S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

And where is the crowd of singers and musicians, men and women, who used to come in the cold days and warm the hearts of the lads with songs and music? The singers and musicians have died in the war, and others have not come in their places. Jews are entangled in troubles and wander from one exile to another, and no one seeks songs, but Rubberovitch calls, as is his way, melodiously, “Szibucz.”

The snow comes down and the cold cuts into a man’s flesh. Listless and melancholy, five or six Jews walk on, their faces toward the town. No dancing carriages have come out to meet them, or wagoners to welcome them. The wagoner knows when it is worth his while to trouble his horse, and when it is not. Not like Hanoch, who troubled Henoch for nothing, and now both of them are wandering in the world of chaos and no one knows where they are. Some say they showed themselves in a dream. And why did they not ask Hanoch where he is? Because he showed himself dead, and they were afraid to speak to a dead man.

Because I had waited for the guard to dispatch the train, I was free to my own devices. And since I was free I thought many thoughts. This was one of them: When will these Jews reach their homes, before dark or after dark? And when they reach their homes, will a glowing stove and a warm samovar be waiting for them?

And because I had started thinking, I also brought to mind their brethren, who have left Szibucz and left me the key of our old Beit Midrash. There is a special quality about this key: it is cold but the house it opens is warm. You must know that I am a Jew from the Land of Israel and I do not like the cold, so I am in the habit of recalling our old Beit Midrash, which is warm when all around is cold.

The guard dispatched the train. As the train set off with a dreadful din, snow began to cover the tracks. Still and silent, snowflakes fell on top of snowflakes, and the world grew brighter toward evening. Anyone who is not familiar with the ways of snow might think, mistakenly, that this brightness will go on and on; but he does not know that today the snow is pure and tomorrow it is black, and in the end it becomes a morass. The rays of evening fell on the snow. But before the snow could surround them and make them white, the rays had darkened the snow.

I handed Rubberovitch the form I had received from the station office. He read it and said, “Oranges from Palestine.” He chewed the air and read again “Palestine.” Dear brethren, the way this guard says “Szibucz” with a melody, as I told you before, is nothing compared with the melody of “Palestine.”

I like Rubberovitch, not because of his rubber hand, which has made him popular with the daughters of the Gentiles, who believe he is entirely made of rubber, but because it was from his lips that I first heard the name of my town when I returned. Today my affection for him was redoubled, and I made him my messenger to bring me the oranges.

The oranges have come, and now they are lying in their crate in my room, sending up a sweet fragrance, like a grove of citrus trees in the Land of Israel. I ought to open the crate and give an orange to Rubberovitch, who has kept his word and not delayed the crate. But I did not open the crate and give something from it to Rubberovitch; I compensated him with money, for I meant all the oranges for Yeruham Freeman. First, because I owe him a piece of orange, and it is good to give generously, and second, because I have dedicated it to him as a wedding present. On the very day I ordered the oranges I heard that Yeruham is going to get married, and I wanted to bring him joy on his day of rejoicing.

Yeruham Freeman ought to have married Erela Bach, first, because he was meant for Erela, together with whom he sucked her mother’s milk, and second, because the father of Rachel Zommer, whom people slandered by saying she followed Yeruham, could not tolerate him and would not give her to him. However, now that days have come when a daughter rises up against her father, Rachel has followed the dictates of her heart and is to marry Yeruham.

We thought Mr. Zommer would turn the whole world upside down before he would let his daughter Rachel marry Yeruham, but in the end he made them a wedding. It would have been better if he had held the wedding two or three months earlier, but since he did delay it is good that he did not delay any longer.

I look at Rachel in surprise. Yesterday she was a child and today she is getting married. If you regard her as grown up, to me she is still little. Only a few days ago I spoke to her as a man speaks to a child.

I wished Rachel good fortune and, looking sideways, said to my other (he who dwells with me), “I have already agreed with you that you should not tease me with married women. If you keep the agreement, good; if not, I will not look even at an unmarried one.” And that fool grew afraid that I might keep my word, and turned Rachel’s face away from me.

And since Rachel’s is turned from me, my eyes and my heart are free. So I am free to do as I wish, and I look at Rachel’s husband and say to myself: Why do I like Yeruham? Is it because he lived in the Land of Israel? Rut then he has left the Land and speaks evil of it. Or is it because he speaks Hebrew? But then Erela and her pupils also speak Hebrew. But when you hear their language, you feel as if you had been served with mealy potatoes, in which only the worms are alive, for their language is intermingled with words that all the tasteless people have made up out of their own heads. Not so with Yeruham. When he speaks, you feel as if a man were plowing and the fragrance of the clean earth were rising all around you.

Yeruham asked me, “Why do you not come to visit us?” “Where?” I said. “Where?” said he. “What do you mean, where? To our room.” “When?” said I. Said he, “What do you mean, when? Any night is right.” “Any night is right?” “Yes — and the whole night is right.”

I took my watch out of my pocket, looked at it, and said to Yeruham, “And what does Rachel say?” He passed his hand over his curls and said, “My will is her will and her will is my will.” His black curls gleamed and his eyes looked at me calmly. “You know where I am to be found,” I said to him. “Come to me after you finish your work and I will go with you.”

After prayers Yeruham came to the yard of the Beit Midrash and waited for me behind the door. I said to myself: Let him wait until he gets cold and he will come in. Then I remembered his wife, who would be waiting for him. So I got up, put on my coat, and went with him.

Before I went I said to Reb Hayim, “I do not know when I will come back. Will you please take the key and close the door after you?” True, I had promised the key that I would not let it out of my possession or hand it over to anyone else, but it is another matter when the hour calls.

There is a street in Szibucz that is called Synagogue Street, after the synagogue that was in that street before Chmielnicki destroyed the town. Now there is neither synagogue nor Jew in that street except for Yeruham and his wife, who have made their home there among the Gentiles.

As I entered, Rachel jumped up to meet me and affectionately pressed my hand. Yeruham bent down, opened the door of the stove, and put in a few pieces of wood. Then he rolled up his sleeves, took hold of both Rachel’s hands, looked at me with one eye, and asked me, “Perhaps we should dance a hora with her?” Rachel pulled her hands away from his, examined the table, and said, “He hasn’t even set a chair for the guest.” Yeruham took a chair and set it in front of me, while Rachel removed the cloth with which she had covered the oranges she had arranged on the table, and went and sat with her husband on the bed.