An Encounter, 1905

A trade school opened in town a year ago. Since it was hard for young Jewish men to get into the Russian gymnasiums (high schools) and the Russian trade schools only accepted the candidates of their choice, young Jews began streaming in to this school from all over Lithuania and Russia. They immediately put on the school uniforms with brass buttons and the caps with gold crowns.

A new source of livelihood opened in town. The new students, old as well as young, had brought with them not only their curly black heads and the rolling rrr’s on their tongues, but also books and money. A lot of Jewish homes, especially those with daughters, took these students in, providing them with room and board.

The town took on a different look and a different smell. In the evenings the boulevards were full of smart uniforms, and the girls in town stopped speaking Yiddish and began conducting their love affairs in Russian.

It was a hot, blue-skied summer. Shayndl leased the Yanishev orchard again. Last year she ended up with a profit and she hoped that this year the Eternal One would help her once more. This would surely happen because now a better sort of person would come to her orchard. Actually, they didn’t start coming right away but began gathering in the neighbouring woods.

Bit by bit, they started coming. It seemed like they grew from under the corn and from behind the poplar trees, shuffling with uneasy steps under the hot sky and disappearing into the darkness...