The Poor Little Boy

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Title:     The Poor Little Boy
Author: Isaac Loeb Peretz [More Titles by Peretz]

(Told by a "man" on a "committee")

"Give me five kopeks for a night's shelter!"

"No!" I answer sharply and walk away. He runs after me with a look of canine entreaty in his burning eyes, he kisses my sleeve--in vain!

"I cannot afford to give so much every day...."

The poor, I reflect, as I leave the soup-kitchen, eat their fill quickly....

The first time I saw the dirty, wizened little face with the sunken eyes, darkly-burning, sorrowful, and yet intelligent eyes, it went to my heart.

I had not even heard his request before an impulse seized me and a groschen flew out of my pocket into his thin little hands. I remember quite well that my hand acted of its own accord, without waiting to ask my heart for its pity, or my reason whether with a pension of forty-one rubles, sixty-six kopeks a month, I could afford to give five kopeks in charity.

His entreaty was an electric spark that fired every limb in my body and every cell in every limb, and my reason was not informed of the fresh outlay till later, when the little boy, with a hop, skip, and a jump, had left the soup-kitchen.

Busy with my own and other people's affairs, I soon forgot the little boy.

And yet not altogether. Somewhere inside my head, and without my knowing anything about it, there must have been held a meeting of practical thoughts.

Because the very next evening, when the little boy stopped me again, the same little boy with the broken, quavering accents, and asked me once more for a night's shelter and bed, the following considerations rose up from somewhere, ready prepared, to the surface of my mind:

A boy seven or eight years old ought not to beg--he ought not to hang about soup-kitchens; feeding on scraps, before the plates are collected and removed, would make a vagabond of him, a beggar--he would never come to any good if he went on like that.

My hand had found its way into my pocket, but I caught it there and held it fast.

Had I been "pious," I should have reasoned thus: "Is the merit I shall acquire really worth five kopeks? Should I not gain just as much by repeating the evening prayers? or by giving a hoarse groan during their recital?"

Not being "pious," I thought only of the boy's good: "My five kopeks will only do him harm and make a hopeless beggar of him." And I gave them to him after all!

My hand forced its way out of my pocket, and this time I did not even try to hold it back. Something pained me in the region of my heart, and the tears were not far from my eyes. Once more the little boy ran joyfully out of the soup-kitchen, my heart grew light, and I felt a smile on my face. The third time it lasted longer--much longer.

I had calculated betimes that my means will not allow of my giving every day in charity. Of course, it is a pleasure to see the poor little wretch jump for joy, to notice the gleam of light in his young eyes, to know that, thanks to your five kopeks, he will not pass the night in the street, but in the "refuge," where he will be warm, and where, to-morrow morning, he will get a glass of tea and a roll. All that is a pleasure, certainly, but it is one that I, with my income, cannot allow myself--it is out of the question.

Of course, I did not say all that to the little boy, I merely gave him some good advice. I told him that if he begged he would come to a bad end--that every man (and he also must some day grow into a man) is in honor obliged to work--work is holy, and he who seeks work, finds, and such-like wise things out of books, that could not make up to the little boy for the night-refuge, that could not so much as screen him till daylight from the rain and the snow.

And all the while there he stood and kissed my sleeve, and lifted his eyes to mine, on the watch for some gleam of pity to prove that his words were not as peas thrown against a wall.

And I felt all the time that he was not watching in vain, that my cold reasonings were growing warmer, that his beseeching, dog-like eyes had a power I could not withstand, and that I must shortly surrender with my whole battery of reproofs and warnings.

So I resolved as follows: I will give him something, and then tell him once and for all that he is not to beg any more, tell him sharply and decidedly, so that he may remember.

I had not enough in coppers, so I changed a silver coin and gave him five kopeks.

"There--but you are not to come begging from me again, do you hear?"

Whence the "from me?"

