I
The waiter took him to a room with billiard tables where fat, stocky people in shirtsleeves were standing and holding colorful poles in their hands, and they were knocking the balls with the poles. The waiter said to one of them, This gentleman is asking for you. The Doctor put down his pole and came and stood before Isaac. And Isaac looked at him and was stunned. Could this be that shining icon gleaming on the walls of his house among the other pictures of the heads of the Zionists. When he realized that there was no mistake, he began to venerate him as he venerated his icon, and told him all his business.
The Doctor took him and introduced him to his companions, as if to say, If you’re members of the group, share its vexations with
me. And Isaac repeated to them, From the day I knew my mind, I gave my heart and soul to Zionism. I did not dread the scoffers and I suppressed my pity for my father and occupied myself with the needs of the Land of Israel. I sold Zionist Shekels and stamps of the Jewish National Fund, and I placed collection bowls on Yom Kippur eve in a few synagogues in the city. Oftentimes I was humiliated, but I paid no heed to it, but piled one deed on top of another, and now I am ascending to the Land of Israel to work her soil. And even though every day I spend Outside the Land of Israel is not reckoned in the number of days for me, I have broken up my trip and come to Lemberg to see our teachers and to receive their blessing before my ascent.
Neither his clothes nor his shoes nor his movements were cut to the style of those who sit in coffeehouses, they could even be called ridiculous; yet all his listeners were drawn to his words. Even though they were used to small-town people pestering them with their stories, they found in that lad what they didn’t find in most of the youths. But they were amazed that he was going to Palestine. Any-one who is a Zionist and has the wherewithal goes to Conferences; if he’s got a lot, he travels to the Congresses, for at that time they weren’t accustomed yet to ascending to the Land of Israel, but every Zionist sits in his hometown and wins souls for Zionism. And if need be, they travel to Conferences and to Forums to deliver speeches. Some of them forsook their world for Zionism and were willing to give up their soul for it, but for the means they forgot the end, and strayed off into thinking that the end of Zionism is assemblies, and the end of assemblies is speeches, and the end of speeches is propaganda, and the end of propaganda is—propaganda. At first, the Land of Israel was the end of all ends for them, yet when they saw that the end was distant and hard and the means were close by and easy, they traded the distant and hard for the close by and easy.
So Isaac sat before our heads and leaders and feasted his eyes on them. And they looked favorably on him, too. This provincial who had been a nuisance to them at first was beginning to stir their heart. So they stood up and put on their coats and went with him to drink a cup of coffee. They treated him to coffee with cream that cost fourteen Kreutzers, and cake that also cost fourteen Kreutzers, which is
twenty-eight Kreutzers, which is one thirteenth of the price of plant-ing an olive tree in the Herzl Forest. And it was good that they invited him to eat and drink, because he had been so eager to see them that he had forgotten to eat and he was hungry. Yet our comrade Isaac didn’t disgrace us, and didn’t drink more than one glass, and didn’t eat more than one piece of pastry, even though he was hungry and had never seen such fine pastry as that in his life.
So Isaac sat there before our heads and our leaders who were stirred by him. And since the hearts of our chiefs and our leaders were stirred by our comrade Isaac, they told him that even they might as-cend to see what was going on there in Palestine. In those days, the Zionists used to call the Land of Israel Palestine. And when they got to Palestine, they would come visit him and would have their picture taken with him as he walked behind the plow. How happy Isaac was when he imagined himself standing among our leaders and our chiefs and the photographer is taking a picture of them together. Even the most humble of the humble doesn’t run away from such an honor. Finally, they wrote letters of introduction for him to their colleagues in Palestine. And whereas he was the first one journeying to the Land of Israel and the first to ask for a recommendation, they lavished praise on him, and asked their comrades in the Land of Is-rael to support him and aid him and include him in their circle.
