S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

On my way out I brushed past Mrs. Klingel’s three friends, and I believe I heard one saying to the other, “That was a strange joke of Mrs. Klingel’s.”

My wife trailed along behind me. From her silence it was obvious that she was distressed, not so much because I had shamed Mrs. Klingel but because I had fallen into a rage. But she was silent out of love, and said nothing at all.

So we walked on without uttering a word. We ran into three men. I knew one of them, but not the other two. The one I knew had been a Hebrew teacher, who had gone abroad and come back rich; now he spent his time stuffing the periodicals with his verbiage. These teachers, even if their pupils have grown up, still treat them as schoolmasters do and teach them things of no importance. But in one of his articles I had found a good thing, and now we had met I paid him a compliment. His face lit up and he presented me to his companions, one of whom had been a senator in Poland, while the other was the brother of one of Mrs. Klingel’s three friends — or perhaps I am mistaken and she has no brother.

I should have asked the distinguished visitors if they liked the city, and so forth, but my wife was tired from the journey and still distressed, and it was hard to stop. So I cut the conversation short and took my leave.

My wife had already gone off without waiting for me. I was not angry at her for not waiting. It is hard for a young woman to stand and show herself to people when she is sad and weary.

While I was walking, I put my hand in my pocket and took out an envelope or a letter, and stopped to read: “The main trial of Job was not that of Job, but of the Holy One, blessed be He, as it were, because He had handed over His servant Job to Satan’s power. That is, God’s trial was greater than Job’s: He had a perfect and upright man, and He placed him in the power of Satan.” After reading what I had written, I tore up the envelope and the letter, and scattered the pieces to the wind, as I usually do to every letter, sometimes before I read it and sometimes at the time of reading.

After I had done this, I said to myself: I must find my wife. My thoughts had distracted me and I had strayed from the road; I now found myself suddenly standing in a street where I had never been before. It was no different from all the other streets in the city, but I knew I had strayed to a place I did not know. By this time all the shops were locked up, and little lamps shone in the windows among all kinds of commodities. I saw that I had strayed far from home, and I knew I must go by a different road, but I did not know which. I looked at a stairway bounded on both sides by an iron fence and went up until I reached a flower shop. There I found a small group of men standing with their backs to the flowers, and Dr. Rischel standing among them, offering them his new ideas on grammar and language.

I greeted him and asked: “Which way to…” but before I could say the name of the street I started to stammer. I had not forgotten the name of the street, but I could not get the words out of my mouth.

It is easy to understand a man’s feelings when he is looking for the place where he lives but, when he is about to ask, cannot pronounce the name. However, I took heart and pretended I was joking. Suddenly I was covered in a cold sweat. What I wanted to conceal I was compelled to reveal. When I asked again where the street was, the same thing happened again.

Dr. Rischel stood there amazed: he was in the midst of expounding his new ideas, and I had come along and interrupted him. Meanwhile, his companions had gone away, looking at me mockingly as they left. I looked this way and that. I tried to remember the name of my street, but could not. Sometimes I thought the name of the street was Humboldt and sometimes that it was West Street. But as soon as I opened my mouth to ask I knew that its name was neither Humboldt nor West. I put my hand in my pocket, hoping to find a letter on which I would see my address. I found two letters I had not yet torn up, but one had been sent to my old home, which I had left, and another was addressed poste restante. I had received only one letter in this house where I was living, and I had torn it up a short time before. I started reciting aloud names of towns and villages, kings and nobles, sages and poets, trees and flowers, every kind of street name: perhaps I would remember the name of my street — but I could not recall it.

Dr. Rischel’s patience had worn out, and he started scraping the ground with his feet. I am in trouble and he wants to leave me, I said to myself. We are friends, we are human beings, aren’t we? How can you leave a man in such distress? Today my wife came back from a journey and I cannot reach her, for the trivial reason that I have forgotten where I live. “Get into a streetcar and come with me,” said Dr. Rischel. I wondered why he was giving me such unsuitable advice. He took me by the arm and got in with me.

I rode on against my will, wondering why Rischel had seen fit to drag me into this tramcar. Not only was it not bringing me home, but it was taking me further away from my own street. I remembered that I had seen Rischel in a dream wrestling with me. I jumped off the tramcar and left him.

When I jumped off the car I found myself standing by the post office. An idea came into my head: to ask for my address there. But my head replied: Be careful, the clerk may think you are crazy, for a sane man usually knows where he lives. So I asked a man I found there to ask the clerk.

In came a fat, well-dressed man, an insurance agent, rubbing his hands in pleasure and satisfaction, who buttonholed him and interrupted him with his talk. My blood boiled with indignation. “Have you no manners?” I said to him. “When two people are talking, what right have you to interrupt them?” I knew I was not behaving well, but I was in a temper and completely forgot my manners. The agent looked at me in surprise, as if saying: What have I done to you? Why should you insult me? I knew that if I was silent he would have the best of the argument, so I started shouting again, “I’ve got to go home, I’m looking for my house, I’ve forgotten the name of my street, and I don’t know how to get to my wife!” He began to snigger, and so did the others who had gathered at the sound of my voice. Meanwhile, the clerk had closed his window and gone away, without my knowing my address.

Opposite the post office stood a coffeehouse. There I saw Mr. Jacob Tzorev. Mr. Jacob Tzorev had been a banker in another city; I had known him before the war. When I went abroad, and he heard I was in difficulties, he had sent me money. Since paying the debt I had never written to him. I used to say: Any day now I will return to the Land of Israel and make it up with him. Meanwhile, twenty years had passed and we had not met. Now that I saw him I rushed into the coffeehouse and gripped both his arms from behind, clinging to them joyfully and calling him by name. He turned his head toward me but said nothing. I wondered why he was silent and showed me no sign of friendship. Didn’t he see how much I liked him, how much I loved him?

A young man whispered to me, “Father is blind.” I looked and saw that he was blind in both his eyes. It was hard for me not to rejoice in my friend, and hard to rejoice in him, for when I had left him and gone abroad there had been light in his eyes, but now they were blind.

I wanted to ask how he was, and how his wife was. But when I started to speak I spoke about my home. Two wrinkles appeared under his eyes, and it looked as if he were peeping out of them. Suddenly he groped with his hands, turned toward his son, and said, “This gentleman was my friend.” I nodded and said, “Yes, that’s right, I was your friend and I am your friend.” But neither his father’s words nor my own made any impression on the son, and he paid no attention to me. After a brief pause, Mr. Tzorev said to his son, “Go and help him find his home.”