Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance by Sholem Aleichem, Hannah Berman Page A

man of the village was waiting for him to make arrangements to have him play at his daughter’s wedding.
    Stempenyu pared from Freidel with a sigh. His last words were:
    “We will meet again, Freidel.”
    “There is no doubt that we will meet again,” was Freidel’s reply. And, she parted from Stempenyu well satisfied with the progress of affairs.
    Everyone who saw Stempenyu when he played at that wedding was surprised at the pallor of his countenance, and the abstracted, glassy stare that was in his eyes. He looked far worse than many a man who was about to be laid in his grave. His carelessness and his joviality had been taken from him as with a hand. And, within himself, Stempenyu was feeling that the end of his old free life had come. He would never again be able to fly here and there like a bird of the high heavens. He was about to take upon his shoulders an everlasting yoke. Farewell to moonlight walks with pretty girls! Farewell to laughing eyes and ruddy lips! Farewell to silver, starlit nights of enchantment!
    It was true that Stempenyu did not give in to his bondage without a struggle. But, he was as a fish that iscaught in a net, and, no amount of struggling was of the least avail.
    Freidel and her mother were arrayed in battle against him, and he could not hope to fight them down. Indeed, he was afraid to say a word. Especially was he afraid of Freidel’s mother. She was in the habit of screwing up her tiny black face until it almost disappeared from sight, and only her black eyes were to be seen burning in her head like two living coals. She looked so vicious that Stempenyu was afraid she would pounce down upon him, and tear him to pieces as a wild cat tears its prey, scratching the eyes out of his head, and clawing him all over. He felt that she kept herself from falling upon him only because Freidel held her back from doing so. He knew that she would not permit it. He was as sure of it as if he had actually heard her say:
    “Do not interfere, mother. You will only make things worse. You had better do nothing and say nothing. Just look on in silence. But, be sure to keep a strict watch over him at every step he takes. He is a slippery customer, and may succeed in tearing himself free from our grip, in spite of all our precautions. But, and all will be well, mother, all will be well. Stempenyu is mine—he is mine!”

XVI      SAMSON IN THE LAP OF DELILAH
    Freidel had held out stubbornly, and in the end succeeded in getting what she wanted. She married Stempenyu according to all the laws and customs which were the most binding—that might serve to tighten the grip she had on him already. And, very soon after the wedding-day, she took him in hand, and began to tyrannize over him to her heart’s content, aided considerably by her mother, who could hardly contain herself in patience till the great day came round at last when she was the mother of a married daughter.
    And, Stempenyu tasted the bitterness of hell, and got to know the taste of it thoroughly. He was now wide awake to the minutest thing that concerned him, and soon got to know every separate shade of difference which existed between his old free life and his new life, that was one long bondage.
    After they were married, the young couple went and settled in the village of Tasapevka, to which she belonged. He and his company made the village their permanent headquarters.
    There was no more going about for Stempenyu, no more wandering joyously and carelessly over the face of the earth. Freidel took care to impress upon him the fact that she was altogether opposed to his wandering life. He was her slave now, and he had to obey her slightest wish, though it was true that she managed him only through kindness, and by means of gentle persuasion.
    And, there began for Stemepenyu a new life—a brand new life, as one might say. Before his marriage, he had been a mad of great pride and independence of spirit; but, no sooner had he become Freidel’s