A Book that Was Lost

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The involvement of Jews in German life and their identification with German culture constitute a rich history, a history that is reflected in and refracted through Agnon’s fiction. From his eastern European beginnings and a six-year sojourn in Palestine, Agnon came to Germany and immersed himself in the intellectual currents of both secular European and Jewish culture. The stories set in Germany convey keen absorption in the diverse and often conflicting styles of the people and the ideas he encountered.

These stories depict periods and settings that range from medieval Jewish communities in Germany to the period immediately following the Holocaust. Agnon makes us feel the paradoxical identification of Jews with German culture and society, as well as the inevitable strangeness of Jews within a social world that never completely accepted them. Through a variety of narrative modes from the realistic to the fantastic, these stories engage us in a complex cultural fabric. It is worth taking note of their assimilated milieu, because it runs counter to the general mold of Agnon’s fiction. A number of these tales can be read as explorations of the realm of the senses and sentiments in a world emptied of sacred time, space, and meaning.

Stories of Germany

“The Doctor’s Divorce” (1941) offers us the psychological portrait of a relationship as it takes shape and then dissolves. The narrative dramatizes the mind of the doctor whose desires and jealousies involve him in fantasies of a third person, his wife’s former lover. This long story belongs to the domain of Agnon’s psychological fiction, a literary terrain that includes “In the Prime of Her Life” (1923) and “Metamorphosis” (1941). Agnon demonstrates his skill at fashioning a central character whose point of view shapes the world of the fiction, however distorted it may be by passion or jealousy. If one is to question the reliability of the protagonist’s perspective, then one must assemble clues suggestive of an alternative view of circumstances and events. Like other modernist texts, among them the stories of Joyce’s Dubliners, “The Doctor’s Divorce” requires a level of suspicious interest combined with sympathetic involvement in the dilemma of the protagonist.

Through the eyes of the narrator, the unnamed doctor, we first encounter the woman who is the object of men’s desire. Set in Vienna, this story opens with a description of the “blonde nurse who was loved by everyone.” The doctor’s account of his own response suggests that his desire is first aroused by the sight of the nurse’s devotion to the patients in the hospital: “From the moment I saw her eyes, I was just like the rest of the patients.” (His attraction is reminiscent of the infatuation of Herbst, the middle-aged protagonist of the novel Shira, with the nurse Shira; not the least of Shira’s attractions is her response to human suffering.)

The doctor’s account of his infatuation with the nurse Dinah contains within it the seeds of the tormenting jealousy that will destroy the relationship, as he demonstrates repeatedly the role that others play in his attraction to her. Critic Dan Miron notes that the doctor is from eastern Europe, while Dinah is from a well-off Viennese family, an observation that underscores the dimension of cultural difference in this narrative of jealousy and desire. We come to realize that the presence of an invisible third party, most obviously Dinah’s former lover, forms an integral part of the relationship of the doctor and his wife. “The Doctor’s Divorce” creates a psychological drama through the consciousness of its central character. We can work through the character’s thoughts and responses to reach a level of insight and understanding that the character himself never achieves.

“On the Road,” which was written in 1944, appeared as part of The Book of Deeds and it shares with the stories of that collection its focus on a first-person narrator, one who finds himself lost on the eve of a holy day and is keenly aware of his disconnection from any form of Jewish community. (The translation that appears here was abridged, with Agnon’s permission, for its original publication in Twenty-One Stories.) The story takes its narrator through a series of encounters with a group of Jews in ceremonial dress, who speak to him in archaic German and recount to him the slaughter that destroyed the surrounding Jewish communities. In the company of these Jews, the narrator visits settings that bear the signs of communal martyrdom. His experience is dreamlike: he seems simultaneously to remain asleep in the cleft of a rock and to move his limbs as he joins the ghostly company on their walk “to the house of God.” The effect is to amalgamate catastrophic events in the remote past and the destruction of German Jewry in the twentieth century.

Agnon’s protagonist, Samuel Joseph the son of Shalom Mordecai the Levite, joins this mysterious group of elderly Jews to complete the quorum of ten needed for public prayer. In doing so, he takes the place of one of their number, Samuel Levi, who has just died. We have here one of those instances in which Agnon sets up his own form of identity play, using the names of the living and the dead, his own and his father’s.

Ghostly confusions give way to something of the atmosphere of a folktale as the narrator steps into the community like a lost son who has found his place. The particular customs of this community have been shaped by their shared history. The narrator describes the lives of these people with a combination of affectionate understanding and anthropological observation, as he notes the variations in their liturgy that reflect the massacres they endured. When the narrator leaves the community, the Ten Days of Repentance between the New Year and the Day of Atonement have passed. Through his journey real or imagined — he has absorbed the lived experience of a community.

“On the Road” ends with the narrator’s concluding note of thanks to the Almighty who has “restored me to my place” in the Land of Israel. The concept of “my place” now includes within it the history of the community that vanished into the mist as he left it. That history displaces the emphasis from the narrator to the ghostly communities of Germany’s past. The story evokes their traditions and beliefs with an exquisite clarity, all the more haunting in light of events in Germany at the time of the story’s composition in the 1940s.

Stories of Germany

Studded with German names for people and places, “Between Two Towns” (1946) offers the reader poignant social comedy in a symmetrically constructed tale of two Jewish communities in neighboring towns in Germany. Here Agnon crafts a story of family separation in time of war, conveying to us the patriotism of Germany’s Jews in World War i, as well as the strength of their communal practices. Never questioning their place in the larger society, these characters go through their daily lives. The narrator of the story takes a delicately pious tone as he notes that God has granted the residents of Katzenau “a resting place among the nations from which to serve Him and to earn a livelihood, be it meager or ample.” Yes, the narrator acknowledges, in the past there may have been “countless edicts, attacks, murders, expulsions,” but that time has passed and now “Israel is no longer despised because of matters of faith.” The narrator’s wish to believe that good times have arrived at last supplies a poignant irony that makes us aware of the limited horizon of the world of this story.

Agnon has created for us a third-person narrator who is totally absorbed in the daily lives of the inhabitants of the two towns named Katzenau and who is blissfully ignorant of any Final Solution to come in the lives of German Jewry. It is we as readers who cannot escape the burden of a historical consciousness that casts a shadow over the world of the fiction. “Between Two Towns” bears comparison in this respect to the as-yet-untranslated novella “Ad Hena” (Until Now). Both are set in the Germany of World War i and, in both, the horizon of the narrative is limited to the vision of the characters themselves. This limitation of vision jars us; we cannot help but supply the larger historical perspective that the narrative so resolutely excludes. The effect is to heighten our sense of a terrible gap between the complacency and innocence of German Jews and their ultimate fate.

“Between Two Towns” takes a gently ironic view of its characters, in particular the schoolteacher who repays the hospitality of the townspeople with a pedantic correction of their practices that introduces a measure of suffering into their lives. Agnon has recreated for us here the daily lives of communities, with a full portrayal of the intricacies of their attachments and their idiosyncrasies. These are habits and practices that develop over time in relation to a setting, here the rustic German milieu of mountains, forests, and waters. This story might be read as elegiac or ironic in light of subsequent history. Nevertheless, that dimension does not detract from the full absorption of Agnon’s narrative energies in the substance of the lives that he creates.

The Doctor’s Divorce

1

When I joined the staff of the hospital, I discovered there a blonde nurse who was loved by everyone and whose praise was on the lips of all the patients. As soon as they heard her footsteps, they would sit up in bed and stretch their arms out toward her as an only son reaches for his mother, and each one of them would call, “Nurse, nurse, come to me.” Even the ill-tempered kind who find all the world provoking — as soon as she appeared, the frown lines in their faces faded, their anger dissolved, and they were ready to do whatever she ordered. Not that it was her way to give orders: the smile that illuminated her face was enough to make patients obey her. In addition to her smile, there were her eyes, a kind of blue-black; everyone she looked at felt as if he were the most important thing in the world. Once I asked myself where such power comes from. From the moment I saw her eyes, I was just like the rest of the patients. And she had no special intentions toward me, nor toward anybody in particular. That smile on her lips, however, and that blue-black in her eyes had the further distinction of doing on their own more than their mistress intended.

One indication of the degree of affection in which she was generally held was the fact that even her fellow nurses liked her and were friendly toward her. And the head nurse, a woman of about forty, well born, thin and wan as vinegar, who hated everyone, patients and doctors alike, with the possible exception of black coffee and salted cakes and her lap dog — even she was favorably disposed in this case. Such a woman, who couldn’t look at a girl without imagining her half wasted away, showed special kindness to this nurse. And one hardly need mention my fellow doctors. Every doctor with whom she happened to work thanked his stars. Even our professor, accustomed as he was to concern himself less with the suffering of the sick than with the orderliness of their beds, made no fuss if he found her sitting on a patient’s bed. This old man, the master of so many disciples and the discoverer of cures for several diseases, died in a concentration camp where a Nazi trooper tormented him daily by forcing him to go through exercises. One day the trooper ordered him to lie flat on his belly with arms and legs outstretched, and as soon as he was down, he was commanded to get up. As he was not quick about it, the trooper trampled him with his cleated boots until the old man’s thumbnails were mutilated. He contracted blood poisoning and died.

What more can I say? I took a liking to this girl just as everyone else did. But I can add that she also took a liking to me. And though any man could say as much, others did not dare while I dared, and so I married her.

2

This is how it came about. One afternoon, as I was leaving the dining hall, I ran into Dinah. I said to her, “Are you busy, nurse?”

“No, I’m not busy.”

“What makes today so special?”

“Today is my day off from the hospital.”

“And how are you celebrating your day off?”

“I haven’t yet considered the matter.”

“Would you allow me to give you some advice?”

“Please do, doctor.”

“But only if I am paid for the advice. Nowadays you don’t get something for nothing.”

She looked at me and laughed. I continued, “I have one good piece of advice which is actually two — that we go to the Prater and that we go to the opera. And if we hurry, we can stop first at a cafe. Do you agree, nurse?” She nodded yes good-humoredly.

“When shall we go?” I asked.

“Whenever the doctor wants.”

“I’ll take care of what I have to as soon as possible and I’ll be right over.”

“Whenever you come, you’ll find me ready.”

She went to her room and I to my responsibilities. A little while later, when I arrived to pick her up, I discovered that she had changed clothes. All at once she seemed a new person to me, and with the metamorphosis her charm was doubled, for she had both the charm I felt in her when she was in uniform and that which was lent her by the new clothes. I sat in her room and looked at the flowers on the table and by the bed, and after asking her whether she knew their names, I recited the name of each flower, in German and in Latin. But I quickly became apprehensive that a serious patient might be brought in and I would be paged. I got up from my seat and urged that we leave at once. I saw she was disturbed.

“Is something bothering you?” I asked.

