GIMPEL THE FOOL
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sented to everything and proceeded with the wedding.
It
so happened
that there was a dysentery epidemic at the time. The ceremony was
held at the cemetery gates, near the little corpse-washing hut. The
fellows got drunk. While the marriage contract was being drawn up,
I heard the most pious high magistrate ask, "Is the bride a widow
or a divorced woman?" And the sexton's wife answered for her, for
she was supposed to instruct her, "Both a widow and divorced." It
was a black moment for me. But what was I to do, run away from
under the marriage-canopy?
There was singing and dancing. An old granny danced opposite
me hugging a woven white chalah. The master of revels made a
"God 'a mercy" in memory of the bride's parents. The schoolboys
threw burrs, as on Tisha B'av fast-day. There were a lot of gifts
after the sermon: a noodle board, a kneading trough, a bucket,
brooms, ladles, household articles galore. Then I took a look and
saw two strapping young men carrying a crib. "What do we need this
cradle for?" I asked. So they said, "Don't rack your brains about
it.
It's okay, it'll come in handy." I realized I was going to be rooked.
Take it another way, though, what did I stand to lose?
I reflected: "I'll see what comes of it. A whole town can't go
altogether crazy."
At night I came where my wife lay, but she wouldn't let me
in.
"Say, look here,
is
this what they married us for?" I said. And
she said, "My monthlies have come on me." "But yesterday they took
you to the ritual bath, and that's afterwards, isn't it supposed to be?"
"Today isn't yesterday," said she, "and yesterday's not today. You
can beat it,
if
you don't like it." In short, I waited.
Not four months after she was brought to childbed. The towns–
folk hid their laughter with their knuckles. But what could I do? She
suffered intolerable pains and clawed at the walls. "Gimpel," she
cried, "I'm going. Forgive me 1" The house filled with women. They
were boiling pans of water. The screams rose to the welkin. The
thing to do was to go to the synagogue to repeat psalms and
that was what I did.
The townsfolk liked that,
all
right. I stood in a comer saying
psalms and prayers and they shook their heads at me. "Pray, pray!"
they told me. "Prayer never made any woman pregnant." One of
