S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

The whole town is weary and sad. If a man has a house, the roof is shaky and the windows broken, and it goes without saying that he does not have double windows. If he has sons and daughters, he has not yet had shoes made for their feet, bought potatoes for them, or prepared wood for the fire.

The skies hang sluggishly — skies? or clouds? — dripping, dripping drops like needles that have gone rusty. The town’s two wagoners stand in the marketplace clapping their hands to warm themselves a little. Winter is not yet here, but a man’s body is already cold. The wagon horses stand with heads bowed, looking at the ground, which yesterday was joyful and today is sad, wondering at their shadows, which lie so cold beneath their feet. Those men whom I found in the Great Synagogue on the eve of Atonement Day walking up and down to show themselves as proprietors now stand at the doors of their shops, how poor, how helpless. From the ninety villages that surround the town, not a man comes to buy anything in the shops — not because the ground is rotting and the villager has become finicky, but because each village has learned to have its own shop. Each farmer sells his crops himself, and has no need of a middleman. And even the Jews who used to live in the village, and through whom the townsfolk used to earn their livelihood, have moved out and now rot in poverty together with their fellows.

There are old men in the town who remember other days, when there was peace in the world, and joy, when a man had his victuals in plenty and his belly carried his legs; for people used to eat much and there was strength in their legs; a man had shoes on his feet, and his body was dressed in fine clothes, and everyone’s livelihood came flying straight into his house. And how was that? Immediately after the festival season the landowners used to come into town, with their wives and sons and daughters, their manservants and maidservants. All the village gentry would set out in dancing carriages harnessed to two or four horses and drive into town with loud and happy cries. They sold their winter crops to the grain merchants, the brandy of their distilleries to the brandy merchants, leased their forests to the timber agents, and all the craftsmen in the town would stand around them and ask, “Have you any repairs to make in your houses?” And they would go in and buy copper and zinc and lead to repair vats and boilers and kettles. When they had finished their business, they would go to the shopkeeper and buy winter clothing, of wool and leather, long and short, for home and travel, for themselves and their households, and for their mistresses and their households. The days gone by were not like these days of ours. In these days, when one of the gentry casts his eye on a woman, he takes her to some such place as the divorcee’s inn, and that’s the only roof he’ll ever provide her with. But in days gone by, the gentry used to build mansions for their mistresses, and provide them with every luxury, with footmen and maids to serve them. As for the clothes the gentry used to have made — five people would get a profit out of every single garment: the seller of the cloth, the seller of the fur, the tailor, the furrier, and the go-between. Or perhaps we should say six, for there is no go-between without another go-between at his heels.

But a simple fur is not enough to warm a man. And if even he who cannot afford to buy a simple skin buys a decent garment, you can be quite sure that he who can afford to buy a simple skin also buys many other clothes. You see this street; now it is in ruins and the shops are a heap of rubble. In the past there were two rows of shops here, one on one side and one on the other, and every shop was full of cloths and fabrics, velvet and satin, silk and linen. People used to go in and buy whether they needed to or not. Often the shop was too small to hold all the customers; so the people would go to another street and buy shoes. If those shops were full, they would turn to the grocers, and if they were full, they went to the restaurants. This body of ours has both an inside and an outside; just as you must clothe and shoe it, so must you feed it. So people would eat and drink and make merry, and gladden their servants with gifts of money. And when the servants had money they would also go to the shops to buy clothes and shoes and hats, for they had bodies too; the inner man they would sustain in the restaurants, and the outer man in the shops.

On the Gentile Sabbaths the village teachers would also come into town. These tutors were especially hired for the children of the gentry, each of whom would hire one, provide him with food and drink at his table, and pay him his stipend. Part the teacher would give to his poor parents and part he would save toward entering the university. When a teacher came into town he would go into the bookseller’s and buy two or three books. You must know that before the war the town even had a bookshop, with books for study, and books for teaching, and romances to while away the time. Today they still make books they call romances, just as they still call our town a town. The teacher would take his books, put them under his arm and go into a friend’s house. His friend would have a sister — perhaps pretty, perhaps not, but she who has luck needs neither beauty nor cleverness. The girl’s mother would come in and see a young man sitting with her son. She would say in surprise, “Your honor is here? Perhaps you would be good enough to eat with us.” While she is standing and talking, her daughter comes in, dressed like a lady. The mother goes back to her cooking, while the daughter sits down with the teacher. She tells him things she has read in her romance and he tells her things he has read in his romance; so the outcome is a third romance. When dinner is ready, in comes the girl’s father, greets the visitor and sits down at the table, with a square skullcap on his head, like a rabbiner . That day the girl’s mother has cooked many dishes, so they sit a long time over the meal. For the longer the meal, the longer the conversation. A merchant’s conversation is always about business, and normally he talks about the transactions in which he has made a profit. But not so in the case of the girl’s father, for he tells about his losses, and really great losses he had, yet he talks about them so easily, as if he had taken only a copper out of his pocket. Says the teacher to himself: With this money I could finish my studies, and become a doctor, a lawyer, or a notary. Great is the power of money, for though the teacher is a socialist and criticizes the men of means who make money out of the sweat of the poor, nevertheless he is not hard on his friend’s father. And not even that, he even feels honored at sharing the merchant’s talk about his business. After all, the teacher eats at the table of his master, who is richer than that merchant. But his master looks at him as if he were not there, while the girl’s father is polite to him and talks to him about his business. As a result, he comes again. Someone approaches him and hints that the girl’s father can support him until he finishes his studies, so that he need not waste time in the village. He falls in with the idea, leaves his pupils, and goes to the university, where the girl’s father looks after him until he becomes a doctor or a lawyer. His master hires another teacher for his children and the fathers of girls treat him as they did his colleague. And if the girl’s father cannot keep his promise, he quickly arranges a wedding before the young man has a chance to withdraw. Once he is married and has produced sons and daughters, he forgets his studies and looks for a living in some other quarter.

This is what happened to the host of my hotel, Mr. Nissan Zommer. In the second year after he left high school, he happened to visit a friend in the town, a hatter’s son, whose mother was an excellent cook and his sister a handsome brunette. Now he reads no books and no longer speaks in the language of the romances; but in the past, when he was a village teacher, he was never without some books under his arm, and all his conversation was of romances. It is the same with his wife. She stands between the oven and the stove, and you would never imagine that she once attracted a boy’s heart. The burden of earning a living, advancing years, and the experiences of wartime can change anyone, especially one who has gone through all of them and suffered many wounds. Nissan’s wounds have healed already, and if he closes his eyes it is not in pain, but he closes his bodily eyes so as to see with the eyes of his spirit the things that have happened to him.