Wandering Stars by Sholem Aleichem

Author:Sholem Aleichem
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-07-13T12:15:44+00:00

THIRD LETTER

From all that I have written in my first two letters, you must think my worst problems were over. No, my dear, they were just beginning. Many more tears followed, homesickness, humiliation, regret, and heartache. A year has three hundred sixty-five days, a day has twenty-four hours, an hour sixty minutes, and every minute brought new misery, new pain and suffering. I had been living with the mistaken idea that becoming an actress was child’s play; you changed your clothes and walked out onstage, and that was it. It turns out that the way is hard till you hear laughter. You must first go through a long period of schooling and through all seven circles of hell. Artists are not born. Patti, the famous singer, they say, as a young girl went around singing with an organ-grinder under people’s windows. The director and my Murovchik explained that to prepare me for the stage, they would first give me songs to sing and teach me dancing.

I will never forget my first appearance on the stage as long as I live. I performed but one song. Shchupak boasted that it was his song, he himself had composed. The hoarse one said: “Spit in his face, the liar!” Who did write it I don’t know. It begins with these words:

Every Friday night

Every Jew’s a king

The darkest nook is bright,

Joyous with laughter’s ring.

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