“I thought you’d have something to eat.”

“Right now, let’s go, and if you are still so kindly disposed toward me, I’ll come back to enjoy everything you give me, and I’ll even ask for more.”

“May I count on that?”

“I’ve already given you my word. Not only that, but, as I said, I’ll ask for more.”

As we left the hospital court, I said to the doorman, “You see this nurse? I’m taking her away from here.” The doorman looked at us benevolently and said, “More power to you, doctor. More power to you, nurse.”

* * *

We walked to the trolley stop. A trolley came along, but turned out to be full. The next one that arrived we thought we would be able to take. Dinah got onto the car. When I tried to climb up after her, the conductor called out, “No more room.” She came down and waited with me for another car. At that point I commented to myself, Some people say that one shouldn’t worry about a trolley or a girl that has gone because others will soon come along. But those who think that are fools. As far as the girl is concerned, can one find another girl like Dinah? And as to the trolley, I regretted every delay.

Along came a suburban trolley. Since its cars were new and spacious and empty of passengers, we got on. Suddenly (or, according to the clock, after a while), the trolley reached the end of the line and we found ourselves standing in a lovely place filled with gardens, where the houses were few.

We crossed the street talking about the hospital and the patients and the head nurse and the professor, who had instituted a fast once a week for all patients with kidney ailments because someone with kidney pains had fasted on the Day of Atonement and afterward there was no albumen in his urine. Then we mentioned all the cripples the war had produced, and we were pleased by the setting for our walk because there were no cripples around. I threw up my arms suddenly and said, “Let’s forget about the hospital and cripples and speak about more pleasant things.” She agreed with me, even though from her expression one could tell she was concerned that we might not find any other subject for conversation.

Children were playing. They saw us and began to whisper to each other. “Do you know, Fraulein,” I asked Dinah, “what the children are talking about? They are talking about us.”—“Perhaps.” “Do you know what they’re saying?” I went on. “They’re saying, ‘The two of them are bride and groom.’” Her face reddened as she answered, “Perhaps that’s what they are saying.”

“You mean you don’t object to it?”

“To what?”

“To what the children are saying.”

“Why should I care?”

“And if it were true, what would you say?”

“If what were true?”

I summoned my courage and answered, “If what the children say were true, I mean, that you and I belong together.” She laughed and looked at me. I took her hand and said, “Give me the other one, too.” She gave me her hand. I bent over and kissed both her hands, then looked at her. Her face became still redder. “There is a proverb,” I told her, “that truth is with children and fools. We’ve already heard what the children say, and now listen to what a fool has to say, I mean, myself, for I have been touched with wisdom.”

I stuttered and went on, “Listen, Dinah…” I had hardly begun to say all that was in my heart before I found myself a man more fortunate than all others.

3

Never was there a better time in my life than the period of our engagement. If it had been my opinion that marriage exists only because a man needs a woman and a woman a man, I now came to realize that there is no higher need than that one. At the same time, I began to understand why the poets felt it necessary to write love poems, despite the fact that I would have no part of them or their poems, because they wrote about other women and not about Dinah. Often I would sit and wonder, How many nurses there are in the hospital; how many women in the world; and I am concerned with one girl alone, who absorbs all my thoughts. As soon as I saw her again, I would say to myself, The doctor must have lost his wits to put her in the same category as other women. And my feelings toward her were reciprocated. But that blue-black in her eyes darkened like a cloud about to burst.

Once I asked her. She fixed her eyes on me without answering. I repeated my question. She pressed against me and said, “You don’t know how precious you are to me and how much I love you.” And a smile spread across her melancholy lips, that smile which drove me wild with its sweetness and its sorrow.

I asked myself, If she loves me, what reason could there be for this sadness? Perhaps her family is poor. But she said they were well-to-do. Perhaps she had promised to marry someone else. But she told me she was completely free. I began to pester her about it. She showed me still more affection, and she remained silent.

Nevertheless, I began to investigate her relatives. Perhaps they were rich but had been impoverished and she felt bad about them. I discovered that some of them were industrialists and some were people of distinction in other fields, and they all made comfortable livings,

I grew proud. I, a poor boy, the son of a lowly tinsmith, became fastidious about my dress, even though she paid no attention to clothes, unless I asked her to look at them. My love for her grew still greater. This was beyond all logic, for, to begin with, I had given her all my love. And she, too, gave me all her love. But her love had a touch of sadness in it which injected into my happiness a drop of gall.

This drop worked its way into all my limbs. I would ponder, What is this sadness? Is that what love is supposed to be like? I continued to beleaguer her with questions. She promised an answer but persisted in her evasiveness. When I reminded her of her promise, she took my hand in hers and said, “Let’s be happy, darling, let’s be happy and not disturb our happiness.” And she sighed in a way that broke my heart. I asked her, “Dinah, what are you sighing about?” She smiled and answered through her tears, “Please, darling, don’t say anything more.” I was silent and asked no more questions. But my mind was not at ease. And I still awaited the time when she would agree to tell me what it was all about.

4

One afternoon I stopped in to see her. At that hour she was free from her work with the patients and was sitting in her room sewing a new dress. I took the dress by the hem and let my hand glide over it. Then I lifted my eyes toward her. She looked straight into my eyes and said, “I was once involved with somebody else.” She saw that I didn’t realize what she meant, so she made her meaning more explicit. A chill ran through me and I went weak inside. I sat without saying a word. After a few moments I told her, “Such a thing would have never even occurred to me.” Once I had spoken, I sat wondering and amazed, wondering over my own calmness and amazed at her for having done a thing so much beneath her. Nevertheless, I treated her just as before, as though she had in no way fallen in esteem. And, in fact, at that moment she had not fallen in my esteem and was as dear to me as always. Once she saw that, a smile appeared on her lips again. But her eyes were veiled, like someone moving out of one darkness into another.

I asked her, “Who was this fellow who left you without marrying you?” She evaded the question. “Don’t you see, Dinah,” I pursued, “that I bear no ill feelings toward you. It’s only curiosity that leads me to ask such a question. So tell me, darling, who was he?” “What difference does it make to you what his name is?” Dinah asked. “Even so,” I persisted, “I would like to know.” She told me his name. “Is he a lecturer or a professor?” I asked. Dinah said, “He is an official.” I reflected silently that important officials worked for her relatives, men of knowledge and scholars and inventors. Undoubtedly it was to the most important of them that she gave her heart. Actually, it made no difference who the man was to whom this woman more dear to me than all the world gave her love, but to delude myself I imagined that he was a great man, superior to all his fellows. “He’s an official?” I said to her. “What is his job?” Dinah answered, “He is a clerk in the legislature.” “I am amazed at you, Dinah,” I told her, “that a minor official, a clerk, was able to sweep you off your feet like that. And, besides, he left you, which goes to show that he wasn’t good enough for you in the first place.” She lowered her eyes and was silent.

From then on I did not remind her of her past, just as I would not have reminded her what dress she had worn the day before. And if I thought of it, I banished the thought from my mind. And so we were married.

5

Our wedding was like most weddings in these times, private, without pomp and ceremony. For I had no family, with the possible exception of the relative who once hit my father in the eye. And Dinah, ever since she became close to me, had grown away from her relatives. During that period, moreover, it was not customary to have parties and public rejoicing. Governments came and governments went, and between one and the next there was panic and confusion, turmoil and dismay. People who one day were rulers the next day were chained in prisons or hiding in exile.

And so our wedding took place with neither relatives nor invited guests, except for a bare quorum summoned by the beadle, miserable creatures who an hour or two ago were called for a funeral and now were summoned for my wedding. How pitiful were their borrowed clothes, how comic their towering high hats, how audacious their greedy eyes that looked forward to the conclusion of the ceremony when they could go into a bar with the money they had gotten through my wedding. I was in high spirits, and as strange as the thing seemed to me, my joy was not diminished. Let others be led under the bridal canopy by renowned and wealthy wedding guests. I would be married in the presence of poor people who, with what they would earn for their trouble, could buy bread. The children we would have wouldn’t ask me, “Father, who was at your wedding?” just as I never asked my father who was at his wedding.

I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out several shillings which I handed to the beadle to give to the men over and above the agreed price. The beadle took the money and said nothing. I was afraid they would overwhelm me with thanks and praise, and I prepared myself to demur modestly. But not one of them came up to me. Instead, one fellow bent over, leaning on his cane, another stretched himself in order to appear tall, and a third looked at the bride in a way that was not decent. I asked the beadle about him. “That one, the beadle replied, and he bore down emphatically on the “th” sound, “that one was an official who got fired.” I nodded and said, “Well, well,” as though with two well’s I had concluded all the fellow’s affairs. Mean while, the beadle chose four of his quorum, put a pole in the hand of each of the four, stretched a canopy over the poles, and, in doing that, pushed one man who bent forward and thus brought the canopy tumbling down.

Afterward, while standing under the bridal canopy, I recalled the story of a man whose mistress forced him to marry her. He went and gathered for the ceremony all her lovers who had lived with her before her marriage, both to remind her of her shame and to punish himself for agreeing to marry such a woman. What a contemptible fellow and what a contemptible act! Yet I found that man to my liking, and I thought well of what he had done. And when the rabbi stood and read the marriage contract, I looked at the wedding guests and tried to imagine what the woman was like and what her lovers were like at that moment. And in the same way, just before, when my wife put out her finger for the wedding ring and I said to her, “Behold thou art consecrated unto me,” I knew without anyone’s telling me what that man was like at that moment.

6

After the wedding we left for a certain village to spend our honeymoon. I won’t tell you everything that happened to us on the way and in the station and on the train; and, accordingly, I won’t describe every mountain and hill we saw, nor the brooks and springs in the valleys and mountains, as tellers of tales are accustomed to do when they set about describing the trip of a bride and groom. Undoubtedly there were mountains and hills and springs and brooks, and several things did happen to us on the way, but everything else has escaped me and been forgotten because of one incident which occurred on the first night. If you’re not tired yet, I’ll tell you about it.

We arrived at the village and registered at a little hotel situated among gardens and surrounded by mountains and rivers. We had supper and went up to the room that the hotel had set aside for us, for I had telegraphed our reservation before the wedding. Examining the room, my wife let her eyes dwell on the red roses that had been put there. “Who was so nice,” I said jokingly, “to send us these lovely roses?” “Who?” asked my wife with genuine wonder, as though she thought there were someone here besides the hotel people who knew about us. “In any case,” I said, “I’m taking them away, because their fragrance will make it hard to sleep. Or perhaps we should leave them in honor of the occasion.” “Oh, yes,” my wife answered after me in the voice of a person who speaks without hearing his own words. I said to her, “And don’t you want to smell them?”—“Oh, yes, I want to.” But she forgot to smell them. This forgetfulness was strange for Dinah, who loved flowers so much. I reminded her that she hadn’t yet smelled the flowers. She bent her head over them. “Why are you bending down,” I asked her, “when you can hold them up to you?” She looked at me as though she had just heard something novel. The blue-black in her eyes darkened, and she said, “You are very observant, my darling.” I gave her a long kiss; then with closed eyes I said to her, “Now, Dinah, we are alone.”