As far as I knew, I had no such words in my mind, anyway I certainly did not intend to say them, and perhaps I would gladly have given a few kopeks not to have done so! I felt a sudden chill at my heart, as if I had torn away a bit of covering and left a part of it naked. But it was all over like a flash. My stern face, the hard metallic ring of my voice, my outstretched right hand and outward-pointing left foot had done their work.

I had a great attraction for that little boy! He stood there as if on hot coals, he wanted to run off so as to get earlier to the lodging house, and yet he stayed on and listened, growing paler and paler, while a tear trembled on his childish lashes.

"There! and now don't beg any more," I wound up, "do you hear? This is to be the very last time."

The little boy drew a deep breath and ran away.

To-day, to-day I have given him nothing--I will not break my word. I will know nothing of "evasions,"[136] a given word is precious. One must be firm, otherwise there would be an end to everything.

[Footnote 136: As of those religious precepts which it is not possible to carry out literally.]

I think over again what I have just been saying, and feel quite pleased with myself. I cannot afford to give five kopeks in charity every day, and yet that was not the reason. It was the boy's own good I was thinking of, indeed, the good of all! What is the use of unsystematic charity--and how can there be system without a strict rule?

With the little boy I had spoken simple Yiddish, with myself, somewhat more learnedly. As I left the soup-kitchen, I reflected: The worst microbe in the body of the community is begging. The man who will not work has no right to eat, and so on.

I had no sooner shut the door of the soup-kitchen behind me than my feet sank deep into the mud, I ran my head against a wall, and then plunged into the dark night. There was a dreadful wind blowing, the flames of the gas lamps trembled as with cold, and their flickering shine was reflected a thousandfold in the puddles in the street, so that the eyes were dazzled. It wails plaintively, as though a thousand souls were praying for Tikun,[137] or a thousand little boys for five kopeks for a night's shelter.... Bother that little boy!...

[Footnote 137: Qualification for eternal bliss.]

It would be a sin to drive a dog into the street on such a night, and yet the poor little boy will have to sleep out of doors.

But what can I do?

I have given him something three times--does that go for nothing?

Let somebody else give him five kopeks for once!

I have done quite enough, coming out to the soup-kitchen in this weather, with my sick chest and a cough, and without a fur coat. Were I "pious," it would have been self-interest on my part. I should have done it with a view to acquiring merit, I should have hastened home, turned into bed, and gone to sleep, so that my soul might quickly fly to heaven and enter the good deed to her account.

The good deed is the "credit," and the "debit" a fat slice of Leviathan.

I, when I went to the soup-kitchen, had no reward in view, it was my kind nature that prompted me.

As I walked and praised myself thus, my heart felt warm again. If other people had been praising me, I must needs have been ashamed, and motioned them away with my hand, but I can listen to myself without blushing, and I should perhaps have gone on praising myself and have discovered other amiable traits in my character, had I not stepped with my half-soles--heaven knows, I had worn away the other half on the road to the soup-kitchen--stepped with my half-soles right into the mud.

"Those who are engaged in a religious mission come to no hurt!..." but that is probably on the way out. On the way home, when the newly-created angel is hastening heavenward, one may break one's neck.

My feet are wet, and I feel chilled all through. I know to a certainty that I shall catch cold, that I have caught cold already. Presently I shall be coughing my heart out, and I feel a sting in my chest. A terror comes over me. It is not long since I spent four weeks in bed.

"It's not a thing to do," I say to myself by way of reproach; "no, certainly not! It's all very well as far as you are concerned, but what about your wife and child? What right have you to imperil their support?"

If the phrase had been a printed one, and I the reader of it with my pencil in my hand, I should have known what to do--but the phrase was my own.

I feel more and more chilled, and home is distant, and my goloshes are full of water, cold and heavy. The windows of a confectioner gleam brightly in front of me--it is the worst in all Warsaw--their tea is shocking--but since there is no choice!

I rush across the street and plunge into a warm mist. I order a glass of tea and take up a comic paper.

The first illustrated joke that caught my eye was like a reflection of the state of things outside. The joke was called: "Which has too much?"

