People Fight over Me. I Suddenly Go from Having No Wives to Having Two. In the End, I Wind Up Being Kidnapped
IN THE MEANTIME, MY FATHER’S ECONOMIC SITUATION had grown steadily worse. He therefore felt compelled to go to the capital, N., where he would apply for a teaching position, and I had to accompany him. In N., my father founded his own school under very favorable circumstances. And he was able to use me as his assistant.
A widow, famous for both her extraordinary talents and her Xanthippe-like character, ran an inn on the edge of one of the surrounding towns, K.1 She lived with her daughter, every bit her equal in both of the above-mentioned qualities. The daughter was also [88] indispensable in managing the inn.
Infatuated with me, or with my growing reputation as a scholar, Madame Rissia (that was her name) decided that I should be her daughter Sara’s husband. Her family made her aware of the reasons why the plan wasn’t practical: my father’s pride and the attendant impossibility of meeting his demands; my reputation, which had already elicited interest from the city’s most prominent and richest circles; and, finally, her own modest wealth, which wouldn’t be nearly sufficient. But all these considerations did nothing to dissuade her. She had gotten it into her head that she had to have me as her son-in-law, whatever the cost, and by God she would.
She sent my father a proposal. Because he was staying in town, she was able to keep at him constantly, repeatedly going to see him to discuss the situation. She promised to meet all his demands to the fullest. [89] However, my father wanted time to think over the proposal. He also wanted to stretch out the decision-making process.
Eventually, it was time to return home. Since the inn was at the end of the street, my father and I had to go there to wait for our ride. Madame Rissia took advantage of this opportunity. She began to stroke my hair, presented her daughter, and asked me how I liked her. Then, finally, she pressed my father for a definitive answer. He remained noncommittal, trying in various ways to communicate how many difficulties there were.
As they were going back and forth, the chief rabbi, the preacher, and town elders burst into the room, along with a large group of the most eminent locals. What was responsible for this sudden assemblage wasn’t some sort of magic. It had been brought about as follows: A prominent person had asked the men to come to the town for a circumcision [90] ceremony. Well aware of this, Madame Rissia had sent her son to invite the whole group to the inn for an engagement feast, which would be held right after the ceremonial meal. Thus the men arrived half-drunk. And since they fully believed that the marriage conditions had been worked out, and what remained to be done was simply to write up the contract and sign it, they sat down at the table, placing my father in the center. The chief rabbi began to dictate the marriage contract.
My father insisted that nothing had been decided with regard to main issues or even the preliminary articles of the contract. At this point, the chief rabbi became enraged. He felt himself to be the victim of a trick: Someone had wanted to make him, an esteemed person, and also the whole well-respected group that was with him, look silly. He turned to the group and said with a proud expression: “Who is this Rabbi Joshua who [91] thinks so highly of himself?” My father responded: “No need for the ‘Rabbi’ here; I am merely a common man. But I don’t think anyone can fairly challenge my right to look out for the welfare of my son and try to secure a prosperous future for him.”
The chief rabbi was immediately struck by the double meaning of the phrase “No need for the ‘Rabbi’ here.” He recognized that he had no right to make legal decisions in this matter, and he understood that Madame Rissia had gotten ahead of herself in inviting a group to an engagement party before the two sides had agreed on the preliminary articles. Softening his tone, he laid out the advantages of the pairing: the high lineage of the bride, whose grandfather, father, and uncle were scholars and had been chief rabbis; the bride’s fine personal characteristics; and the willingness and ability of Madame Rissia to meet all of the demands. [92]
My father could think of no objections and so accepted the match. The marriage contract was drawn up, with Madame Rissia pledging to give her daughter the inn and all the property that went with it as a dowry. She also committed to provide the newlywed couple with food and clothing for the next six years. Beyond that, I received a complete edition of the Talmud with the accompanying works, which was worth several hundred thalers, and more. My father did not have to promise anything, and he got fifty thalers for his purse. Wisely, he refused to accept a pledge for the money, and Madame Rissia had to pay him right after the engagement.
Once all this was settled, there was a real feast, where good use was made of the brandy bottle. The next day, my father and I set out for home. My mother-in-law promised to send the so-called small presents as soon as possible, as well as the clothes that, in her haste, she hadn’t been able [93] to get ready in time. However, many weeks went by, and we saw and heard nothing. My father grew suspicious. Having already found my mother-in-law to be of questionable character, he could only think that this cunning woman was trying to get out of onerous promises. He resolved to give her a taste of her own medicine, encouraged in his decision by the following circumstance.
