An Original Strike

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Title:     An Original Strike
Author: Mordecai Spektor [More Titles by Spektor]

I was invited to a wedding.

Not a wedding at which ladies wore low dress, and scattered powder as they walked, and the men were in frock-coats and white gloves, and had waxed moustaches.

Not a wedding where you ate of dishes with outlandish names, according to a printed card, and drank wine dating, according to the label, from the reign of King Sobieski, out of bottles dingy with the dust of yesterday.

No, but a Jewish wedding, where the men, women, and girls wore the Sabbath and holiday garments in which they went to Shool; a wedding where you whet your appetite with sweet-cakes and apple-tart, and sit down to Sabbath fish, with fresh rolls, golden soup, stuffed fowl, and roast duck, and the wine is in large, clear, white bottles; a wedding with a calling to the Reading of the Torah of the bridegroom, a party on the Sabbath preceding the wedding, a good-night-play performed by the musicians, and a bridegroom's-dinner in his native town, with a table spread for the poor.

Reb Yitzchok-Aizik Berkover had made a feast for the poor at the wedding of each of his children, and now, on the occasion of the marriage of his youngest daughter, he had invited all the poor of the little town Lipovietz to his village home, where he had spent all his life.

It is the day of the ceremony under the canopy, two o'clock in the afternoon, and the poor, sent for early in the morning by a messenger, with the three great wagons, are not there. Lipovietz is not more than five versts away--what can have happened? The parents of the bridal couple and the assembled guests wait to proceed with the ceremony.

At last the messenger comes riding on a horse unharnessed from his vehicle, but no poor.

"Why have you come back alone?" demands Reb Yitzchok-Aizik.

"They won't come!" replies the messenger.

"What do you mean by 'they won't come'?" asked everyone in surprise.

"They say that unless they are given a kerbel apiece, they won't come to the wedding."

All laugh, and the messenger goes on:

"There was a wedding with a dinner to the poor in Lipovietz to-day, too, and they have eaten and drunk all they can, and now they've gone on strike, and declare that unless they are promised a kerbel a head, they won't move from the spot. The strike leaders are the Crooked Man with two crutches, Mekabbel the Long, Feitel the Stammerer, and Yainkel Fonfatch; the others would perhaps have come, but these won't let them. So I didn't know what to do. I argued a whole hour, and got nothing by it, so then I unharnessed a horse, and came at full speed to know what was to be done."

We of the company could not stop laughing, but Reb Yitzchok-Aizik was very angry.

"Well, and you bargained with them? Won't they come for less?" he asked the messenger.

"Yes, I bargained, and they won't take a kopek less."

"Have their prices gone up so high as all that?" exclaimed Reb Yitzchok-Aizik, with a satirical laugh. "Why did you leave the wagons? We shall do without the tramps, that's all!"

"How could I tell? I didn't know what to do. I was afraid you would be displeased. Now I'll go and fetch the wagons back."

"Wait! Don't be in such a hurry, take time!"

Reb Yitzchok-Aizik began consulting with the company and with himself.

"What an idea! Who ever heard of such a thing? Poor people telling me what to do, haggling with me over my wanting to give them a good dinner and a nice present each, and saying they must be paid in rubles, otherwise it's no bargain, ha! ha! For two guldens each it's not worth their while? It cost them too much to stock the ware? Thirty kopeks wouldn't pay them? I like their impertinence! Mischief take them, I shall do without them!

"Let the musicians play! Where is the beadle? They can begin putting the veil on the bride."

But directly afterwards he waved his hands.

"Wait a little longer. It is still early. Why should it happen to me, why should my pleasure be spoilt? Now I've got to marry my youngest daughter without a dinner to the poor! I would have given them half a ruble each, it's not the money I mind, but fancy bargaining with me! Well, there, I have done my part, and if they won't come, I'm sure they're not wanted; afterwards they'll be sorry; they don't get a wedding like this every day. We shall do without them."

"Well, can they put the veil on the bride?" the beadle came and inquired.

"Yes, they can.... No, tell them to wait a little longer!"

Nearly all the guests, who were tired of waiting, cried out that the tramps could very well be missed.

Reb Yitzchok-Aizik's face suddenly assumed another expression, the anger vanished, and he turned to me and a couple, of other friends, and asked if we would drive to the town, and parley with the revolted almsgatherers.

"He has no brains, one can't depend on him," he said, referring to the messenger.

A horse was harnessed to a conveyance, and we drove off, followed by the mounted messenger.

"A revolt--a strike of almsgatherers, how do you like that?" we asked one another all the way. We had heard of workmen striking, refusing to work except for a higher wage, and so forth, but a strike of paupers--paupers insisting on larger alms as pay for eating a free dinner, such a thing had never been known.