The weather in the picture is the weather out of doors.

Two persons are advancing toward each other on the pavement. From one side comes a stout, middle-aged woman, well-nourished, in a silk dress, a satin cloak, and a white hat with feathers. She must have started on her walk, or to make a visit, in fine weather, and now she has been caught by the rain. Her face is one of dismay. She dreads the rain and the wind, if not for herself, at least for her hat. She hastens--drops of perspiration appear on her white forehead--she hastens, but her steps are unsteady: both her hands are taken up. In the left she holds the end of her silken train, already spattered with mud, and in the right, a tiny silk parasol that scarcely covers the feathered hat on her head. She only requires a larger umbrella. To make up for that she has enough and to spare of everything else, her face is free from care, it tells only of an abundance of all good things.

Coming to meet her is a little girl, all skin and bone. She has perhaps long and beautiful hair, but no time to attend to it. It is matted and ruffled, and the wind tears round and round and seizes whole locks with which he whips her narrow shoulders. She wears a thin, tattered frock, and the wind clings round her, seeking a hole through which to steal into her puny body.

On her feet she wears a pair of top boots--of mud. She also walks unsteadily, first, because she is meeting the wind, and, secondly, because her hands, too, are taken up.

In her left one she carries a pair of big boots, a man's boots (her father's most likely), taking them to be mended. I need not suppose that they are going to the inn to be pawned for a bottle of brandy, because of the split soles.

Her father has probably come home tired out with his work, her mother is cooking the supper, and she, the eldest daughter, has been sent out with the boots. They must be ready by to-morrow morning early--she hurries along--she knows that if her father does not get his boots by to-morrow, there will be no fire in the oven all day. She pants--the great boots are too heavy for such a little child. But the weight in her right hand is heavier, for she carries an immense journeyman's umbrella--and she carries it proudly--her father has trusted her with it!

The child needs a lot of things: in winter, warmth--winter and summer, clothing, and all the year round, enough to eat. By way of compensation, there is excess in the size of her umbrella. I am sure that at this moment the rich lady with the parasol envies her.

The little half-starved girl with the merry, roguish eyes, although the wind threatens to upset her every minute, smiles at me from out the picture:

There, you see, we have our pleasures, too!

As to that lady, I am laughing at her!

On paying for my unfinished glass of tea, however, I am again reminded of my little beggar boy.

He has no umbrella at all, no home awaits him, not even one with dry potatoes without butter, no little bit of a bed at the foot of father's or mother's.

Even the unhappy lady would not find anything to envy him for.

What made me think of him again? Aha, I remember! It flashed across me that for the ten kopeks which I paid for the scarcely-tasted tea, the poor little boy would have had a half-portion of soup or a piece of bread and a corner to sleep in. Why did I order the tea? At home the samovar is steaming, somebody sits waiting for me with a "ready" smile, on the table there is something to eat.

I was ashamed not to order tea. Well, there is something in that, I say to console myself.

There is an even stronger wind blowing outside than before. It tears at the roofs as if it were an anti-Semite, and the roofs, Jews.

But the roofs are of iron, and they are at home.

It descends with fury on the lamps in the street, but they remain erect like hero-sages at the time of the Inquisition.

It sweeps down on the pavement, but the flags are set deep in the earth, and the earth does not let go of her dwellers so easily. Then he raises himself in anger up, up into the height, but the heavens are far, and the stars look down with indifference--or amusement.

The passers in the street bend and bow themselves and huddle together to take up as little room as possible, turn round to catch their breath, and pursue their certain way.

But the poor, helpless little boy, I think of him with terror, what will become of him?

All my philosophy has deserted me, and all my pity is awake.

If it were my child? If I thought my own flesh and blood were in the grip of this wind? If my child were roaming the streets to-night? If, even supposing that later on he had managed to beg a groschen, he were going, in this hurricane, toward Praga[138]--over the Vistula, over the bridge?

[Footnote 138: A suburb of Warsaw.]

