think of myself as other than a king.

So here is a story. Once we were singing “Adon Olam,” which we used to sing before we left cheder. We used to sing the last words in such loud voices that the walls would shake, and the boy who sang in the loudest voice would be the prince. One time, a member of our holy chorus sang louder than me, which I found offensive, so, without thinking, I threw a plum at him, hitting under his eye. He fell down with a scream, as if I had put out his eye. I immediately understood that I was in trouble, and without thinking, I fled. The whole cheder, led by the rabbi, chased after me and caught me near the door of my house. In a great parade, they took me back into the cheder. The rabbi had to go say minchah, so he left me in the cheder until his return, and so that I could not escape, he left two boys to guard me; and to be extra sure, he tied me to the table. After he left, the two boys went into the garden to pick cucumbers, and I untied my feet and hands–and presto! The next morning, I arrived later than everyone else. Everyone was waiting to see whether the ruling king would stand for judgment and receive, for his good deeds, forty-minus-one lashes. I was not cowed by the torments, the soul-shattering torment, like spiritual torment and its promise: “You shall see them and remember them.” And thus I would receive the new title that I earned, “the whipped one.” And so there I stood, the culprit awaiting vengeance.

But then I saw God's miracles. With the words “Come here, you heroic Samson”–the rabbi took me with his skinny hands, stationed me between his two skinny feet and lowering my “curtain,” prepared his whip–when suddenly a voice was heard (just like at the Akedah): “What do you want with him? He is an orphan and weak child.” And I saw how the Rebbetzin held the rabbi's hand with the whip, just as the angel held our father Abraham's hand when he raised the knife over Yitzchak. And the Rebbetzin spoke many beautiful words, which so moved the rabbi that he released me, saying, “No more such behavior, do you hear?” But the rabbi was moved less by her

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fine words than by her hands, which were the hands of Esau, which the rabbi greatly feared.

Don't think that I didn't have an “in” with the Rebbetzin. I used to be useful to her: when she was short of time, I used to rock her children to sleep with a tune. I helped her out, soothed her hands, and did other favors.

Although this time I got off, I was no longer the king. And since miracles don't always happen, I decided to leave this rabbi. I waited until the end of the term and told my mother that I could no longer learn there and I needed a better teacher. The next term I with a different rabbi.

Tuesday was a market day for us. The Rebbetzin would go to the marketplace with her wares and the rabbi would help her with business. We students would remain in the cheder without a bit of work. “And it was the day”–one Tuesday when the rabbi was in the market with the Rebbetzin, a group of boys from a nearby cheder came running in to us, yelling, “Horses, beasts, why are you sitting here? Today is the Day of Rejoicing at the Pump!”

“Nu, what should we do?” we asked.

“Come with us!” they said, so we went to the shul courtyard and–“Then Yitzchak arose.

The rabbi came home and found no one there, so he went looking for us and found us in the courtyard.

“What kind of a holiday is this,” he asked.

One of us tried to answer.

“If today is the Day of Rejoicing at the Pump,” said the rabbi, “we'll be doing Hoshanos [the ceremony of beating willow twigs on Succot].”

When we returned to the cheder, the rabbi did Hoshanos on us and we cried out kol mevasser. [That is, they screamed out, but he uses the words are the name of the first Yiddish newspaper printed in Russia and mean “the voice of the herald.”]

…Things were good for me in the cheder, so I don't know why my other took my brother and me out at the end of the term and put us into the Talmud Torah. It was probably because she had no money to pay tuition. Without going to cheder, I ran wild. Putting children into the Talmud Torah was considered a humiliation. But she had no choice, because our situation then was dire.

In the Talmud-Torah things were good for me, because we did little learning. The rabbi was also the sexton of a shul and spent a lot of time on shul matters, while we, the students, lived it up.

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The rabbi was very tall but broad, with a little beard. He used to shred tobacco for sale. The tobacco would tickle my nose and dry out my throat. He was a little excitable, but he had a good nature. The rebbetzin was his opposite. She was small and good-natured. She dealt in dairy products: she would buy in the village and sell in the town. Mainly her “Brindele” was world famous. For one kopeck we could buy a whole glass, and with a piece of bread–well, that was the life.

In winter we would do our learning in his little house, which consisted of a kitchen and one room. It was so low that the rabbi, in his own house, had to walk bent over, unable to stand at his full height. The heat in his house was a pleasure. But sometimes smoke and headaches were not uncommon. But in summer we would go to study in the women's section of the shul. In the shul we could live it up. We felt free there. We didn't learn much, but we sure had a good time. We learned there about all kinds of terrible things that made our hair stand on end. For instance: we learned that the dead come to the shul every night to pray. One time, a boy fell asleep and remained overnight in the shul. He himself saw how the dead were reading the Torah in the shul, calling each other up for aliyas just as the living did.

…These were the kinds of things we learned in the Talmud-Torah, things like ghosts, demons, and so on.

I must tell you that the rabbi of the Talmud Torah was simultaneously the sexton of a shul and the sexton for the chevra kadisha. When someone who was not wealthy died, we would go before the Ark and cry for divine justice and then say Psalms in his home. And when, on the other hand, there would be a wedding for one of his householders, we would help the rabbi take tickets, thanks to which we would often be guests at the wedding. At a wedding I would have a good time. Even then I began to love music, although that music was only for dancing…Today one can only imagine what it was like when our musicians played. And the dances. A rabbi's dance, a Semele, a farewell, a robber's dance, a hat dance, a Kazatzke [Cossack dance], a pretzel dance, a French dance. And today? Most of the tunes are commonplace, with a lugubrious sound, the way a Jew loves. I could at least sing all the dances. My sister's friends

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used to come to her for dancing. When one was missing, I used to replace him as the pianist. Weddings and funerals were not in short supply, and we Talmud Torah boys had a lot of free time.

