Supplement
To Vilna
Ary often spoke to me of Vilna, and the following
will supplement that which he dictated to me:
“There were trays of fancy
little cakes in the bakery and he would gaze at them longingly,
but did not dare to spend extra kopeks.”
He had his evening meal with the family with whom
he stayed, but the rest of his food had to come out of the 70
rubles, which the schoolmaster at Slutzk had presented to him.
He kept the money under his shirt, in a little bag, which hung
by a string around his neck. Each day he would take out a kopek
(penny) and go to the bakery to buy some bread. There were trays
of fancy little cakes in the bakery and he would gaze at them
longingly, but did not dare to spend extra kopeks. He guarded
the coins in the little bag as if his life depended on them
— and in reality it did.
After Ary had been in Vilna awhile, a teacher who was a friend
of the schoolmaster in Slutzk found some work for him —
he was engaged to give drawing lessons to the daughter of the
city's wealthiest and most influential banker. The banker's
home was very elegant and there were numerous servants —
butler, footman, etc. in attendance. When Ary rang the bell
and a footman opened the door and gazed down haughtily at the
poorly dressed boy, Ary almost fled. He forced himself to go
back a few more times, but in spite of his great need for the
money he couldn't undergo the ordeal of the footman and butler,
and he made some excuse to put an end to the lessons. (This
was in 1906. Strangely enough, in 1960, at a party in Cuernavaca,
Mexico, Ary met an elderly woman who turned out to be the banker's
daughter who had taken drawing lessons from him so long before,
in Vilna.)
This was the period when there was the beginning of revolutionary
stirrings in Russia, and one of the students at the Academy
was a very militant young fellow. "Come!" he would
command the other boys. "Come with me!" Ary, who was
interested only in his painting, didn't know where he was being
summoned, but the older boy was insistent. So one night Ary
followed him, and found himself in the midst of a large gathering.
Someone was speaking, but suddenly shots rang out and the men
and boys started running in all directions. Ary ran blinding
on in the dark night, and tumbled down in a muddy ditch full
of refuse. He picked himself up, filthy from head to toe, and
spent hours trying to wash himself and his clothes. This was
the only meeting he attended!
