S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

The streetlamps, square and round and semicircular, illuminate the streets of the city, in addition to the moon and the stars. I walk in their light and read all kinds of placards about new productions of plays like Thy People and Hard to be a Jew . And the gramophone screeches, “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob,” while the radio replies, “Happy are ye, O Israel,” and the loudspeakers drown their voices, and the smell of falafel permeates the air. Little by little the street returns to normal. Buses rush and people push; some of their heads are hairy, and some of their chins are double; some of them float on air, and some are always in trouble; men with serious mien and women with delicate hands chatter in all the tongues of all the far-off lands; every stalwart lad and every maiden ripe puffs at a cigarette or pulls away at a pipe. The coffeehouses are full of people young and old; the men make eyes at the girls, and the girls are just as bold; the men drink beer and whiskey, the women paint their faces — O Muse, what have you to do with such peculiar places? The bars are full of soldiers, the British Mandate’s men—“Drink up and then bring up, my lads, and fill your mugs again!” And now I go to mourn a man who is no more — O Muse, be silent now, and do not weep so sore.

8

The platform is draped in black, and a candelabrum draped in black illuminates a picture of the deceased hanging over the platform. His face is the face of a successful man, unmarred even by death.

The assembly hall is full and still the people come. The first arrivals have been seated by the ushers on the middle benches, while the latecomers are seated above, near the platform. Last come those for whom the platform is waiting.

Mr. Schreiholz mounted — he is the principal speaker everywhere. He made a sad face and started in a whisper, like a man who cannot speak for grief. Suddenly he raised his voice and stretched his hand upwards with his fingers spread, seeking a word to express the full depth of his thought. When he found the word he began to spout with growing fluency, declaiming at the top of his voice: “The deceased was…, the deceased was…,” describing, between one “was” and the next, his recollections of where he had seen the deceased, and all the rest of it.

When he had finished, he got off the platform, pressed the hands of the mourners, climbed onto the platform again, and sat down, like an orator who knows his place.

Next came a teacher who had become a banker. As a man who knew the taste of learning and the value of money, he emphasized the virtues of the deceased, who had combined learning with trading, and by virtue of his talents had succeeded in setting several of Jerusalem’s alms-hunting institutions on a sound financial basis and making them into national institutions, which added to the national capital and increased the strength of the nation.

After he had finished, he got down off the platform, pressed the hands of the mourners, and found a place to stand, like a man who seeks no more than a station for his feet.

Next came a townsman of the deceased. He recalled the honor of his house abroad, which was a place of assembly for Lovers of Zion and devotees of the Hebrew tongue. And first and foremost of all the deceased’s achievements in his town was the splendid edifice of the modernized heder , which was the archetype of the Hebrew school, whose waters we drink and in whose shade we shelter.

After he had finished, he got down off the platform, pressed the hands of the mourners and pushed his way in somewhere, for during his eulogy someone else had taken his place.

Next came the last of the eulogists, Mr. Aaron Ephrati, a dignified old man respected by all. He started to sing the praises of the deceased, who had served the entire community without distinction of rich or poor, for since he had grown up in wealth and lived all his days in wealth, he regarded wealth as a matter of course, and not as a special virtue that entitles its possessors to make distinctions between rich and poor. And when he had set up the modernized heder , he had not behaved like those wealthy men who have their sons and daughters educated in the schools of the gentiles and leave the modernized heder for the common people, but sent his sons and daughters to the same modernized heder , so that they should get a plain Jewish education. And so as to combine the light of Judaism with the beautiful and the useful, he had sent them to high school and the university, so that they might fulfill the maxim: “Be a man and a Jew both in your tent and outside.” Finally, Mr. Ephrati turned to the sons and daughters of the deceased and said to them: “Your father has still left you things to do, for his aspirations were in keeping with his greatness. Though he is dead, you are alive, and the sons must add to the deeds of their fathers.”

After Mr. Ephrati had finished speaking, the cantor of the synagogue climbed onto the platform, took out a hexagonal velvet biretta, bent down and put the biretta on his head, took out a cantor’s tuning fork and put it in his mouth, bent and struck the tuning fork on the table, stuck it in his mouth again, put it close to his ear, and began to sing “O God, full of mercy.”

Since I am no judge of music, I was free to think my own thoughts. This prayer used to make my heart throb, I mused as I stood there, but today it just bores me. And another thought occurred to me: there are theater melodies which sound, when sung by the performers, like prayers and supplications, but sometimes prayers and supplications, when they are sung by the cantors, sound like theater tunes. On the cantor’s head the biretta quivered; on his throat his Adam’s apple shivered; around the hall the echoes rolled, over consolers and consoled; while biretta and pate, with every nod, invoked the infinite mercy of God.

I stand looking at the distinguished people who have come to pay their respects to the memory of Mr. Gedaliah Klein. Although I would not compare my work with theirs, I feel sorry that I do not succeed in doing my own work. And the man with the biretta, with his cantor’s tongs, warbles his notes like a bird’s sweet songs, stretching his throat toward God on high, emitting each word with a groan or a sigh; and everyone listens to the lamentation — wiping his tears, or his perspiration.

All the people are on their feet, including the daughter of the deceased. Her black veil quivers over her comely features, and she is surrounded by important people, whose faces are pink with satiety and complacency, like practical men rooted in the life of the nation, who can adapt their behavior to the nation’s needs, or the nation’s needs to their behavior. Fine clothes like theirs were never seen in Jerusalem until Hitler started killing the Jews, so that all the great craftsmen fled, and some of them settled in the Land of Israel.

I look at the clothes and say to myself: I will get some clothes like these too; perhaps I will raise my spirits. But I am afraid the great tailors may see how humble I am and not take much trouble with such a fellow; they may not even make me as good a garment as this one, which was made by the Jerusalem tailor. And if they make me a fine garment, my friends and relatives will be ashamed of their clothes when they meet me, as I am ashamed to be seen by these men with their fine clothes. But all these were futile thoughts, for to get fine clothes you need money, and to get money you need the desire for money, and to have the desire, you must have a desire for the desire. And where will I get the strength for those desires?

The memorial light was still burning there, when the cantor finished the memorial prayer. He doffed his biretta and wiped his pate, and put on his hat, brooding on his fate: “If I sang in the theater, at home or abroad, all the beautiful women would applaud; but here not a soul has a word to say — that’s your reward when you sing to pray.”