…I don't know why, but my mother took me out of the Talmud Torah and put me into an upper-class cheder. This cheder played a large role in my life, because there I began to demonstrate my skill in art. My first drawing was created by accident. I was angry at the rabbi's daughter, so I made a picture of her carrying water in a bucket with a yoke. I showed it to all the boys, who all liked it. My second work was a gragger made of wood, on which I portrayed Haman hanging on the gallows. When the rabbi saw it, he gave me a piece of his mind and said that I should not make any more such toys…Even better, he said, look closely at the breastplate and the vest [priestly garments] that are painted on the oven in the beis-medresh. I understood! But no more toys. Now try again…

In short, I stopped making things out of wood. What I should draw on paper, I listened to him and drew, wherever it was possible. If there was no paper–in summer I drew in the sand, and in winter on the snow.

Let me describe the rabbi. He was from a good family–he was very tidy, arrogant, fearsome, half-crazy. If a student could not answer, he would hit him over the head with the Gemara (or bang his head into the Gemara), although sometimes he would not hit him. With his last coins he would buy sacred books, good ones. He was also a prayer leader, a chazan.

In summer, when the warm days would begin, he would allow us to go bathing, with the proviso that we not bathe where the water was deep and that we not swim. But we did not always follow his orders, because in that neighborhood there was a Gentile named Yoshke who had a dog. When we would go into the water, he would send his dog after us to chase us away. We complained to the rabbi. On one hot summer day when we complained to the rabbi about Yoshke, he said, “Come, children, I will go with you. He'll have to deal with me!” You can't imagine our pride, because for us the rabbi was a king in a kippah, and now he was going with us to get vengeance on the Gentiles. In the wake of the rabbi,

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we were all heroes who were going to rescue all the Jews of all times. So here's the story: The hero–that is, our rabbi–went to the river's edge, surrounded by his camp of soldiers, and we began to undress. It was quiet. No Yoshke, no dog. A Gentile success–we thought–today he isn't here. Thus we desired to see the defeat of Haman, so he would be obliterated. Suddenly, as the rabbi had completely taken off the clothing that covered his sacred body and was ready to enter the water with us, Yoshke jumped out, who had probably been hiding, waiting for the rabbi to undress. Then he let his dog loose on us. As for us, alas, our clothing was there in the summer heat. Our arba canfos and our pants–and the toilet was closed. But the rabbi? The rabbi, God preserve you, could do no more than grab his tallis katan and his underwear, with his other clothes, and flee, crying out, “Jews, flee!” But the dog did not pursue him into town.

From that we concluded that Gog-Magog was stronger and that the remnant of Amalek had still not been wiped out. After this episode, the rabbi never went with us again.

With this rabbi I began to study Lekach-Tov [a Midrash] and Gemara from the easier tractates. But I didn't abandon my art, though people didn't pay it much attention. That is to say, my critics (my classmates) were not much interested in my drawings. This had an effect on me, so I didn't draw much. In the summer we were largely occupied in the cooperative farms–picking cucumbers, apricots, poppies, and later on apples, pears. Although all of this was inexpensive, none of us had an extra kopeck to buy it all.

Winter was also interesting for us children. Going home at night! We would study in school until 9 or 10 at night. In most cheders it was the custom that the children would go hoe with songs and drumming. Some of the children sang folk songs, while the drummers drummed…Every cheder had to have a drum. Otherwise it would seem like a regiment without a banner. These drums were no simple affairs. First they had to have a screen, and then a bladder, which would be stretched across the simple frame of the screen. Then you waited until it was dry, and there was your drum. The screen I swiped

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from my mother. But where to get a bladder? This was hard on my pocket, because a bladder cost 4 groschen. But need can break iron. On several evenings I went to a butcher and helped him in his work, and thus I received a bladder.

One time, it pleased us not to go to cheder. So what should we do>. One of us–it was my brother–had a plan. In the cheder courtyard there was a shop, and in the shop was a tall ladder. My brother said, “Let's not go to cheder tonight, and tomorrow I'll explain why.”

The next morning, the rabbi asked, “What's the story with you, my dear little Jews?” So my brother stepped forth and speaking as if in fear, so that the rabbi was shocked, he began to explain how going by the open door of the store, we saw going up and down on the ladder ghosts and demons, as long and thin as straw, with black top hats and dress coats, each one with a long tail and the feet of a chicken. All of us supported what he said, and I swore by the life of the rabbi. No one, including the rabbi, doubted my brother's story. After that, every night we didn't go back to the cheder (we were afraid of ghosts) and we spent our time better in messing around and having fun.

In our shtetl to this very day there is no plumbing, and water must come either from a well or from the lake. The rabbi used well-water; but in his samovar that stood there for a guest or for after a holiday nap, he used water from the lake. When the rebbetzin asked us to get a pail of water from the well, the expedition for water always required three boys: two to carry the pail of water with a yoke and a third as an assistant, in case on of the other two got tired…

In the cheder I actively pursued my drawing, because it drew interest. I drew kings, Cossacks on horses, and I particularly drew people from the East. People mainly paid for my art in buttons, because none of the cheder students had actual money. They had more important uses for their money. I took the buttons and got a kopeck for six of them. Another time I did even better (when one of the boys needed buttons for

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a game. At the same time, there was a boy from Kovno who was staying with his grandfather. He would steal money and buy my portraits, then sell them for three or four groschen apiece. I came to life. I had money to buy paper and pencils.

