S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

So his wife and his daughters sat on the rubble, half-naked, barefoot, and hungry; the town was in ruins and most of the houses were burned down; all trade and barter was at a standstill; his father was wandering at the other end of the country, and they had no idea where he was, until he came back naked, barefoot, and hungry like everyone else. Daniel Bach was even hungrier than everyone else. So long as he had been in the army, the Emperor had provided him with food, and when there was not enough to satisfy, the terror of war had mitigated his hunger; but here a man had nothing else but his hunger. He was hungry when he rose in the morning and hungry when he went to bed; hungry in the daytime and hungry at night; hungry awake and hungry in dreams. Then the charity officials came to the town, gave bread to the hungry, and helped those who wanted to start in trade. He too managed to set up a business, not like the one he had before the war, but a small soap business. Soap was a commodity much in demand after the war, because everyone felt soiled and wanted to cleanse himself. Even the peasants who had never seen soap in their lives came to buy soap. Daniel Bach’s business prospered and he earned a very good living. Once, however, he said to himself: Esau wants to wash his hands of the blood he has shed during the war. Shall I make a profit out of it? So he lowered the price. Once he had lowered the price his profits disappeared. Before very long his stocks were gone and he had no money to buy more. So hunger came back to plague him and his household more than at the beginning, for they had already become used to eating, and now they had nothing to eat. At that time our people were struck by the first pogroms. The charity officials came and gave money to the victims. With the money Daniel Bach went and bought saccharin, which had become a good business in those days, for as a result of the war many had fallen sick with diabetes and sweetened their food and drink with saccharin. But the trader had to be careful not to be caught with his goods; saccharin was a state monopoly and the government was on the lookout to prevent any harm to its own revenue. Anyone who had a head on his shoulders was careful, but the head is far from the feet, especially in the case of Daniel Bach, who is a tall man, and by the time his feet managed to hear what his head was thinking, the deed was already done. Once he jumped onto a train and his right foot got stuck in the wheels; the train moved off, dragging the foot with it, and cast it out far from the station. By rights, he should have been paid for damages, distress, harm, disuse, and injury, according to law, but they did not pay, and moreover they fined him six hundred zlotys because they found grains of saccharin in the sock on his foot. And now how does he make a living and earn his food? He has a stock of wood in his house for building and heating, and his wife is a midwife. For the time being no one is building a new house and no one lights his stove, but when the babies his wife brings into the world grow up they will build new houses and light their stoves, so that he will find income flying in from all sides. But the trouble is that, since they came back from the war, many Jews have become ascetics, and will neither marry nor beget children, and were it not for the uncircumcised the seed of our father Adam would have died out. And the daughters of the uncircumcised do not resort to our midwives except in times of danger.

Wherever you cast your eyes you find either suffering or poverty. But there is one place in the town where you find no suffering. This is the old Beit Midrash, the key of which is in my possession. Ever since I noticed this, I have doubled my stay there. If I was accustomed to sit there in the morning, I now sit there in the afternoon too. Sometimes I sit and study, and sometimes I stand by the window and look out at the facing hill.

Once, the whole of that hill was settled. Porters and craftsmen used to live there, and they had a fine Beit Midrash, which the dwellers on the hill built with their own hands by moonlight, since in the day they were busy with their trades in the town. And they had a regular teacher who used to teach them the scriptural portion of the week and the Sayings of the Fathers . When the war came, the young men fell by the sword and died; the old men died of hunger; and their widows and children were killed in the pogroms. So the community was uprooted; not one stone of their Beit Midrash was left standing on another; and the hill was desolate, and could no longer enlarge the mind. Not so with books. The more you look into them, the more your mind is enlarged and your heart gladdened.

I do not study to enlarge my mind or to become wise and know the works of the Lord. I am like a man who walks by the wayside — the sun beats on his head, the stones bruise his feet, the dust blinds his eyes, and all his body is weary. Then he sees a booth and enters — and the sun no longer beats on his head, nor do the stones bruise his feet or the dust blind his eyes. As he is weary, he wishes to rest, and pays no attention to anything. After he has recovered, he notices the booth and its furnishings. And if he is not ungrateful he gives praise and thanks to Him who made a booth for him and prepared everything in it to supply his needs.

I am that man, and that booth is our old Beit Midrash. I had been walking in the sun among the stones and dust, when suddenly I found myself sitting in the Beit Midrash. And since I am not ungrateful, I give praise and thanks to the Almighty and look upon His furnishings, namely the books that are in the Beit Midrash.

What is written in these books? The Holy One, blessed be He, created the universe according to His will and chose us from all the peoples and gave us His Torah so that we should know how to serve Him. While we are studying His Torah and observing His commandments, not one of the peoples can injure us. When we do not obey His Torah, even the smallest goy can injure us. The Torah surrounds those who study it with goodness and virtue and enhances their favor in the eyes of the world. When we turn our eyes away from the Torah, the Torah turns its eyes away from us, and we become the lowest of all the nations. For what reason did the Holy One, blessed be He, choose us and lay upon us the yoke of the Torah and the commandments, for isn’t the Torah heavy and difficult to observe? Some solve the problem one way and some another, but I will explain it by a parable. It is like a king’s crown, made of gold and precious stones and diamonds. So long as the crown is on the king’s head, men know that he is king. When he removes the crown from his head, not all are aware that he is king. Does the king refrain from putting the crown on his head because it is heavy? On the contrary, he puts it on his head and delights in it. The king’s reward for the crown being on his head is that everyone exalts and honors him and bows down before him. What good does this do the king? That I do not know. Why? Because I am not a king. But if I am not a king, I am a king’s son and I ought to know. But this man has forgotten, he and all Israel his people, that they are sons of kings. The books tell us that this forgetfulness is worse than all other evils — that a king’s son should forget he is a king’s son.

Rachel, the innkeeper’s younger daughter, has also forgotten that she is a daughter of kings, and when I reminded her of this, she laughed at me. This girl, who between yesterday and today stopped being a child and has not yet become a young woman, has dared to rebuke a man who has reached his fortieth year, to say to him, “What are you talking about? Don’t I know that everything you’re saying is just a joke?” I do not remember the details — only the general sense of the words.

One night I was sitting with her father and found him distressed. I was about to go, but he stopped me. “No, no,” he said, “let us hear your opinion, sir.” The girl raised her eyes and looked at me, or perhaps she just raised her eyes. So I had my say. She made a wry face and said, “Why should I take on myself the burden of past generations? Let past generations look after themselves and my generation look after itself. Just as the generations before me lived in their own way, so my generation lives in its own way. And as for what you said, that every daughter of Israel should think of herself as a daughter of kings, there’s nothing more foolish than that. Today, when the crowns of kings are lying in museums and no one takes pride in them, you come and say: Every daughter of Israel should think of herself as a daughter of kings.”