A Wife Pawned and Sold
Published in Issue #28 Translated from Yiddish by Ruth Murphy subscribe to unlock the full storyLeyzer Khirik set off from the far side of Brisk, from the large city of Zamaline, and headed straight for New York. He’s a young man with two arms made of iron, two red cheeks, two ears which love to hear the clink of a coin, and two eyes that despise sleeping and looking on foolishness. In Zamaline, Leyzer was a tinsmith; in New York he is a solderer, sealing with lead. Back home he did not hesitate to work eighteen hours a day, and here he’s ready to rise an hour before dawn to toil and slave away. Back home, every day he would eat a warm barley soup and a cooked marrow-bone; in America he eats only pumpernickel bread with rolled herring. He winces with every penny, doesn’t eat meat even on Shabbes, sleeps on the ground in a narrow, dark room, buys himself only secondhand garments, and is not ashamed to go about in worn-out boots. You wonder how a person can lead such a life and still be healthy? First of all, Mister Khirik is a Jew, and secondly, in Zamaline they make these extraordinary Jews who have the strength to work like a locomotive train. As for needs and desires, they have as many as does a ladybug.
What do you think, then — that Mister Leyzer Khirik doesn’t earn much? No! He earns a guzme, a ton of money! Not less than eight dollars every week, which means sixteen rubles, or almost 107 gulden, that’s 3,200 groschen! You see, Mister Khirik left behind in Zamaline a young wife, one as delightful as a raspberry. She was known throughout the entire world, from Zamaline to Brisk and from Kotelne to Maltsh, by the name Sheyne Khane, “beautiful Hannah.” And indeed, she was as lovely as sometimes manages to happen with Jews: tall as the spruce trees from the hills of Lebanon; as fair as the dew that lies on Mount Hebron; two eyes like a pair of black burning coals — and she had gifted Reb Leyzer Khirik with two little girls who had young faces exactly like the two cherubim that hovered over the door of Paradise. Yes!
Sheyne Khane was a very kind person, and...
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