Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/173

 GYMNASIYE 169

the rest of it. "Do you want me," say I, "to take over your Gymnasiye and your classes, things I'm sick of already ?" Do you suppose she listened to what I said ? She ? Listen ? She just kept at it, she sawed and filed and gnawed away like a worm, day and night, day and night ! "If your wife," says she, "were a wife, and your child, a child if I were only of so much account in this house !" "Well," say I, "what would happen ?" "You would lie," says she, "nine ells deep in the earth. I," says she, "would bury you three times a day, so that you should never rise again!"

How do you like that? Kind, wasn't it? That (how goes the saying?) was pouring a pailful of water over a husband for the sake of peace. Of course, you'll under- stand that I was not silent, either, because, after all, I'm no more than a man, and every man has his feel- ings. I assure you, you needn't envy me, and in the end she carried the day, as usual.

Well, what next? I began currying favor, getting up an acquaintance, trying this and that; I had to lower myself in people's eyes and swallow slights, for every one asked questions, and they had every right to do so. "You, no evil eye, Eeb Aaron," say they, "are a householder, and inherited a little something from your father. What good year is taking you about to places where a Jew had better not be seen?" Was I to go and tell them I had a wife (may she live one hundred and twenty years!) with this on the brain: Gymnasiye, Gymnasiye, and Gym-na-si-ye ? I (much good may it do you!) am, as you see me, no more un- lucky than most people, and with God's help I made