She stood up and took off her clothes with great deliberation, and began to fix her hair. As she was doing that, she sat down, bending her head over the table. I leaned over to see why she was taking so long, and I saw that she was reading a little pamphlet of the kind one finds in Catholic villages. The title was Wait for Your Lord in Every Hour That He May Come.

I took her chin in my hand and said to her, “You don’t have to wait, your lord has already come,” and I pressed my mouth against hers. She lifted her eyes sadly and laid the pamphlet aside. I took her in my arms, put her in bed, and turned the lamp wick down.

The flowers gave off their fragrance and a sweet stillness surrounded me. Suddenly I heard the sound of footsteps in the room next to ours. I forced the sound out of my mind and refused to pay attention to it, for what difference did it make to me whether or not there was someone there. I didn’t know him and he didn’t know us. And if he did know us, we had a wedding and were properly married. I embraced my wife with great love and was happy beyond limit with her, for I knew she was entirely mine.

With Dinah still in my arms, I strained attentively to make out whether that fellow’s footsteps had stopped, but I heard him still pacing back and forth. His footsteps drove me to distraction: a strange idea now occurred to me, that this was the clerk my wife had known before her marriage. I was horror-stricken at the thought, and I had to bite my lip to prevent myself from cursing out loud. My wife took notice.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“I see something’s troubling you.”

“I’ve already told you nothing is.”

“Then I must have been mistaken.”

I lost my head and said to her, “You were not mistaken.”

“What is it, then?”

I told her.

She began to sob.

“Why are you crying?” I said.

She swallowed her tears and answered, “Open the door and the windows and tell the whole world of my depravity.”

I was ashamed of what I had said, and I tried to mollify her. She listened to me and we made peace.

7

From then on that man was never out of my sight, whether my wife was present or not. If I sat by myself, I thought about him, and if I talked with my wife, I mentioned him. If I saw a flower, I was reminded of the red roses, and if I saw a red rose, I was reminded of him, suspecting that was the kind he used to give my wife. This, then, was the reason she refused to smell the roses on the first night, because she was ashamed in her husband’s presence to smell the same kind of flowers that her lover used to bring her. When she cried, I would console her. But in the kiss of reconciliation I heard the echo of another kiss which someone else had given her. We are enlightened individuals, modern people, we seek freedom for ourselves and for all humanity, and in point of fact we are worse than the most diehard reactionaries.

Thus passed the first year. When I wanted to be happy with my wife, I would remember the one who had spoiled my happiness, and I would sink into gloom. If she was happy, I asked myself, What makes her so happy? She must be thinking of that louse. As soon as I mentioned him to her, she would burst into tears. “What are you crying for?” I would say. “Is it so difficult for you to hear me talk against that louse?”

I knew that she had long since put all thought of him out of her mind, and if she thought of him at all, it was only negatively, for she had never really loved him. It was only his supreme audacity together with a transient moment of weakness in her that had led her to lose control and listen to his demands. But my understanding of the matter brought me no equanimity. I wanted to grasp his nature, what it was in him that had attracted this modest girl raised in a good family.

I began to search through her books in the hope of finding some sort of letter from him, for Dinah was in the habit of using her letters as bookmarks. I found nothing, however. Perhaps, I thought, she has deliberately hidden them somewhere else, inasmuch as I have already searched all her books and found nothing. I could not bring myself to examine her private things. And that made me still angrier, for I was pretending to be decent while my thoughts were contemptible. Since I had spoken with no one else about her past, I sought counsel in books and began to read love stories in order to understand the nature of women and their lovers. But the novels bored me, so I took to reading criminal documents. My friends noticed and jokingly asked me if I were planning to join the detective squad.

The second year brought no mitigation or relief. If a day passed without my mentioning him, I spoke about him twice as much on the following day. From all the anguish I caused her, my wife fell sick. I healed her with medicines and battered her heart with words. I would tell her, “All your illness comes to you only because of the man who ruined your life. Right now he’s playing around with other women, and me he has left with an invalid wife to take care of.” A thousand kinds of remorse would sting me for every single word, and a thousand times I repeated those words.

At that time I began visiting my wife’s relatives together with her. And here a strange thing occurred. I’ve already mentioned that Dinah came of good family and that her relatives were distinguished people. In consequence, they and their homes gratified me, and I began to show favor to my wife because of her relatives. These people, the grandchildren of ghetto dwellers, had achieved wealth and honor: their wealth was an ornament to their honor and their honor an ornament to their wealth. For even during the war, when the great figures of the nation made money out of people’s hunger, they kept their hands clean of all money coming from an evil source, and, accordingly, they refused to stuff themselves with food and accepted only their legitimate rations. Among their number were the kind of imposing men we used to imagine but never really saw with our own eyes. And then there were the women. You don’t know Vienna, and if you know it, you know the sort of Jewish women the Gentiles wag their tongues over. If they could only see the women I saw, they would stop up their own mouths. Not that I care what the non-Jewish peoples say about us, for there is no hope that we’ll ever please them, but inasmuch as I have mentioned their censure of us, I also mention their praise, because there is no higher praise for a brother than that which he receives from his sisters, through whom he is commended and extolled.

Before long I thought of my wife’s relatives without connecting them with her, as though I and not she were their relation. I would think to myself, If they only knew how miserable I make her. And I was just about ready to unlock my lips and to open my heart to them. When I realized that my heart was urging me to talk, I stayed away from them, and they quite naturally stayed away from me. It’s a big city and people are busy. If someone avoids his friends, they don’t go hunting after him.

The third year my wife adopted a new mode of behavior. If I mentioned him, she ignored what I said, and if I connected his name with hers, she kept silent and didn’t answer me, as though I weren’t speaking about her. Infuriated, I would comment to myself, What a miserable woman not to take notice!

8

One summer day at twilight she and I were sitting at supper. It hadn’t rained for a number of days, and the city was seething with heat. The water of the Danube showed green, and a dull odor floated over the city. The windows in our glass-enclosed porch gave off a sultry heat that exhausted body and soul. Since the day before, my shoulders had been aching, and now the pain was more intense. My head was heavy, my hair was dry. I ran my hand over my head and said to myself, I need a haircut. I looked across at my wife and saw that she was letting her hair grow long. Yet ever since women adopted men’s haircuts, she always wore her hair close-cropped. I said to myself, My own head can’t bear the weight of the little hair it has, and she’s growing herself plumes like a peacock without even asking me if it looks nice that way. As a matter of fact, her hair looked lovely, but there was nothing lovely about my state of mind. I shoved my chair back from the table as though it were pushing against my stomach, and I ripped a piece of bread from the middle of the loaf and chewed it. It had been several days since I last mentioned him to her, and I hardly have to say that she made no mention of him to me. At that time, I was accustomed to saying very little to her, and when I did speak to her, I spoke without anger.

All at once I said to her, “There’s something I’ve been thinking about.” She nodded her head. “Oh, yes,” she said, “I feel the same way.”

“So you know what is in the secret corners of my heart. Then, go ahead, tell me what I was thinking of.” In a whisper, she said, “Divorce.”

As she spoke, she lifted her face to me and looked at me sadly. My heart was torn from its moorings, and I felt weak inside. I thought to myself, What a pitiful creature you are to treat your wife this way and cause her such pain. I lowered my voice and asked, “How do you know what is in my heart?”

“And what do you think I do with all my time? I sit and think about you, my dear.”

The words leaped out of my mouth: I said to her, “Then you agree?”

She lifted her eyes to me. “You mean the divorce?”

I lowered my eyes and nodded in affirmation.

“Whether I want to or not,” she said, “I agree to do whatever you ask, if it will only relieve your suffering.”

“Even a divorce?”

“Even a divorce.”

I was aware of all that I was losing. But the statement had already been made, and the desire to turn my wrath against myself drove me beyond reason. I clenched both hands and said angrily, “Well and good.”

Several days passed, and I mentioned to her neither the divorce nor the one who had brought down ruin upon us. I told myself, Three years have passed since she became my wife. Perhaps the time has come to wipe out the memory of that affair. If she had been a widow or a divorcee when I married her, would there be anything I could have held against her? As things are, then, let me consider her as though she were a widow or a divorcee when I took her to be my wife.

And having reached this conclusion, I upbraided myself for every single day I had tormented her, and I resolved to be good to my wife. During that period I became a completely new person, and I began to feel an awakening of love as on the day I first met her. I was soon ready to conclude that everything is the result of man’s will and desire: if he so wills it, he can introduce anger and hatred into his heart; if he wills it, he can live in peace with everyone. If this is so, I reasoned, what cause is there to stir up anger and bring evil upon ourselves when we are capable of doing good for ourselves and being happy? So I reasoned, that is, until something happened to me that set things back right where they were before.

9

What happened was this. One day a patient was brought to the hospital. I examined him and left him with the nurses to be washed and put to bed. In the evening I entered the ward to make my rounds. When I came to his bed, I saw his name on the card over his head, and I realized who he was.

What could I do? I’m a doctor, and I treated him. As a matter of fact, I gave him an extraordinary amount of care, so that all the other patients grew jealous of him and called him doctor’s pet. And he really deserved the name, for whether he needed it or not, I treated him. I told the nurses that I had discovered in him a disease that hadn’t been adequately studied yet, and that I wanted to investigate it myself. I left instructions for them to give him good food, and sometimes to add a glass of wine, so that he would get a little enjoyment out of his hospital stay. Further, I asked the nurses not to be too strict with him if he took certain liberties and didn’t follow all the hospital regulations.

He lay in his hospital bed eating and drinking and enjoying all sorts of luxuries. And I came in to visit him and examine him again and again, asking him if he had a good night’s sleep and if he was given all the food he wanted. I would order medication for him and praise his body to him, telling him that it would in all probability last to a ripe old age. He on his part listened with enjoyment and basked in pleasure before me like a worm. I told him, “If you’re used to smoking, go ahead and smoke. I myself don’t smoke, and if you ask me whether smoking is a good thing, I’ll tell you it’s bad and harmful to the body. But if you’re used to smoking, I won’t stop you.” And in this way I gave him various special privileges, just so he would feel completely comfortable. At the same time I reflected: Over a man for whom I wouldn’t waste so much as a word I am going to all this trouble, and it’s all because of that business which is difficult to speak of and difficult to forget. Not only that, but I watch him and study him as though I could learn what rubbed off on him from Dinah and what rubbed off on her from him — and from devoting so much attention to him, I was acquiring some of his gestures.

