Free The Spinoza of Market Street by Isaac Bashevis Singer Page A

year, scarcely a Jew was drafted into the service. An informer was sent to Lublin and a military commission arrived to investigate, but Dr. Yaretzky was exonerated. No doubt he bribed the commission or fooled them completely. In Jewish homes he would say: "Mother Russia is a pig, no? She stinks!"
    After Dr. Chwaschinski's death the gentry began to try to please Dr. Yaretzky. The mayor pledged a truce with him, the apothecary invited him to a party. The ladies praised his gifts as an accoucheur .
    Mrs. Woychehovska, a stout person who, morning and evening walked to church wearing a black shawl over her head and carrying a gold-embossed prayer book, was a gentile marriage broker in the town. Mrs. Woychehovska kept a roster of eligible bachelors and maidens. She frequented the better homes. She boasted that her matches were arranged in dreams by an angel who appeared revealing who was destined for whom. To date, not one of her couples had ever quarreled, separated or proved childless.
    Mrs. Woychehovska came to Dr. Yaretzky proposing a highly advantageous match. The young lady came from one of the noblest families in Poland. Her widowed mother owned an estate just outside town. Although Helena was no longer in the first flush of youth, she was single; not from lack of suitors, but from overdiscrimination, Mrs. Woychehovska assured Dr. Yaretzky. She had picked and chosen for so long, that she had been left a maiden. Helena was an accomplished pianist, could converse in French and read poetry. She was known for her love of animals, she kept an aquarium of goldfish in her blue room, and had raised a pair of parrots on the farm. A donkey purchased from a licorice-selling Turk was in her stable. Mrs. Woychehovska swore to Dr. Yaretzky that in her dream she had seen him kneeling alongside Helena before the altar in church. Over their heads hung a halo emanating rays of light--a sure omen that they'd been destined for each other. Dr. Yaretzky heard her out, patiently.
    "Who sent you?" he asked her after she'd finished, "the mother or the daughter?"
    "For the love of Jesus, neither of them even suspects."
    "Why bring Jesus into this?" Dr. Yaretzky said. "Jesus was nothing but a lousy Jew . . ."
    Mrs. Woychehovska's face immediately flooded with tears. "Kind sir, what are you saying? May God forgive you! . . ."
    "There is no God!"
    "Then what is there?"
    "Worms. . . ."
    "Poor soul, I pity you! And may God pity you! He is merciful. He has compassion even for those who profane Him. . . ."
    Mrs. Woychehovska left and crossed Dr. Yaretzky's name off her list. Soon afterwards she suffered an attack of hiccups and it was some time before the spasms subsided.

    II
    HELENA SEEKS REVENGE

    Mrs. Woychehovska repeated the incident to her crony, a Mrs. Markewich who told it secretly to her in-law, a Mrs. Krul. Mrs. Krul's servant girl repeated it to a milkmaid who worked at the estate, and she in turn told it to Helena as her mistress was feeding bread and sugar to her pet donkey. Helena, normally pale, turned white as the lumps of sugar when she learned of the incident. She ran to her mother screaming: "Mama, I'll never forgive you for this, not even on my deathbed!"
    The widow denied any knowledge of the affair, but Helena was unconvinced. She flew to her blue room and ordered the chamber maid to remove the aquarium. She wanted to be alone, without the presence of even the goldfish. Bolting the door, closing the shutters, she began to pace up and down. Helena had suffered much. The day her father hanged himself from an apple tree in the orchard was the most terrible day of her life, but even that had been easier to bear than this. Dr. Yaretzky, that barbarian, that anti-Christ, that worm, had slapped her face, sullied her soul. If her servant knew, it must be common gossip by now. True, her mother swore she had not sent the matchmaker, but who would believe it? She, Helena, had been disgraced. The entire neighborhood was probably laughing at