And just because he is not mine, is he any the less deserving? Does he feel the wind less, shiver the less with cold, because his parents are lying somewhere in a grave under a tombstone? I lose all inclination to go home. I feel as if I had no right to a warm room, to the boiling samovar, to the soft bed and, above all, to the smile of those who are awaiting me.

It seems to me that "murderer" or some such word must be written on my forehead, that I have no business to be seen by anyone.

And once more I begin to think about "piousness."

"Why the devil am not I 'pious'?" I mutter. "Why need I have been the worse for believing that the One who dwells high above all the stars, high above the heavens, never lets our world out of His sight for a single instant? That not for a single instant will He forget the little boy? Why need he lie so heavy on my heart? Why cannot I leave him frankly and freely to the great heart of the universe? He would trouble me no more, I should feel him safe under the great eye of the cosmos--the eye, which, should it withdraw itself for an instant, leaves whole worlds a prey to the devil; the eye which, so long as it is open, assures to the least worm its maintenance and its right? As it is, I, with my sick chest, and my wet feet, and in this weather, must go back to the soup-kitchen and look for that little boy. It is a disgrace and a shame!"

Wherein the shame and the disgrace consisted, why and before whom I felt ashamed, to this day I do not know. And yet, on account of the shame and the disgrace, I did not take the shortest way back to the soup-kitchen, but I went round by several streets.

At last I arrived.

The first room, the dining-room, was empty.

The Gehenna of day-time is cooling down, the steam rises higher and higher from the damp floor, and creates a new "heaven" and a new "firmament" between the waters below (from off the feet of the poor people) and the waters above (the drops formed by the vapor). Here and there the drops come raining through.

Thanks to a little window, I can see into the kitchen.

The drowsy cook with the untidy head leans with her left hand on the great kettle and lifts the big soup-spoon lazily to her mouth.

The second, the kitchen-maid, is shredding macaroni for to-morrow noon. She, too, looks sleepy. The superintendent is counting meal tickets distributed by the committee.

There is no one else visible. I cast a look under the tables--no trace of the little boy. I am too late!

"But at least," I think, as I leave the kitchen, "nobody saw me!"

Suddenly I remember that I have been walking the streets for several hours.

Whatever is the matter with me? I mutter, and begin to pace homeward.

I am quite glad to find everyone asleep.

I throw off my goloshes in the entrance, steal up to my room and into bed.

But I had a bad night. Tired out, chilled, and wet through, it was long before I ceased coughing and got warm--a continual shiver ran through my bones. I did not get really to sleep till late in the morning, and then my dreams began to torment me in earnest.

I started out of sleep bathed in cold perspiration, sprang out of bed, and went to the window. I look out; the sky is full of stars--the stars look like diamonds set in iron--they roll on so proudly, so calmly, and so high.

There is a tearing wind blowing at the back--the whole house shakes.

I went back to bed, but I slept no more, I only dozed. My dreams were broken, but the little boy was the centre of them all.

Every time I saw him in a new place: there he lies asleep out in the street--there he crouches on some steps in an archway--once, even, devils are playing ball with him--he flies from hand to hand through the air--later on I come across him lying frozen in a rubbish-box.

I held out till morning and then I flew to the soup-kitchen.

He is there!

Had I not been ashamed, I should have washed the grime off his face with tears of thankfulness. Had I not been afraid of my wife, I should have led him home as my own child. He is there--I am not his murderer!

Well!

And I held out a ten kopek piece.

He takes it wondering; he does not know what a kindness he has done me.

Long life to him!

And next day, when he begged me for another groschen, I did not give it him, but this time I uttered no word of reproof--what is more, I went away ashamed, not satisfied with myself.

I can really and truly not afford it, but my heart is sore: why can I not afford it?

* * * * *

My grandfather, on whom be peace, was not so far wrong when he used to say:

"Whoever is not pious, lives in sorrow of heart and dies without consolation."

[The end]
Isaac Loeb Peretz's short story: Poor Little Boy

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