S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

“We have already reached home,” said Yeruham, “and you have not yet told me what village you were in, and whom you visited. Do you want to surprise Rachel?” “But surely you told her.” Yeruham laughed heartily and knocked at the door, crying, “Rachel, Rachel, guess whom I’ve brought with me.” Rachel called out from inside the house and spoke my name.

Rachel was lying listlessly, fully dressed, on her bed. She found it hard to bear the pains of pregnancy. How weak was the hand she held out to me, and how strange the smile that adorned her eyelashes; she was like a young woman who is ashamed of her sufferings but rejoices in them.

“Was it nice there with the pioneers?” asked Rachel. “Did you find beautiful girls there?” “Beautiful girls and handsome young men as well.” “They’re handsome so long as they haven’t settled in the Land of Israel,” said Yeruham. “When the bride is beautiful in the eyes of the bridegroom and the bridegroom in the eyes of the bride, they will keep their beauty all their lives,” I answered.

Yeruham took Rachel’s face in his hands and said, “Like us.” Rachel slapped his hands and said, “Let me go, I have to get up and arrange supper. The gentleman was not thinking of us.” “Lie still, Rachel,” said Yeruham, “and I will get supper.” Said Rachel, “If you stand over me and hold my face, how can you get supper?” “Don’t worry,” said Yeruham, “everything will be all right.” “So let me go,” said Rachel. I’ll let you go, I’ll let you go,” said Yeruham, “if only you’ll lie still.”

Yeruham took off his working clothes and put on others; then he filled his hands with water and washed his face, and went into the corner to arrange supper. When he got there, he cried, “You liar, you’ve already prepared everything — with strawberries, too, and cream. If you’re wasteful, Rachel, we’ll have to take all our savings out of the Anglo-Palestine.” “What’s the Anglo-Palestine?” “Go and teach her the A B C of the Land of Israel,” said Yeruham. As he spoke he took down the kerosene lamp from the wall, put it on the table, and said, “Everything’s ready for supper.” Then he bent over Rachel and asked what she had eaten and what she wanted to eat.

The strawberries were fragrant and the cream was a pleasure to see. After three days spent in the village, where I had not eaten enough, I found this meal particularly tasty.

Yeruham plucked a strawberry out of the cream and said, “What do you say to these strawberries? Hiding in the cream and sucking the goodness out of it. When you were in the Land of Israel didn’t you long for strawberries and cream?” “Long? What doesn’t a man long for?” “I talk about strawberries and he answers with meta-physics. Shall we drink tea or cocoa?” “Drink a glass of sour milk,” said Rachel. “Rachel’s quite right,” said Yeruham. “Let’s drink sour milk first, then tea. If we are in exile, let us accept the burden of exile with a good grace. We have black bread here too. Faithful God and King, is there a finer food than a piece of rye bread with fresh butter? How fine this loaf is, round like a village girl and sprinkled with cumin like a charming freckle-face.” Rachel slapped his hand and said, “Eat and don’t give us these peculiar orations.”

Yeruham lifted up the loaf and smelled it. He took a knife and cut the loaf generously, spread a large piece with butter and bit into it before he had managed to spread it all, ate heartily and spread more butter on the places he had not spread at first, bit into it again, ate heartily, and urged us to eat. As he ate, he spiced his talk with phrases from the famous orators in the Land of Israel, opened his eyes wide, thumped on the table, and raised his voice, saying, “He that is hungry ought to eat.”

Eating stimulated our appetites, and appetite stimulated our eating, until nothing was left of the loaf but a small piece, and it too disappeared down Yeruham’s gullet, or the guest’s.

“Now let us drink tea,” said Yeruham, “in memory of the days when all our meals were tea and bread, or bread with tea.” He got up, brought the boiling kettle and the fragrant essence, and poured the tea. “What shall we have to give flavor to the tea?” he said. “The cursed ants, blast them, have nibbled away all the cake we had left from Shavuot.” He blew on the cake, chasing away the ants. When the ants had fled the cake, we saw that the cheese had shrunk and the raisins were mouldy. Yeruham shook his head in despair and said, “A man will have to answer for every piece of food he has left uneaten.”