At first I kept the whole matter secret from my wife. But it burst forth when I tried to suppress it, and it told itself. My wife listened without the slightest sign of interest. On the surface, one would have thought that this was just what I wanted, but I was not satisfied, even though I realized that if she had responded differently I would certainly not have been pleased.

After some while he was cured and had recuperated, and it was high time for him to leave the hospital. I kept him day after day and ordered the nurses to give him the best of treatment, so that he would not be anxious to leave. And that was the period right after the war, when it was hard to get provisions for the sick, not to speak of the convalescent, and certainly not to speak of the healthy, so I gave him from my own food which the farmers used to bring me. He sat in the hospital eating and drinking and gladdening his heart, reading newspapers and strolling in the garden, playing with the patients and laughing with the nurses. He put on some weight and was healthier than the people who took care of him, so that it became impossible to keep him any longer in the hospital. I gave instructions that a proper final dinner be prepared for him, and I discharged him.

After the dinner, he came to say goodbye to me. I looked at the double chin he had developed. His eyes were embedded in fat, like those of a woman who has given up everything for the sake of eating and drinking. I stood by my desk rummaging through the papers on it as though I were looking for something I had lost. Then I took a stethoscope to examine him. As I was trying to appear busy, two nurses came in, one to ask me something and one to say goodbye to the doctor’s pet. I pulled my head back suddenly, as though I had been reminded that someone was waiting for me, and I let out a brief exclamation of surprise, the way Dinah does when she sees that someone has been waiting for her. As I did that, I looked at the healthy patient with his double chin and I said to myself, You don’t know who I am, but I know who you are. You are the man who brought ruin down on me and wrecked my wife’s life. Anger surged within me, and I became so furious that my eyes ached.

He extended his hand to me in special deference and began to stutter words of thanks about my saving him from death and restoring him to life. I offered him my fingertips to shake, in an impolite and deprecatory manner, and immediately I wiped them on my white coat, as though I had touched a dead reptile. Then I turned my face away from him as from some disgusting thing, and I walked away. I sensed that the nurses were looking at me and knew the reason for my behavior, even though there were no grounds for such apprehension.

After a little while I went back to work, but my head and heart were not with me. I went up to the doctors’ lounge and looked for a friend to take my place. I told him that I had been summoned to court to give testimony about a certain criminal, and that it was impossible to postpone the case. A nurse came and asked whether she should order a cab. “Certainly, nurse, certainly,” I answered. While she went to the switchboard to telephone, I ran out of the hospital like someone who had gone berserk.

I passed by a bar and considered going in to drown my sorrows in drink, as embittered men are accustomed to say. I grew a bit calmer and told myself, Troubles come and go, your troubles will also pass. But I had only grown calm temporarily, and only to lose control again. I began walking. After an hour or so, I stopped and saw that I had gone all around myself and completed a circle around the same spot.

10

I came home and told my wife. She listened and said nothing. I was infuriated that she should sit there in silence, as if she had heard nothing of significance. I bowed my head over my chest the way he did when he stood before me to thank me, and, imitating his voice, I said, “I wish to thank you, doctor, for saving me from death and restoring me to life.” And I told my wife, “That’s the way his voice sounds and that’s the way he stands,” in order to show her how low he was, what a pitiful creature was the man whom she had preferred to me and to whom she had given her love before she knew me. My wife looked up at me as though the whole thing were not worth her while to care about. Rising, I scrutinized her face in the hope of finding some indication of joy over that good-for-nothing’s recovery, but just as I had seen no signs of sorrow when I told her he was sick, I saw now not the slightest sign of joy over his recovery.

After two or three days, the experience lost its sting and no longer disturbed me. I treated patients, talked much with the nurses, and immediately after work went home to my wife. Sometimes I would ask her to read to me from one of her books, and she would agree. She read while I sat looking at her, thinking, This is the face that had the power to drive away the frowns and dissipate the anger of whoever saw it. And I would run my hand over my face in gratification as I continued to look at her. Sometimes we had a friend over for coffee or for supper. And once again we talked about everything people talk about, and once again I realized that there were things in the world other than woman trouble. Often now I climbed into bed at night with a feeling of contentment and gratification.

One night this fellow came to me in a dream: his face was sickly and yet just a little — just a little — likable. I was ashamed of myself for thinking evil of him, and I resolved to put an end to my anger against him. He bent down and said, “What do you want from me? Is the fact that she raped me any reason for you to have it in for me?”

* * *

The next night we had as dinner guests two of our friends, a married couple, whom we both particularly liked — him because of his admirable qualities, her because of her blue eyes filled with radiance, and because of her high forehead which deceived the eye into thinking that she was unusually intelligent, and because of the golden curls trembling on her head, and also because of her voice, the voice of a woman who suppresses her longings within her. We sat together some three hours without being aware of the time. He discussed the questions of the day, and she helped him with the radiance from her eyes.

After they left, I said to my wife, “Let me tell you a dream.”

“A dream?” cried my wife in surprise, and fixed her eyes on me sorrowfully and repeated in a whisper, “A dream.” For it was not my way to tell dreams, and it seems to me that all those years I had not dreamed at all.

“I had a dream,” I told her. And as I said it, my heart suddenly quaked.

My wife sat down and looked into my face intently. I proceeded to tell her my dream. Her shoulders shook and her body began to tremble. She stretched out her arms all of a sudden and, placing them around my neck, she embraced me. I returned her embrace and we stood clinging together in love and affection and pity, while all that time this fellow never left my sight, and I could hear him saying, “Is the fact that she raped me any reason for you to have it in for me?”

I pushed my wife’s arms away from my neck, and a terrible sadness welled up within me. I got into bed and thought over the whole affair quietly and calmly until I fell asleep.

The next day we got up and ate breakfast together. I looked over at my wife and saw that her face was the same as always. I thanked her in my heart for bearing no grudge against me over the night before. At that moment, I recalled all the trouble and suffering I had caused her since the day she married me, how time after time I drained her lifeblood and insulted her in every possible way, while she took everything in silence. My heart swelled with love and tenderness for this miserable soul whom I had tortured so much, and I resolved to be good to her. And so I was for one day, for two days, for three days.

11

And I was quite prepared to conclude that everything was being set right. In point of fact, nothing had been set right. From the very day I made peace with myself, that peace was robbed from me through another means. My wife treated me as though I had become a stranger to her. Yet all the efforts I was making with her were for her sake. How this woman failed to take notice! But she did notice.

One day she said to me, “What a good thing it would be if I were dead!”

“Why do you say that?”

“Why, you ask?” And in the wrinkles around her lips there was visible a sort of smile which made my heart jump.

“Don’t be a fool,” I scolded her.

She sighed. “Ah, my dear, I am not a fool.”

“Then I am a fool.”

“No, you’re not a fool either.”

I raised my voice and challenged her. “Then what do you want from me?”

“What do I want?” she answered. “I want the same thing you want.”

I brushed one palm off with the other and said, “There’s nothing at all I want.”

She looked into my face intently. “There’s nothing at all you want. Then everything must be all right.”

“All right?” I laughed scornfully.

“You see, my dear,” she said, “that laugh does not sit well with me.”

“What am I supposed to do, then?”

“Do what you’ve been wanting to do.”

“Namely?”

“Namely, why should I repeat something you yourself know?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what that something is. But since you know, you can tell me.”

She pronounced in a whisper, “Divorce.”

I raised my voice as I answered. “You want to force me into giving you a divorce.”

She nodded. “If you think it’s proper for you to put it that way and say that I want to force you, then I agree.”

“Meaning what?” I asked.

“Why do we have to repeat things when there’s no call for it? Let us do what is written for us above.”

In anger, I mocked her. “Even heaven is an open book for you, as you know what’s written there. I am a doctor and I can only go by what my eyes see, while you, madam, you know what is written on high. Where did you pick up such knowledge, maybe from that louse?”

“Be still!” Dinah cried. “Please, be still!”

“You don’t have to get so angry,” I told her. “After all, what did I say?”

She rose, went to her room, and locked the door behind her.

I came to the door and asked her to open it for me, but she refused. “Look, I’m leaving,” I said to her. “The whole house is yours, and you don’t have to lock the door.” When she still did not answer, I began to be afraid that she had taken sleeping pills and, God forbid, committed suicide. I began to beg and plead for her to open the door, but still she did not open. I peeked through the keyhole, my heart pounding me blow after blow, as though I were a murderer. Thus I stood before the locked door until evening came on and the walls darkened.

With darkness, she came out of her room, pale as a corpse. When I took her hands in mine, a deathly chill flowed out of them that made my own hands cold. She made no effort to pull her hands away from me, as though she had no feeling left in them.

I laid her down on her bed and calmed her with sedatives, nor did I move from her until she had dozed off. I looked at her face, a face innocent of any flaw, without the slightest blemish, and I said to myself, What a lovely world in which such a woman exists, and what difficult lives we have to live! I bent down in order to kiss her. She turned her head in sign of refusal. “Did you say something?” I asked. “No,” she said, and I couldn’t tell whether she was conscious of me or simply was talking in her sleep. Thoroughly disconcerted, I kept my distance from her. But I sat there all night long.

The next day I went to work and came back at noon. Whether out of prudence or for some other reason, I made no mention to her of what had happened the day before. She on her part did not speak of it either. So it was on the second day, so again on the third day. I was ready to conclude that matters were returning to their previous state. Yet I knew that though I might try to forget, she would not forget.

During that period her appearance became more vigorous and she changed some of her habits. Where she was accustomed to greet me as I came in the door, she no longer greeted me. Sometimes she would leave me and go off somewhere, and there were times when I came home and did not find her.

The anniversary of our engagement fell at that time. I said to her, “Let’s celebrate and take a trip to the place we went to when we were first married.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“Because I have to go somewhere else.”

“Pardon me, but where is it you are going?”

“There’s a patient I’m taking care of.”

“Why this all of a sudden?”

“Not everything a person does is all of a sudden. For a long time now I’ve felt that I ought to work and do something.”

“And isn’t it enough for you that I am working and doing something?”

“Once that was enough for me. Now it’s not enough.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? If you yourself don’t know, I can’t explain it to you.”

“Is it such a complicated issue that it’s difficult to explain?”

“It’s not hard to explain, but I doubt if you would want to understand.”

“Why are you doing it?”

“Because I want to earn my own living.”

“Do you think you’re not supported adequately in your own home, that you have to go look for a living elsewhere.”

“Right now I’m being supported. Who knows what will be tomorrow?”

“Why all of a sudden such ideas?”

“I already told you that nothing happens all of a sudden.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You understand, all right, but you prefer to say, ‘I don’t understand.’”

I nodded my head in despair and said, “That’s how it is, then.”

