S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

On that day when I lit the eternal light for the first time, I looked at the Beit Midrash, and saw a stove burning, and an eternal light kindled, and the basin full of water, and the lamps full of kerosene, and the floor swept and clean; for once every two or three days Hanoch brings me wood for the stove and candles and a container of kerosene, and fills the basin, and on Sabbath eves he sweeps the floor and I give him wages for his trouble, sometimes generously and sometimes cordially. And here I will reveal something without shielding myself. Sometimes I take out two zlotys from my pocket, and when I see how humble he is I put one zloty back in my pocket and give him only one. If Hanoch had been clever, he would have said to me: Fix my wage, not sometimes a lot and sometimes a little. But because he is always selling haberdashery to the Gentiles, his mind is humble and he asks for nothing. And when my own heart says to me: Fix his wage and make him a beadle, so that he should not imperil his life on the roads, I put off my heart from today to tomorrow and from tomorrow to the day after.

At the end of the Sabbath, after the benediction, I went to Daniel Bach’s house to pay him for the wood. It was long since I had been so happy over the payment of a debt. First, because Daniel Bach would get money, of which he was in need; second, because the wood had given me pleasure and I wanted to thank him who had provided the wood. Although Daniel Bach and I live wall by wall, I had never been in his house before that night, except on one occasion.

This house consists of one room with a kitchen added. You enter through the woodshed and come into the kitchen, and from there to the living room. This is the home of Mr. Bach and his wife, and Erela their daughter, and Raphael their son, who lies in bed with a torn soldier’s cap on his head. At first glance he looked to me like a child; at a second glance like a young man; and at the third glance like neither a child nor a young man, but a heap of skin and flesh in which the Creator has fixed two aged eyes. Or perhaps the order was reversed: at first glance Raphael looked like a heap of skin and flesh — and so forth; but I do not remember clearly, because of the things that happened that night. Raphael has already reached the age of bar mitzvah, but his limbs are still not straight and his bones are weak, so most of the time he lies in bed. Everyone looks after him and he is loved by all. Even Erela, his sister, who boasts that she has no concern with anything that cannot be explained by reason, shows more love for her brother than her reason can explain. When I came in, Erela was sitting beside him while he fingered a picture book she had brought him. One of his hands pointed to the picture of a horseman in the book, and the other pointed to his heart, while he read, “I am Jacob and you are Esau.” He did not notice the arrival of a guest, but his father, mother, and sister were excited at my coming and rose to welcome me with joy and cordiality.

Mr. Bach you are acquainted with; we have often had occasion to speak of him. I do not know if I have described his appearance and the other things that distinguish him from his fellows, apart from his steady companion, that is, his wooden leg. But if I have not told you before I will tell you now.

Daniel Bach is a tall man; his face is not exactly long and not exactly round, and it is surrounded by a little beard which is not exactly pointed and not exactly blunt; he seems to take care that his beard should not grow beyond the measure he has fixed for it; and in spite of his wooden leg, he is always merry. Sometimes he jests at himself and sometimes at the troubles of the times, but he never jests at others. The history of that leg has only surprises. Considering Daniel Bach’s character, he was hardly the right kind of man to smuggle saccharin in his socks, as some women do. But Daniel Bach is not surprised at that. First, says Daniel Bach, no one knows what is seemly for one to do and what is not, except for the moralists, who know what is permissible and what is not. (And even then — I thought — it is doubtful whether, had they been in his place, they would not have done the same.) Second, says Daniel Bach, the war had taught men to do squalid deeds. And once a man had been given leave to do such things, he no longer distinguished between doing them for the Emperor and doing them for himself and his livelihood. It should be added that Daniel Bach is a lean man and his hair is chestnut in color, with some sprinkling of grey, which makes him handsome. Not like his wife, Sara Pearl, whose hair is black and gleaming; she is round and looks fat, although she is not really so. Erela, on the other hand, is neither dark nor chestnut but faded in color. As Erela is different from her father and her mother in the color of her hair, so is she different in other things.

Of her father I have already told you. Of her mother there is nothing to tell. She is pleasant, quick in her movements, kind and charitable. I heard that during the war she showed great fortitude and courage, maintaining her household and supporting her father-in-law and his son until they settled in the Land of Israel. She also brought up an orphan and taught him the Torah, and when he wanted to settle in the Land of Israel she gave him his expenses.

This was Yeruham Freeman, whose father disappeared when his mother conceived him and whose mother died when she bore him. Mrs. Bach took him into her house and suckled him with the milk of her breasts, for Yeruham was born in the same month as Erela her daughter.

When his mother conceived him his father disappeared. To describe the affairs of this man we must go back to the beginning.

The beginning was like this. Once a young Lithuanian came to our town. It was a summer day; there was not much work in the market and the storekeepers stood outside talking to each other. Wandering from one subject to another, the talk turned to a Lithuanian who had come to the town and wanted to preach in the old Beit Midrash.

The rumor made no impression. The learned men were not enthusiastic about the preachers, who put the mind to sleep with parables and legends. The Hasidim were not enthusiastic about the preachers, for most of the preachers were Lithuanians, and every Lithuanian is assumed to belong to the Misnagdim, the opponents of the Hasidim. The Zionists were not enthusiastic about the preachers, because most of them at that time used to preach against Zionism on the ground that the Zionists were trying to anticipate the coming of the Messiah instead of waiting for salvation. The socialists were not enthusiastic about the preachers, and would say: The Torah and the commandments only help to dull men’s minds and keep them from perceiving all the tribulations brought about by capital, and the preachers come to exhort them to observe the Torah and the commandments. Even the majority of the people were not enthusiastic about the preachers, for they were sick and tired of sermons about the seven departments of hell and that kind of thing. All that was left were a few old men and artisans, who would come to listen and doze during the sermon until the preacher finished and the beadle banged his alms box; then they would wake up and drop a copper in honor of the Torah and its preachers. And so — there was no one in the town who paid any attention to the Lithuanian.

They were still talking when along came a man carrying a book written by the newcomer, bearing numerous testimonials by great rabbis of Poland and Lithuania declaring that the author was a tremendous genius, a Sinai of learning, and a mover of mountains — and such praise would have been extraordinary even in the early generations. All these authorities wrote as one man: no praise can fully convey his greatness.