I did my portraits only in profile, because I was not able to do them en face. I would make the lips and the cheeks red and the eyes blue. Here is how I learned the art of painting profiles: I found in my mother's drawer an empty package of chicory that she had bought for Shavuos (It was a custom on Shavuos to drink coffee or chicory.). On the package was a seal, a medal. I think it was a portrait of Franz Joseph. So I copied that portrait. At the same time, I don't remember now through what chance, I drew a face opposite it, that is, en face. I was excited about that work, and I ran around like a confused person. I showed everyone the portrait, and I felt as if I were floating in the air, with my head higher than that of any other boy. Going around the town in this way, I bumped into a Gentile boy whom I knew. His mother washed our laundry, light the lights on Shabbos, and in winter light the furnace. She would bring him with her, which is how I got to know him. He went to school. I showed him latest work. He took a look at it and laughed at me and my art. He showed me a map that he said he had drawn himself. I was especially surprised at the mountains and the water with their blue water colors that I had not known of until then. I left him, totally flustered. His going to school and his painting there totally confused me. I often thought about that boy whose mother was a washerwoman, and I hated him like a pig for laughing at me. But I was jealous of him, that he could work in water colors and make mountains and seas.

I worked harder at my art: kings, generals, Cossacks on horses, and I got better. My mother was not happy about my art. She would get angry at me and call my work nonsense.

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Meanwhile, our income, it seems, was paltry, and my mother could not pay tuition for all her children, so she decided: the elder would go to the beis-medresh, and meanwhile I would stay at home; that is, I would do nothing.

So I was ripped out of cheder. I was a totally free man. From morning to night I ran around, walked around, went swimming, played with other loafers in the “stolen tents.” Ragged, tattered, and hungry, and far from my art. My mother recognized that this was not proper, so she sent me to the “vocational school.” This cost nothing, and she would be free from me and from my drawing with coal on the walls. In the school, from the start I had learned nothing good, for I could not read Russian and did not understand what the teacher explained. Later I got a little better and went to the county school, but soon I stopped because I had no boots and no overcoat and because the school cost a ruble for a year, which my mother could not afford.

I went back to my work. I decided to make a large portrait on three glued-together sheets of paper. A merchant had lent me the paper (which cost three groschen) and I drew a large king in a red uniform with blue trousers, a blue sash, and prominent medals, which I created from my imagination. I called together my friends, and they said that selling the portrait would be impossible, because there were no wealthy buyers. Therefore I should raffle off the portrait for a groschen per ticket. And so it was. It was raffled off one evening in the beis-medresh, and the winner had to add in a gulden.

In short, I became a Rothschild, and Korach was merely a dog compared to me. The whole town spoke about me, and the name of Moyshe-Gershon's Yudke Tzippe was on everyone's lips. After that I received an order to make a cover for the record book of the “Obtain Wisdom” Society. The fee was no less than 15 kopecks. The cover came out

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came out looking exquisite, and people spoke about me even in Dvinsk.

It happened this way: one of our town Jews had a son-in-law in Dvinsk. The father-in-law referred to him as a great artist. He was a painter. He made signs, painted walls, floors, and so forth. He actually had a shop in town and at the station. When this “artist” heard from his father-in-law about this up-and-coming young man–that is, about me–he asked his father-in-law to speak to my mother about my coming to Dvinsk for a try-out.

Dvinsk was 25 versts [a little more than 16 miles] from our town. People traveled on the road by horse. It was around Elul [early fall]. From her remaining funds, my mother paid for the wagon and gave me a few kopecks for expenses, added to a few tears. I was then about 13 or 14.

Before I tell what happened to me in Dvinsk, I will tell about the people to whom I came.

The painter himself was a fervent Chasid who hated a Misnagid as much as he hated ten pigs. He was totally fastidious. He was very fussy about being kosher. He loved if people cooked for him in separate pots, and even better. He didn't mid a good bit of booze. He was no fool. He was a good man. He would fulfill his pledges, and whenever possible–he would help a person in need. Sometimes he lost control. Sometimes he would sit on his sofa and not let anyone into his home, saying, “The demons are out! I'm sitting here a while so I can hear if they're tormenting me–there's no place for them here.” One can understand how ill he was! If anyone attacked his honor, he would avenge himself so much that the person would have to run three miles away. He had a wife who wasn't so nice, blind, with a smart mouth, but she had a good pedigree as a teacher's daughter. She had many friends. Their elder daughter, who was neither young nor pretty, had a real mouth on her–pitch and sulfur. The younger daughter, 12 years old, was pretty and smart. She was lovable, and her father adored her.

Now a short description of myself. I was a Misnagid at home–that is, I didn't pray in a Chasidic minyan.

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I was shy, afraid to eat if anyone was watching, staying on the side, trembling before everyone who gave me a dirty look. And thus I arrived at Dvinsk.

When I came to the painter's home, he wasn't there. His wife asked who I was, and when I answered, she gave me a glass of sour milk and bread so that I could have something to eat after my journey, and she stood there looking at me. The was enough to keep me from eating. At first they asked me a couple of times to eat, after which the older daughter grabbed the glass of sour milk and drank it herself. I was very hungry, but there was no way I could eat while people stood there looking at me.

