Leah's Loneliness
Often with tears in her large soft eyes she would pray for the day when her dear Ben-Zion would come back from the army. The constant hard work without any friendly encouragement from her own family, her struggle to ward off poverty, her hands growing calloused and blistered from rough toil caused Leah much despair. She became peeved over her hard luck and drudgery, and became despondent. She came to imagine that something was always in her way, that obstacles continually lay in her path.
In spite of her healthy constitution, Leah’s irreconcilable repugnance affected her even physically. The hard work was slowly but surely crushing her spirit. Daily she saw her girlfriends, former chums of about the same age, whose fathers were of the same social standing and financial position in the city as her father. Some of these girls had recently married and their husbands had gone straight ahead in life and were earning money. She had no chance. She would love to dress well and have nice things too, but how could she do it?
The hands here would have been one of the clearest markers of class, not just for Jews but for everyone. Smooth hands were a sign of wealth.
Leah suffered keenly, imagining that she was misplaced and miscast in the great drama of life. The only friend that rallied to Leah in her despair was Abraham Zessler, a tailor by trade. He was a distant relative to Yanke Hennes by marriage, quite an honor in those days. He was blessed with an optimistic and very cheerful disposition and had a smile that never vanished from his face. He used to come in every morning to buy bread and play a few minutes with David and cheer her up with hope that Ben-Zion would come back from the army.
"Quite an honor in those days": This sentence reveals the importance of extended family [machetenum] in social mobility and social prestige. This made the daughters a very important pawn in the marriage game, at a time when other avenues for Jewish esocial mobility were extremely restricted, to say the least.
Very interesting parallel to my grandmother Helen's lot here. It is clear from David's diary and from family lore (courtesy of my mother, Helen’s daughter), that Helen felt "miscast in the great drama of life," as well. She had aspirations to become a dancer or actress, among other things, but found no encouragement from David or Lena.
During the previous four years Russia had fought a losing war in the Crimea and paid heavily and dearly in gold and lives. Thousands upon thousands passed through those portals from which there was no return, especially Jewish soldiers, for they, above all others, were recruited for the firing line. Aside from those who fell on the field of battle there was a heavy death rate owing to contagious diseases of dangerous nature, which spread through the country and were caused by unsanitary conditions. They were rendered more virulent by uncleanness and neglect in the commissary department, and indifference as to food or sleeping quarters for the common solider. The number of physicians was entirely too small, and there was a lack of medical supplies which swept thousands to their premature graves.
"During the previous four years... losing war in the Crimea...." That war ended several years before David was born... consider that most "family novels" of this era would have tracked family time and historical time in a more consistent manner (e.g., Tolstoy, Flaubert, Fontaine). I would think. Is David being sloppy here and we are being pedants? Does he just drop in wars and pogroms as a kind of hazy historical background without expecting us to try to coordinate family time and historical time?
After the death of Emperor Nicholas I in 1855, [his son] Alexander II ascended the throne. He began to make radical and reformative changes in the government. He revoked the 25-year military service system inaugurated by his father, installed a more humane system of three years, and dropped all forced conversion. The edict brought great joy to the hearts of Jewish people and many mothers’ hearts leaped with the anticipation of seeing their sons and husbands home again, for few knew in which regiment their kin were serving or where they were stationed, owing to the disorganized postal system in the interior.
We see again that David is confused or uncaring about real historical time. Death of the emperor would be a year before the end of the war. So notice here: he has discussed his father's time in the army as if the 25-year sentence was in force, yet now that he moves over to historical time he has invalidated the historical assumptions embedded in his novelistic time.
So Ben Zion was drafted in 1863 before David's birth and was expected back perhaps in 1866, assuming he survived.
Gubermin, or gubernia:
A Russian administrative-territorial unit, now known as oblast.
At the time when Ben-Zion was forcibly made to enter the army, he was sent away into Chersonky (Kherson) Gubermin, in the southern Ukraine. Being very religiously disposed, he would not eat the regular army mess, for it was not kosher. It was his lot to be apprenticed in the army tinsmith shop as a helper. He was not inclined to adopt himself to conditions. He was given the hardest work, which his frail strength could hardly endure, but his hope, soon to be discharged, to go home and embrace his dear Leah and his baby boy, whom he had never seen, gave him strength and courage to endure all punishments.
Here is where we begin to see the intensity of David's criticisms of his father emerge, and I'm torn between applauding David's clear vision and regretting his overly harsh critiques. According to David, Ben-Zion is underfed because he insists on keeping Kosher, he is "not inclined" to adopt himself to the challenging conditions, and his lack of physical strength limits his ability to do the work he is asked to do. David's disappointment in his father is a recurring theme in the Diary, marked by the emphasis on the negative aspects of Ben-Zion's religiosity, his physical frailty, and his lack of discipline. I see the positive aspect of all this judgment is that David is determined not to be defeated by these defects, as he sets himself apart from so many of the men in his family and his larger Jewish community. But at the same time, the lack of compassion—a constant theme in David’s writings—is painful to observe.
I agree that David's writing reveals both clear vision and a lack of compassion. Paradoxically, though, I wonder how clear one’s vision can be without enough compassion?
I can't help but wonder how much Leah told her son about life in Latvia and how much he filled in with his imagination. Would she really have told him her feelings about her father, that she would do anything she could before relying upon him for financial help? Also, I find a parallel here between Leah's relationship to Yanke, and Helen's (David’s youngest daughter) relationship with David. Later in the narrative, it seems clear that David offers very little support or encouragement to his own daughter.