S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

The message of “Pisces” is inescapably pessimistic. Literally, with every pun intended, big fish eat little fish, and man’s sensual appetites do not exempt him from this grim journey toward death. There is one exception in the story, however; this is the figure of the poor orphan Bezalel Moshe, whom Fishl orders to carry the fish home to his wife to be prepared for cooking. Bezalel Moshe, whose name recalls the master biblical craftsman of the desert tabernacle in Exodus, is a true hunger artist who subsists by drawing plaques (mizrahim) for the eastern wall of the synagogue and other small jobs of folk illustration. His stock-in-trade includes the astrological signs for the months, including the wreathed fishes of Pisces, the sign for the carnival month of Adar. His figures, however, are stylized and unconvincing because he has only had faded old books to copy from. Contemplating the glorious specimen Fishl has put in his hands, Bezalel Moshe is transformed as he experiences the vital original that stands behind the pallid model. Long after Fishl and the fish have passed from this world, the vitality of Bezalel Moshe’s experience continues to energize and enrich his art.

When was our city founded, and who was its founder? Long have all the chroniclers labored to find this out in vain. But some few facts have been revealed to us, and I am herewith setting down a faithful record of all I know.

There once was a band of Jews who were moved by their own pure hearts to go up to the Land of Israel, together with their wives and their sons and their daughters. They sold their fields, their vineyards, their male and female servants, their houses, and all of their movable chattels that could not be transported. They obtained the governor’s permission to leave their city. They purchased provisions and set forth on the road.

They did not know the road to the Land of Israel, nor did anyone they met along the way know where the Land of Israel was. They only knew that it was in the east; so they turned their faces eastward, and that was the way they went. Whoever had a mount to ride rode his mount; whoever had no mount went by foot, leaning on his staff.

They passed by many towns and villages and castles and Jewish settlements and long stretches of forest and places inhabited by packs of wild animals and bandits. But since the Lord loves to see His children in His home, He made the Gentiles look upon them favorably, so that they let them pass unharmed. Even the brigands who lie in wait for wayfarers and ambush passersby and seize their lives and goods did them no harm; they were content with tribute in the form of money or a silver goblet or a ring or such jewelry as the pilgrims gave them.

They set out toward the end of April, when the highways are merry and the fields and vineyards full of people, but as they proceeded, people became scarce, vineyards and fields vanished, and all the roads led through forests that never seemed to end, with birds and beasts and kine. If they came upon a person, he would not know their language or they his. Even had they had understood his tongue, the Gentiles in those lands could not show them the way, for they were ignorant; they had no idea of any town or province other than their birthplace, certainly not of the Land of Israel. If anybody there had heard of it, he thought it must be in the skies.

In this way they passed the summer and reached the end of August. They made a halt and set up camp for the month of holidays: New Year, Atonement, and Sukkot.

They made their camp in a place of forests and rivers, with no sign of habitation for several days’ march in any direction, and they fashioned booths from the forest’s trees. They celebrated the Days of Awe in prayer and supplication, and the Days of Joy in feasting and delight, trusting in the faithful mercy of God that in the year to come they would observe these days before Him in the holy city of Jerusalem. For the rites of Sukkot, they used the old palm branches, citrons, and myrtles that they had brought with them upon setting out; the fourth species, willows, they gathered new each day of the festival. These willows were the best that they had ever seen, for the place where they had made their camp was thoroughly damp, with many rivers, ponds, and streams.

In those regions, as in most of the lands of the Slavs, winter comes on early. They were already suffering from the cold when they arrived, but particularly so during Sukkot, when they could hardly observe the ritual of dwelling in booths. At the holiday’s end, when they ought to have set forth, the snow began to fall, fitfully at first, and then nonstop, until the roads were blotted out and they could not distinguish land from water or tell where it was solid and where it was river or pond. Like it or not, the pilgrims had to linger in their camp.

They brought wood from the forest and fixed up their booths into something more like cabins, and in them they set up various kinds of ovens for cooking their meals and for keeping themselves warm during the cold season. Out of the bark of trees they made themselves shoes, for their leather shoes were all tattered from their march. They also made new staves and waited for the time when the Lord would restore the sun’s strength and the roads would be clear of snow and they could set forth again. Huddled they sat in their booths in the snow, snug and secure from storm winds and bears and other wild beasts that would come alone or in packs right up to their doors and let out their awesome roar.

One day, when they were sitting as usual in their booths, some reading the Psalms, others doing their work, one of them cocked his head, perked up his ears, and said, “I think I hear a trumpet’s call.” Another said, “No, it is the sound of horses.” A third said, “No, it is the sound of people.”

So they sat arguing about the sounds so suddenly heard in the forest. At length they all yielded: the one who had called it the sound of a trumpet agreed that it was the sound of a dog, and the one who had called it the sound of a dog agreed that it was the sound of people. At last they realized that there were actually three different sounds: the sound of a trumpet, the sound of a dog, and the sound of people. Then they found themselves surrounded by strange people who seemed to them like animals, with huge and fearsome dogs at their heels and great trumpets at their lips. But these people had not come to them with evil intent but only to hunt animals. They were great and distinguished noblemen, and it is the way of noblemen to go to the forests to hunt game.

One of the noblemen asked them in Latin, “Who are you and what are you doing here?” They told him their whole story, how they had purposed to go up to the Holy Land and had been overtaken by winter and had made camp there until the winter should be over and the cold should pass. The noblemen began to ask them what they had seen along the way and what was the news of the day and who were the rulers that governed those lands, and the pilgrims answered all their questions in such detail that the noblemen were struck by their cleverness and eloquence. So enchanted were they that they forgot the game and gave up the hunt and began to urge them to come with them and to live with them, arguing that winter is very hard in that land, that many people fall sick from the great cold, that not everyone is built to bear it, and that these Rhinelanders would certainly never survive a winter in the forest. The pilgrims saw that the noblemen’s counsel was right. They agreed to go and live with them until the end of the winter season; then, with winter gone and the snow cleared, they would reassemble and set out on the road again. Each nobleman took with him an individual or a family and brought them home, treating them with every courtesy. The pilgrims stayed with the noblemen throughout the winter.