The painter came home that evening. His first question was whether they had given me something to eat. When he was told that I had not eaten, he sat next to me so we could both eat. When he saw my preparations, how I picked up the spoon and then put it on the plate, he yelled at me in a Chasidic way that my spoon had fallen from my hand. Then his wife said, “What kind of a fool is he? Where did he come from?” This was all too much for me, so I no longer tried to eat. I lay down to sleep without eating. So I passed a couple of day, and on the third day, while the painter was off praying, I went out into the street and bought a couple of kuchen with the kopeck that my mother had given me. Having eaten, I took my feet and my hands and headed–back home.

I was starving and exhausted, and I barely made it home that evening. When I came into our home, my mother asked, “Why do you look so terrible? What happened to you?” I was so confused that I couldn't speak a word. Then my mother said, “Don't worry! You don't have to go back there.” So I calmed down. I was no longer in a strange place and no one cared whether I ate or not. No one looked into my eyes, and no one laughed at me.

I went back to my old ways–painting kings. Since I no longer went to cheder, my brother was going to the beis-medresh, where he was studying. I would go there in the evening. I had an appetite for learning. I was particularly interested in one thing. It was already winter. The sexton used to light a big oven, to make

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Yehuda Penn–The Divorce

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the chimney smoke. Then we put potatoes in the oven and bake them. For us this was the best meal in the world. But it was bad when suddenly the sexton would come in and grab us by the neck. He would confiscate the potatoes. When one of us would try to protest, he would strike indiscriminately with his belt. But note: we would deal with the sexton. In exchange for those stolen potatoes, we would take out remnants of the yahrzeit lights. It was like a learning experience.

I was one of the main potato-activists, because occasionally I sold a portrait. I would buy a pot of potatoes for a few coins and share them with those in the study house who had missed one of their “eating days.” (The students would have “eating days” with various householders, but they would often miss a day and still their hunger with my potatoes.)

It is appropriate to recall one of my best discoveries in the study house. When one of the students would fall asleep sitting with his Gemara, others would stick a paper cone in his nose. The cone was made of rolled up paper. The thin end would go into the sleeper's nose and then be ignited. You can understand how the sleeper jumped awake, neither dead nor alive.

It was interesting to go into the study hall on Friday. On Friday the study house would be turned into a kind of workshop. In one corner, on a bench, sat a student undressed from his heels to his pupik, mending his only pair of trousers. Another one mended his torn frockcoat. A third regarded his boots philosophically because they were torn, and so on. Everyone was cheerful: one told a joke, another told stories from the place where he had his “eating day,” and another about his “eating place” that had let him down…

One time, coming home from the beis-medresh, I saw a cart in front of our home. My heart pounded. And not without reason: I saw sitting in the cart my former acquaintance, the painter from Dvinsk. I immediately understood that he had come for my soul. Here's how it was: In the morning a messenger had come to my mother. She was asked to come with me to the painter, no less. At first my mother was reluctant, but then she was convinced. We went, and we found there a large group of people who had come to talk to us and advise us that this was my good fortune, that God had bestowed luck upon me, that the painter would give me his younger daughter

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for a bride. Although people were laughing about it, I was embarrassed and turned red as a beet. At that moment I wanted to run away, but people didn't let me. They had already started to work out the details. This is what was decided: he would take me for four years, providing food and clothing. At the end of four years, he would pay me 50 rubles. If I chose to stay with him for a longer time, he would give me 100 rubles. To celebrate, people took some whiskey and they gave me some honeycake. My mother promised that in the morning I would be ready to go.

My mother sat up all night knitting me a hat. Actually, she took an old hat, turned it inside out, lined it with cotton, put it on my head, and done. And what if I was barefoot? They took my older brother's boots with their twisted buttons, filled them with straw–and now I had boots as well. I was clothed from head to foot. Early in the morning I was wrapped in a peasant's pelt, packed into the sled, and there we go!–In the evening, with luck, we arrived in Dvinsk.

We arrived in Dvinsk in time for supper. It was really hard for me to sit at the table and eat with everyone, but my new guardian gave me such a Chasidic lecture that I had to give in.

Already in the morning he gave me some work to do, and then he went away for the whole day. When he returned and saw my work, he said that it was not good at all, that I had to apply myself more to the work, that he would make me proficient. I only had to rid my head of the “humane” and not get taken up with “weirdos.” “Weirdos,” he said, “are drunks, poor people, or they're crazy.” Where he had gotten this idea I don't know, but what he said made an impression on me. I was a little afraid of him, because he would become so angry if people didn't listen to him.

My pleasure came when he was away for business and the others in the house were busy in the kitchen. Then, while I stayed and painted signs, the younger daughter

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would sit near me. We would talk and tell each other stories. She loved to play tricks. Once she played a trick and distracted me from work, so that I grabbed her, lay her down, and almost spanked her. She was laughing in a lovely way. I was stunned from that moment. It seems that that was the beginning of our romance although I was young then, and she even younger. That romance could change my life. I would, in time, become a father, a grandfather, but never an artist. You will see how it all came out and I emerged pure and holy. But at that time we often played together, wrestled, and felt how pleasant it was when we were together.

