S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

Whenever I come to Schuster, I find his wife sitting on the chair, with a stool at her feet and two sticks at her side, one propped against her knee and the other on the floor. She is not thin like her husband; on the contrary, she is fat and thick, for most of the time she lies on her bed behind the curtain that divides the room, or sits on this chair with a long pipe in her mouth filled with fragrant herbs, smoking to ease her breathing, for she suffers from asthma. It was because of this sickness that they left Berlin and came back to Szibucz, although they made an ample living in Berlin and here they really don’t have enough for a proper meal. And why did they move? Because the walls of the houses in Berlin reach up to the sky and block the air one breathes.

At first the tailor used to boast to me that all the nobles flocked to his door, as they were great connoisseurs and knew that he was an artist. But as soon as he started to make my coat he forgot the nobles and they forgot him, and not a man turned up to have a patch put on. And this was really a surprise: here was a skillful tailor, expert in making clothes, and he was left to sit in idleness.

Schuster stands bent over the table, arranging the cloth, pursing his lips but leaving them slightly open, as if he meant to whistle, examining the cloth again and cutting it. There is something marvelous about this cloth, which the tailor has cut. Yesterday it was formless; now he has passed the scissors over it, and cut it, and given it a form. The form is still latent, but you can guess that he is making an overcoat. He is a great craftsman, this tailor. You have one advantage over him, because you have the money, but between ourselves, does money do anything? If you put together all your banknotes could you make an overcoat with them? You have another advantage over him: he is dressed in rags, while you cover yourself with a fine, whole overcoat. But this joy the tailor feels when he produces something well made is greater even than the joy of the overcoat’s owner.

Let us stay with the tailor a little, so long as he is engaged in making the overcoat. I sit before the tailor’s wife and we talk to each other. This woman is sickly and housebound; there is no one at home except her husband, for she buried her sons in Berlin before they came back. Here she has only her husband, and he’s no man to talk with, for whenever he opens his mouth he weeps because he has left Berlin, where he lived a decent life and earned a decent livelihood. That is why she likes to talk to me. At first I used to tell the praises of Germany when speaking to her, but when I saw that this disturbed her I started to praise Szibucz. What a fine town it was before the war. What fine people its people were. And even though your parents in Szibucz did not use foreign expressions like Kindchen , you saw yourself as a beloved child.

