S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

Daniel Bach was tall and lean, his head small, his hair chestnut, and his beard short, not pointed, not blunt; a kind of smile hung on his lips, spreading into his sunken cheeks; and his right leg was wooden. I walked along keeping pace, so as not to distress him by too long steps. Daniel Bach noticed this. “If you are worrying about me, sir,” he said, “you needn’t, because I walk like any other man. In fact, this man-made leg is better than the other, which is the work of God. It doesn’t have to worry about rheumatism, and beats the other for walking.” “Does it come from the war?” I asked. “Oh no,” said he, “but the rheumatism in the other I got from the war.” Then I said, “If that’s the case, then permit me to ask, sir, were you injured in the pogroms?” He smiled and replied: “From the pogroms I came out sound in body. And the hooligans should thank their stars they got out of my hands alive. So where did I get this leg? From the same source as all the other troubles; from things Jews have to do for a living. Hatach, ‘the cutter,’ the angel in charge of livelihoods, did not find me right with two legs, so he cut one off and made me stand on the other. How did it happen? But you have reached your hotel, and I my house, and you have to hurry for the final meal. I wish you a full atonement.” I took his hand and said to him, “The same to you, sir.” Bach smiled and said: “If you mean me, it’s a wasted greeting, for I don’t believe the Day of Atonement has any power to make things better or make them worse.” Said I, “If it does not atone for those that do not repent, it atones for those that do.” “I’m a skeptic,” he replied, “I don’t believe in the power of repentance.” “Repentance and the Day of Atonement atone for half,” said I, “and the troubles of the rest of the year for the other half.” “I’ve already told you I’m a skeptic,” retorted Daniel Bach, “and I don’t believe the Almighty cares about the welfare of His creatures. But why should I be clever with you at dusk on the eve of the Holy Day? I wish you a full atonement.”

The people of the hotel received me as an untimely guest, for they had already finished the Closing Meal and were about to go to synagogue, and they were afraid I might detain them. “Don’t worry,” I told them, “I won’t trouble you much, all I ask is a place to sleep.” The innkeeper looked outside, and looked at me. Then he looked at the food left over from the meal, and looked at me again. I saw that he was considering whether it was still light enough to eat before the beginning of the fast at sunset. I too considered whether it was permissible for me to eat, for we are enjoined to add to the sacred at the expense of the secular, and to begin the fast before dark. I said to him, “There is no time to sit down to a meal,” opened my bag, took out my festival prayer book and my prayer shawl, and went to the Great Synagogue.

In my childhood I thought that there was no bigger building in the world than the Great Synagogue, but now its area had dwindled and its height shrunk, for to eyes that have seen temples and mansions the synagogue appears even smaller than it is.

There was not a man I knew in the synagogue. Most of the worshippers were recent arrivals, who occupied the honorable places by the eastern wall and left the others empty. Some of them had risen and were walking about, either to show their proprietorship or because they did not feel comfortable in their places. The radiance that is wont to shine on the heads of the sacred congregation on the Eve of Atonement did not shine on their heads, and their prayer shawls shed no light. In the past, when everyone would come to pray and each would bring a candle, in addition to those that burned in the candelabra, the synagogue was brightly lit, but now that the candelabra had been plundered in the war and not all came to pray, the candles were few and the light was scanty. In the past, when the prayer shawls were adorned with collars of silver, the light used to gleam from them upon the heads of the worshippers, but now that the adornments had been carried off the light was diminished.

The cantor did not draw out the prayers — or perhaps he did, but that was my first prayer in my home town, and it was Atonement Eve, when the whole world stands in prayer, so I wanted to draw out the prayers even more and it seemed to me as if the cantor were cutting them shorter all the time. After he had ended the service, all the worshippers surrounded the Ark and recited the mourners’ Kaddish. There was not a man there who did not say Kaddish.

After the service they did not recite psalms, nor did they chant the Song of Unity or the Song of Glory, but locked the synagogue and went home.

I walked to the river and stood there on the bridge, just as my father, of blessed memory, used to do on Atonement Eves; he used to stand on the bridge over the river because the odor of the water mitigates thirst and leads men to repentance; for as this water, which now meets your eye, was not here before this moment and will not be here afterwards, so this day, which was given us to repent of our sins, was not yet in the world before and will never be in the world again, and if you do not use it for repentance you have wasted it.

The water comes and the water goes; as it comes, so it goes, and an odor of purity rises from it. It seems as if nothing has changed since the day I stood here with Father, of blessed memory, and nothing will change here until the end of all the generations. Along came a group of boys and girls with cigarettes in their mouths. No doubt they had come from the feast they had held that night, as they do every year on Atonement Eve, to show that they are not in awe of the Day of Atonement. The stars were fixed in the firmament and their light gleamed on the river; the lights of the cigarettes moved among them. At the same time my shadow fell on the bridge and lay flat before the young people. Sometimes it mingled with their shadows and sometimes it was alone, quivering all the time as if it felt the trampling feet of the passers-by. I turned my eyes away and looked up at the sky, to see if that hand had appeared of which the children tell: they say that on Atonement Eve a little cloud, like a hand, rises in the firmament, for at that time the Almighty stretches out His hand to receive the repentant.

A young woman passed by and lit a cigarette. A young man passed by and said, “Look out or you’ll burn your mustache!”

Startled, she dropped the cigarette from her mouth. The young man bent down and picked it up. Before he could put it in his mouth or the girl’s, another came up, snatched the cigarette from his hand, took the girl by the arm, and disappeared with her.

The bridge began to empty of passers-by. Some of them went to the town and some turned toward the wood behind the slaughterhouse on the bank of the Stripa beside the oaks. I looked down at the river again. A fine odor rose from the water. I breathed in deeply and savored the air.

The well in the old market at the center of town could be heard again. Some little distance away was the gurgling of the King’s Well, and the water of the Stripa also added its voice — not the water I had seen at first, for that had already gone, but fresh water, which had taken its place. The moon shone from the river and the stars began to dwindle. I said to myself: The time has come for sleep.

I went back to my hotel and found it closed. I was sorry I had not taken a key with me, for I had promised the people that I would not trouble them much, and now I had to rouse them from their sleep. Had I known that the klois still existed I should have gone there, for there the people would be awake all night singing hymns and psalms, and some would be studying all night long the talmudic tractates of Yoma , treating of the Day of Atonement itself, and Keritot , which deals with grave offenses.