Her father, my boss, at first wanted to make me a Chasid. Instead of going out walking with the other boys after work, I would go to minchah in shul and stay there until ma'ariv, listening to people teaching the “Eyn Ya'akov.” On Shabbos I would sit the whole day at home and study Mussar. (My boss had a whole closet full of books on Mussar and an expensive Talmud.). When he saw that I was no simpleton, he tried to steer me toward Chasidism, that is, to hear how people repeated what that good Jew, the rebbe, said or preached. Before bedtime, he had me read to him chapters of Tanach. He would fall asleep. I would then go back to my work of painting signs until one in the morning, or even later. Over time I became like a child to him. He would take me everywhere he went, on Shabbos or holidays, because he had no other son.

…My boss, he should be healthy, always loved a little whiskey–especially on Purim, when drinking is a mitzvah, he really fulfilled the mitzvah, and by dinnertime he was really in his cups. After dinner, he lay down so that he could be ready for the Purim se'uda, when one is supposed to be so intoxicated that he cannot tell the difference between Haman and Mordechai. This goes for a Chasid, too. He called me and told me that I should do no other than wake him for mincha. He immediately began to snore, and we children began to celebrate. We played for the shelach-manos, that consisted of a caress, a tickle, and so on. Time flew, and we did not notice. She, his daughter, reminded me that it was time to wake her father for mincha. I waited a moment, then went to wake him–but he was like a wall. I tried

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a second time and a third time. He said, “Get away from me, you wretch!” He rolled over. For my part, I would have let him sleep until the Messiah arrived, but I saw that the sun was going down and he could not say mincha, God forbid, so I tried again to awaken him.

He struck out at me from the bed. Without saying a word, I went to the kitchen, took a mouthful of the water for handwashing, went back and let it loose on his ear, as if it were blood.

Everyone in the house liked the story. From shame and sorrow, I wept. He, my boss, did his prayers quietly and went out looking for new whiskey for the se'uda. I climbed up to my sleeping place on the oven and went to sleep. A little later, people dragged me from the oven and put some shots of whiskey in my mouth, so that I didn't know what was going on. I watched with my eyes, but I understood nothing, whether demons were spinning around me or jokesters. Then I understood that this was a kind of asking forgiveness for the smack.

…Then the people in the room understood that the boy was well-liked. They informed my boss that he should give me some thought. They told him that I was the best artist in the area, that I was good and I was loyal to him, they I was religious, that whenever I had a free moment I would pick up a Gemara or at least look into a sacred book–what else could he want? My boss knew. But since a Chasid can do nothing without his rebbe, he had to get advice from his rebbe. Without telling me of his plan, he took me with him to speak to the rebbe. Because if I will not go to the rebbe and see him with my own eyes, I will not be a proper Chasid. I let him speak, and in a short time and in the train in Vitebsk via Orsha on the way to Kopis, because my boss was a Kopiser Chasid

I was not a bad-looking boy of 18, skinny, dressed in Jewish garb, a little bit of a dandy. When I got to the rebbe, I had to wait a little. I noticed that the rebbe's daughter was looking at me from the next room. She was not bad looking, and we exchanged glances, though then I had to look away because I was called into the rebbe by myself. My boss had told me that I should

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not look at the rebbe, but when I entered, I presumptuously looked at him, so that he had to return my look.

We stayed with the rebbe over Shabbos. The trip back to Orsha was really joyful, because we Chasidim were all packed together in a wagon. The whole time we sat Chasidic songs and tunes. I felt like a newborn. I saw myself as another person, a small one! I was a Chasid. I had been with the rebbe and looked him in the face. After arriving home, I went regularly on Shabbos nights to hear the Chasidim, and on Shabbos before prayers I would go to the mikveh. I was a Chasid with all the trimmings. As I walked in the street, I cast down my eyes lest, God forbid, I should be tainted by seeing a woman. I ate little. When a meal was very tasty–I would leave in the middle.

I became thin and pale, so that both God and people would be pleased with me. My boss didn't interfere. He took to looking at me grandly, as if to say that this was the work of his hands.

About my inborn talent I did not cease thinking. When we went out to do the more prestigious jobs that my boss had obtained: ceilings, floors, walls with flowers or designs, my boss would assign the work to me, because that was to his benefit. Thanks to that, he had gotten a reputation and the best jobs, and all the other artists were jealous. One time a painter was brought in from Kovno, Moyshele Kovner he was called, a small, thin Jew. He would lie on boards under the ceiling and paint designs that were entwined, appealing to the eye, with a brush in one hand and a bucket of paint in the other. My boss once took me with him to see the example of Moyshele Kovner to show me that it was not so good to be an artist. “He works so hard, but he's always poor; he never has enough to eat.” He waited to see how I would react to his “correct” and “practical” advice, but when he heard my answer, that “it would be better to be ten times as poor if one could be an artist like him,” he spoke angrily: “You're a dope…and you'll always be a dope…I have nothing else to say to you. You're fired. Immediately.”

From that point on, one thought drilled into my mind and behaved like Titus' fly: what will be? It had been eight years, but I could do no more than make an attractive sign. Is everything hopeless?

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Earlier, my two brothers, Abba and Leyzer, had breadwinners. The older had become a clerk at the city hall, and the younger had become a secretary at the assistant district attorney's office. They didn't earn badly. They were in a good “state,” as people in the town said, and I used to visit them.

In the town there was a family named Pumpianski. They were a smart family. The parents were observant, but not fanatics. Their children–four sons and three daughters–graduated from gymnasiums; two of the sons were still students. They had an open house: poor, rich, , any time of the day. Whoever wanted could come and exercise his mind. Everyone was received in a friendly and equal manner. The young people spoke Russian. It was the time when people were leaving the yeshiva for the gymnasium, whether openly or silently. And every gymnasium student had at least one person whom he prepared in school or in gymnasium.