In twenty minutes time we drove into Lipovietz.

In the market-place, in the centre of the town, stood the three great peasant wagons, furnished with fresh straw. The small horses were standing unharnessed, eating out of their nose-bags; round the wagons were a hundred poor folk, some dumb, others lame, the greater part blind, and half the town urchins with as many men.

All of them were shouting and making a commotion.

The Crooked One sat on a wagon, and banged it with his crutches; Long Mekabbel, with a red plaster on his neck, stood beside him.

These two leaders of the revolt were addressing the people, the meek of the earth.

"Ha, ha!" exclaimed Long Mekabbel, as he caught sight of us and the messenger, "they have come to beg our acceptance!"

"To beg our acceptance!" shouted the Crooked One, and banged his crutch.

"Why won't you come to the wedding, to the dinner?" we inquired. "Everyone will be given alms."

"How much?" they asked all together.

"We don't know, but you will take what they offer."

"Will they give it us in kerblech? Because, if not, we don't go."

"There will be a hole in the sky if you don't go," cried some of the urchins present.

The almsgatherers threw themselves on the urchins with their sticks, and there was a bit of a row.

Mekabbel the Long, standing on the cart, drew himself to his full height, and began to shout:

"Hush, hush, hush! Quiet, you crazy cripples! One can't hear oneself speak! Let us hear what those have to say who are worth listening to!" and he turned to us with the words:

"You must know, dear Jews, that unless they distribute kerblech among us, we shall not budge. Never you fear! Reb Yitzchok-Aizik won't marry his youngest daughter without us, and where is he to get others of us now? To send to Lunetz would cost him more in conveyances, and he would have to put off the marriage."

"What do they suppose? That because we are poor people they can do what they please with us?" and a new striker hitched himself up by the wheel, blind of one eye, with a tied-up jaw. "No one can oblige us to go, even the chief of police and the governor cannot force us--either it's kerblech, or we stay where we are."

"K-ke-kkerb-kkerb-lech!!" came from Feitel the Stammerer.

"Nienblech!" put in Yainkel Fonfatch, speaking through his small nose. "No, more!" called out a couple of merry paupers.

"Kerblech, kerblech!" shouted the rest in concert.

And through their shouting and their speeches sounded such a note of anger and of triumph, it seemed as though they were pouring out all the bitterness of soul collected in the course of their sad and luckless lives.

They had always kept silence, had had to keep silence, had to swallow the insults offered them along with the farthings, and the dry bread, and the scraped bones, and this was the first time they had been able to retaliate, the first time they had known how it felt to be entreated by the fortunate in all things, and they were determined to use their opportunity of asserting themselves to the full, to take their revenge. In the word kerblech lay the whole sting of their resentment.

And while we talked and reasoned with them, came a second messenger from Reb Yitzchok-Aizik, to say that the paupers were to come at once, and they would be given a ruble each.

There was a great noise and scrambling, the three wagons filled with almsgatherers, one crying out, "O my bad hand!" another, "O my foot!" and a third, "O my poor bones!" The merry ones made antics, and sang in their places, while the horses were put in, and the procession started at a cheerful trot. The urchins gave a great hurrah, and threw little stones after it, with squeals and whistles.

The poor folks must have fancied they were being pelted with flowers and sent off with songs, they looked so happy in the consciousness of their victory.

For the first and perhaps the last time in their lives, they had spoken out, and got their own way.

After the "canopy" and the chicken soup, that is, at "supper," tables were spread for the friends of the family and separate ones for the almsgatherers.

Reb Yitzchok-Aizik and the members of his own household served the poor with their own hands, pressing them to eat and drink.

"Le-Chayyim to you, Reb Yitzchok-Aizik! May you have pleasure in your children, and be a great man, a great rich man!" desired the poor.

"Long life, long life to all of you, brethren! Drink in health, God help All-Israel, and you among them!" replied Reb Yitzchok-Aizik.

After supper the band played, and the almsgatherers, with Reb Yitzchok-Aizik, danced merrily in a ring round the bridegroom.

Then who was so happy as Reb Yitzchok-Aizik? He danced in the ring, the silk skirts of his long coat flapped and flew like eagles' wings, tears of joy fell from his shining eyes, and his spirits rose to the seventh heaven.

He laughed and cried like a child, and exchanged embraces with the almsgatherers.

"Brothers!" he exclaimed as he danced, "let us be merry, let us be Jews! Musicians, give us something cheerful--something gayer, livelier, louder!"

"This is what you call a Jewish wedding!"

"This is how a Jew makes merry!"

So the guests and the almsgatherers clapped their hands in time to the music.

Yes, dear readers, it was what I call a Jewish Wedding!

[The end]
Mordecai Spektor's short story: Original Strike

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