“Really, that’s how it is.”

“This whole dialectic is beyond me.”

“It’s beyond you, and it’s not particularly close to me. So it would be better if we kept still. You do what you have to do, and I’ll do what I have to.”

“What I do, I know. But I have no idea what it is you want to do.”

“If you don’t know now, you’ll soon find out.”

But her efforts did not succeed. And however they may have succeeded, she failed to make a penny out of them. She was caring for a paralyzed girl, the daughter of a poor widow, and she received no payment for her work. On the contrary, she helped the widow financially, and she even brought her flowers. At that time Dinah’s strength drained from her as though she were sick, and she herself needed someone to take care of her instead of her caring for others. Once I asked her, “How long are you going to continue working with that sick girl?” She fixed her eyes on me and said, “Are you asking me as a doctor?”

“What difference does it make whether I ask as a doctor or as your husband?”

“If you ask as a doctor, I don’t know what to tell you, and if you ask for other reasons, I see no need to answer.”

I tried to act as if she were joking with me, so I laughed. She averted her face from me, and, leaving me where I was, went off. The laughter immediately died on my lips, nor has it yet returned.

It’s just a mood, I told myself, and I can put up with it. Yet I knew that all my optimism was completely baseless. I recalled the first time she spoke to me about a divorce, and I remembered what she said: “Whether I want it or not, I am prepared to do whatever you ask, if only it will relieve your suffering — even a divorce.” Now I thought, However you look at it, there’s no way out for us except a divorce. As soon as this idea occurred to me, I dismissed it, as a man will dismiss something painful from his thoughts. But Dinah was right when she said we had to do what was written for us above. Before long I saw with my own eyes and I grasped with my own understanding what at first I had not seen and I had not grasped. At once I decided that I would grant Dinah the divorce. We had no children, for I had been apprehensive about begetting children for fear they would look like him. I arranged our affairs and gave her the divorce.

And so we parted from one another, the way people will part outwardly. But in my heart, my friend, the smile on her lips is still locked up, and that blue-black in her eyes, as on the day I first saw her. Sometimes at night I sit up in bed like those patients she used to take care of, and I stretch out both hands and call, “Nurse, nurse, come to me.”

On the Road

The train was lost among the mountains and could not find its way. All the travelers who were with me had got out. I remained alone. Apart from the guard and the driver of the train, not a soul was left. Suddenly the train had stopped and stood still, and I knew that I was done with the train and would have to go on foot among strange places and alien people whose language I did not know and with whose customs I was not familiar. Another day I would have had no regrets. On the contrary, I would have been pleased at the unexpected opportunity for a pleasant stroll. But that evening I was not pleased. It was the evening of the penitential hymn “Remember the Covenant,” and next day was the New Year. How should I spend this sacred festival without public prayer and hearing the ram’s horn? I got up and looked outside. The hills were silent, and all around was an awesome darkness.

The guard came up and said, “Yes, sir, the train has stopped and can’t move.” Seeing my distress, he took my satchel, put it on the seat, and went on, “Lay your head on your satchel, sir, and perhaps you will fall asleep and gather strength, for you have a long way ahead.” I nodded and said, “Many thanks, sir.” I stretched myself out on the seat and laid my head on my satchel.

Before daybreak the guard came back. He scratched his temples and said, “We’re far from any inhabited place, so I have to wake you, sir, for if you want to get human company before nightfall you’ll have to hurry.” I got up and took my staff and satchel, he showing me whither to turn and where to go.

The dawn had risen and the stars had set. The mountains were beginning to doff the covering of night, and the springs gleamed as they emerged. The mountains raised their heads, and narrow paths wound their way among them. The dew rested on them and the birds pecked at the morning dew. I looked this way and that. Far and near, mountains and rocks; near and far, not a place of habitation. The road was long, and my feet were heavy, and the day was short, and the hour was pressing. God knew when I would reach an inhabited town and whether I would see a human face that day.

I do not know whether I followed the road the guard showed me or strayed from it. In any case, the day passed and the sun soon set. The mountains darkened, and awesome forms took shape in the space of the world. There was still a trace of day, but night was drawing on: the day that belonged to a year that has passed and the night that belonged to a new year. And between day and night, I stood, a wayfarer, with my staff and my satchel, not knowing where to go and where I would lay my head.

The night was overcast and the moon did not shine. The springs still gleamed a little, but they too began to be covered. I looked this way and that. The whole land was like one block of darkness. I went into a cleft in the rock and laid myself down to sleep. The birds of heaven nested above my head, and all around were the beasts of the earth. The birds were already asleep and the beasts had not yet come out. Silence reigned, the silence of mountain rocks at night. From far and near came the sound of the spring waters, flowing as in a land at peace.

I lie on the ground and look at the dark skies. This is the night of the New Year, when all the multitudes of Israel stand in prayer, and the women have already lit candles before nightfall in honor of the day, so that they should enter the new year with light and joy. And here I lie in a dark country among the beasts of the earth, and if I reach an inhabited place tomorrow, I doubt if I will find a Jew there. Israel is like scattered sheep; wherever a Jew goes he finds Jews; but here all the communities have been destroyed and the Jews have not returned.

So I lay in the cleft of the rock and waited for morning. My feet moved off on their own and started walking. I reached a great park full of fine trees. I wanted to enter, but was afraid I might be rebuked by the wardens, who look askance at wayfarers. I entered — I do not know how — and they did not say a word. I walked from tree to tree and from flower bed to flower bed, until I was tired out, and fell down from the effort. Oh, those beautiful parks we see in dreams. They are larger than any parks in the world, and their fragrance is sweeter than all the sweet odors, and we walk in them without end or limit. What is the purpose of our walking in these parks? Only that in the end we should collapse in exhaustion? But the fragrance that clings to us is worth all that effort. This is the fragrance that refreshes our souls when we merely mention it.

The sound of my fall woke me, and I heard a man’s voice. Since I knew that I was far from any inhabited place, I said to myself: I am dreaming; but since I longed to see a man I said to myself: Perhaps, after all, I am awake. I raised my eyes and saw two men, and then, behind them, two women. The morning mists hung below the mountains and the men and women were walking above the hills, above the mist.

I got up and went to meet them. Two more came and another two: those from behind the mountain and these from the lower slopes. And their wives came after them, two on this side and two on that, joining up and going on together, two by two. Their clothes were modest; they wore white gowns over their clothes, and white caps on their heads, with a band of silver, two fingers broad, surrounding the cap and tied at the back, and tallitot hanging over their shoulders, and belts over their clothes; they were distinguished by beard and sidelocks, and they had old, black books, festival or weekday prayer books, in their hands. Like the men, the women were clad in modest, humble clothes. Their heads were covered with white coifs, shaped like the Hebrew letter kaf, covering the head and the forehead and partially surrounding face and chin. I greeted them and they returned my greeting.

“Where do you come from, brothers, and where are you going?” I asked them. They pointed to the mountains and said, “We are going to the house of God,” they said, pointing to the mountains. “And are there Jews here?” I said to them. “In days gone by,” they replied, “all these places here were covered with sacred congregations, but because of our manifold sins and the malice of the Gentiles, all the congregations were burned and killed and destroyed and laid waste, and none were left but one Jew here and one there. On the three pilgrimage festivals — on the New Year and the Day of Atonement, and also at the New Moon of Sivan, which was the day of the great slaughter — we assemble and make a quorum, and recite the congregational prayers.” They spoke an antique German, but the voice of Jacob somewhat sweetened the language. And their beautiful dark eyes gazed in grief and concern, like men who stand at sunset awaiting a tenth for the quorum.

We reached a ruined building of great stones. On the walls inside, there were visible signs of congealed blood, from the blood of the martyrs who slaughtered themselves, their wives and their sons and daughters, to prevent their falling into the hands of the accursed ones. And the smell of burning emanated from the ruin, for after the martyrs had slaughtered themselves, the accursed ones set fire to the synagogue over them. Above the sanctuary hung a heavy curtain. Once it was white, but now it was black. And marks of congealed blood were visible upon it: the blood of the martyrs.

When we entered, we found three men who had come before us. Among them was an old man, standing bowed, with his head resting on the old black festival prayer book that lay on the lectern. He was clad like the other people of the place, but they wore gray trousers, while his were white. He had the small fringed garment over his clothes, with a mantle over it and his tallit drawn up over his cap. Because of the sanctity of the day and the sanctity of the place, they did not speak, either in the profane or in the holy tongue.

The old man raised his head from the lectern and looked into the house of prayer. He rapped on the prayer book and said, “People, we now have a quorum. Let us pray.” They replied, “Samuel Levi has not yet come.” “Why does he not come,” said the old man, “and why is he holding up the prayer?” One of them pricked up his ears and said, “I hear the sound of footsteps, here he comes.” But no, those were not his footsteps. An old gentile woman came in and asked, “Who is the gravedigger here?” One of them removed the tallit from his face and asked her, “What do you want?” “The Jew Levi is about to die,” she said, “and perhaps he is already dead. He sent me to tell you to come and see to his burial.” The whole congregation sighed deeply and looked at each other, as people look at a little orphan who has suddenly lost his parents. And each and everyone of them looked as if he had been bereaved and he was the orphan.

“People, what does the Gentile woman want in the holy place?” the old man asked. They told him. “He was a good Jew,” he said with a sigh. “Alas that he is dead, alas that he is dead.” Then the old man looked at me and said, “Blessed be the Almighty who has brought you here. Surely He has brought you to complete the quorum.” He rapped on the prayer book and said, “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence. People, we have a quorum, praise the Lord. Let us rise and pray.” He let down his tallit over his face and began to recite the blessings. Immediately they all raised their tallitot and covered their heads. They recited the blessings, the hallelujahs, the “Bless ye,” and the hymns. They recited the “Hear, O Israel” and then the Prayer of Benedictions. They took out the scrolls from the sanctuary and read the Torah. And I, Samuel Joseph, son of Rabbi Shalom Mordecai the Levite, went up to the lectern for the reading of the Torah in place of Samuel Levi, who had passed away. After the blowing of the ram’s horn and the Additional Service, we went down to accompany our friend to his last resting place.

