S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

After the recital of the mourners’ kaddish, the audience mingled with each other, shook out their clothes, which had got wrinkled with sitting, and took out cigarettes for a smoke. “If anyone tells you there’s such a thing as free will,” said Mr. Schreiholz, “don’t believe him. For two and a half hours I was waiting to smoke, but I didn’t do it out of respect for this solemn occasion.”

People from the suburbs who were in the hall started to push their way out to get their buses. I should have hurried, too, and run for my bus, but I wanted to pay my respects to Mr. Gedaliah Klein’s daughter.

She sat like a mourner, her black hat adding to her charm; a peaceful sadness covered her face, like a well-bred woman who has been bereaved, but has not been bereft of her distinction. Public leaders, men and women, came up to her one after another and pressed her hand, and she pressed the hands of them all.

I bowed my head and greeted her. But she did not notice me. I bowed and greeted her again. Perhaps she nodded slightly, and perhaps she did not nod to me at all. I felt no grudge against her. Why should she have to move her head in return for two or three lines I had written her? Countless letters of condolence had been sent her, and they were still being sent.

I left the assembly hall. The entire square was full of cars for Mr. Klein’s family and the eulogists. A little while later, nothing was left of them but the odor of burnt gasoline and cosmetics and dust.

I set off for the bus station, but when I reached it the bus had gone. I waited for the next, but it did not come, so I gave up the idea of riding home and set out on foot.

An old carriage came along. The coachman reined in his horses and said to me, “Get in.” I felt no desire to get in. The horses set off without me. Silently, silently, they moved off without lifting their feet, and, if I am not mistaken, the motion of the carriage was not visible either.

The air was clear; the moon and the stars shone. The earth was soft; it would have been easy to open it and cover oneself up with it like a blanket. How tired I was, how I wanted to rest. The coachman came back and rode around me with his coach. I looked up at him, hoping that he might take me into the coach, but he took no notice and did not take me in. The horses lifted their feet; not a sound was heard as they moved, but the echo quivered in my ears until I reached home and went in.

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When I entered, I found Mr. Gedaliah Klein sitting at my table. His head was bowed toward his breast, and his cane lay between his knees. He stirred, raised his head, and whispered: “You here?” “I have just come,” I replied in a whisper. He rubbed his eyes. “I felt sleepy and dropped off,” he said.

His face was weary and aged. Since I last left him, he had suddenly become very old. Apart from the fox-fur coat he wore, there was nothing about him that was not old.

I pretended not to notice that he had aged considerably, for Mr. Gedaliah Klein desired the honor of age coupled with the vigor of youth, and not the old age which is a burden and a shame. He looked at me and said, “I have not seen you for decades. Tell me now, my dear friend, why do you not come to visit me? Or perhaps I have seen you in the meantime? Where have you been all the time? And where, for instance, did you spend the whole evening?” I could not bring myself to tell him where I had been, so I was silent.

He pricked up his right ear, supported it on his right hand, and said, “I did not hear what you said. Now for another matter: Where did I leave you that night I saw you last? If I am not mistaken, there was an old courtyard, and candles were burning low, and some man, a sexton, pestered me. Don’t you remember, my dear friend?” I told him.

“One thing is clear,” said Mr. Klein; “there was a House of Study there. You see, my dear friend, I forget nothing. What did we go to that House of Study for? If I remember rightly, you wanted to kindle a light for the repose of your grandfather’s soul. I hear the sound of horses. Did you come home in a carriage?”

“No, I came on foot.”

“So what is the carriage doing here?”

I said to him, “Perhaps you know where that House of Study is? I am looking for it but cannot find it.”

Mr. Klein smiled at me as people do at a child who is trying to get something easy. He raised his hands to his eyes to settle his spectacles. Then he pried open his eyes with his fingernails and looked straight at me. “Did you put out the light?” he said. “You didn’t? So why don’t I see? What did you say? You are looking for the…What are you looking for? Speak into my ear. When one’s eyes are affected, all one’s limbs are weakened.”

I went up close to him and said, “I am looking for the House of Study.”

“You are looking for the House of Study?” he repeated in a tone of surprise. “Which House of Study are you looking for? Perhaps the one where you were with me? Give me my cane and I will draw you where it is.”

I took his cane from between his knees and put it in his hand.

He took the cane and began to grope with it like a blind man in an unfamiliar place. The cane in his hand quivered, his hands quivered, and he quivered with the cane. He gripped the cane with all his strength, but his strength was gone. His face was no longer the same, and he, too, began to change, until he was entirely changed, and no longer resembled himself. And perhaps it was not he, but that old man, that blind old man who had kindled the memorial light for my grandfather, may he rest in peace.

I waited for him to look kindly on me, as he had done at first in the Great Synagogue when he whispered verses from the psalms. But his face was frozen and his eyes devoid of laughter. I felt it hard to stand in front of a man who used to be courteous to me but now paid me no attention, so I turned my face away from him. When I turned my face away, he stood up over me with his cane. I felt afraid of him and closed my eyes. He took hold of the cane and began to draw with it, making six marks. A house emerged and rose up, like that House of Study. I tried to enter but could not find the door. The old man raised his cane and knocked twice on the wall. An opening appeared, and I went in.

1

When he returned he found the house locked. After he rang once, twice, and then a third time, the doorkeeper appeared, folded her hands on her stomach, leaned her head on her shoulder, and stood gaping a moment. “Well,” she said, “who do I see? Mr. Fernheim! Bless my soul, it is Mr. Fernheim. So, then, Mr. Fernheim’s come back. Then why did they say he wouldn’t come back? And all this ringing — it’s really quite useless, because the house is empty and there’s no one to open it for him, because Mrs. Fernheim left and locked the house and took the keys with her. She didn’t imagine there’d be any need for keys, like now, for instance, that Mr. Fernheim’s back and wants to get into his house.”

Fernheim felt he had better say something before the woman inundated him with more derision. He forced himself to speak, but his reply was short, stammering — and meaningless.

The doorkeeper went on, “After the baby died, her sister Mrs. Steiner came, and Mr. Steiner with her too. They took Mrs. Fernheim with them to their summer home. My son Franz, who carried her bags for her, heard that the Steiners plan to stay there in the village until the big Israelite holy days at the end of the summer, right before the fall, and I’d guess Mrs. Fernheim won’t come back to the city before then. Why should she hurry, now that the baby’s gone? Does he need a kindergarten? Poor little thing, he kept getting thinner and thinner till he died.”