S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

“Between ourselves, Raphael,” I said to him, “I suspect that your sister Erela is a communist. Doesn’t she mock your father?” “Oh, no,” said Raphael, “she cries over him, because he can’t find his arm.” I asked him, “What does it mean, ‘he cannot find his arm’?” “He lost his arm,” said Raphael. “If so,” said I, “where does he put on his tefillin?” “Don’t worry about that,” said Raphael, “those for the head he puts on his head, and those for the hand he puts on someone else’s arm.” “Where does he find someone else’s arm?” said I. “He found a soldier’s arm in the trench,” replied Raphael. “Do you think he can meet his obligations with that one’s arm? Isn’t it written that the dead are free? When a man becomes dead, he is exempt from religious precepts, and anyone who is exempt from a precept cannot exempt anyone else.” “I don’t know,” he replied. “You don’t know,” said I, “so why did you pretend you knew?” “Until you asked me I knew,” replied Raphael, “once you asked me I forgot.” “From now on,” said I, “I will not ask. Go, my son, go.”

“And what about you?” he said. “I have not thought about it yet,” I answered. “Leave off thinking,” said he. “And what about you?” said I. “Don’t you think?” “If I think, I don’t see,” he replied. Said I, “And is there anything here worth seeing? Perhaps the notes I put in my shoes?” “The postman has come and brought a lot of letters with a lot of stamps on them,” he said. “I will go and see,” said I. Raphael looked at me: “How can you go, when you have no shoes?” “I have no shoes,” said I, “do you think that Leibtche’s wife has taken them off so that I should not run away?”

Along came Genendel and said, “Shut your mouth and write your poems.” “Do you think, Genendel, that I am Leibtche?” I said. “If so, you are wrong, Genendel, you are wrong.” Said Leibtche, “My dear sir, how happy I am that you have come here. Last night I saw you in a dream.” “How did you see me?” “Quite simply, as you appear,” said Leibtche. “You think it is simple, but I do not think it simple,” said I. “What was it that happened with the succah?” “I was not to blame,” said Leibtche. “You were to blame, my dear sir,” said I, “but I am not angry with you.” Have you heard what this Leibtche did to me? If not, I will tell you.

Before the Festival of Tabernacles, Leibtche came to me and said, “I will make a succah on top of yours.” “Make it,” said I. Had I any choice to tell him, “Don’t make it”? Better if he made the succah somewhere else, or if he did not make one at all, for this Leibtche, though he turns the Torah into rhymes, does not strictly observe the religious precepts. In any case, even if he made his succah on top of mine, I did not care, for, after all, he would not sit in it. So he came and made his succah alongside mine, until both of them looked like one, but his part was bigger than mine, and more beautiful than mine. I was surprised, first, because it was impossible to tell where his succah ended and mine began, and second,… but I have forgotten what the second point was. Said Leibtche, “I will cover both of them.” I relied upon him and went back to my work. On the eve of the festival, as darkness was falling, I came and saw that he had spread over the succah a sheet with holes in it, and had not covered it with branches according to the law. Said I, “Look, that just won’t do as a covering: it doesn’t grow in the soil and it hasn’t been picked; instead it is something fastened which can become unclean.” Leibtche looked at me with a straight face and said, “For me — it’s good enough.” I asked myself; Where shall I have my meal, when I have no properly built succah? Said my wife, “Eat in the hotel.” “You here?” said I. “I have not yet bought the four species and I am afraid the shops may be shut, for this is the eve of the festival and Sabbath eve as well, and they close early. What do you think? Perhaps, since the first day of the festival falls on the Sabbath, I shall not buy the four species at all, and fulfill my obligations with the congregational citron, saving a few shillings. Times are bad and whatever we save is saved, especially as my hotel bills are heavy.”

Schutzling came up to me and smiled. Oh, how threadbare was his smile, how weary were his clothes, how crumpled was the hat on his head, the velvet hat that he had bought new in honor of the festival. I greeted him and said to myself: It is nine months since his wife has seen him, and in the meantime he has grown stunted and a kind of hump has grown on his back. And his wife is so elegant, although she has grown old before her time. I wanted to talk to him about his wife and children, but I was in a hurry to buy a citron, so I left him and ran off, thinking: Surely all the shops are closed, so what is the point of this running? It would have been better to stay with my friend. And what my heart told me, my eyes told me: the Holy Day had already started and the shops were closed. I turned and ran back to my hotel, consoling myself with the thought that my host would earn the price of a meal, at a time when he had no guests and was earning nothing.

But at that moment a group of women happened to come in, so he attended to them and paid no attention to me; he barely opened up a room for me. I went into my room and wanted to wash in honor of the festival, but I found many people there standing beside the washstand. I asked them to sit down at the writing table. When they began to do so, a number of women came and called them, so they went out. “Now I shall wash,” I said to myself. But my host knocked at the door and said, “The food is getting cold.” I went into the dining room and found a company of old women sitting there quietly sipping soup. “Isn’t that so, Leibtche?” I said.

Leibtche nodded his head and said, “Yes, yes, my dear sir.” I smiled at him, but his face darkened — and not his face alone, but everything around darkened, for we had gone on talking so long that the day had passed. I got up and went into the dining room.

The dining room was empty; there was no one in it at all. Along came that one whom I know but whose name I do not know. Every day he has a different face; today he looked like a Japanese and a Tartar at the same time. Everywhere there are many like him, but here in Szibucz there is no one that resembles him in the least. He was little and he was lean; his cheeks were red and his eyes black; his mustache was black and shiny and straight, with points hanging down on both sides; and he was thirty years old, give or take a year. He twirled his mustache and stood like a man who is answering someone, and said, “I already told you so.” Then he took a magnifying glass out of the hair on his head, looked through it, and went out. What did he mean? When had he spoken to me? When had he told me so, as he said? I sat down somewhere and closed my eyes.

Krolka came in and said, “You are sitting in the dark, sir, I’ll light the lamp for you straightaway. All day we haven’t seen you, sir. Heavens above, where have you been and what have you eaten? I’ll bring your supper straightaway.” I put my finger on my mouth and signaled her to be silent. Krolka crossed herself and said, “ Heavens above, I did not see that the master was standing in prayer.” After Mr. Zommer had finished the Afternoon Service, or the Evening Service, he came and sat down in his place.

My mood was middling, neither sad nor joyful. Equanimity is a great quality; it is not every day that a man achieves it.

After I had eaten and drunk I went back to my room and said to myself: I will sit and read the letters that came today. While I was sitting and reading, it came into my mind to answer the senders. So I fitted the deed to the thought and wrote letter after letter, until midnight came and I went to bed like a man who has done his duty.