The Shtetl: A CREATIVE ANTHOLOGY OF JEWISH LIFE IN EASTERN EUROPE
Translated and edited by Joachim Neugroschel
 
STEMPENIU: A JEWISH ROMANCE  - SHOLOM ALEICHEM

STEMPENIU'S VIOLIN

Now, the bride, with loosened hair, was seated in the center of the room, and the girls and women formed a circle around her, and with God's help, Stempeniu began to play.
Ah, how hard it is for my pen to describe what Stempeniu did! This was no scraping, no mere playing. It was like a religious service, a divine labor, with a lofty feeling, a noble spirit! Stempeniu stood opposite the bride and played a sermon on his violin, a long, lovely sermon, a poignant sermon about the bride's free and happy life until now, about her maidenhood, and about the dark, bitter life in store for her, later, later. Gone was her girlhood! Her head was covered, her long, beautiful hair was out of sight, forever and ever .... No more joy! Farewell, youth. Now you're a married woman! . . . How bleak and cheerless - may God forgive me! . . .
That was what came from Stempeniu's fiddle. All the wives understood the wordless sermon, all the wives felt it. They felt it and wept for it with bitter tears.
"How long did I sit like that?" a young wife thought, swallowing her tears. "How long did I sit like that, with loose, undone braids, and I thought that angels were playing with me, that I was the happiest girl in the world. And now, ah, now! . . ."
"Oh, God," prayed an old woman, the mother of grown daughters. "Oh God, bring my poor daughter her intended, very, very soon, and with better luck than I had, and with a better life than I have with my husband - may God forgive me! . . ."
Such were the thoughts of the wives, and Stempeniu did his job. He played for all he was worth, and the violin spoke. Stempeniu drew forth a doleful melody, and the band backed him up. The people grew still, the noise vanished, the turmoil was gone. Everyone, everyone wanted to hear Stempeniu. The men fell to brooding, the women held their tongues, boys and girls climbed up on benches and tables - everyone wanted to hear Stempeniu.
"Quiet, everyone. Hush! Shush!"
And Stempeniu melted and flowed like wax on the fiddle: 'that was all that could be heard. A hand flew up and down: That was all that could be seen. And they could hear all kinds of sounds, and it struck every heart, it pierced every soul, it cut to the quick. The audience was dying, its strength was waning, its flesh was perishing. The hearts filled and overflowed, and tears came to their eyes. Jews sighed, Jews moaned, Jews wept ....
And Stempeniu? Who cared about Stempeniu? No one even saw him, no one could see Stempeniu, no one could see a fiddle. They only heard sweet sounds, divine singing, which filled the entire room .... And beautiful Rachel, who had never heard Stempeniu play before, Rachel, who had known that there was such a person as Stempeniu, but had never heard such playing before, Rachel stood and listened to the magical singing, to the rare sounds - and she couldn't understand what was happening to her. Something pulled at her heart, something caressed her soul, but what it was - she couldn't understand. She raised her eyes towards where the sweet sounds were pouring from, and she saw two wonderful black eyes, burning eyes, looking straight at her and piercing her like spears, like sharp spears. The wonderful black burning eyes stared at her and beckoned to her and spoke with her. Rachel wanted to drop her eyes again - and couldn't.
"So that's Stempeniu?"
Such were Rachel's thoughts when the veiling ceremony was over and the relatives began to think about leading the bride to the canopy.
"Where are the candles?" asked the groom's family.
"The candles? Where are they?" answered the bride's family.
And the same old hubbub resumed. Everyone ran and no one knew where. They jostled, they shoved, they trod on corns, they tore dresses, they sweated, they cursed the waiters and the beadles, who in turn cursed the families, and the in-laws argued with one another - it was, God be praised, a lively affair!
In the stampede away from the canopy, Stempeniu left the band, re-emerged among the women, right there, next to Isaak-Naphtali's daughter-in-law, beautiful Rachel. He murmured a few words, smiling, and tossing his lovely black curls. Rachel blushed, lowered her eyes to the ground, and replied to only every tenth word. It wasn't proper talking to a musician, and in front of all those people to boot! . . .

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