I
Isaac took the letters of recommendation and went to the railroad station. He collected his valise and his sack from the depot and boarded the train. The train was full of Jews and Christians, Jews who look like Christians and Christians who look like Jews. Isaac sat down and didn’t raise his eyes to anyone, like a man who chanced upon great men and wouldn’t dare lift his head. But when he heard their talk, his awe of them departed and he saw himself more distinguished than they, for they were traveling for their imaginary existence and he was traveling to the Land of Israel. He felt the letters and was glad as if he held a banknote hidden in his hand.
The train went on, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, swallowing between its wheels places whose names he had never even
heard of. How many cities there are in the world. There must be a need for them. But Isaac has no need for them. If he hadn’t stopped in Lemberg, he would already have been approaching his destination. At any rate, he has no regrets, for during his visit to Lemberg, he had greeted our leaders and had received letters of introduction to their comrades in the Land of Israel. By now Isaac had stopped reading the names of the cities. Other cities and other places held sway over Isaac’s heart, the cities and villages of the Land of Is-rael. But even in Galicia there are cities steeped in fond affection, like Przemysl, because the prayerbook you prayed from in your childhood was printed in the Holy City of Przemysl, and because Przemysl is a Citadel, a fortress for the whole state. Like everybody else in Galicia, Isaac thought that in the whole world there was no Citadel stronger than the one in Przemysl, and now that the train was arriving in Przemysl, he pressed to the window to see the Citadel, and was stunned to find that you don’t see towers or turrets or can-nons or any of those things he had heard about. But he did see army commanders, generals of legions of several nations with different col-lars and colors, for every single legion has its own color. Officers of the armies of the Emperor were strolling about the yard of the railroad station. Some with red and green and gray epaulets and some had their beards and their mustaches shaved like priests. These were the troops of General Windischgrätz, like those we saw in our hometown when they came there for war exercises. And there were also cavalry and infantry, artillery and sappers, and officers of other troops that you don’t know what they’re used for. Isaac’s eyes were drawn to see but his heart shriveled and told him, Don’t stand at the window and don’t show yourself to them, for the sight of your face can bring trouble down on you, for you have reached the age of military service and you are shirking and going to another land.
So Isaac went back and sat down in his seat and shrank up so they wouldn’t notice him, for you never know if, among the passengers, there are those who would denounce you, who would turn you over to the authorities and you would not reach the Land of Is-rael. But blessed be all the passengers, all were proper Jews and none of them turned him in or denounced him. And even though all of
them love the Emperor and wish him well and want his armies to be strong, they don’t think of turning a Jewish boy over to the army.
After the train moved, Isaac raised his eyes. He saw before him dignified people, their beards black and shapely, their hats big and wide, and their shoes polished and shining. They sit comfortably and take cakes and brandy out of their bags and drink a toast and con-verse pleasantly with one another like well-mannered people. The train makes another stop, and broad-shouldered men with thick side-locks and wide belts come in. No sooner did they put their belongings down than they started reciting the prayer:
It is You, HASHEM, our God before whom our forefathers burned the incense-spices in the time when the Holy Temple stood as You commanded them through Moses Your prophet, as is written in the Torah.
All the passengers joined them and stood up for the afternoon prayers.
The train moves on and on and Reuben doesn’t go where Simon goes and Simon doesn’t go where Levi goes, but this one goes to this place and that one to that place. But at that hour, all their faces are turned to Jerusalem and their hearts are turned to their Father in Heaven, and all of them stand in awe and submission and great devotion and recite the afternoon prayers. Then the conductor came in and saw Jews standing at their prayers, so he withdrew and went to check the tickets of others who weren’t praying.
I
The train moves on and on, and as it moves it embraces stations and villages, towns and cities. And at every station, the conductor announces the name of the town, and signs hang in the railroad stations, and wherever the train arrives, the name of that city shines on the sign. Cities whose names you never even heard roll by. And all of a sudden, your heart is shaken because the train has reached Tarnow, that same Tarnow that added a village in the Land of Israel. That village, Mahanayim, has already fallen to rack and ruin and its despondent inhabitants have left there. But your affectionate glance rests on every Jew who gets on the train from this city, for that person may have lent a hand to the Land of Israel or he may have been in the Land of Israel and returned here because he didn’t succeed there.
