S. Agnon - Shira

Now then, in this period, when Herbst was working out of doors, when he used to amble back and forth, strolling, pondering, thinking his thoughts, he ran into a friend, a fellow professor at the university who had just recovered from a serious illness. He was an epidemiologist, who used to travel everywhere to study the course of contagious diseases. When the unrest in the world was such that he could no longer travel, he stayed in Jerusalem and worked at home. Now I will reveal in a whisper what was whispered to me. One day, he wanted to study a particularly deadly tropical disease. But, in all of the Land of Israel, he couldn’t find anyone suffering from it. He exposed his own body to the disease and tried to cure himself with the drug he had invented. Great German doctors report in their memoirs that, when they were trying to fathom the secret of a disease and its cure, they would expose one of their patients to it. Not this Jerusalem scientist. He tested the disease and the cure personally, on his own body, and in so doing he almost died. Now that he was recovering, he often went out for walks. When Herbst first heard this story, tears rolled down his cheeks. One day, he spotted the doctor in the park at the end of Rashba Street, at the very edge of Rehavia. He and Herbst were not closely connected. One of them worked in the humanities; the other worked in science. But, since they worked in the same institution, they did know each other. When Herbst saw him, he bowed, kissed his hand, and went on his way.

Now I must get back to something I have already given too much time to, namely, the realm of thought. As long as I have no alternative way to get to the essence of the story, I can’t give it up. Herbst invested a lot of thought in the scientist who experimented on his own body. Even if we assume that he didn’t realize he was endangering his life, he surely knew that he would suffer extreme agony by infecting himself with the disease. He inflicted it on himself in the interest of science and for the sake of those afflicted with the disease. These observations led Herbst to ask himself: Would I do anything comparable? Who, in my field, would willingly risk his life to advance knowledge? Julian Weltfremdt calls our type of scholarship “coffee-and-cake scholarship.” What that nihilist means to say is: The person we call a professor sits around with a coffee cup in his hand, his mouth filled with cake, an open book before him. He drinks the coffee, chews the cake, and reads the book, deciding what to copy and put in his note box for the book he is writing. Because of his wrinkled soul, because of his need to deprecate himself and his profession, Herbst forgot about all the true scholars, even Neu, whose entire lives are devoted, truly devoted, to their work. If need be, they would no doubt take risks in order to achieve their end — their sole end being true scholarship. Herbst suddenly remembered something Gamzu had told him, and he began to quake. When he heard the story, he didn’t make anything of it, but, remembering it, his entire body began to quake.

I don’t know if this story is based on reality or if it stems from the imagination. If it stems from the imagination, it seems to me that it evolved from a real event: some number of years back, a young immigrant from Germany called on Herbst, bringing letters from Herbst’s friends, in which they praised this young man and described him as a gifted person with a promising future. Herbst took an interest in him and invited him to come again. He came once, but that was all. If these had been ordinary times, if Herbst hadn’t been busy with so many things, he would surely have noted his absence and asked after him. Since these were not ordinary times and Herbst was extremely busy, he forgot the young man. If he did remember him briefly, he soon forgot him for long periods. One day, while Herbst was walking along, thinking about the emperor Arcadius and the empress Eudoxia, he met Taglicht, who was in the company of this young man. Though he had matured in the interim, he was still essentially the same. Herbst asked how he was doing …*

This conversation, which was apparently meant to arouse Taglicht, was displeasing to him. I don’t know why Taglicht, who spent all of his time with the authors of books, renounced this role himself: whether it was because he preferred to read other people’s books that he didn’t create one himself, or whether it was laziness — the legacy of rabbinical forebears who had others write books in their name — that discouraged him from setting down his own words in a book. Although he didn’t write books, he didn’t refrain from editing them. He used to rewrite lectures for various professors. Even famous authors asked him to correct their work. Since he read a lot, studied a lot, and had good judgment, these books may have gained more from his efforts than from those of their authors. He earned a meager livelihood, but, by doing without many luxuries, he could meet all his needs. And, since he didn’t have it in mind to marry, he made no attempt to find other work. I said earlier that he came because of Tamara. As a matter of fact, it was by chance that Tamara met him when she was getting off the bus with her friend at the Egged bus station and invited him to come with them, which he did.