There was a wealthy leaseholder who often came to N. to sell brandy, and who stayed with us while crossing through M. He, too, had his eye on me. He had only one daughter and had made up his mind that I should be her husband. But he also knew the difficulties he would have to overcome if he were to take the matter up with my father directly. And so he chose an indirect approach, which entailed making my father into his debtor. When my father proved unable to pay him back, [94] he would force my father to consent to the union: Only that way, with the money he got for his son, would he be able to wipe out his debt. Putting his plan into action, the leaseholder proposed to give my father several vats of brandy on credit. My father gladly accepted the offer.
As the deadline for payment was drawing near, Hersch Dukor (that was his name) came to warn my father. The latter confessed that he couldn’t pay off his debt at the moment and asked the leaseholder to give him more time. “Sir,” said the leaseholder, “I will speak candidly with you. Your situation is getting worse by the day; barring some miraculous intervention, you won’t be in a position to pay off your debt. The best thing for both of us would be this: You have a son, and I have a daughter, the sole heir to my fortune—let us enter into a union. Not only will doing so clear away your debt, but you will also be paid an amount that you yourself will get to determine. Furthermore, it will be [95] my responsibility to do everything in my power to improve your situation.”
No one was happier about this proposal than my father. A contract was signed straight away. The dowry and the obligatory gifts set down in it corresponded exactly to my father’s demands, and I became the main heir to the rich leaseholder’s entire fortune. My father’s debt, which ran to about fifty Polish thalers, was forgiven on the spot. In addition to that, he received fifty thalers.
Afterward, my new father-in-law traveled to N. to collect some money he was owed. He happened to stay—unfortunately for us—with my sometime mother-in-law. She was an avid gossip, and without any prompting told him all about her daughter’s advantageous marriage. “The father of the groom,” she said, “is himself a great scholar, and the groom is a boy of eleven whose talents are unrivaled.” “I, too,” replied the leaseholder, “have chosen well for my daughter, thank God. No doubt you have [96] heard of both the famous scholar Rabbi Joshua of Mohilna and his youngest son Solomon. The latter is my daughter’s future husband.”
As soon as he had said this, Madame Rissia started yelling: “That’s a damn lie! Solomon is my daughter’s future husband, and here, sir, is the marriage contract.” The leaseholder then produced his marriage contract. This move led to an exchange of words whose result was that Madame Rissia had my father summoned to appear before a court. She also demanded a full explanation. But my father refused to present himself to the court even after Madame Rissia had him summoned a second time.
While all this was going on, my mother died, and her body was brought to N. to be buried. My mother-in-law appealed to the local court to have the corpse placed under arrest, which meant that the burial could not take place until after the hearing. And so my father felt compelled to stand before the court. Naturally, my mother-in-law prevailed, and I was once again the future husband of my first bride. [97] In order to erase all cause for complaint, my mother-in-law set about making good on all of her promises and meeting my father’s demands. She had me dressed in new clothes from head to toe and even paid my father for the food I would eat between the engagement and the wedding. My mother was finally buried, and my father and I returned home.
Soon thereafter, my second father-in-law arrived and demanded that my father acknowledge his contract. My father explained that the contract was effectively voided by a previous contract, and that he had only signed the second contract in the belief that my mother-in-law wasn’t going to honor the first one.
Having listened to this explanation, the leaseholder seemed to bow to necessity and accept his loss. Yet he continued to hatch plans for making me his. To that end, he got up in the middle of the night, had his horses hitched up, took me from [98] the desk at which I had fallen asleep, quickly packed me into his wagon, and stole off through the gates with his booty. Because these actions made quite a bit of noise, some of the people in the house woke up and discovered the theft. They pursued the robber and tore me from his hands. The whole event seemed to me like a dream.
In this way, my father got rid of his debt and was also given a gift of fifty thalers. I, for my part, left immediately with the woman who was legally my mother-in-law, and I became, by law, the husband of my bride. I have to admit that my father’s behavior wasn’t entirely justifiable from a moral point of view. Only his great distress at the time can serve as a partial excuse.2 [99]
1 Xanthippe was Socrates’ wife. Here and elsewhere, Maimon appears to be drawing on the accounts of Diogenes Laertius, who, following Xenophon, depicts her as shrewish.
2 Despite their dubious halachic legality, early marriages of this sort involving desirable young scholars were not uncommon among Ashkenazi Jews of the time. See Shaul Stampfer, “The Social Implications of Very Early Marriage in Eastern Europe in the Nineteenth Century,” in Studies in Polish Jewry: Paul Glickson Memorial Volume, ed. Ezra Mendelssohn and Chone Shmeruk (Jerusalem: Institute for Contemporary Jewry, 1987), pp. 65–77.