S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

Babtchi, the innkeeper’s eldest child, has her hair cut like a boy’s, wears a leather jacket, and is never without a cigarette in her mouth. She behaves like the young men, and not like the best but like the worst of them. She was the girl I saw smoking on the eve of the Day of Atonement. Lolik is fat and heavy, his jowls slack and ruddy, hanging down to his chin. His shoulders are thin and round, and his chest bulges upward toward the Napoleonic forelock that hangs over his forehead and shades his eyes, which smile like a country girl’s. When you see Babtchi and Lolik, you wonder whether this one is the brother of the other or the other is the sister of this one. Perhaps I have exaggerated slightly, but in the main I have not. Their brother Dolik is no better. He is a mocker and a rude fellow. If he jested at those who are well off I would say he benefits from it and they lose nothing. But he mocks at wretches, who are insulted all their lives, like Hanoch and his wife, and his horse. Hanoch and his wife do not mind, but the horse turns his head aside whenever he sees Dolik and droops his tail dejectedly. There is that pauper in the town, left over from the Austrian armies, Ignatz, who was struck by the judgment of God and had his nose blown off in the war. Once he came to the hotel to beg for charity. Dolik poured him out a glass of brandy. The poor man put out his hand to take it, but Dolik said, “No, no — only if you drink it with your nose.” And he has no nose, for it was struck by a grenade splinter, which left him nothing there but a hole. I said to Dolik, “How can a man born of a Jewish woman be so cruel to his brother? He too was created in the image of God. And if for our many transgressions his image is defaced, does he deserve to have you jest at him?” Dolik laughed and said, “If you like the look of him, send him to the kvutzot as a model to the girls, so that they should bear children as handsome as he is.” At that moment I felt like doing to Dolik what they had done to Ignatz, but I said to myself: One man’s wound is enough for us. Now that I have told you something of the way they behave, is it not surprising that my host leaves them alone and quarrels only with Rachel?

I have no interest in Rachel’s brothers and sister. At first they sought my company, but when they saw I thought little of them they left me alone. Still, they are respectful to me, because I am well dressed, and eat and drink without working, and because I have always lived in big cities. They, too, once lived in a big city, Vienna, but the Vienna where they found themselves during the war was no different from Szibucz, while I, on the other hand, have lived in Berlin and Leipzig, Munich and Wiesbaden, and other great cities. If so, why did he go to live in the Land of Israel? But before you ask that, you might as well ask why he came to Szibucz. In any case, even there, in the Land of Israel, he did not work as a laborer, not like those they call pioneers, who leave their homes and wallow in the dust.

I have no interest in Dolik, nor in Lolik, nor in Babtchi — but with Rachel, my host’s younger daughter, I do sometimes talk. Why should Rachel spend so much time talking to me? If it is because I smile at her, so does every other guest. And if it is because her father and mother are fond of me, do children always follow the affections of their parents? Or perhaps we do not actually converse with each other, but every word that comes from Rachel’s lips seems to me like a complete conversation. Let me pause a little, to see if I can remember her words.

This very act of remembering is a thing to wonder at. Until that child came along all your body was in your own possession, but when she let fall a word or two they won a place in your heart, so that you gave up part of what was yours and it became hers.

What did Rachel tell and what did she not tell? Some of her words I have told elsewhere, and some are of no importance except for the time when they were spoken. If so, why should they be remembered? For the place where Rachel has deposited her words belongs to Rachel, and she can do as she pleases in her own domain. However, may Rachel be blessed for not having laid claim to all that is mine, so that I can remember some words that were not Rachel’s, such as those her mother told me.

Rachel was three years old when the war struck us. A few weeks before, she felt pains in her head and her limbs, and lost all her strength. There was never a smile on her lips, she did not play with her friends, and she had a high fever. It was difficult to know what sickness this was, for she was a baby and you could not tell it from her words. The fever burned in her, and her intestines were upset. But her mother did not pay attention to this, for she thought she had become constipated because she was not eating. As a result of fever, hunger, and lack of appetite, Rachel’s weight fell day by day. The face of the little one, which had looked like a red apple, shriveled up like a dried fig. Her skin hung on the bones of her hands and feet like an umbrella case when the umbrella has been taken away and nothing is left but the stick; she was just like a mildewed ear of corn. The fat that rounds out the limbs of healthy children and gives them charm was all gone; her body was enveloped in thin, dry, burning skin that hung slackly on her bones. In the second week of the war the fever went down a little in the morning, but Rachel was still and silent, paying no attention to anything, and lay in her bed immersed in dreams; and when evening fell the fever rose again. After a few days, the fever fell in the evening too, but Rachel was silent, as if she felt nothing, and she asked for neither water nor food. After a month the fever stopped and her digestion began to come back to normal. She ate a little gruel, and you could see the first signs of recovery. Suddenly her temperature rose again and the sickness returned. Her weight fell until it was down to twenty pounds. “Nevertheless,” her mother said, “we didn’t despair. On the contrary, we hoped she was beginning to recover, for we knew that this disease, which is called paratyphus, is not generally fatal. But we did not know then that it was a children’s disease, and indeed the disease passed, thank God, and the children got better. In fact, they recovered what they had lost by their sickness. And I need not tell you that God was good to Rachel and adorned her with every kind of beauty and charm in the world.”

To cut a long story short, Rachel was three years old when the calamity of the war reached the town and there was a rumor that the enemy was near. The whole town took to its heels and fled, some on carts and some on foot, for most of the horses had already been taken to serve the King, and there were not enough for all the people. So Rachel’s mother took a large shawl, tied one end to her shoulders and the other to her waist, and put in the child, wrapped around with cushions and blankets against the cold. Although the sun was burning hot, she was afraid Rachel might catch cold. So she set out with all the other people of the town, with Rachel tied to her back and the other three children dragging after her, holding on to her skirts, Dolik on one side and Lolik and Babtchi on the other, and sometimes the other way around, Lolik and Babtchi on one side and Dolik on the other. And Rachel peeped out from among the cushions and blankets, above her mother’s shoulder, not uttering a word, so that you did not notice her at all. The mother would turn her head and see that Rachel was sleeping, and then turn to the three children running about at her feet and changing place all the time, Babtchi and Lolik here, and Dolik there. So they walked for hours, in a crowd of exiles, old men and women, pregnant women, invalids and children — all the roads were black with them. Now Dolik and Babtchi and Lolik were little and weak, holding on to her skirts, and Rachel was fastened to her back, so the mother walked slowly in order not to make things hard for them. And she moved slowly for her own sake as well, for it was very hot at the time, and she was not in the habit of walking in the heat. Finally she found herself at the end of the whole caravan, separated from it by a curtain of dust. She closed her eyes and went on walking in her sleep. And the heat continued to rise; the dust penetrated and covered the sun; the pillows, blankets, and shawls pressed heavy on her body and her body sweated; outside of this, she could feel nothing, not even the child’s breathing, not even her voice. The mother thought Rachel was asleep, and she gave thanks to the Almighty for lulling the child to sleep so that it did not feel the trials of the journey. And the mother turned in her daze to the other children and comforted them with loving words. She said to herself: My husband has gone out to war and does not know that the town has been condemned to flee and his wife and children are wandering on the roads. And perhaps even the Almighty does not know; for if He knew, would He hide His eyes from their trouble? At that moment she was seized with despair, and if she had not had compassion for her children she would have wished to die.