Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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. 111111111111111H111111111111111111II111111111111111111111111| 111111111| 111| 111111„ 111111| |, 11| 111111111| 11111,1111111 „j 11„, 111111111, ( 4y»vM-Aw.'.v. v»> .-.v 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)