So that they should not be deprived of congregational prayer on the Day of Atonement, I postponed my departure until after the Day. Since I was idle and free to my own devices, I walked about during the intervening days from house to house and from man to man. Their houses were small, and as low as the stature of an ordinary man; each consisted of a small room with a courtyard surrounded by a stone wall. Attached to the room was a wooden hut, which they called the summer house all the year around and sanctified to serve as a festival booth at Sukkot, but they had to rebuild it every year, for the winds sent the boards flying a Sabbath day’s journey and more. The doors of their houses were all made in the same measure and of the same width, for their fathers, when they built the houses, used to make the doorways the width of a bier, so that when they brought them out on the way to their last resting place, they should be able to take them out without trouble. Every householder had a milk goat, and four or five fowls, and plant pots in which they grew onions to flavor their bread and sweeten the Sabbath stew. Because of scanty resources and the pangs of poverty, the sons went out to the big cities and drew their sisters after them, and sent for the parents to come to their weddings. Some of the parents agreed and went, but immediately after the wedding they would leave quietly and go back home on foot. Old Mrs. Zukmantel told me, “At my son’s wedding banquet, which was held with great splendor, I went outside for a breath of air. I saw my husband sitting on the steps with his head resting on his knees. ‘Is that the way to sit at your son’s wedding?’ I said to him. ‘I can’t stand all that noise,’ he replied. ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘let us go back home.’ ‘Let us go,’ he said, sitting up. So we got up straightaway and set off. We walked all night, and in the morning our feet were standing on the ground of our house.” A similar tale I heard from Mistress Yettlein, the wife of Mr. Koschmann, son-in-law of Mr. Anschel Duesterberg, nephew of old Rabbi Anschel, who was cantor and ritual slaughterer, as well as rabbi.

To fulfill the precept of hospitality, which they had not been privileged to carry out for many years because they got no visitors, they took much trouble with me, and everyone devoted himself to me in love and affection and honor. Since they do little work on the Ten Days of Penitence, which they treat, as far as work is concerned, exactly like the intermediate festival days, they were all free to their own devices and free for me. They went out with me to some of their holy places, where they have a tradition that the bones of the martyrs who were slaughtered and killed and burned are interred. Most of the graves have no stones upon them, but only signs to warn the descendants of the priestly family to keep away. On the other hand, there are tombstones and fragments of stones without any inscription on them strewn all over the hills and valleys. On one of them I found the inscription: My BELOVED IS GONE DOWN INTO HIS GARDEN; on another: GLORIOUS IS THE KING’S DAUGHTER, and on another I found the inscription:

They slandered the Jew,

And vilely slew

Numbers untold,

Both young and [old].

On every hill

Our blood they [spill].

Among the fragments I saw the fragments of one gravestone bearing a verse from the Song of Songs: THOU THAT DWELLEST IN THE GARDENS, THE COMPANIONS HEARKEN TO THY VOICE. They told me that there was a certain distinguished woman, Mistress Buna, who composed hymns for women, and they have a tradition that this was the tombstone of Mistress Buna. She died a year before the massacre, and after her death she would come in a dream to the leaders of the community and sing, “Flee, my beloved…” and the rest of the verse. They did not know what she meant, until the unbelievers came and slaughtered most of the communities, and those who were not slaughtered by the unbelievers slaughtered themselves so that they should not fall into their hands. And those who did not succeed in taking their own lives went to the stake with gladness and song, and sanctified the heavenly Name in the sight of the Gentiles, so that the uncircumcised were astonished when they saw it, and some of them cried, “These are not sons of man, but angels of God.”

On account of the massacres they have special customs. They do not recite the hymn “It is for us to praise” after the prayers, whether individual or congregational. And if a man longs to recite it, he covers his face and says it in a whisper, because with this song of praise their martyred forefathers went to the stake, singing the praises of the Holy One, blessed be He, out of the fire. It is their custom to recite the prayer in memory of the slaughtered communities every Sabbath, even when there is a wedding. And they recite the Supplication in the month of Nisan, from the day after Passover. They fast on the New Moon of Sivan until after the afternoon service, and recite penitential prayers and the Song of Praise, and visit the tombs of the martyrs. At the Afternoon Prayer they recite the Supplication of Moses, because on that day the entire community was killed, and before the open scroll they pray for the souls of the martyrs who were killed and slaughtered and burned alive in those evil days. Another custom they once had: on the first day of Shavuot, before the reading of the Torah, one of the young men would lay himself on the floor of the synagogue and pretend to be dead, in memory of the giving of the law, of which it is said, “My soul failed when He spake.” They would say to him, “What aileth thee? Fear not. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.” Immediately the young man opened his eyes, like a man who has come back to life, and there was great rejoicing; they surrounded him, dancing and singing and crying, “He liveth forever, awesome, exalted and holy!” This custom has been abolished, for once a certain illustrious scholar, Rabbi Israel Isserlin, who wrote a famous book, happened to visit them; he rebuked them angrily and said, “Pfui, ye shall not walk in their ordinances, neither shall ye do after the doings of the Gentiles.” For the Gentiles used to behave in this way for several years after the disappearance of the sickness called the Black Death: they used to gather together and eat and drink until they were intoxicated; then they would choose one of their young men and lay him on the ground, and little girls and old women would dance around him, and they would sniff at each other, and say, “Death is dead, death is dead!” Then they would take a girl and lay her down, and old men and boys would surround her, knock their heads together, and dance around her, screeching, “Death is dead, death is dead!” so as to notify the Black Death that it was dead, for in those days there was a spirit of madness abroad, and people did strange things.

Blessed be He that distinguishes Israel from the Gentiles. Let us return to the Jewish customs. They do not perform the ceremony of casting away sins either at rivers or at wells, because the Gentiles used to say that the Jews dropped poison into the water and polluted it; but anyone who has a well in his yard recites the prayer beside the well. And although the suspicion has disappeared, the custom has not been changed. And it was an ancient custom among them to recite the blessing “Who hast not made me a Gentile” twice. They have evening hymns and morning hymns and hymns of redemption and penitential hymns that are not in our festival prayer book. The melodies of their prayers resemble ours, but ours are according to the taste of this generation, while theirs are as they have inherited them from their fathers, may they rest in peace. Sometimes their voices are terrifying, and sometimes a cry, as of a man whose soul struggles to escape, is wrenched from them. But when they stand up to pray, they recite in a sweet voice: “O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock…” and so forth; “My dove, my undefiled is but one…” and so forth; “She is the choice one of her that bore her.” Never in my life have I heard a melody so sweet. And I saw an excellent custom that they observed on the Day of Atonement: they do not leave the house of prayer, or speak, from the approach of night until the end of the Day of Atonement, either in the secular or in the sacred tongue, and even the women are very careful in this. And they do not interrupt the reading of the Torah to pronounce a blessing on those who are called up for the reading, but after it is over the reader blesses them all together. On festivals when they read the passage “Every firstborn,” the leader of the congregation rises after the last reader has finished the final blessing, goes up to each one, carrying a scroll of the Torah, and blesses him, saying, “He that blessed our forefathers, etc., may He bless thee for giving a donation in honor of the Almighty, etc.,” and the people contribute voluntarily to the cost of wine for the sanctification and lamps for the lighting and other needs of the congregation. Their scrolls of the law are tall; when they elevate the scroll they spread it out as far as their arms can reach. You have never seen a finer sight than a broad scroll held by tall Jews, for all of them are stalwart and powerful men. The one who elevates the scroll holds it firmly, while everyone looks at the Torah and puts together, from it, the letters of his name. Their ram’s horns are kept in their cases. On some of the cases, beautiful shapes are engraved, and on others verses of the services connected with the sounding of the horn are written. They have no particular melody for reading the Scroll of Esther, but the reader reads it like an ordinary story. And when Master Moses Molin, the son-in-law of Reb Jacob Slitzstat, was good enough to read me a few verses, I felt as if I were hearing the story of Esther for the first time.

It is their way to mingle words of the holy tongue in their conversation. When it is warm they say hamima and when it is cold they say karira. They do not say Soehne, but banim, and not Toechter, but banot. But in the singular, they say Sohn and Tochter. When I asked them the reason, they could not answer, and I quoted to them in jest, “Ye are sons (banim) to the Lord your God.” As for the daughters, I quoted, “Many daughters (banot) have done worthily.” Most of the names of their articles of food and drink are in the holy tongue, such as lehem—bread, basar — meat, dagim—fish, yayin—wine, and mayim—water. A dish that is neither meat nor of milk, they call lavlah, from the initials of lo vasar lo halav. I found several beautiful words in use among them, which I have not found in our dictionaries, and no doubt they come from the festival prayer book, for they often recite the hymns. And most of the names of animals are in the holy tongue, except the calf, which they call Kalb, so as not to recall the sin of the Golden Calf. And if a man calls someone a calf, he makes his life a misery.

Their favorite entertainment at festival meals is to ask riddles about the laws, such as, “How can we prove so-and-so?” Another hallowed custom they have is to assemble in the synagogue on the Seventh of Adar and spend the day in fasting and prayer and the reading of the Torah, and I do not remember if they told me that they read the Supplication of Moses or “And Moses went up…” from the end of Deuteronomy. They recite the Memorial for the Departed, and every one kindles lights in memory of his relatives who have died, as on a yahrzeit, because no one can go to the synagogue all winter because of the tempests and snowfalls, so they decided to assemble on the Seventh of Adar, the day of the passing of Moses, our teacher, blessed be his memory. At night, after midnight, they hold a meal, and all eat together, and they have special penitential hymns for that day and special songs for that meal, which they sing to special melodies, and afterward they go home in peace. They also have several other customs. Happy is the man that follows them.

In the morning of the day after the Day of Atonement I went on my way. When I left, the entire community came out to see me on my road, standing on the hilltops. Five or six times I turned my head to look back at them, until they were swallowed in the blue mists. I kept to the road and walked on until I reached the railroad, which had been repaired in the meantime by craftsmen brought for the purpose. I traveled by rail to the port, and from there I traveled by ship to the haven of my desire, the Land of Israel. Blessed be the Almighty who has restored me to my place.

Between Two Towns

1

The town of Katzenau is situated among the mountains of lower Franconia. Its small houses are scattered among gardens, fields, hills, and valleys. Some of its inhabitants are craftsmen; others serve as clerics, teachers, and functionaries, foresters, hunters, and cattle breeders. In the center of this town, between the courthouse and the revenue offices, there is a street lined with two rows of buildings, across from each other, which house the stores that belong to Jews. Like their fathers and the generations that preceded them, they struggle for a meager profit and provide the local people with all sorts of goods, some necessary and some unnecessary. The Holy One, blessed be He, arranged the world as He saw fit. To some He granted fields and gardens, and, being generous and true to His people, Israel, He granted them a resting place among the nations from which to serve Him and to earn a livelihood, be it meager or ample. He is blessed and His Name is blessed, for every Jew is sustained according to his needs. In the past there were countless edicts, attacks, murders, expulsions. But in time this changed so that Israel is no longer despised because of matters of faith. Nor are we victimized for our positive qualities. So the few families who live in the town support themselves, each family according to its needs, struggling to please God and humanity, seeking nothing for themselves beyond what they earn with their labor and beyond what they need to survive. They provide for their households with integrity, perform the commandments received from their forebears unquestioningly, grasping their essence while fulfilling them. About folks such as these was it said that “man was born to toil”—both for a livelihood and to perform the commandments.

