S. Agnon - Two Tales - Betrothed & Edo and Enam

Now my thoughts turned to my wife and children, who were staying in the country. Away from the city, they would certainly be asleep by now, for village people go to bed early. I too should be asleep were it not for Gamzu. As for Gamzu, wasn’t it strange that he had come here? What would he have done if he had not found me? I reached out and tilted the lamp over to the other side. The moon came and shone straight into the room. My eyelids closed involuntarily, my head began to nod. With an effort I looked up to see if Gamzu had noticed that I was falling asleep. I saw that his fist was clenched and laid against his lips. Saying nothing, I thought: Why should he have put his hand over his lips? If he wants to hint that I am not to speak, I am not speaking anyhow. From so much thinking my head grew heavy; my eyelids were heavy too. My head sank down on my breast; the lids closed over my eyes.

Both my eyes were closed, craving a little sleep. But my ears were not ready for sleep, because of the sound of bare feet on the stone floor of the nearby room. I bent my ear and heard a voice singing, “Yiddal, yiddal, yiddal, vah, pah, mah; yid-dal, yiddal, yiddal, vah, pah, mah.” I am back in my dream again, I thought. The moon shone straight upon my eyes. I said to the moon, “I know you. You are the one, aren’t you, whose face was on the picture postcard.” Again the voice sang, “Yiddal, yiddal, yiddal, vah, pah, mah.” The moon lit up the voice, and within the voice was the likeness of a woman. If that is so, I said to myself, then Greifenbach spoke the truth when he said that Ginat had created a girl for himself. But this pain in my fingers, where has it come from all of a sudden?

I opened my eyes and saw Gamzu standing beside me pressing my hand. Taking my hand out of his, I looked at him in amazement. Gamzu sat down again. He closed his live eye and let it set in sleep, but his dead eye began to burn. Why did he squeeze my fingers, I wondered. Because he wanted me to listen to the song. So there really was a song, a song in waking and not only in dream. What song, then? It was a woman’s, and she was beating time with her feet. I laughed inwardly at my having been ready to think of her as a girl created by the imagination. And to rid myself of all doubt, I made up my mind to ask Gamzu what he thought. Gamzu had closed his dead eye together with his live eye, and his face wore a smile of delight, like that of a young man who hears his true love speaking. It was hard to break in upon his rapture. I lowered my eyes and sat in silence.

There was the sound again, no longer the sound of singing now, but of spoken words. In what language? In a tongue that was unlike those we know. I wanted to ask Gamzu about it. I opened my eyes and saw that his chair was vacant. I looked all around but could not see him. I stood up and went from room to room without finding him, and came back and sat down again. About ten minutes passed, but he did not return. I began to feel anxious lest something had happened to him. Getting up from my chair, I went out into the hall. Gamzu was not to be found. I shall wait for him in my room, I thought. Before I could manage to return, I entered a room which had been built as a sukkah for the festival and was now serving as an anteroom to that of Ginat. I looked around me, and saw Gamzu standing behind the door; I wondered what on earth he was doing there. The palm of a hand reached out and touched the door. Before I could decide whether what I saw was really seen or not, the door opened half way and the light in the room shone out brightly. It drew me and I looked inside.

Moonlight filled the room, and in the room stood a young woman wrapped in white, her feet bare, her hair disheveled, her eyes closed. And a young man sat at the table by the window and wrote in ink on paper all that she spoke. I did not comprehend one word of her speech, and I doubt if there is any man in the world who could understand a language mysterious as this. Still the woman spoke and the pen wrote. And this was clear, that the man writing down the woman’s words was Ginat. When had he returned, when had he gone to his room? He must have come back while Gamzu and I were sitting in Greifenbach’s room, and the woman must have gotten in through the window. That was why I had heard a window being opened and the sound of bare feet. With all the things I was seeing in quick succession I forgot Gamzu, and did not notice that he was standing beside me. But then Gamzu — yes, Gamzu! — did a strange thing. He forgot all manners and proprieties. He flung himself into the room and twined his arms around the woman’s waist. This chaste man, who had devoted his entire being to his wife, burst into a strange room and embraced a strange woman.

And now things began to get confused, and I am surprised that I can remember their sequence. These events all happened in a short time, yet how long it seemed. I stood with Gamzu facing the room of Ginat, and the door was half open. I peeped into the room, which was lit up by the moon. The moon had shrunk in order to get inside, but once in, she proceeded to expand until the whole room and its contents were visible. I saw a woman standing there, and a young man seated before the table writing. Gamzu suddenly rushed in and clasped the woman’s waist with his arms. The woman drew back her head from him, and still in his embrace, cried out, “ Hakham !” Her voice was that of a maiden whose love has fully ripened.

The young man answered, “Go, Gemulah, follow your husband.”

Gemulah said, “After all the years that I have waited for you! Now you say, ‘Go, Gemulah.’”

“He is your husband,” the young man said.

“And you, Hakham Gideon,” said Gemulah, “what are you to me?”

“I am nothing.”

Gemulah laughed. “So you are nothing! You are a good man, you are a lovely man, in all the world there is no man so good and so lovely as you. Let me stay with you, and I shall sing you the song of the bird Grofit, which she sings only once in her lifetime.”

“Sing,” said the young man.

Gemulah said, “I shall sing the song of Grofit, and then we shall die. Gabriel, when Hakham Gideon and I are dead, dig us two graves side by side. Do you promise you will do that?”

Gamzu put his hand over her mouth and held on with all his might. She struggled to escape from his arms, but he held her tight and shouted to Ginat, “Do you know what you are? A sinner in Israel, that’s what you are! You are not even afraid to steal another man’s wife!”

“Don’t listen to him, Hakham Gideon,” cried Gemulah. “I am not any man’s wife. Ask him, has he ever seen my naked body?”

Gamzu let out a long and bitter sigh. “You are my wife,” he said, “my wife, my wife! You are consecrated to me by the law of Moses and of Israel.”

The young man said, “Go, Gemulah, go with your husband.”

“So you reject me,” said Gemulah.

“I do not reject you, Gemulah,” said the young man, “I only tell you what you must do.”

With that, her strength left her, and were it not that Gamzu still held her she would have fallen. And once Gamzu had grasped her, he did not let go of her until he took her up in his arms and went away, while Ginat and I looked on.

VII

The moon went her way, completing her journey of thirty days. Thirty days had now passed since Gamzu took his wife back from the house of Ginat, and all this time I saw neither Ginat nor Gamzu. I did not see Gamzu because he did not come to my home, and I am not in the habit of going to his; as for Ginat, he went away immediately after that affair. I came across him once in an Arab coffeehouse, with Amram, the son of the Samaritan high priest. Since nothing came of it, I shall not dwell on it. Once again I found him in Giv’at Shaul, at the parchment workshop belonging to Hakham Gvilan and Hakham Gagin. Again, nothing came of it, and I shall not dwell on it.