We won’t dwell on Taglicht and Tamara. Novelists allow Amnon to die a thousand deaths before he marries Tamar, linking one thing to another, and another, and still another. Which takes a lot of time. And, because I am occupied with another matter — with Manfred Herbst and Shira the nurse — I will say no more about Taglicht and Tamara, and get back to Manfred Herbst and Shira the nurse. I will show you Manfred Herbst. I won’t show you Shira, whose tracks have not been uncovered, whose whereabouts remain unknown.

* See p. 759, “Another Version.”

[This chapter was meant to follow Book II Chapter 5, as is evident from the beginning of Chapter 6. While this segment, based on archival material, was included by Agnon’s daughter, Emuna Yaron, in the second posthumous edition of the novel, it had, in fact, been left out by Agnon himself. It is presented here for the first time in English translation. The chapter is high farce and a bitter skewering of the pompous academic, Professor Bachlam, and one senses that Agnon set it aside because he knew that he had gone over the top in the satire. Bachlam was widely considered to have been based on Prof. Joseph Klausner (1874–1958), a Lithuanian-born Hebrew University professor, chief editor of the Hebrew Encyclopedia, and losing candidate in the first election for President of Israel. Agnon and Klausner were neighbors in Jerusalem’s Talpiot suburb, and had a famously chilly relationship, as documented by Klausner’s nephew, novelist Amos Oz, in his memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness, chapters 6 and 11.]

The visit with Professor Bachlam went well. He opened the door with a cold greeting, nor was he particularly cordial toward Mrs. Herbst. And quite right that he should offer a cold greeting, for Herbst had never praised a single one of Bachlam’s books — and he’d authored over sixty books, and each and every one deserved sixtyfold measures of praise. And besides, Herbst was unliked by him, like all the other academics who were unliked by Bachlam. Some were unliked for one reason, and others for some other reason, but of all these reasons the bottom line was the unspoken praise they should have showered on him instead of remaining silent.

He began discussing the day’s news as broadcast on the radio, and criticized the lead story in Ha’aretz , which was written in ink, not blood, like all the other articles, which don’t contain even the tiniest drop of blood. After that he mentioned the lecture of a visiting professor, who had acquired quite a reputation in the scholarly world, despite never having innovated a thing. If one were to find something noteworthy in any of his books it would be that he hadn’t mentioned that this had already been mentioned by Professor Bachlam in this or that book. Having mentioned his own books, Bachlam began listing them one by one, and their various editions in multiple translations, some having been translated into the same language by two different publishers. Even though the world’s greatest professors have already declared that Professor Bachlam’s insights are unparalleled among those of other scholars, here the world spins on with nary a mention, save for two or three lines about his newest book. But he pays no attention to such things, for these things don’t interest him, and he has no spare time to dwell on such matters, for he is busy with his next great, seven-hundred page book, to say nothing of the footnotes and indices which will take up many printer’s galleys. He does all this on his own, with his own hands, despite his many illnesses and pains and anguishes — quite literally every bone in his body aches. But he overcomes his pains, just as he overcomes his adversaries, through his unnaturally great spiritual strength. Having mentioned his adversaries he began to disparage them. They work in Jewish studies, yet are ashamed to be known as Jews. So-and-so calls himself Ludwig, while another calls himself Wolfgang, this one Walter and that one Kilian. Oh, you scoundrels, shouldn’t your first patriotic duty be to go by Hebrew names? It’s the least you can do in the name of Jewish people! Mrs. Bachlam had a very nice non-Jewish name, yet exchanged it for a Hebrew one. I say to you, madam and sir, isn’t the nice Jewish name Hannah more suited for a Jewish woman than the name Janette, which Mrs. Bachlam had at the start?