My brothers frequented the Pumpianski's home, and once, when I was visiting them, they took me with them. They were pleased to have us, especially those who, like us, could not speak Russian and were observant. I felt like an equal with them. Mostly I kept silent, because I knew so little and I could not keep up with them or with others who were there. But they were so nice that I didn't feel strange or out of place. I felt at home that I confided my plan to my older brother. My plan was to attend the “Art Academy.” Only one thing held me back: my desire neither to write nor to paint on Shabbos. He responded to my desire not to write on Shabbos that that was not a problem, because Ashkenazy had graduated from the academy had not painted on Shabbos.

I began to think that in the Academy I would find a consolation for my love that had begun to unravel. The boss's wife had found that my pedigree was not good enough for her treasure. After all, who was I and what was I? A workman, a housepainter. Nothing to rush toward, she said, nothing to seize on. She, the girl herself, also turned cold. The formerly young, pretty maiden had grown into a woman who looked at things with different eyes: don't touch me!

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I became anxious and confused, and so I became haughty and withdrawn. When I wanted to speak with her about all this, so perhaps it would be different, I found that I felt like a stranger in the house. Meanwhile, a matchmaker had found a match for me in my town. I would go almost every Shabbos to the town to see the proposed bride, but when I would come to her house, I was shy and would leave. Consequently, I never saw her, even to this very day.

On one holiday, a guest came to town, a student from the Academy, a third-year student. I also happened to be in town. People told him about me, and he came me a task as a try-out. When he saw my work, he told me that I could be in the Academy and that I could pass the exams.

In the meantime, someone spoke to me about a match with the daughter of a soldier in the Petersburg Nikolaevsky Regiment–a wealthy butcher. To this end, the father and daughter came to our town. People swore to him that I was a “craftsman” and had living rights in Petersburg, that I was no hick, but a refined person. I was summoned there on Shabbos from Dvinsk, and the matchmaker arranged a meeting with the young woman outside the town, so that no one would see. We met almost by accident. We walked and talked a little. As if from under the ground, the matchmaker appeared and led us home. She could tell nothing by my looks; and whether I liked the girl, I couldn't say. When the girl was asked, she said that if her father wanted the match, she could not refuse. A deal was struck, including a dowry of a thousand rubles. I was invited to be a guest in Petersburg for Succos. Afterwards I returned to Dvinsk and went back to work. At the house, I received a perfunctory “mazel tov,” which had a double connotation.

At that time I was working for a wealthy man, painting his ceiling with flowers and blossoms. There was another workman there who had a journeyman with him. I had an encounter with that journeyman. When he was a child, he had taken a rope, tied one end in the attic and the other end he bit with his mouth, then jumped from the attic to the ground, holding the rope in his mouth. His calculation was correct, but his teeth got pushed around, and when he would begin to speak,

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he appeared to be laughing, and his laugh was quite ugly, as if he had mouth full of food. When I was up high and painting, this guy came and said, “Hey, Jew, what are you painting there? It looks all muddy, not worth a groschen. In the courtyard where I live, there's a young guy who waves his paintbrush and there's a horse. Another wave–and there's a Cossack sitting on the horse.” Then he laughed like a horse with his mixed-up teeth and continued: “To me you're an expert.” What could I say? What he said threw me from heaven to earth. I thought myself the greatest artist in the world. Now it seemed that there was someone even greater. And who? A kid, who had never studied.

I could barely wait until the day ended. I ran to this kid. The kid was Yaffa, who later was my companion at the Academy. He wasn't home. When I looked at his work, my heart rejoiced. The pictures were very naïve. I took paper and a pencil, drew a face, and left it on his table. I left filled with pride and went to ma'ariv in the shul, as usual. When Yaffa got home and saw that face that I had drawn, he was filled with enthusiasm. In short, the next morning, I received a note offering me 50 kopecks a month to teach him painting. For me, the fifty kopecks a month were not as significant as the fact that the journeyman had fooled himself and from that time on was ashamed to appear before me. But I was grateful to him, because thanks to him I met Yaffa.

Yaffa was from quite a fine family. He studied with the best religious teachers and learned Russian from the best secular teachers. He was 15 or 16, fine and upstanding. His father was a scholar, wise, with a patriarchal appearance. His mother was simply a diamond, a righteous woman. Aside from my student, there were an older and two younger brothers. We became good friends and used to go walking together in our spare time.

For that time, this represented progress, that a middle-class boy should be friends with a craftsman. He had several such friends. He said that it was his greatest honor when he was with me or when I came to them.

Meanwhile Succos was approaching and I had to go to Petersburg

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to my intended, as had been decided. The point of this trip was for us to get acquainted and, by the way, for the bride's father to show everyone how well he had done in the province and would show me the role that he played before God and before people.

So there we went–a group of four: myself–the great hero–my mother, and my two brothers, Abba and Leyzer. I was very naïve about worldly matters and they feared that the bride's father would take advantage of me in the arrangements, so they accompanied me.

We arrived late in Petersburg, and no one was at the station to meet us. At their home, too, something was off, since they should have expected us. Nothing was prepared in the home, even though it as Erev Succos. The bride's father himself was still in his butcher shop, and the bride was at the sausage shop that she managed. Only her mother was at home, a healthy-looking woman, a dove, who gave us no warm reception but as not wealthy, newly arrived relatives. My brothers immediately went out into the city, so I remained alone. I thought that was how it had to be, because, for the first time in my life, I was about to be a groom. Things were a little difficult between the mother and me; it was already late and no one had returned from their shops. There seemed to be something phony going on. I remembered a home where everyone was already in shul praying and everything was bright. And here? But a peasant is a peasant, and here I could feel no Yiddishkeit.

