Page "Jacob Pavlovich Adler" Paragraph 56

In a small essay, " Shmendrick, My Mephistopheles ", one of the last passages he wrote, Adler describes the last time he saw Shmendrick played, at a memorial for Goldfaden in 1912.

Lamenting the choice of play for the memorial —" Goldfaden has written better things "— he nonetheless acknowledges, " that same bitter Shmendrick was our livelihood ...

I gritted my teeth.

I called on the ghosts of Aristophanes, of Shakespeare, of Lope de Vega.

I wept and swallowed my own tears … And I cursed the fate that bound me to him … Yet even as I cursed and condemned, the tears rose.

For my whole life, my whole past, was before me on that stage … Poor weak first step of our Yiddish theater … I thank you for the happiness you gave us … I thank you Shmendrick — my beloved — my own.