A few years before, the newspapers announced that the farmers of Mahanayim were in trouble and distress and Isaac collected ten Crowns for them. Ten Crowns isn’t enough to satisfy a host of hun-gry people, but it can show them that even in a wretched town like Isaac’s, there is a person who pays heed to his brothers who work the soil of the Land of Israel.
The train moves on its way, disgorging passengers and ab-sorbing passengers. People come with open hearts and strange pronunciations. Some look with angry eyes at Isaac because he is sitting in his seat while they are wandering from place to place, and some look with angry eyes because their heart is pressed and making a liv-ing is hard. Isaac ponders, those people are Hasidim of that Rebbe who didn’t miss a time or place to revile and vilify the Zionists. Last year, Between the Straits, between the seventeenth day of Tamuz when the walls of Jerusalem were breached and the ninth day of Av when the Temple was destroyed, on the Sabbath when we bless the consoling month of Av, he sat amid his Hasids before the prayer and maligned the Zionists as was his wont. And when he passed before the Ark with the blessings for the new month and for
impending sal-vation,
he added a curse to the blessing and shouted at the top of his voice, But not through the wicked heretics in our time. And because he feared lest the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He didn’t know the Holy tongue, he translated his words into Yiddish,
Di epikorsim vus zaanen in inzere tsaatn.
The train reached Cracow, a metropolis with everything in it. Here is an observatory where you see the stars of the sky in their orbits, and here is the grave of the RaMA, Rabbi Moses Isserlish of blessed memory along with the graves of other great Jews. Here the
Magid
came out and here the
Mitspe
is published. And at the gates of the city two enormous bones of a horrific beast stand erect, and the author of
The Paths of the World
wrote of them that no eye ever saw their like in all the lands of the globe. Jews wearing Shtraymls board the train, and their faces are like the faces of drawings engraved on the covers of old books. The train stayed for some time and started on its way again. And on its way, it made a stop here and it made a stop there. People get off and people get on. The Hasids keep de—
creasing and people whose business is greater than their Hasidism fill the train.
From the depths of the earth, from twisting tunnels, a mighty voice emerges. Such a tumult you never heard even in Lemberg or Cracow, for this place, Oderberg, is a railroad junction, and from here the tracks split and the trains spread out and go to many places. Since the train tends to stay here a long time, some of the passengers get out of the car and go to the railroad station. Isaac, who was scared to leave his seat lest he not find his car afterward, stood up and looked outside. He saw things that were simply amazing, like a kiosk full of newspapers. Or a man buying himself a newspaper, looking at it for a little while, and throwing it away. Newspapers did come to our hometown, too, but every newspaper counted a Minyan or two of subscribers, and after a year they bound it into a book, while here each man buys a newspaper all for himself, looks at it a bit, and throws it away.
I
Now the train left Galicia and entered the land of Silesia and the land of Moravia. Villages with thatch-roofed houses disappeared, and villages with tile roofs that turn black go on and on, and all the villages here are prettier than our cities in Galicia. And the villagers who board the car are dressed in city clothes. Their shirt doesn’t come down over their pants, and the shoes on their feet are made of leather and not of straw. But the villagers themselves behave like villagers, they spit coarsely, and when they belch they don’t cover their mouth, and their tongue is neither Polish nor Ukrainian, but a little like the former and a little like the latter, and it seems to have a singsong in-tonation. And at the side of the train they herd big horses and fat cows. And factories come after factories, and flatcars are coupled to the train full of chopped beets that look like sausages, and they make sugar from them, for there are a lot of sugar factories in this state, along with all the other factories and workshops. And they put out big chimneys as high as the sky with smoke rising above them. And at night flames burst from the iron pits and the crucibles.
And now we’re approaching Vienna. The whole earth is engraved with tracks, and countless cars are flying in every direction.
You think you’ve come to Vienna itself, but you haven’t even reached the outskirts of its outskirts.