The Sabbath comes, bringing peace. From noon on Friday very little business is done. The women prepare for the Sabbath; men tend their beards, pulling out hair after hair with a special implement. The Sabbath doesn’t begin until everyone is in the synagogue, wearing Sabbath clothes and a Sabbath face, occupying an inherited seat. The old teacher, who is also the ritual slaughterer and cantor, stands before the holy ark chanting melodies received from generations back, which are, no doubt, pleasing to God. After these prayers the wine is blessed and a feast is served: white bread, meat, other dishes that grace the table only on the Sabbath and holidays. In winter there are songs. In summer, when the nights are short, it is the custom to delight one’s table with a special psalm before saying Grace. Those familiar with the Five Books of Moses read the weekly portion; others read Der Israelit or Das Familienblatt until they fall asleep.

Morning prayers are early. The old teacher and cantor stands before the holy ark and chants the Torah. The privilege of participating in this part of the service is assigned carefully to avoid controversy, for there was once a feud that all but destroyed this community. A system of turns was thereupon instituted, which applied to everyone, with the exception of Herr Gundersheimer and old Neidermeir the Butcher, who were called up to the Torah every week when they were in town. (One of them being of priestly descent, the other from the tribe of Levi, they were granted this special privilege bestowed by the Torah.) After the service, everyone goes home in peace, blesses the government, indulges in the array of dishes that adorn the table only on the Sabbath and holidays. In winter, when the days are short, the Sabbath passes without much ado. By the time the afternoon prayers are concluded it is time for the evening round. The cycle of ordinary days, given not for rest and pleasure but for sorrow and toil, begins again.

2

But in the summer Katzenau changes its aspect, somewhat for the better. This small village, situated among mountains, locked in by forests, isolated from the world four or five months a year by snow, storms, and winds, has a twin sister: Bad Katzenau, with medicinal springs flowing through its soil. From all over the country people throng to drink the water and bathe in it. Local landowners built villas which they rented out, planted gardens, built a hall and hired musicians to entertain their guests. People came there from Katzenau to promenade and to hear the music. When Old Man Gundersheimer and Neidermeir the Butcher opened inns in Bad Katzenau, guests who observe dietary laws could go there too. And people from the neighboring community went there to meet their fellow Jews.

Herr Gundersheimer and Herr Neidermeir live together in peace. And when necessary they help each other, either because they are inundated with guests and have no reason to envy one another or because they are in the habit of cooperating. The one, a Kohen, is of priestly lineage; the other, a Levite, is trained to pour water on the hands of the priest when he goes up to the pulpit, while the Kohen is trained to include the Levite with the rest of Israel in his priestly blessing.

From the time Bad Katzenau became a health spa, and travelers — among them, Jews — began to come there for a cure, the people of Katzenau began to go there too. On weekdays they were occupied with business and were not free. But on the Sabbath, the day being long and idle, a man would take his wife, sons, and daughters, and go for a walk among the trees, gardens, and flowers, passing guests, seeing new faces, and hearing worthwhile conversation. Occasionally a rabbi would come there to mend his body. The people of the town of Katzenau, who were not numerous enough to hire their own rabbi, would come to meet him. One of the town elders would sometimes kneel to kiss the rabbi’s hand and, noting how soft and delicate it was, would wonder about the benefits of this occupation. All week long everyone waited eagerly for the hour on the Sabbath when the entire community would set out for the spa. The distance between the two towns of Katzenau was not great. A sizable pine forest provided shade, and it was not a strain even for women, old people, or children to walk from one town to the other. As they passed through the forest, whose trees offered shade along with a fine fragrance and frolicking birds, they began to feel expansive. Their tongues came to life; their bodies, bent by the weight of merchandise and bowed by dealings with customers, became erect. All the more so upon returning from the spa and remembering a bon mot gleaned from one of the guests. The good Lord created a vast world, with many people in it whom He scattered wide, giving each place its singular quality and endowing every man with singular wisdom. You leave home and meet people from another place, and your mind is expanded by what you hear.

3

The great war, a blow to the wicked and the good alike, did not bypass Katzenau — least of all its Jews, who, from the onset of the war, were eager and anxious to defend their land. Those who were of age were called to serve in the ranks of the military; those who were too young volunteered, leaving behind only women, children, the elderly, and several citizens whose services were essential to the town. The community was overcome with sadness, now that all of its youths were gone. Some small comfort was derived from the weekly excursions, on the Sabbath afternoons, to the watering place, where there were new faces as well as information and commentary on the progress of the war.

In truth there was a further advantage in being there. In most areas of the country there were food shortages, whereas Katzenau was located in Bavaria, where bread, meat, milk products, and fruit were abundant. People would come from all over to this watering place to restore their bodies and eat their fill.

For this same reason and at this very time, one Isidor Shalthier, of Frankfurt, arrived in Katzenau. Herr Isidor Shalthier taught young children in a local elementary school, but he had great aspirations. The great things, however, had already been done by others, leaving nothing for Herr Shalthier to discover. He had no choice but to avert his mind from great things and deal with his frail, declining body, for teaching is a difficult profession, all the more so in wartime, when fathers make war and children do as they please. Herr Gundersheimer, the old innkeeper, treated him graciously and was generous with all manner of food and drink, beyond what he was paid for. The teacher spent his time sleeping, drinking, eating. Between meals he would sit on a lounge chair in the garden, coaxing his eyes to sleep. After a few days, his body feeling heavy with food, drink, and sleep, he began to walk between meals to speed up digestion and ready himself for new nourishment. It was wartime and most city dwellers had already forgotten what proper food is like. Finding himself in a place where food was plentiful, he needed many strategies to absorb his ample diet. So Herr Shalthier took walks between meals to relax his body. He was also careful not to tax his mind and, rather than think about anything that required the slightest strain, he would count either his footsteps or the telegraph wires. For the soul is not content with earthly matters and tends to elevate itself, soaring to the heights of the universe.

In the course of these walks, Herr Isidor Shalthier found himself in the town of Katzenau. He sniffed the scent of warm bread, followed his nose, and arrived at the door of a Jewish baker. He knocked, entered, and, as he was obviously a decent fellow, was welcomed warmly. The baker, hearing he was a teacher and furthermore that he was from Frankfurt, was extremely respectful. He was served cold milk, cake, bread, butter, and cheese, which he ate, drank, and enjoyed even as he bemoaned the plight of his wife and tender children who, while he was eating bread, butter, and cheese, and drinking rich milk, had barely enough dry crusts to eat — for in the big cities anyone who isn’t well connected has nothing to eat. Moved by the plight of the teacher’s wife and children, the baker and his wife took a dozen eggs, a pound of butter and cheese, and various other goods, wrapped them in paper, and said: There is a post office nearby and, if it isn’t too much trouble, he could mail the package to his family. And, if the distance isn’t too great for him, he could come every week and this effort would surely be rewarded. As they spoke, Herr Dingsfelder, the baker’s neighbor, appeared. He was envious and said, “Absolutely not. Next week the teacher must do me the honor, for a package is ready and waiting. It was prepared for my son but I can’t send it. My son, Rheinholdi, may his life be long, is a prisoner in the hands of our accursed enemies the French. We don’t know just where he is. But the honored teacher must promise not to divulge this agreement to anyone.” Herr Dingsfelder was afraid others in the town would snatch this good deed out from under him. And he was right to worry. For, in those sorrowful times, many hands were seeking out acts of charity and generosity. But his joy betrayed him. Two or three hours later all of Katzenau was aware that a man had appeared through whom good deeds could be done. Every householder searched and found things to give the teacher. Henceforth, Herr Shalthier was a regular guest in the town. Not a week passed without his coming to Katzenau nor was there anyone in Katzenau who did not give him a portion of his bread, butter, eggs, and other foodstuffs. As he walked to Katzenau and back, Herr Shalthier thought many thoughts about what he had been given to eat and drink, also about his wife who was lucky to have such a husband, one who remembers her from afar with packages laden with goodies.

4

There are people who occupy themselves with a single thought for several days, whereas others tend to drift from one thought to another. Herr Shalthier, being a teacher, with a single subject to impart, was in the habit of dwelling on a single thought for a long time. Now that he wasn’t enslaved by students, he pursued other thoughts. But all significant thoughts having already been bestowed on others, he was left only with thoughts of food and drink. All that remained for him was to do with his feet what his mind couldn’t do. Herr Shalthier began counting his paces again. When he was bored, he counted telegraph wires. When he was tired of counting telegraph wires, he counted paces again. Then he began calculating distances. After two separate calculations, he was puzzled: the distance from Katzenau to Bad Katzenau was more than two thousand cubits, yet it was the custom to walk from the town to the watering place every Sabbath, exceeding the distance one is allowed to traverse on the Sabbath. Could an entire God-fearing and observant community be violating such a major restriction? Furthermore, many Orthodox rabbis had already been in Katzenau to drink and immerse themselves in its waters. Could it be that they were unaware of this situation and that they had failed to correct it? He counted again, alternating broad and narrow steps, only to confirm that the distance exceeded the Sabbath limits. Still, he didn’t presume to declare himself the first and only person to realize this. He reasoned that it could be fatigue, from so much food and drink, that was shrinking his paces. He resolved to test this out the following day, before ingesting any food or drink. The next day he measured the distance again and found that it hadn’t changed. He stopped and marked the boundary of the Sabbath limits.

It was already dark and there wasn’t time for him to retrace his steps. But the next morning, first thing, he went to Katzenau to impart what he had to impart. When the people saw the teacher, they were somewhat surprised, for he had already collected his weekly share and they had nothing more to give him. He said to them, “Listen here, friends. I have come not on my own behalf and not because of the sort of things that are consumed and lost, but for your good and benefit, to protect you from a serious transgression. On what grounds have you allowed yourselves to walk to the other Katzenau on the Sabbath, a distance that exceeds the Sabbath limits?” They heard this and were crushed. They stammered in response, “We were following our parents’ ways. Even our teacher, an old man and an expert in the law, raised no objection. In the past he used to walk with us and we never heard that we exceeded the limit.” Herr Shalthier said to them, “Listen to me, friends, what was is past. Henceforth you are forbidden to walk to the watering place on the Sabbath, for I have measured and determined that it is beyond the Sabbath limits. Now let us go to your teacher and I will discover his reason for not interfering with you.”

