S. Agnon - A Guest for the NIght

In those days I was overcome by longing for my children — first, because it is natural for a father to long for his children, and second, because I said to myself that if they had been with me I would have taught them Torah. I wrote to my wife, and she replied, “We had better go up to the Land of Israel.” I began thinking about it, and it was not far from what was in my heart.

For some days now, things are different at the hotel. Krolka lays my table, but brings me nothing more than a light meal. Gone are the hot and nourishing dishes that give more life to those that eat them.

True, light foods are good for the body and do not burden the soul. But the trouble is that even if you eat your fill of them, you feel that something is lacking. Poland is not like the Land of Israel; there, you eat a morsel of bread with olives and tomato, and you are satisfied; here, even if you eat a gardenful of vegetables, your belly is empty. This is the curse that was called down upon the children of Israel because they said, “We remember the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, which we ate in Egypt.” The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them, “Behold, I will exile you to the lands of the Gentiles — perhaps you will be more satisfied there.”

All this is true of breakfast. And the same is true of the midday meal. My hostess has forgotten the recipes and lore of the vegetarian physician who taught her to make all kinds of dishes. Now she makes one dish, and feeds me from it for two, even three, days. If the dish spoils, they bring me a couple of eggs and a glass of milk. Worse still: even for this light meal I have to wait. At first my hostess would apologize and say that she had not managed to prepare me a good meal because she had been busy with Rachel, but in the end she has stopped apologizing, because she has no time to talk to anyone, for she sits with Rachel every day.

A man can do without much food, but he cannot do without a little cordiality. My host sits wrapped up in his long coat, with his pipe in his mouth; sometimes he puffs smoke and sometimes he rubs his knees in silence. When I pay my bills, he counts the money silently and puts it into a leather pouch. I know he bears me no grudge — it is only the troubles with his children and the pains of his body that have left no light in his face — but what good is my knowing why he is sullen, when the heart seeks a little joy?

Since the day my hostess stopped looking after the kitchen, she has put Krolka in charge of the cooking and Babtchi in charge of the kashruth.

I did not find Babtchi particularly pleasing, and since she did not please me I did not please her. And since I did not please her, she did not feel it worth while to set a fine table for me, and she would set it as for a man who is not worth taking trouble over. Many a time I refrained from coming to the main meal of the day so that I should not have to thank her for her trouble. Another man would have gone to the tavern or the divorcee’s inn, but I did not go there. So as not to go hungry, I would fill up with fruit: at first I would buy from Hanoch’s wife in the market, and when Hanoch’s wife had none, I bought from her neighbors.

Once I asked a certain woman, “Why are you sitting in the market when you have nothing to sell?” “So where should I sit,” she replied, “in the garden of the king’s palace?” When I asked another woman, she replied, “People might put the evil eye on me and say, ‘That lady is sitting in the theaters’—so I sit in the market.”

The fruit that comes from the market is partly rotten and partly mouldy; you have to take pains picking out the good and throwing away the bad. Nevertheless, I used to buy from the market: first, out of habit, and second, so that Hanoch’s wife should earn something. Once I came to buy and found no fruit worth eating, so I said to myself: It is natural for fruit to grow on a tree in the orchard; I will go to the orchard and take fruit from the tree.

This Gentile from whom I buy apples and pears does not frown or talk about man’s end in life; he takes the money and gives me the fruit, and says, “Enjoy the eating.” Once I came and did not find him. I asked after him and they told me he was at home. I went to his house and found him lying sick. It was then that I saw that even Gentiles can be overcome by weakness.

Since the day my meals began to grow less, I sit less in the Beit Midrash. Whether I buy my fruit from the market or buy it from the Gentile, I am busy shopping for it and cannot spend much time in study.

So long as a man sits in the Beit Midrash he has nothing but the Torah and Israel and the Holy One, blessed be He. But as soon as he goes out, there is no Torah and the people of Israel are crushed and hard pressed, and even the Almighty Himself has, as it were, contracted Himself, and His Name is not noticed in His world.

I will leave alone all the Gentiles in my town, whether they were born in Szibucz or whether the Almighty brought them there from somewhere else, and mention only Anton Jacobowitz, alias Pan Jacobowitz, alias Antos Agopowitz, who in his youth was a pork-butcher and now in his old age is a respectable citizen, rich and with much property. His oldest son is a priest and teaches the catechism; his second is a lieutenant; and his daughters are married, one to a Polish judge and one to a noble, well-bred officer, who wears a cavalry coat. When I left Szibucz and went up to the Land of Israel, Anton was already well known in the town and popular among the people; he talked Yiddish and spiced his conversation with the Holy Tongue, and scoffed at the ignorant among us, who had neither Torah nor worldly wisdom. They told many jokes about Anton, and here is one. Once he saw a Jew, an ignoramus, on the morning of the Tish’a B’Av fast with his prayer shawl and tefillin satchel under his arm. “ Goy !” said Anton, “Don’t you know that you don’t put on the tefillin at the Morning Service on Tish’a B’Av?”

When the war came and the Russians occupied Szibucz, and all the leading citizens fled, Antos was able to make friends with the officers and became the right hand of the commander, Colonel Gavrilo Vassilevitch Strachilo. They laid their hands on the property of the Jews who had fled from the fury of the oppressor and transferred the furniture and the goods to Russia. There were no Jews in the town who could challenge what he was doing, and as for the Polish and Austrian officials, who remained without food or shelter, Antos used to feed them in secret, so that if the Austrians should return they would protect him. So they took heed of his gifts and ignored his deeds. He would supply food to the army and travel to Astrakhan to bring back dried fish for the fast days.

The children of the rich Jews, whose leftovers Antos used to lick, were no longer prominent in the town — not as in the days gone by, when most of the town was populated with Jews. Sebastian Montag, our leading citizen, died in Warsaw, on foreign soil, and his relatives could not afford to bring his coffin to Szibucz to bury him among the graves of his fathers. True, they paid him great honor in his death, for they mentioned the great deeds he had done for Poland, by virtue of which he had been elected to the Sejm, but he had not managed to go to most of the sessions: sometimes because his shoes were torn, and sometimes because he could not find a bite to eat in the morning. In Sebastian Montag’s place sits a Gentile, an evil man and an enemy of Israel. His deputy is like him, and so are all the other officials. All that is left to the Jews in Szibucz is to swallow their spittle and pay taxes.

There are some people in Szibucz who envy their brethren who have gone to other places. What have their brethren found that is to be envied? They have certainly not found a golden kid carrying almonds and raisins — or even a dry crust of bread. So why should they be envied? But a man who finds things hard in his own place thinks other places are paradise, and even those who have left Szibucz write about Szibucz as if it were a paradise. Perhaps, indeed, Szibucz is really a paradise — and if not for the Jews, then for the Gentiles.