Soon the bride's father arrived, said shalom aleichem, and, seeing my cap, said, “Come, we'll go buy a fedora. You can't go to shul like that. What you're wearing looks like a clerk's cap.” We went to a hat shop and they stuck on my head something that looked like a tall chimney. Back at home, they said that I looked like I had been born in that hat. Only my mother thought I looked strange. She met me with the question, “Is today Purim? You look like Haman.” My brothers calmed her down by telling her that I wouldn't wear that cylinder at home.

We didn't go to shul for ma'ariv. To eat we went to the community succah, where about ten families were gathered. You can imagine how I felt. Everyone looked at me as they would look at a groom. The tumult and noise in the succah were overwhelming. After we ate, we went to sleep. Their dwelling was small. Some slept on the sofa, some on the chairs, but we were soon asleep.

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In the morning we both were off to shul. He stuck me by the eastern wall. When the time came to take out the Torah, I heard a tumult near me: shtenders [lecterns] were flying, and people were being hit in the face. The bride's father grabbed my shoulder and we fled from the shul. It seems that all that ruckus in the shul before the reading of the Torah was well known as a butcher who cheated people on their meat orders. They felt murderous toward him, but they were powerless because he was close to the police. When people heard that he was about to arrange a marriage, they thought it was a good time to reckon with him.

In this way passed the first and all the other days of Succos. My brothers, who were more practiced in worldly matters, discussed everything with the bride's father, and it was decided that the bride's father should buy me a gold watch as a present. Three of us went to the store: her father, me, and my younger brother. My brother selected a watch with a chain. It cost 150 rubles. But the bride's father wanted to buy a simpler watch for 50 rubles. They began to argue. I stood on the side, because I didn't care which watch they chose. The result was that no watch was bought and they both went home angry. My brother said, “We have nothing more to do here. Let's go home.” And so that same day we left.

I couldn't understand, and I couldn't give a decent account of what it meant: something happened, I thought, and a groom is no longer a groom, but why? Over a watch that didn't please my brother. So I thought. But the truth is that I didn't please the bride; she couldn't show me off to her friends because I didn't speak well. I was also weak in my reading (although she could read no better than I did). Before we went there, an acquaintance advised me to read some Russian literature so that I could amuse the bride. I read “Beautiful Helen,” and once, as I was walking with my intended, I told her the story from start to finish in Russian. You can imagine how this great literature seemed when it passed through my filter.

Thus I returned emptyhanded from my journey. But I did gain one thing: I had gone to the Hermitage and to the

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theater. I also met with that student from the Academy who had once been with us in our town, and from him I learned several things about applying to the Academy.

We came home defeated. Above all, without the golden watch. We traveled, made a to-do, and then what? I was hoping that people wouldn't tell my boss. It seems that everyone knew the whole story about the watch. They purposely asked me how much the watch cost. Every time, I would turn red, knowing what people meant by that. It seems that they never stopped thinking about me. But their arrogance did not allow them to speak openly. Also I was cooler to my former “beloved,” and I already stood with one foot in the Academy.

I really wanted to get away from my boss. Yoffa also spoke to me about this. I had secretly taken a room on the third floor of a store, and when my boss had gone away for several days, I took my little pack and moved to my new apartment. As I was arranging things Yoffa came in with his friends. We set up a samovar and had a housewarming. When my boss returned home and saw that “his boy was not there,” he yelled and screamed at his household: “How could you have let him go?” But it was done. I found work for myself and lived on that, even putting a little aside for Petersburg.

My former “beloved,” about whom I had not stopped thinking, once visited me. She asked me to come to her when her father was away. I went to her. She was grateful, and she said that she would be nicer to me if I wouldn't leave her. It had already happened that she had asked me to remain overnight, and I allowed her to convince me.

My decision “to be an artist” remained firm, although there was still smoke from our love (although smoke is not fire), so with great anguish I extinguished the fire and decided to go on my way. In short, I received a letter from that student at the Academy that in three weeks. The exams would begin. Yaffa's parents were afraid to send him to Petersburg alone because he was so young, so they

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sent him to Warsaw, where he had a rich uncle who would see to it that he never missed a minchah or a ma'ariv, and I had already left for Petersburg.

Girshovitch–that was the student from the Academy whom I have mentioned several times. Later he was a famous architect. He was happy to see me. A few days after my arrival, I went to the exam. There were about a hundred taking the exam. I don't remember how many passed, but I remember well that I was not one of them. I was completely ignored. In Dvinsk I was a complete nothing. Girshovitch consoled me and said that I should not be upset, because soon there would be another examination, and meanwhile I could study. Then I would be guaranteed success.

At the Academy there was a museum of ancient sculpture. I would go there every day and work hard at my painting. Girshovitch and his colleagues would often come to me, look over my work, correct it, and show me how to draw. The famous Jewish artist Ashkenazi, who had just graduated from the Academy with great honors, would come. I made good progress. In May I went to the exam. But we were not told the results of the exam, and in August, we went for a third attempt. Yaffa had also come from Warsaw to take the exam, and since his drawing skills were weak, I taught him. We went together to work in the museum. We both passed the exam, but no one told us, and I lost three months. We were extremely happy. I could now walk by the “street cleaner” without raising my hat. You might ask why I was concerned about the “street cleaner.” I have to say that I then had no permit to live in Petersburg, and so I must tell you about the right to live outside the Pale of Settlement at that time, when the governor was stronger.

