S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

That was a beautiful hour of psalm-saying. The lamp on the table was lit, crowning with light every word, every letter, every vowel point, every musical notation. Opposite it there was a window open, facing the south. Outside, the predawn breezes blew, but they didn’t put out the lamp or even challenge its wick. The breezes danced about the trees and shrubs in the garden, and there wafted in a sweet fragrance of laurel and dew, smelling something like wild honey or perfume.

The light from the lamp had begun to pale. It seems that the night was over. It may be that God hangs up the sun in the sky at that hour for the sake of those simple folk who don’t know the whole morning prayer by heart but who recite it out of the prayer book.

A sound was heard from the treetops, the voice of a bird reciting her song. Such a voice could interrupt a person’s studies. But I didn’t get up from my book to listen to the bird’s voice, even though it was both sweet to the ear and attractive to the heart. I said: Here I am reciting the Psalms. Should I interrupt these to listen to the talk of birds?

Soon another voice was to be heard, even more attractive than the first. One bird had gotten jealous of another and had decided to outdo her in song. Or maybe she wasn’t jealous and hadn’t even noticed the other. She was aroused on her own to sing before her Creator, and her voice was just sweeter than the other bird’s. In the end they made peace with one another, and each bird seemed to complement the other one’s melodies. They sang new songs, the likes of which no ear had ever heard. Melodies and voices like these certainly could keep a man from studying, but I made as though I didn’t hear. There is nothing especially wondrous or praiseworthy about this, because the psalm played itself like an instrument of many strings. A Song of Love, next to which all other songs are as nothing. I followed after its every word with melody.

“My heart overfloweth with a goodly matter…My tongue is the pen of a ready scribe;…ride on in behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness; let thy right hand teach thee awesome things.” I understood as much as I could, and the rest was explained to me by Rashi, of blessed memory. When I got to the verse “Myrrh and aloes and cassia are all thy garments,” I did not know what it meant. I looked in Rashi’s commentary and there I read: “All thy garments smell like fragrant spices. And its meaning is that all your betrayals and foul deeds will be forgiven and will smell sweet before Me.” My mind was eased, like a person smelling flowers that smell.

7. To conclude with praise as we opened with praise

Come and see how great is this holy tongue! For the sake of a single word a holy man troubled himself to come out of the Academy on High in the Garden of Eden, bringing his book before me, causing me to rise up at night to recite the Psalms, so that I might find something I’d been seeking for many days.

1

Not one good thing happened all winter. Before I was free of one illness I was seized by another. The doctor had become a steady visitor; two or three times a week he came to examine me. He felt my pulse and wrote out prescriptions, changing his medicines and his advice. The doctor was always on call, and the whole house was filled with all kinds of cures whose smell reminded one of death. My body was weak and my lips were cracked. My throat was sore, my tongue was coated, and my vocal cords would produce nothing more than a cough. I had already given up on myself. But the doctor had not given up on me. He was constantly piling up pill after pill and giving new names to my illness. In spite of it all, we saw no change for the better.

Meanwhile, the cold season passed. The sun began to rise earlier each day and each day it tarried longer in the sky. The sky smiled at the earth and the earth smiled at man, putting forth blossoms and flowers, grasses and thorns. Lambs rollicked about and covered the land, children poured from every house and every shack. A pair of birds came out of the sky, leaves and stubble in their beaks, and hopped from my window to a tree and from the tree to my window, chirping as they built themselves a home. There was a new spirit in the world, and the world began to heal. My limbs lost their stiffness; they became lithe and limber. Even the doctor’s spirit had changed. His instruments seemed to be lighter and he was light-hearted and happy. When he came in he would say, “Well, now, spring certainly has arrived,” and he would open a window, knocking over two or three bottles of medicine, not caring if they broke. He still would examine me in order to write out prescriptions. At the same time he would write down a woman’s name and put it in his jacket or stuff it under the watch strap on his left wrist. After several days, he advised me to change my place of residence for a change of climate, to go down to Tel Aviv, for example, to enjoy the sea air.

When moving time came and I had to leave my lodgings, I decided to go down to Tel Aviv. I said to myself: He who changes his residence changes his luck. Perhaps the sea will help me get my health back.

The room I rented in Tel Aviv was narrow and low; its windows faced a street filled with people rushing back and forth. There were many shops on this street, dispensing soda and ice cream. And there was one further drawback: the bus station, noisy all day and not resting at night. From five in the morning until after midnight buses came and went, as well as all kinds of two-and four-wheeled vehicles. When this tumult stopped and the soda vendors’ kiosks closed, an echo began to resound within my room, as when a stone is thrown against a brass drum, making its sides resound. Often I awoke from my sleep to the sound of clinking glasses and rolling wheels, as if all the soda vendors on the street had gathered within the walls of my house to pour drinks for their customers, and as if all the buses were racing on the roof of the house. Then again, perhaps these sounds were no mere echo but the real sounds of buses and of street cleaners going about their work at night, when people sleep. And as for the pouring of drinks, a neighbor had returned from a meeting and had opened a tap to douse his head in cold water, and it had seemed to me that the soda vendors were pouring drinks. Because of all this, my nights passed without sleep, my mornings without a dream. I gave up on sleep and tried to lie quietly awake, but the city’s fish merchants came to shout their wares and the sun came to heat my room like Gehenna.

2

Because of lack of sleep I could not enjoy whatever is available for one to enjoy in Tel Aviv. I betook myself to the sea and took off some of my clothes. Even this exertion tired me, and I could not take off the rest. I took off one shoe; I was unable to take off the other. At times the waves of the sea would come toward me, inviting me in or driving me away. Finally I would return to my room, more weary than when I had left it. And my friends were already warning me, saying, “Leave your lodgings or you will come to a bad end.” With fantasy and with words they portrayed all sorts of dangers that were likely to befall a person in such lodgings. Some spoke calmly with me, and some told me of bad things that had befallen them. If I retained any ability to think, I thought that they were right, that I must leave these lodgings. But not every thought leads to action. I remained where I was, until a new trouble appeared. What kind of trouble? The landlord had a child whose frail body was a meeting ground for all kinds of ailments. Before my arrival he had lived with his grandmother; after I arrived, his mother brought him home, because she longed for her son or because my rent enabled her to support the child. I do not know if he was better off with his grandmother; with his mother he was not well off. She was a do-gooder, attending to everyone’s affairs with no time to attend to her own son. Each morning she would put him outside with a tomato or a roll in his hand, kiss him on the mouth, tell him what he should and should not do, and leave him. His father, too, was somewhat busy looking for work and did not have as much free time as he wanted. The child would lie around on the doorstep of the house and lick at dirt or scrape plaster from the wall and eat it. Didn’t his mother feed him? But it is human nature to want what we don’t have, and it is not human nature to be satisfied with what we do have. Whenever I walked by, he would stretch his thin arms and hang on to me, and not let go until I took him in my arms and rocked him back and forth. Why was he attracted to me? I certainly was not attracted to him. I treat children as I treat their parents. If I like them I get closer to them; if I do not like them I keep my distance from them. Humanity has invented many lies, nor am I free of them, but of one thing I can boast: where children are concerned I never lie.