S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

While he was still young he set out to earn his own living; his father was partly a seller of provender and partly an agent, who used to provide tutors for the villagers’ sons, and he did not earn enough to keep his family, so Nissan used to teach his wealthy schoolfellows for pay while he was still a student at high school. When he left high school and it became time for him to go to the university, his father found him a place with one of the village gentry. But he suddenly fell in love with a girl and then fell under the yoke of earning a living, for the girl’s father was a man of imaginings, and imagined he could keep Nissan until he finished his university studies. But when the father found himself unable to do this, he introduced Nissan to matrimony and business. Nevertheless, this particular occupation, selling hats, is not especially burdensome; you might even call it light and pleasant work. You take a hat, turn it this way and that, put it on the customer’s head, stand him in front of the mirror, and look delighted; immediately he sees from your delight that the hat suits him, so he buys it and gives you money. As you do to this one, so you do to everyone else. Thus you see the heads of your townsfolk and know what is going on in each of them.

As time went on and Nissan fathered sons and daughters, he forgot that he had studied Latin and Greek and began to behave like all the other pious Jews. He went to the Beit Midrash to pray, sent his little sons to the religious school, and was not ashamed of his father and mother — unlike the doctors in our town, who are ashamed of their parents. Had he not been caught by the war, he would have stood and sold hats all his life. But war is not light and easy, nor is it pleasant. The head is king of the limbs; you wash it in hot water and rinse it in cold; soap it, and comb it, and crown it with a new hat every year; but suddenly some villain fires a shell and knocks it off. And perhaps we were mistaken when we said that the innkeeper closes his eyes to preserve what he has seen; maybe he closes them so that he should not see what he has seen. Human beings are deceptive; you think you know what they are like, but they are not like that at all.

Sometimes Babtchi brings him a newspaper. If the newspaper is spread out before him with the front page uppermost he reads till he gets to the end of the page, and does not turn it over even if he is in the middle of a story. If the back page is uppermost, he reads it from the top, and even if he is in the middle of a story he does not turn back to find out the beginning. If you think he does that because he is lazy, you are mistaken, for if his pipe goes out he gets up from his chair and goes to the kitchen to get an ember, even if matches are lying before him. But let us leave the innkeeper and go back to the subject with which we started.

All the winds in the world are blowing and shaking the town; from end to end you can hear the sound of doors banging, windows shattering, tiles dropping. The Stripa rages and screams, the bridge above it groans and roars. The sun has darkened, dust storms rise from earth to heaven. The townsfolk shiver, and it is natural that they should shiver, for their clothes are torn and cannot keep them warm.

I said to myself: These people are accustomed to the cold, but I, who have come from the Land of Israel — where one ray of the sun is stronger than the whole of the sun we see here — I cannot stand the cold, and surely I must make me a coat.

So I made an appointment and went to the tailor’s. The tailor knew I was coming to see him — still he did not raise his head from his needle, like a craftsman busy with his work, who must not be idle.

At that, I took a cigarette and lit it, as if I had come for nothing else but to smoke a cigarette.

The tailor put down his needle and said in a singsong, “The District Governor is friendly to me, and he will not resent it if I put off his work, for I have already made him a number of garments and you, sir, certainly need an overcoat, a fine, warm overcoat.” While speaking, he lifted himself up, skipped peculiarly, then said again in a singsong, “A fine overcoat.”

The tailor took out a pattern book and began to discuss every single type of garment in extraordinary detail, explaining which coat was handsome and which was handsomer still, as well as the reason why he said the one was handsome and the other more so. Finally he put one leg over the other, bent his left arm, put his head inside it, and looked at me through the wing with great affection. His cinnamon-brown eyes sparkled, and a kind of moisture appeared in them.

For many years he had not had the opportunity of making a new overcoat, but the pattern book he had was new, and there were many marks in it, which the tailor had made with his nails. There are many opinions among tailors; what one finds handsome the other does not, and every tailor changes and mends according to his own opinion.

I looked at the pattern book and could not find the overcoat I wanted. That tailor, on the other hand, guessed at every kind of coat, except the one I was looking for. He stood and looked at me, sometimes with affection and sometimes with great affection, rubbing his hands together. Suddenly he gave his peculiar skip and straightened himself like a stick. I said to him, “Sit down, and I will tell you something.” So he sat down and fixed his eyes on my mouth.

I said to him, ‘When I go to a barber and he does not know me, if he is a clever man he understands by himself what kind of haircut would suit me. If not, he asks me, and I tell him, ‘I am no expert at this kind of work; do it as you understand.’ If he is not a fool, he takes trouble with me and gives me a very good haircut, but if he is a fool, he says to himself: I will just pass the scissors over his head and take my money. I look in the mirror and see that he has made me look ugly. I say to myself: It is in the nature of hair to grow again, but this fellow, who has made me look ugly, will not see another penny of my money. So it is with the coat. I cannot imagine what kind of coat suits me and what kind does not; but you are an expert, so take thought and make me a coat that will suit me. And if you think an overcoat is not like a haircut, for a man has his hair done several times a year but he does not have an overcoat made until several years have passed, let me tell you that besides a coat I need other clothes as well.” The tailor looked glad and said, “Words like these I have never heard in my life.” He closed his eyes, put his left hand on them, and added in a whisper, “I shall make you a fine overcoat.”

After he had taken my measurements, he said, “I shall now show you some fine fabrics, none better. Even if you looked in all the shops you would not find anything like them. If I say so, you can believe me.” “I like to buy my materials from a shop and give the work to a craftsman,” I said, “so that each can do his business and earn his money, the shopkeeper with the materials and the craftsman with his craft.”

The tailor paid no attention to what I said, took another skip, and drew out a piece of cloth. Crushing it in his hand and squeezing the edge into his palm, he said, “You see, sir, it’s as smooth as before, exactly as it was before; you can’t see even a sign of a crease.” “Didn’t I tell you I want to buy the cloth from a shopkeeper?” I replied. Said he, “It wasn’t to have you buy from me that I showed you this; all I ask you to do is to look at this piece.” “I have already looked at it,” said I. “That was not what I asked you,” said he. “Examine the cloth with your hands.” I passed my hands over his cloth and said, “Very fine, very fine.” The tailor’s face shone with joy and he said, “And didn’t I tell you this cloth is fine? I am not pressing you to buy it. All I ask is that you should hear how it came into my hands.”