S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

3

I had not managed to cross the road before Mr. Gedaliah Klein tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Where have you been and where are you going?” “I am having a stroll,” I replied. Mr. Klein stroked his handsome beard and said, “I only came out to stroll too. So let us stroll together.”

The sunny days had passed; and a cold wind was blowing. No rain had fallen as yet, but clustering clouds in the sky foreboded the approach of winter. Mr. Klein was dressed in a fine fur coat, with a collar of silver fox over his shoulders and around his neck, and a fine cane with a silver knob in his hand. The white hair of his head and his white beard gleamed like the silver knob in his hand, and his face gleamed out of the collar of his coat like polished copper.

I began to apologize for not having come to see him for several days. He held up his hand to my mouth, as a person does who wants to speak and bids his companion be silent. And immediately he started talking and talking. Even if a bird had come from Paradise to teach us its talk, he would not have stopped his. Many things Mr. Klein told me on that occasion, and more than he told he hinted. From all he said I understood that, had he not raised up Jerusalem out of the dust, nothing worth a row of buttons would have been done.

The sun stood on the tops of the hills and enveloped the rocks with clouds of gold. Mr. Gedaliah Klein’s beard glowed even more than that gold, and so did the silver knob in his hand.

So we strolled. He talked and I listened. The streets darkened, and the houses hid in their shadows. Old men and women ran by, as they do close to the time of the afternoon prayer. As they passed, they looked at Mr. Klein in wonderment and moved their lips. I looked after them in surprise, for they and their clothes were different from those of the other old people of Jerusalem.

After we had made the rounds of several places we came back to my house.

I began to be afraid that Mr. Klein might want to go up to my room — and the letter of condolence I had written to his daughter lay open on my table.

I began to shiver.

“Are you worried about anything?” he said. I was silent and did not answer. “I see you are shivering,” he said. I thought it would not be polite to tell him what I was worried about, so I said to him, “Yesterday my grandfather appeared to me in a dream.” “Is your grandfather dead?” said he. I nodded in assent. “Well?” he said. “I will go and kindle a light in the House of Study,” I replied. He put his hand to his forehead and said, “You have reminded me where I was going.” He stretched out his cane, made a kind of circle in the air, and whispered, “I am going to the House of Study too.”

I said to myself: What will he do when the Divine Name is uttered during the prayers and in answering Amen ? Is he not afraid they might realize that he is dead, and he will be put to shame? As in the case of the dead cantor, who used to slur over the Name when he prayed, because the dead cannot utter the Heavenly Name. Once a sage happened to be there, who sensed that the cantor was dead — and it is said: “The dead shall not praise the Lord.” He examined him and found that the Sanctified Name was sewn into his wrist. So he took a scalpel, cut into his flesh, and took out the Name — and immediately the body collapsed, and they saw that the flesh was already decomposed.

Mr. Klein did not perceive what I was thinking, and walked on. This is the greatness of Mr. Klein: if he decides to act, he pays no attention to anyone.

I dragged my feet and stopped at every step; perhaps the Almighty would find him some other topic on the way and distract his mind from the House of Study. He saw that I was lingering, and said with a smile: “If you had not told me your grandfather was dead, I would have thought I was walking with him.” I wanted to answer, but did not know what to say. To tell him the truth was impossible, but nothing else came into my mind.

The streetlamps had been lit, and the lights peered out feebly from the latticed windows. I breathed deeply and said, “It is late for the afternoon prayer.” He breathed deeply too, and said, “I feel warm — no, but…” He wrapped himself up better and began to fumble with his cane like a blind man, saying, “Do me a favor, see if there is not a House of Study here. Yes, there is one here.”

The worshippers stood bowed with their faces toward the wall. Mr. Klein went up to the most prominent place, and I remained standing by the door. Wherever they go, people like Mr. Klein find their places at the top. One old man turned his head from the wall and fixed his eyes on me. Mr. Klein gripped his cane. The cane trembled, and so did his hand. He was old, and his hands quivered.

A dim light shone from the four or five candelabra, of copper, of tin, of iron, and of clay. A peace not of this world pervaded the room, The worshippers finished their prayer and took two steps backwards, but the cantor still delayed the recitation of the final kaddish until the last of them should finish.

I looked around to see whom he was waiting for, and saw an old man standing in the southeastern corner, wrapped in his prayer shawl, covered in a fur coat up to above his neck. I did not see his face because it was turned toward the wall, but I saw his weary shoulders, those shoulders which the Holy One, blessed be He, has chosen to bear the burden of His Torah. My heart began to throb and fill with sweetness. The Almighty has still left us men who fill the heart with sweetness when we see them.

The old man turned his face, and I saw he was one of the princes of the Torah whose books I had been studying. I rushed forward and stood beside him. I knew that this was not a courteous thing to do, but I could not control myself. And I still wonder where I took the strength to do it.

Mr. Klein tapped me on the shoulder, took me by the hand, and said, “Come.” I looked at that illustrious scholar and went with Mr. Klein.

Mr. Klein noticed the president of the House of Study. So he left me and went up to him.

That illustrious scholar left the House of Study. As was always his way, so he behaved at that moment, not looking beyond the four cubits, either in front of him or behind him. Devoted as he was to the Torah, he saw nothing but the affairs of the Torah. As I looked at him, I saw that a deep hole was open at his feet. While he had been engrossed in prayer and study, a band of children, playing in front of the House of Study, had dug the hole and left it uncovered. I ran up and bowed before him, so that he should lean on me and pass over the hole.

But he, in his deep devotion to the Torah and the fear of God, saw neither the hole nor me, who had come to save him from it. I did not have the heart to raise my voice and warn him against the danger, in case I might distract him from his thoughts. I stood still, making myself like a staff, a stick, a block of wood, a lifeless object. The Almighty put it into the saint’s mind to lean on me. His body was light as an infant’s. But I shall feel it until they put dust on my eyes.

4

I went back home and lit the light. I opened a window and sat down to rest. The wind blew and threw the letter at my feet. I looked at the letter, and at my feet, and was too lazy to lift it, for I was so weary that my limbs had begun to fall asleep. I undressed and went to bed, thinking about the things that had happened to me and that saint I had seen, and I knew that a great event had happened that day. No greater event will ever happen to me again. I do not remember whether I was sad or joyful, but I remember that another feeling, to which no term of joy or sadness can apply, moved my heart. If I had departed this world at that hour I would not have been sorry.