Rachel braced herself, got up and brought preserves made with orange peel. With all other fruits, you eat the inside and throw away the peel, but oranges are good to eat and their peel is good to eat too, so long as you candy it very well. In Rachel’s praise, we must say that her confection was successful. From whom had she learned it, her mother or Krolka? Or perhaps the oranges themselves had taught her to make of their peel a food so delicate, so luxurious.

The windows were wide open, the scent of the evening dew rose from the damp soil and the trees and grasses, and a bird twittered and sang, unseen. The moon shone upon it, accompanying the chant of the bird in the moon’s own way with the moon’s own light. Rachel went back to her bed, while we sat and listened to the voice of the bird.

Yeruham rose, took Rachel’s face in his two hands and kissed her on the lips. “Be ashamed of yourself,” said Rachel. Yeruham closed his eyes and said, “Behold, I am ready and prepared to be ashamed.” Rachel slapped him on the fingers and said, “Go back to your place and sit still like a respectable person.” So Yeruham went back and sat down like a respectable person.

Rachel lay on her bed and looked at her husband and her husband’s friend — at her husband because he was her husband, and at her husband’s friend because he was her husband’s friend.

“Tell us a little about the Land of Israel,” said Rachel to Yeruham. “Whatever for?” said Yeruham. “To make our guest happy,” replied Rachel. “I’m afraid I may tell and he won’t be happy,” said Yeruham. “Why shouldn’t he be happy?” “The truth wasn’t given to make us happy.”

You have never heard such a combination of opposites as Yeruham’s talk. He obviously meant to disparage the Land of Israel, but its praises emerged from his disparagement. I have no intention of repeating all Yeruham said, but I will repeat some of it. For instance, he told of the great swamps that had lain rotting there in the Land of Israel for two thousand years and produced all kinds of diseases; in the end you heard that they had been healed and made into good land. Again, there were those boys and girls whose lives had been sacrificed to drain the swamps, in order to expand capital, but they had been privileged to add several villages to the Land of Israel. Perhaps it was of them that David said, inspired by the spirit of prophecy, “And they sow the fields and plant vineyards, which yield fruits of increase.” Rachel lay on her bed, listening as she dozed and dozing as she listened.

What else did he tell that we have not yet told? Yeruham told of the gnats and mosquitoes that come in bands and cover the tents like a curtain, clinging to every man and making his hands and face look as if they were covered with scales, sucking his blood, filling him with venom and bringing malaria. When a man catches malaria, his body is weakened and he falls sick. Before he recovers from this sickness, another sickness comes and finishes him. Many have fallen sick and died, and many are as good as dead. “Our guest knows them well.”

The guest does know them well. And for some reason I do not know, I said to Yeruham, “If we draw up an account, we shall find that more of our dead were killed for the liberation of Poland than in draining the swamps.” “If you find that any consolation,” said Yeruham, “you may be consoled.” Said the guest, “Let us be consoled, Yeruham, let us be consoled, that a group of young men has been found to give their lives for the Land of Israel.” “For the sake of the Hebrew letters engraved on the money of the Land,” said Yeruham. “For the sake of the Hebrew letters, and for the sake of the Land, and for the sake of the nation,” said the guest. “So that the money of the Land of Israel should find its way into the pockets of the capitalists,” said Yeruham. “So that the money of the Land of Israel should find its way into the pockets of the capitalists and they should spend it in the Land of Israel,” replied the guest. “You solve the problem too lightly,” said Yeruham. “Whether lightly or hardly, the world has not been entrusted to us and does not ask us for solutions,” replied the guest, “but the question of ourselves— that may be in our power to solve.” “In the way you follow?” “In the way we follow, even if we make mistakes and do wrong. Mistakes and wrongs that are in our power may be put right; but we cannot put right what is not in our power.”