S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

Until done eating, never calling for a pause,

Ruthless, killing whatever swam into its way,

In secret and in public view, by its own laws.

Its dread voice withered the Dniester’s watery flora,

Earning it a blessing from everybody’s mouth.

For it saved the carp from Sodom and Gomorrah.

You know that carp are lazy fish and quite uncouth.

Hounding and hunting them without surcease, it saved

Them from death by indolence. Hardly lovable,

We might well say — as of those whose life’s path is paved

With splendid fortune — that all it lacked was trouble.

After traversing the Dniester and surveying its length and breadth, the fish wanted to see the rest of the waters and to know its relatives, for there is no river in Europe without members of this fish’s tribe. This is not a matter of merit or of blame but simply the way things work out, sometimes one way, sometimes another.

Thus, after surveying the Dniester, the fish betook itself to the place where the Strypa falls into the Dniester. It did not stop and return to the waters of the Dniester, but rather it said, “I shall go and see what there is in the Strypa.”

We cannot know whether this took place in the Strypa at the village of Khutzin or in the Strypa at the village of Kishilivitz. In any event, the fish did not remain there. For it coasted with its fins all the way to the Strypa of Buczacz, that is, Buczacz that sits upon the River Strypa.

It arrived at Buczacz and said, “Here I shall dwell, for this is my desire.” The other fish of the Strypa saw it and were alarmed. Never in their lives had they seen such a large fish. They erred in thinking that it came from the seed of Leviathan, from those who were born before the Holy One, blessed be He, castrated it and killed the female and salted it away for the righteous in the future. Some paid tribute to the fish and brought it presents. There were so many presents that the waters of the Strypa began to empty of fish. Though we are not dealing with history, this most likely transpired in 5423 or 5424, for in those years the fishermen raised the price of fish exorbitantly, and the whole city came to the head of the rabbinical court and asked him to ostracize anyone who bought fish until the fishermen lowered the price.

Thus the fish swam in the waters of the Strypa, and all the fish of the Strypa in Buczacz accepted its dominion over them and paid it ransom for their lives, one delivering its brother, another handing over its friend, and yet another, its relative.

With high hand did it rule in the Strypa’s waters,

Eating every fish, the parents, sons, and daughters,

Serene, consuming water folk, it put on flesh,

A delight to the eye, comely, speedy, and fresh.

Everyone scurried like slaves to do its bidding;

Before it knew, its will was done. So, from eating

And drinking in excess its will was lost.

The fish

Believed that everything they told it was his wish.

As its willpower faded, so increased its fame:

All the Strypa’s wisdom was spoken in its name.

The fish lived in the lap of luxury and lacked for nothing.

One day it rained. Although fish grow in water, they greet a drop that falls from above as thirstily as though they had never tasted water in their life. Our fish, too, floated up to snatch a drop.

After slaking its thirst from the upper water, which is the best water, for it irrigates and quenches and enriches the body and gives it purity, the fish lay contentedly with its fins relaxed, like a fish with a mind in repose.

At that moment those who sought its favor stood and pointed to it with their fins, swishing their scales. If I may transpose their gestures to human language, this is approximately what they said: “It sees what is between the upper and the lower waters, and apprehends the higher wisdom from which all other wisdom derives.”

5

A Day of Grief

People have a saying that it is good to fish in muddied waters. That day the water of all the rivers and streams and lakes was turbulent because of the rainwater, which drew with it tangled weeds, dirt, and mud puddles. All the fishermen went out and set traps in the great and small rivers, in the brooks, the ponds, and lakes, in the Weichsel and the Dniester rivers and in the Prut, the Bug, the San, and in the Donets and the Podhortsa and in the Strypa River, and in all the rivers of their countries and towns. In the Strypa at Buczacz, too, the fishermen let down their nets, even though at that time none of the Jews would leap to buy fish, except for one man. Since we have already mentioned him elsewhere, we shall not mention him again.

Thus a fisherman cast his net in the waters of the Strypa. Our fish had never seen a net of that kind, for in its home waters, that is, the Dniester, the fishermen’s nets are different from those in the Strypa. Every river follows its own custom.

The fish glided up toward the net and wondered: If this is a mountain, since when has a mountain grown up here? The fish had happened by there many times and had never seen a mountain. And if it is a reef, when was it brought here, and who made it full of holes? Or perhaps it is a kind of animal, and these holes are its eyes. If so, what is it, so full of eyes? Perish the thought that it might be the Angel of Death, whom everyone dreads. The fish, too, began to feel dread, and it raised one of its fins to flee. Once it saw that no one was in pursuit, it said, “Not even the Angel of Death wants to kill me.” Once its terror departed, the fish returned to find out who that creature was and what it was doing here.

It backwatered with one of its fins and began paddling toward the thing that seemed to it like a mountain, a reef, or a living creature. Not even in its imagination did the fish envision what it really was.

The other fish saw it running toward the net. Fear fell upon them, and they panicked, since of those who enter that net, none returns. They wanted to shout, “Stay away! Keep your distance from the snare!” Terror froze their tongues in their mouths. They did not lose their panic until it gave way to wonder: did the fish not know that was the evil snare in which fish are seized? But in their innocence some of them believed that the fish was such a great hero that even a snare was child’s play for it. They began to glory in its heroism and to scorn the snare, since they had a hero who was not frightened of the snare. They still called the net a snare, that is, a fishhook that is nothing more than a needle, an expression used by King Solomon, may he rest in peace, when he sought to portray human weakness, as he said: “For a man cannot know his time, as fish are enmeshed in an evil snare,” et cetera. While some fish were praising the fish’s heroism, others sought to warn it: “Pick up your fins and flee for your life, for if you draw close sudden disaster will befall you.” They held a council and agreed unanimously to get rid of it completely. They played dumb and told it nothing. Those who did not shut their mouth in great joy on seeing a murderer’s impending disaster embraced a language of flattery and lies, and told it things that in our tongue go approximately as follows: “Our lord, you are worthy to make yourself a greater palace than that, but this is a time of distress, for the people of Buczacz have forsworn all pleasure from fish, and they won’t even buy a fish for the Sabbath.” The fish was seduced into thinking that they had prepared a palace in its honor. It flashed its scales to them and opened its eyes as though to say, “Let us go and see.” Some of them began to be remorseful and reflective: “Alas, what have we done? It will see immediately that we wanted evil to befall it, and it will take its revenge upon us.” But the fish had already been fated to die. Its foolishness trapped it, and it entered the palace, that is, the net.