And when the train pulled into the railroad station, the station looked like a bustling metropolis, and not a small one either, but a big one. And a jubilation erupted and rose and dignitaries and officers and gentlemen and ladies were pouring in, and in front of them and in back of them were porters loaded with bags and trunks and valises and suitcases and all kinds of fine vessels, as if they were transporting gifts to a king. Some hurry and run and some stroll and lounge. Isaac sometimes hurries and sometimes strolls, and doesn’t know whether to stand still or to walk on, whether he is jostled or whether he is moved about in the throng. But he does know that he has to go to another train that is going to Trieste. Yet the masses of people blocked his way, and it seemed he would never get out of here. And even though he had about twelve hours until his journey, he began to fear he was late, and if he wasn’t late yet, he surely would be late. He drew in his limbs and hunched up his shoulders and stooped over and threaded his way through the crowd with his belongings until he emerged into the open. He came upon a clock and saw that he still had the same twelve hours until his trip, and he pondered, If that is the case, I shall go and see the city. He deposited his belongings in the checkroom and was all on his own.
Isaac was all on his own and considered where he would go. Would he go to Leopoldstadt with its splendid synagogues whose beauty is unsurpassed throughout the world, or to the Prater, the joy of the whole city, or to the big house called Bunch of Grapes, or to their church that has a clock where every single one of its numbers is more than two feet high, or to the library where the Book of Psalms is written in gold letters on red parchment, or to the Emperor’s palace, or to the Museum. Many were the things here that we heard about and now we can see them. And now we stand at the entrance of Vienna and we don’t know where we shall go or where we shall turn. Isaac stood a while, his mind flitting from place to place but his feet aren’t moving, for with so many things, his head is heavy and his feet are heavier than his head. So he waved his hand in resignation, and entertained the idea that a person who is going to the Land of Israel can forgo the whole world. Yet Vienna is Vienna and can’t be dismissed with a wave of the hand. His feet moved by themselves, and he was dragged along with his feet. But there are so many things and you don’t know what to look at first, either at her towers or parks, or at her statues or at the abundance of Gentiles. There are so many things here, and since there are so many, he sees and doesn’t see. And a vague thought comes to him, Maybe here in this place where I’m standing now Herzl stood. And Isaac recalled something that not everybody remembers, that if it hadn’t been for Herzl, we would have lived out our days in Exile and would not have ascended to the Land of Israel. Suddenly a voice that sounded like chanting pierced the air, and at the peaks of the towers, clocks began drowning each other out with their sounds. And hour after hour comes rolling in, and you listen, and how do you know whether it’s for good or for bad. And the sounds rolled down from the peaks of the towers, and the expanses of the world tremble at their sound, and passersby stand still and set their watches, some with satisfaction and some with dejection. And Isaac prayed for himself, May the hours pass quickly and may I get to my place. But since the hours went on slowly, he had time. So he opened his mouth and asked where the Emperor’s palace was. They told him the way. He came to the Emperor’s palace and saw the tall gendarmes guarding the palace, and he saw the gatekeepers garbed in red and wreathed in loops and stripes, with many buttons sparkling on their clothes. And Fortune smiled on Isaac and he saw the Emperor’s band playing the anthem. And if he had stayed there longer, he might have seen the Emperor himself, for sometimes the Emperor gets up off his throne and goes to the window for a little while. But we didn’t wait, for we were in a hurry to travel.
After departing the Emperor’s palace, he went to the Prater, the joy of the whole city. We don’t know if he went there on purpose or not. According to the natural order of time, nighttime had arrived. But this night is not a night. Countless street lamps turn night into day. And water fountains entwined with all kinds of fire make all kinds of shapes of water. And a kind of melody is played, as if the trees in the parks were singing and playing. And the folks are also playing and singing. Even if you had a thousand eyes you still couldn’t see it
all. But at every single thing he saw, his pleasure was not complete, like a person who goes astray and is derailed, and cannot get to the place he longs for. And when he realized that, he rushed back to pick up his belongings and betake himself to the Southern Railroad Station, where you leave for Trieste. And before he went, he bought himself roasted potatoes and roasted chestnuts from vendors in the market, for all day he had had nothing to eat, for his food was packed up in his valise, and his valise was stored in the checkroom.