On the Road

From "Little Things," the short-story collection which appeared recently.

There goes the bell... how long I have waited for it! I hurry and pull my hands out of the water trough where empty bottles stand ranged, waiting to be washed so they can be filled with beer again, then carried off to the city's taverns and its night spots... where soon enough they pour themselves into thirsty mouths that know no quenching, and come back to me quickly, empty, waiting to be washed.

I cast two wandering eyes about me, looking for a rag... I find one and set about drying my fingers, wrinkled from their long soaking in water. I dry them finger by finger, and notice that my hand is bare of the gold ring... How long I dreamed of wearing a ring — any ring — one with a gleaming red stone like those I used to see in the goldsmiths' windows... I always dreamed of putting it on the ring finger of my right hand... Once I saved up a sum and promised myself the gold ring with the red stone; and I did not know that my father would die, so I gave my mother the money and grieved much for my father, and never again allowed myself to think of the ring.

But I own one now... an engagement ring, a plain yellow band circling my finger. He gave it to me when he said: "You shall be my wife..." And I rejoiced: I shall be his wife, and I shall wear the ring...

I longed for him to give me, beside the yellow band, another ring with a red seal... but he did not... He is poor like me, and it was not in his power to give me more than the engagement ring, a dress of blue silk, and a bottle of scent I have not yet opened.

I reached into my pocket and took out a little leather pouch, and from it took the ring where I had hidden it for fear the water and soap would take away its shine... and I put it on... I looked around, and my workmates had all slipped away to their nearby homes. Perhaps they are sitting now over a warm meal... or lying on a bed... How my legs ache! But I must wait a little in front of the factory: he may pass by with the factory truck and take me along... for I cannot walk back to the city on foot this cold, rainy evening... Yes, he will carry me with the crates of bottles to the city and deliver me home, and go on his round distributing the beer crates to the customers... Yes, I will wait, for I am tired, and it is enough that I covered the distance this morning on foot — passing many things: houses whose bedchambers were still shut, people walking half asleep to their work, dreams not yet drawn from the well still in their eyes. And I see, too, the sellers of laban and eggs, and I see clouds gathering above the chimneys of the houses.

And I walk, and walk a long while before I arrive. As if the owner of the factory had built it at the end of the world. And I remember the train which, whenever I saw it as a little girl, I fancied was traveling to the end of the world, to no end at all. I arrive at last with the other workers at the same time, though I leave my house more than an hour before them... My house is far... in an old quarter of the city... There I was born and there I have lived... and I shall not leave my house until I marry. Yes, I shall marry, for I have a ring, and a man I love who will take me to his house, and I shall live a lady and wash bottles no more, and rise before the cocks no more... and the journey between the factory and the city will bloody my feet no more. My man is poor, but he is strong and good, and at his side I shall seem strong, and not feel my smallness as I feel it now when one of those perfumed, elegant women passes me. The blue dress he gave me is pretty, and he will buy me another. And "he" — he is strong and handsome; so the factory girls said of him... Many of them envied me, and some were glad for me, saying, the day I was betrothed to him: "You will have rest from this misery." And one sly one said: "What a clever huntress I am — I caught a workman in my net before two months had passed over my work at the factory." I heard her say it and did not hate her; perhaps she too longs for someone to relieve her of some of what she bears. That is her right — why should not she, and I, and all of us, be like the pampered women who sit on the balconies of their houses chattering and sipping coffee, raising the cups to their mouths with plump ivory hands adorned with glittering rings,

and laughing at us whenever we pass them in our old clothes.

The road is deserted. The evening is wrapped in fog. And this drizzle falls on the woolen scarf I have wound about my head — and still the truck has not come, with him and the bottles! Why is he late? Did he leave the factory early, against his habit, so that I did not notice him amid that whirl of machines and human beings in motion? I began to be afraid, and the road is long, long... to the end of the world... where our old house is, and my silver-haired mother, and a fire with a pot of soup upon it. And I am hungry, and I long for my mother and for him — the three of us sitting round the fire, talking of things that are nothing like bottles or factory smoke, dreaming of things our days do not know. Did he pass me and not see me? And I heard the sound of a car scratching the silence of the evening — perhaps it is he? From afar the two shining eyes appeared, and came toward me slowly, slowly. No. It was not the big freight truck with its irritating screech; it was one of the cars of the rich, light and trim, and he was driving it... But he did not stop. Why, I wonder? I am certain he saw me, for the car's eyes split the dark of the evening, and I planted myself in its way until I thought it would run me down. And when it passed me by I cried out with all my strength, and it stopped, and I ran to it, and he opened the door for me. I made to lift my foot in, but I started back, feeling two ugly eyes glaring at me from behind two black-rimmed spectacle lenses. Who was it? I do not know! Perhaps the director, whom we know only by name. He leaned his body forward a little and asked haughtily: "And who might this be?" — and said no more, only moved a hand holding a huge lighted cigar: away with you. And the man who loves me and whom I love, the man who had drawn me to him and said "You shall be my wife," did nothing but push me aside from the door and then shut it in my face — gently or roughly, I do not know. And the car passed on and left me to the storm, alone; and generous tears welled up in my eyes, and a wave of hatred wrapped me round, and before my eyes danced the images of things grown huge, beyond the reach of my weakness — lofty, towering, out of reach of those who crawl on their bellies, like me. Everything a giant — the houses, the human beings, the trees, the cars, even the empty beer bottles: each one seemed to me as tall as an ogre. And in the midst of this world of towering things I saw myself with him... with the man who gave me a ring and said: "You shall be my wife." And we were two dwarfs creeping upon the earth; stretch as we might, we could not reach the length of the director's finger that waved me away from the car and left me to the storm.