The praise of Szibucz brought back to her her youth, when she was a good-looking young girl and lived with her father and mother on the big hill behind the Beit Midrash, and all the young craftsmen used to run after her, until Schuster came and captured her heart. The sound of his voice misled her and she thought he was thinking of her good, but he was thinking only of his own good, that he should have a good-looking wife. And when she listened to him and married him, he led her on again with the sound of his voice and brought her to Germany, where the houses are high up to the sky, blotting out the sun, and no one eats fruit fresh from the tree. And when a man wants to enjoy himself he goes to the café, where the Germans sit packed together, reading newspapers, playing billiards, and smoking cigars with a smell no one can stand. If a person wants to enjoy himself more, he goes outside the city and travels for hours in long, high railroad carriages. “Do you think, my friend, that outside their cities you find a grassy spot? Nothing of the kind. For there, too, the houses are high up to the sky. And if you find gardens or trees there, those gardens and trees are not alive, my friend; they are just trickery, like most of the things the Germans do, for they make everything in their factories. Once I saw a cherry tree. I put out my hand and picked a cherry, but as soon as I sank my teeth in it I learned it was made of wax. I say to my husband, ‘Schuster, isn’t there any place here where one can have a good time?’ Says he to me: ‘Sprintze, wait a little and I will bring you to a place where you’ll burst your sides laughing.’ Say I to him: ‘Let my enemies burst their sides laughing, so long as I can get relief from boredom.’ So he brings me to one of their theaters. There you see all kinds of Germans, men and women. They look like human beings, but they are dummies and dolls — just like the Germans themselves, for the males are like dummies and the women like dolls. And what annoys you most, my friend, is that all the people who are sitting with you in the theater are laughing or crying, all according to the actions of the dummies or dolls. And here your gall is likely to split. Heaven almighty, do I have to laugh or cry because that German is jumping about and talking nonsense? From their amusements you can tell what the rest is like. But a man has every right to do whatever he likes in his own country, and the Germans are entitled to bore each other to tears. So I say to Schuster, ‘Schuster, I don’t want any of it; d’you hear? I don’t want it.’ Says he to me, ‘ Kindchen , what do you mean you don’t want it? Should I turn the whole of Germany upside down just because you don’t like it?’ Say I to him, ‘Leave Germany just as it is. Neither you nor your friends will make the Germans any different, but I tell you I don’t want it, and you’ve no right to call me Kindchen .’ Says he to me, ‘What do you want, then, that I should call you a red cow?’ For you must know, my friend, that at that time I still had all my hair, and it was red like the red cow in the Bible. And that made the eyes of the German women pop out of their heads, for their hair is the color of dust, and mine was red and shining. In short, I tell him one thing and he tells me another. Suddenly I go cough, cough, cough — suddenly, oh, my friend, I lose my breath, and I can’t say a word, only cough, cough, cough! Schuster is beside himself and wants to call a doctor. I say to him, ‘Never mind the doctors.’ Says he to me, ‘Well, then, what shall I do?’ I say to him, ‘What shall you do? Take me back to Szibucz.’ Schuster gets even more excited and cries, ‘How can I take you back to Szibucz, for…?’ Say I, ‘Cough, cough, cough, cough!’—not three times but four times. All the same, he ignored what I said and brought a doctor. Says the doctor, ‘Madam is suffering from asthma.’ Say I to Schuster, ‘Now Schuster, you’ve become wiser, for you’ve learned a new German word.’ Says Schuster, ‘What shall I do?’ Say I to him, ‘And didn’t I tell you — cough, cough, cough! — and didn’t I tell you I want to go back to Szibucz?’ Says he to me, ‘And didn’t I tell you it’s impossible? Szibucz is in ruins and most of her people have died, some in the war, some in the plague, and some of other diseases.’ Say I to him, ‘But the air of Szibucz is still there. Take me back and let me breathe the air of Szibucz before I choke here.’ It didn’t take long before he was severely punished for not listening to me. For my two children fell sick of typhoid and died. And they shouldn’t have died, for they were pure and innocent like angels. And why did they die? — because we lived in a foreign country. If I’d been living in my own town, I’d have stretched myself on the grave of my fathers and shaken heaven and earth with my voice, and the children would have lived. After they died Schuster began to think about what I had said and prepared to leave. Another reason for leaving was the inflation, but that was not the main reason. The main reason, my friend, was what I had said earlier. Although that reason, I mean the inflation, was enough to drive a man out of the world. Just imagine, my friend, that you have become a millionaire, a real Rothschild, and with all your millions you can’t buy even half a pound of cherries. Once Schuster worked a whole week for Pieck & Klottenburg, a shop that sold clothes; they’d never taken in a Jewish workman, though most of their customers were Jews, but in those days they allowed even Jewish tailors to work for them. Schuster worked all week and got a sackful of millions for his pay. I said to him, ‘Schuster, if they hear we have so much money, robbers will come, God forbid, and kill us.’ What does he answer? He doesn’t say a word, just puts his hands on his hips and laughs. I say to him, ‘Cough, cough, cough! What are you laughing like that for?’ Says he to me, ‘Here, I’ll throw all the money into the street and the robbers won’t have to take the trouble to come into the house.’ Say I to him, ‘Heaven forbid, that wasn’t what I meant.’ Says he to me, ‘Before the robbers come to pick up the millions, a policeman will come and fine me for throwing this rubbish in the street.’ Ever hear such things, my friend? And right he was, all that money wasn’t worth a penny.