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JiLE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
ouse
By VICKI BAUM
Author of ‘Grand Hotel,' etc.
Down by the river, where formerly the
ghetto had its site, tall new houses now
stand. Real parvenus; having risen in a
few short years, they now, with their
broad, ugly facades freshly painted, look
down snobbishly and with the utmost self-
consciousness upon all the world and the
few remaining old ghetto-dwellings—just
parvenus would do. But when one
crosses the bridge from the fashional me
tropolis one sees at once that the people
living in these new houses are different
none the less, that their lives are different,
that the sluggish, muddy gray stream
marks off a different world. The air here
ever heavy with the odors of onions and
grease; the shops are dirty, and marked
with curious, resplendent, vividly colorful
names which their bearers consider not
funny but rather fine, aristocrat and mean
ingful. For Isaac Goldstaub, who deals in
kosher geese, Leb Schmetterling, whose
domain is the buying and resale of old
clothes—even hunchbacked Jainkef Weich-
selblueh, who spends his days peddling
pencils and shoe laces over in the city,
who is treated worse than a dog—all of
them are at home and masters here, the
new buildings notwithstanding.
Between two of the tall new houses is
an old, low building. From a distance it
appears to be hiding its head in shame
between the high, bare brick walls; one
must come closer to see that a small, wind-
twisted balcony protrudes from its face
ike a crooked little nose and that from its
roof there rises a very tall and unusually
narrow chimney from under whose door
angs a sign announcing proudly:
THE WHITE WOLF
River Baths
In other words, from nearby the little
house looks quite pert and gay. And one
realizes why it seemed so slow from a dis
tance: fourteen steps must be descended
f, efore the main door can be reached. Old
and worn steps, whose hollows hold little
tfray pools of water in which impudent
.narrows bathe and chirp. Down here, al-
>st a story below the street-level, even
little ivy-lines garden has found a place
* side the door. After passing through a
! k entrance-hall and a brightly colored
ass door one comes into a dim courtyard
in unexpected and amazing nooks and
rners. Greenish-white mists and a violent
;/ r . of onions and slops rise through a
Mating. Brokendown pushcarts, cats, a
mi tress, some peddlers, women and every
uginable sort of refuse are distributed
over this courtyard. Before a
e booth superscribed “Kassa” a woman
"tests shrilly that she hasn't a copper
! ber pocket—until the aged cashier an-
:V bangs her window shut. Then, to an .
-mpaniment of sighs and lamentations,
lew coins are withdrawn from sleeve,
n and petticoat; the old woman in
Here is Vicki Baum, Germany's out
standing novelist, in a mood that is entirely
iniknmvn to the general public. THE OLD
HOUSE is a Jewish, story. You will read
it and weep and then smile through your
tears.
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VICKI BAUM
the booth opens her window once more,
takes the money and hands out a ticket;
and the customer waddles through a
gloomy little door. The old woman then
comes out of her booth, sits down upon a
green bench beside it and begins to knit.
For thirty years the entire life of Old
Lady Blum has been lived in this little
house, in this odd, low, many-angled court
yard, between the booth subscribed
“Kassa” and the green bench. Three dec
ades before—when the Blum family, to
tally destitute as the result of a fire, came
to the city from a tiny provincial Jewish
hamlet—the oldest son, who had already
been in the city for some time, managed,
by means of much pleading and wailing,
some patronage and various corrupt prac
tices to obtain for his mother the lease of
the ritual baths, the profitable “Mikveh.”
A couple of dismal little cabins equipped
with bathtubs, two lightless stone-walled
rooms filled with warmed river-water—the
so-called pools—that the White Wolf riv
er-bath establishment. The service was
provided by Jenny, the bath-woman, whose
functions included the recital of the pre
scribed prayer for the women, and Karl,
whose habitat was a coal-black machine-
room, where he heated the water. There
had also been a pied cat; but that died
after a few years, and never was of much
importance anyway. Except for this detail
everything had remained as it had been
when Old Lady Blum, then only forty, had
taken it over.
She had never become acquainted with
the noisty metropolis; she did not know
that the people who came to her curious
little corner of the world were cut off from
the life and gayety on the other side of
the river; to her all this was perfectly
natural. Her children had played in this
dirty, crooked little courtyard, had grown
up here, had married and left the old
house. Then, when life dealt hardly with
thin, vivacious little Rose, the eldest
daughter, who rushed through life like
a parody on her florid name, she returned
to the old house and her mother, together
with her husband and child. Now little
Leo, the grandson, played in the yard.
When the janitress or one of the
“ladies”—for the Mikveh’s customers in
cluded “ladies” also, rabbis' wives or par
ticularly pious Jewesses of wealth-—sat
down beside Old Lady Blum she would
sigh and look despondent, and in response
to anxious inquiries would tell, for the ten
thousandth time, of her “aches.” These
“aches,” which traveled unpredictably from
her chest to her arms or her back or some
other portion of her anatomy, and which
no doctor had ever been able to locate,
let alone cure, had for many years been
Old Lady Blum’s greatest pride and sole
joy. She felt that these “pains” gave her a
certain stamp of nobility not granted the
other women who lived in her house; and,
indeed, made her almost as aristocratic as
the “ladies” who occasionally came for
their ritual bath. Her “aches” enabled her
to tyrannize her children as they had for
merly given her power over her husband.
So wholeheartedly had she assumed the
role of the ever-ailing woman that some
times she actually began to feel the
“aches” and “pains”. And rarely had she
been so indignant as on that day when the
old doctor, benevolently patting her shoul
der, had said: “Unberufen—a healthy wo
man like you? At seventy? You'll live thir
ty years more! At least!”
That had been unpleasant. For though
Old Lady Blum’s grip on life was very
firm it was most delightful and refined to
be able to speak of one’s imminent death.
At night she frequently had “attacks”;
then she would moan and wail, summon
all her children and in a fear-shaken voice
bid them all farewell; her head would fall
back, her breathing would grow weaker
and weaker. Half an hour later she would
be soundly and healthily asleep. And for
the next week her keenest delight lay in
telling her clientele how closely the wings
of death had brushed her.
* ♦ *
In Old Lady Blum’s apartment there
lived, beside herself, thin, vivacious little
Rose, her down-at-the-heels, consumptive
husband, little Leo and the “Young Gentle
man,” who was the youngest, as yet un
married son. He was now forty years of
age, and by means of a number of fraudu
lent bankruptcies had acquired a small
fortune which enabled him to represent
his family in the gayer life of the city;
at the same time that family, in addition
to reposing its pride in him, permitted him
to give it the use of his money. He slept
in a tiny, window- (Please turn to page 33)