S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

Mr. Bach stroked his neck with both hands and looked at his sick son, who was slumbering. Then he stroked his good leg and said, “In the meantime, they do with us whatever a murderer’s heart may desire.”

I looked at his slumbering son and said, “So long as we are living in the second era.” “And when will we reach the third era?” said Mr. Bach. I got up from my chair and said, “That depends on me and you and every man of Israel. When we go up to the Land and join our brothers, who are engaged in battle there.”

As I was going out, Mrs. Bach took me by the arm and led me to her son’s bed. “Look at him, sir,” said she, “doesn’t he look like an angel of the Lord of Hosts? When I imagine that murderers could lift their hands against a child like this, I tremble.” Said I, “Why should the murderers come?” Said Mrs. Bach, “But surely you want us to go to them.” “To them?” said I, “to whom?” “To those murderers who killed Yeruham,” said Mrs. Bach. “Not at all, madam,” said I. “I want us to come to ourselves, so that the power of the murderers may be weakened.” Said Mrs. Bach, “But then you ran away from there, sir.” I sighed and said, “I ran away from there? And perhaps I really did run away, for anyone who leaves the Land of Israel, even for a while, is regarded as one who runs away.”

After breakfast on Sunday morning I went, as usual, to the Beit Midrash. It was a fine day and signs of spring could be seen in the land. The ice had broken; jagged pieces floated on the river; puddles of snow-water shimmered in the street and a new sun shone upon them. Bells sounded from the two Gentile houses of worship; the townsfolk, with their women, came and went. The shops were closed on the outside and the shopkeepers stood idle in the doorways, while their women stood inside and bargained with customers who had come surreptitiously to buy. Suddenly two policemen appeared — or perhaps it was one policeman who looked like two. The shopkeepers and all the other people took off their hats, bowed their heads, and smiled affectionately at the policeman. The policeman twirled his mustache and moved on. The shopkeepers clasped their hands behind their backs and looked after him until he had disappeared from sight.

Ignatz adorned himself with the decorations he had acquired in the war, some through his own deeds and some by taking from the dead. He pushed out his chest and thrust his face at the passers-by, crying, as usual, “ Pieniadze !” meaning “Alms!”

Yoshke, or Veptchi, or some other frequenter of the Beit Midrash, came up to me and said, “The priest is taking a long time for his sermon today.” I felt indignant and wanted to say to him, “I see you are more interested in the priest’s sermon than in our public service, for it is several days since you came to the Beit Midrash.” But another man accosted me and said, “The bastard gives us lots of trouble.”

I thought he was talking of Ignatz, who was rumored to be the son of a Gentile from a Jewish mother and suspected of tale-bearing to the authorities. When he saw that I did not know whom he was speaking of, he continued, “Haven’t you heard that that priest is the son of a Jewish father?” “A Jewish father?” “A Jewish father and a Gentile mother.” “A fine thing,” said I. “If it is true it may very well not be a lie. Or, contrariwise, if it is not a lie it may very well be true. But I tell you that the whole thing should have been different from the start. How? That Jew, the priest’s father, should have made advances to Ignatz’s mother, and that slave, Ignatz’s father, should have made advances to the mother of the priest. Or perhaps you have confused the story of Ignatz with the story of the priest.” “You make jokes, but I say we should weep,” said the man. “Since the day the bastard came to our town we have no peace, for on every one of their feast days he incites the Gentiles against us with his sermons. Now do you believe the story is true?”

“What truth? What story?”

“The story tells of a certain lady who had a Jewish tenant farmer, a fine, handsome man. She seduced him to an act of sin, and from that sin she bore a son. She handed the child over to a nunnery and they passed him on to a monastery, and the monks taught him that religion of theirs and its ways, until he became chief of the priests in our town.” I nodded my head and said, “If that is the way the story has been handed down to us, let us accept it.”

The man was indignant, “I knew the priest’s father after he repented,” he said. “When I used to see him sitting in sackcloth on the threshold of the porters’ synagogue, fasting and reciting psalms, my very bones would quiver. If he had been in some other town, they would have presented their petitions to him, as they do to the rabbis of the Hasidim.”

My shoulders suddenly felt heavy. I unbuttoned my coat and went on.

For many days I had not seen Schuster and his wife. That sick woman, no one is going in to visit her. Let me go and see how she is keeping, or perhaps I had better not go, for if no one comes she forgets her sicknesses and he his exaggerations.

To go or not to go? If I find the stove lit I will go; if not, I will not go. When I came into the Beit Midrash I found Reb Hayim bent in front of the stove. I said to him, “Have you lit the stove, sir?” Said Reb Hayim, “I have arranged the wood and I do not know whether to set a light to it or not.” “The winter is going,” said I, “but the sunny days are still far off. Do you think we shall have a congregation for the Afternoon Service? For the Morning Service we had to wait until a quorum gathered.” Reb Hayim spread his hands upward, as if to say that it was all in God’s hands.

After Reb Hayim left I took a book to study, and remembered Schuster and his wife. I said to myself: Now the question is back at the beginning: to go or not to go? But I will fix a sign. I will open a book, and if there is a letter lamed at the beginning of the page, that is a sign that I should go. I opened the book and saw at the beginning of the page the word “ Lo ” which means “No.”

There is a lamed here, which means I ought to go. But this lamed is the beginning of the word “ Lo ”—which is meant to tell me not to go. Or perhaps, since the main thought was about the lamed and not about the whole word, I should follow the lamed and not the word as a whole. If so, that means I ought to go. Kindchen , it seems to me you are wasting your time.

Why are you suddenly so concerned with Schuster? Or perhaps it is not so sudden, but when you felt your coat heavy on your shoulders you thought of the man who made it. Let us leave the tailor and think of some other matter.

What shall we think about? Let us think about the adventures that happened to Reb Hayim and contemplate all those travels he made, from Szibucz to Warsaw and from Warsaw to Brisk in Lithuania, and from Brisk to Smolensk, and from Smolensk to Kazan, and from there to the places on the Volga. How wide is the world and how cramped is man’s place. Now, when Reb Hayim has returned from all these places, he drags out an existence in the woodshed of our old Beit Midrash.

Does Reb Hayim intend to squander away all his days and years here? If he asked my advice I would tell him to go to his daughter, where perhaps he will gain a better end than he has here.

This book, which I opened in order to find a sign, was not suitable for study, so I closed it and took another. But it was not suitable for study either, so I closed it and took a different book. If I had taken a Gemara and studied, I would not have distracted my mind in this way. I closed the book and took out a Gemara from the bookcase. I held the Gemara in my hand and thought: What was it that man said? The father of the priest became a penitent. And in storybooks I have read that the priest himself repented.