S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

Yeruham banged the table angrily. Rachel was startled and aroused, and looked at us in fright. I felt sorry for her and said, “Don’t be afraid, Rachel, Yeruham wanted to wage war against the whole world and tried his strength on the table.” Yeruham laughed and said, “Heaven help me if I argue with you.” “If so,” said I, “I will argue with you.” “With verses from the Torah or sayings of the sages?” said Yeruham. I laughed and said, ‘What else? With the wisdom of your wise men, whose lives are the lives of a day and whose wisdom is the wisdom of an hour?” Said Rachel to Yeruham, “How long will you go on arguing? Perhaps you will amuse us a little.”

Like most of the lads from the kvutzot in the Land of Israel, Yeruham had been granted a double portion of humor. He stood up, folded his cap, making it like a kind of tourist’s hat, and pretended to be a tourist who had come to the kvutza to photograph the pioneers. He stuck out one foot in front, bent his head to the left, fixed his eyes on a nail in the wall, and said, “It’s very fine here, very fine, but if that hill was a bit farther away from here, about ten and a half inches away, it would be much finer.” Then he lowered his head and looked at the plate, adding, “This valley is fine, but if it moved itself a little to the right, the landscape would be quite different and much finer.”

When the Almighty made up his mind to create the Land of Israel, He did not consult a company of tourists on how He should create it. Apparently He knew full well that they would not come to dwell in it, and He created the Land according to His will. But even those for whom He created it are not content. We need not go far for the evidence: here is Yeruham Freeman — for several years he lived in the Land of Israel, and finally he left it.

Rachel asked Yeruham, “And you and your comrades, did you give no one any reason to laugh at you?” “We had another characteristic,” replied Yeruham, “we loved one another. There is nothing in all the world like this love that existed between us. Only think, Rachel, lads whose parents tried to draw away customers from each other’s shops live together as one, and each is happy in the happiness of his comrades. And just as he is happy in his comrade’s happiness, so he is happy at every stretch of road that is built in the country, and at night they go out and dance till midnight up to high heaven and its stars.”

Rachel listened as she lay on her bed. She knew that when Yeruham danced he did not dance alone; and he did not dance with the young men among his comrades but with the young women, who worked with him on the road, for they say of them that they are beautiful as maidens and brave as youths. If at first Rachel’s face looked as though all the days her husband had spent in the Land were engraved on it, now it looked as though all the nights he had spent there were engraved upon it.

Rachel turned her face away and put her hand to her heart. No one understands what the heart is. A short time before, it was happy, and now it is sad.

I rose from my chair and said, “Time to go.”

Yeruham and Rachel were concerned with their own affairs and did not stop me, and I wanted to go because midnight was near and it is not good manners to sit all night with young people in the first year of their marriage.

When I came back to my hotel I found Mr. Zommer sitting and smoking his pipe. Midnight had already gone and still he was awake. It seemed that there was a new anxiety in his heart, and he was trying to drive it away with the tobacco in his pipe.

To give the innkeeper pleasure I told him I had come from Rachel and Yeruham’s home. Mr. Zommer took his pipe out of his mouth, opened his eyes, and mumbled with his lips. It appeared that he was thinking of another difficult matter.

Once again the same commercial traveler has come to the town, and here he is, sitting in Mr. Zommer’s hotel and chatting with Babtchi, but not jesting with her — and she is not laughing either. Apparently there is something between them that is beyond jesting and smutty talk.

Mr. Riegel the agent looks exhausted and he speaks in a whisper. Seven times already he has put a cigarette to his lips but has not lit it. Has he no matches, or perhaps he wants to go to the kitchen to take an ember, as the hotel-keeper does? Who can measure the spirit of man, and know what is in his heart! Babtchi sits opposite; though she sees the cigarette being crushed between his fingers she does not help by giving him a light. But she scrutinizes him with her eyes and gazes at his Adam’s apple, which moves all the time, even when he is not speaking. How many sinews, my dear, are there in your Adam’s apple? One, two, three? If he were a sensible man, in the habit of looking after his affairs properly, he would not forget to pass the razor over them when he shaves his beard. David Moshe, the rabbi’s grandson, has no hair on his neck, although he does not shave when he comes to Szibucz, out of respect for his grandfather the rabbi, and needless to say he has no Adam’s apple. Dr. Zwirn has no Adam’s apple in his throat either, but he has a bald spot on his head. Or perhaps he has one, too, but you can’t see it because of his double chin. On account of this double chin of his, he finds it hard to breathe, and he sleeps with his mouth open. Once when he was asleep a mouse got into his mouth. He shut his mouth and most of the mouse remained outside. Now let us imagine; if the cat came and caught the mouse by the tail, which would be better for the mouse, to stay in Zwirn’s mouth, or to be eaten by the cat? Babtchi told me that whenever she sees Zwirn, it looks to her as if his mustache is made of a mouse’s tail. And perhaps that is the reason why he does not attract her, although he has doubled her wages.

The commercial traveler looks at Babtchi and sees that she is not listening to what he is saying. When he discovered her for the first time she wore a leather jacket, her hair was dressed like a boy’s, and she looked just like a boy; but now she is clad in a simple dress, her hair has grown, and her figure is filled out. Between winter and summer her appearance has changed. And you, my friend, said that never in your days have you seen a girl so piquant as this one. Now you must change your mind and say that this Babtchi, who is sitting before you today, is more beautiful than the Babtchi you first knew.

Lolik, Babtchi’s brother, has ears and a tongue for everything. He came and sat in front of me and told me that Riegel was going to divorce his wife, but it wasn’t simple, because he had children by her, and he had already given the case to a lawyer in his town, to do anything he could if only he got rid of her. If so, why does he come here? He comes to tell Babtchi. And why need Babtchi know? Lolik smiles his feminine smile and leaves me to think whatever I like. On the other hand, Mrs. Zommer told me that the commercial traveler came to Szibucz only because of that cloth merchant who had gone bankrupt and owed Riegel’s master five thousand zlotys, so he had come to bring a case against him; he had put the matter in the hands of Zwirn, for whom Babtchi worked, and he was consulting Babtchi about his affairs.

Just as a man is composed of matter and spirit, so are his actions composed of matter and spirit. A commercial traveler comes to deal with matters of money and converses with Babtchi on the affairs of his spirit. In the meantime, he is between two lawyers: the one who is arranging his divorce and the one to whom he has submitted his claim against the merchant. We would not venture to intrude between two lawyers and say which is the shrewder. In any case, it seems to be easier for a man to get rid of his wife than to get his money from a shopkeeper who has gone bankrupt.