They went to the elderly teacher and told him all. The old man said to them, “There is a Russian church in that town. The Russian guests pray there, their religion being different from that of the local people. On the outskirts of the town there is a house occupied by their beadle, which constitutes an extension of the town and is the spot from which our Sabbath limit was calculated.” Their faces turned red and they responded, “If so, the reason is no longer valid, as their beadle left when the war began and his dwelling place is now a heap of rubble.” The old man said to them, “In that case, the town limits have diminished and it is no longer permissible to go from Katzenau to Bad Katzenau on the Sabbath. The community elders felt faint when they realized how many times they had violated this prohibition by taking this walk on the Sabbath.” They showered the teacher, Shalthier, with praise and gratitude for having taken the trouble to spare them further transgression. From here on, no one walked beyond the point marked by the teacher. Before Herr Shalthier’s arrival in Katzenau, people used to stroll as they pleased. Now they took pleasure in stopping at the boundary.

5

The bathing season was ending and it was time for Herr Isidor Shalthier to return home. His face was full, his bags stuffed with provisions for the journey, given to him by the people of Katzenau. From the time he emerged from his mother’s womb he hadn’t been treated as well as during his stay in Katzenau. Every day he ate more than he needed and every week he remembered his family with butter, cheese, eggs, and fruit bestowed by admirers, free of charge — though they would be rewarded in the world-to-come, for he had prevented them from desecrating the Sabbath.

The bathing season was over and the resort town was empty. Some of the innkeepers left to stay with relatives and rest from the summer’s work, while those who remained at home sat counting the income derived from their guests. At night they would exchange visits and play cards. In the town of Katzenau there was also a perceptible difference. Those who used to go to the resort and stroll on the promenade now sat in the tavern drinking whiskey and cider, discussing the events of the war and Germany’s victories. Agitators came and went, teachers and officials deliberated continually about ways to finance the war. The Jews, being the first to give, gave and gave again. And it is right that they give — more so in bad times, when their neighbors’ circumstances have declined and on the face of it nothing has changed, though any Jew who deals with the authorities finds them more demanding than usual.

Again it is winter. Days are short; nights are long. Even worse than the struggle to get through the day’s unrewarding business is the struggle to get through sleepless nights filled with bad dreams. Every person has his troubles: a son who is a prisoner of war, a son-in-law who was its casualty. This small community, abandoned by its young men at the outset of the war, is engulfed by sorrow and mourning. Those who return home come only because they are crippled.

A great misfortune befell the family of Miersheim the Baker. He had an only son, long awaited and prayed for, born, raised, and sustained by miracles. When war broke out, the youth assumed the manner of a hero and said, “I am going off to war.” The officers were kind to him, ignoring his frailties, and sent him to the front lines. He was wounded and spent several months in a hospital. When he recovered, he returned to the front. When both his legs froze in the trenches, he was sent home, with many honors and decorations, but with no legs.

6

There was yet another misfortune, the misfortune of Liesl, Mrs. Miersheim’s sister. Liesl was married to Mr. Siegfried Speyer, a leather merchant in Offenbach. The two sisters missed each other but were unable to visit, one being busy with her store, the other with her oven. They expressed their longing in letters and dreams, hoping for a miracle that would bring them together. The miracle did occur, but in an unfortunate way. Liesl’s husband was killed in the war. She was now a widow with three children to support. A small quantity of merchandise had been left to her, which she sold. But, her profit being meager, she was unable to replenish her stock and remained without a means of support. Her brother-in-law, Miersheim, found her work. Neidermeir, who was from their town, hired her to be a maid in the hotel he owned in Katzenau, the resort. She sent her children to her husband’s relatives and moved to Katzenau. Liesl worked all day in Neidermeir’s hotel and even at night she didn’t rest, for the hotel was filled with guests and there was endless work. Liesl couldn’t even spend an hour with her sister, though the distance was a mere cat’s leap. Nor was Mrs. Miersheim free to visit Liesl though she was her own boss, for she had to deal with ration cards, render constant accounts to the authorities, tend her crippled son — a body with no legs. It is a miracle that we have such a thing as Sabbath and holidays, when people are free. But Liesl wasn’t free of her work even on the Sabbath or on holidays, because of the guests.

On the second day of Shavuot the guests from Poland had their own service with memorial prayers for the dead, according to the custom of that land. Liesl went to pray with them. When the prayers were over, she spoke to herself as follows: I have already spoken with the dead; when will I speak with the living? A friend overheard her and said, “If you want to see your sister, go to her and I will do your work.” Liesl informed her sister, through a Gentile messenger, that she would be in the forest in the afternoon.

Liesl dressed in holiday clothes and went to the forest to see the sister she hadn’t seen for years, except for the one day when she came to Katzenau to hire herself out as a maidservant in the hotel that belonged to Neidermeir, her fellow townsman. Liesl stood in the forest where in her childhood she used to pick mushrooms and berries. The trees were much older, as were the young boys born after she left for Offenbach. Here, in these woods, Liesl used to walk with her Siegfried, and here among these green trees he had revealed his love to her. Now his bones are rotting in a distant land and she doesn’t know where he is buried. Her three children are also far away. She hasn’t seen them since she came to Katzenau. Here she has only her sister Margarete. Liesl paces this way and that. Then she stands still as if fixed to the ground, not knowing why she is standing there rather than running toward her sister — for her heart is racing and leaping toward her. Liesl perked up her ears, straining to hear if anyone was coming. She heard only the sound of a hunter and his dogs. But mixed with these sounds, she heard footsteps. Liesl lifted her eyes and saw children running, their parents following behind. She began to run toward them and was puzzled, for she had sent a messenger to inform Margarete that she would be free for two or three hours, yet Margarete was nowhere in sight. Liesl studied every woman’s face and said to herself: They all came, everyone but Margarete. Oh, Margarete, why did you do this to me? Why didn’t you come? When Liesl had despaired of seeing her sister, she placed her hand on her heart sadly, thinking: Not only did Margarete fail to come, but not even her husband has come.

Meanwhile, the women noticed Liesl. And as soon as they noticed her, they welcomed her, saying, “Aren’t you Elise? Of course you’re Elise and you’re looking for your sister.” Liesl nodded and said nothing. Mrs. Dingsfelder, who was Mrs. Miersheim’s neighbor, said, “Don’t worry, Elise. Margarete didn’t forget you, but she was delayed by her son. She’ll be here soon. Her husband agreed to take care of him. May we all enjoy good things as surely as you will soon enjoy seeing Margarete. How are you doing, Elise? How is the work in the hotel? Neidermeir knows he won’t find your equal among a thousand women. And where are your children? How many are there? Three? We heard what happened to you, my dear. But in these times, is there anyone who can say, ‘I’m all right’? Oh, this awful war! It punishes good people and bad people alike. Look up, Elise — what do you see? She’s fast as a squirrel. Slow down, Margarete. Elise is standing right here.”

7

Margarete was already there, thin as a wafer, her face aflame. She never realized she could cover such a distance in such a short time. But it wasn’t her legs that raced; it was her heart, and her legs merely followed. It was a miracle that her heart hadn’t expired in longing. When the two sisters saw each other, they embraced and kissed tearfully, their cries carrying from one end of the woods to the other. How they had yearned for each other all this time, being so close to one another yet unable to get together even for a brief visit.

After drying one another’s tears, they looked at each other and said, “What is there to cry about.” Then they began to cry again. They finally withdrew from the group and sat together, talking — about Speyer, who was killed, and about the children dispersed among Speyer’s relatives; about Moritz, the long-anticipated son, who lost his legs and had no control of his body. They also talked about the work in the hotel, the work in the bakery, about Neidermeir and Neidermeir’s wife, about the guests, who expected to be treated like only sons, for whom no amount of effort was sufficient. They talked about the ration cards, about tax accounts, about the authorities that swallow everything up. Whatever they said and whatever words they spoke did not seem to express what was in their mind. Nonetheless, they felt relief and began to recall forgotten times, when they were both young girls. Liesl said, “Remember, Margarete, how I was the envy of Katzenau because I married my Siegfried and went to live in Offenbach? Now every cat deserves my envy, for a cat has a place to rest its tail and I don’t have a place of my own. Why did Siegfried leave me? I don’t even know where he is buried. And my children are scattered. When the resort season is over, where will I put myself?”

Her sister meant to offer words of comfort but merely added to her sorrow, as sufferers often do, recounting their own troubles by way of comfort. Margarete said, “Now I will tell you something. You, of course, know what happened to my only son. But you don’t know that my husband took sick and that what we earn in a few days is snatched up by the inspector. It’s just as well that he takes it, because he represents the authorities and he could cast an evil eye on the bakery, which hasn’t been repaired since the war began. So much for money matters. There are other things. If you want to listen, then listen. Look at me. If the Angel of Death were to come to me today and say ‘Margarete, come with me,’ I would kiss his fingers. But who will care for my son? My husband is half dead. What is the sound I’ve been hearing all day? Those hunters keep shooting, without a stop. What can you expect from Gentiles? If they don’t manage to kill people, they devise ways to kill animals or birds.”

The two sisters sat together telling each other about themselves and about others, not realizing that the day was declining, cherishing the holiday, a time when sisters can be together and share their heartfelt sorrows.

Everyone else began to think of returning to the town, for the day was done and it would soon be time for evening prayers. Yet they lingered in their place in the woods, urging each other to move on, as the sun had set and it was time to go. There was a time, not so long ago, when they used to come and go to the resort town, stroll in its gardens, hear music, see new faces, learn new things — unaware that, having exceeded the limits of a Sabbath walk, their pleasure would be costly. Thus was the teacher from Frankfurt remembered favorably, for he had marked the proper Sabbath limits and saved them from further transgression.

After a while, the agile ones bestirred themselves. They got up and prodded the dawdlers. Finally they too made a move to leave. They remembered Mrs. Miersheim, who was sitting with her sister, and went to call her. When Liesl heard that her sister was about to leave, she grew sad. She had so much to say to her sister. So far she had told her barely half of what she had in mind. Suddenly, remembering the friend who had undertaken to do her work, she tore herself from her place and helped her sister up. Margarete placed her hand on her ears to shield them from the cry of a bird wounded by the hunter. She then moved her hands away and waved them in despair. Finally she looked up and said, “Time to go.”

The two sisters wept and fell on each other’s necks, unable to utter a word. Finally one of them overcame her sorrow and said, “The holiday is over.” The second sister said, “The next holiday is a long way off.” The first one said, “When will I see you again? I am enslaved to others and I can’t come and go freely.” Her sister said, “And I, even if I do leave my house, I wear out my feet paying taxes and doing all the other chores that shorten our lives.” Liesl said, “Then when will I see you?” Margarete said, “And when will I see you?” They turned away from each other and dried their eyes.

Day was done, and everyone began to go. The two sisters were still standing there, silent. Finally one turned toward home, as did the other. Between them, the forest and all its trees loomed dark. Then stars began to appear, lighting the road for these two sisters who had been together briefly on this final day of the holiday, who now took leave of each other and would not be together for many days, not until the next holiday — one of them heading this way, the other heading that way.