The second night after my arrival in Petersburg, while I was asleep, I felt a strong clap on my shoulder and heard, in Russian, “Stand up. Do you have a passport?” As I tried to awaken, I saw

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before my eyes a huge peasant with a greasy lantern in his hand. This was the older street cleaner. Next to him was a policeman, and behind was the overseer of the quarter. (He was a clockmaker from whom I and others rented a room.). He stood there as pale as a rag and trembled like a leaf.

He could also have been in trouble. I immediately sat up with great respect and took out my papers, which consisted of little more than a pass. My neighbor had shown his papers, and they were accepted, but mine were only so-so. I was wracked by fear, so I showed them some drawings, which the street looked at and then repeated, “Where are your papers allowing you to live here?” When he saw me rummaging, he said, “Get up and let's go to the police station.” I had already started to get dressed, and meanwhile other guests had come into the owner's room. The owner came to me and took my finger and said, “You can stay at home.” In the owner's room, the guests saw a non-observant Jew hiding in the bed out of fear. But how? He hid his head under the blanket, but his whole body was sticking out. For his “immoral conduct” he had been taken to the police station. But he had been ransomed, and we all spent the night in our beds.

Early the next morning, the street cleaner came to me, stretched out his paws, and sat down as if in his own home…I remember only this: last night's villain was sitting at my table like, to make no fine distinction, a domestic dog. After some pleasantries about the responsibilities and fright that he felt, I should be under his protection. He proposed that I should pay him every month a ruble. I immediately gave him the first payment. He extended his huge paw, meaning that the business was agreed to. As I would encounter him going through the courtyard, I would raise my hat to him. One doesn't have to be stingy about recognizing someone who serves him. When I thought that he was not angry, I would ask what he was doing and how he was, even though he was as healthy as ten pigs, and one could make ten of me out of him. Thus was I kosher and favored by

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“the authorities.” When Yaffa arrived, he came right to me and lived peacefully under my auspices.

But this situation did not last long. Because we passed the exam, we were given tickets that certified us as “kosher” people. When I was in the police station to register my certification, I learned that I had been certified earlier on the basis of my claiming to have come for the Academy. This had already been approved by the supervisor who had been there, but the street cleaner didn't tell me this so that he could collect a few kopecks from me.

But we hadn't reckoned with the rules of the Academy, even though we had passed the examination, which dealt only with art, but not with general education, which could hinder our obtaining all the privileges of an artist. For us Jews it was especially important, because without those, one could claim no rights. In the first year we were free to learn, but in the second year there was a rule that we had to take an exam for five classes of high school or else, in the following year, we would have to take an exam for eight classes. What could we do? I was good with what was relevant to art, but I knew nothing about “school subjects.” I didn't much care for all that Russian nonsense that would get in the way of my work. About this Girshovitsh gave me to understand that first, an artist must be an educated person, and second, a Jew could not have any rights and could not really live in Holy Russia. So whatever–it had to be, but how to begin?

To this day I am grateful to the students Yasnapolski, Bernshteyn, Ginzburg, Berman, Vaytinski, and the others whose names I have forgotten. There were ten of us who had to prepare, and the ten of us undertook the project. In the exam, each of us was asked what we knew and what literary works we had read. I said with great pride that I had read “Beautiful Helena” and “The Mystery of Madrid” [a Russian translation of George Fullborn's German romance “Isabella, Spaniens Verjagte Konigin oder Die Geheimnisse von Madrid”] and in four volumes! Everyone laughed, but the examiner only smiled and said, “Not so much.” I was quite embarrassed at his appraisal of my literary knowledge. I announced, “Wait, wait,

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I can learn it, but they are peasants and can't even say a blessing over a turnip.”

We all began to study. We were all happy together with Yaffa, because he had studied these things earlier at home. He never got sick of me. Rather, he stuffed the learning into my head. With all the learning that we had to prepare for our courses, the result was that out of the ten of us, only two passed–Yaffa and myself. With great difficulty–but we passed, and we were both now true academists (as students at the Academy were called). We received official tickets that were complete in all details. We both bought official hats with a blue velvet ribbon, with gold buttons. Who was our equal? And I went into a higher level painting course.

At vacation time we went home–he to Dvinsk and I through Dvinsk to my town. I found it necessary to go to my “ex,” since she had seen me in my official hat and called out. Instead of a workman, as they had previously called me, to whom they would say, “Get over here” and he would come crawling on all fours–now standing before her was a student with a velvet ribbon and gold buttons, even if he was haggard and pale. She must have gone through quite a lot. She told me that after I had left, she became ill with a nervous condition, and she had barely been saved. I was annoyed and simultaneously flattered that such a proud young woman, whom I had loved and who had not respected me–was in such straits because of me.

I went to Dvinsk to see my brother Leyzer, who, on seeing me, persuaded me to go to a doctor. The doctor said my lungs were not in good shape, but that I would improve if I would eat well over the summer and do nothing.

So I did no art over the summer. Yaffa came from Dvinsk as my guest and we walked around together in our hats with the gold buttons and velvet ribbons. In town they thought of me as a second Raphael, if not even better.

Original footnote:

1. Printed in “Shtern,” nos. 2, 3, 4. Minsk. Return

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