S. Agnon - Shira

Iwill add several words on this subject. Manfred Herbst didn’t tell his wife about the young woman he met at Ernst Weltfremdt’s when she and her mother came to congratulate Weltfremdt on becoming a professor. Though it was Manfred’s custom to tell Henrietta everything, he didn’t breathe a word about Lisbet Neu, though he knew that if he were to say anything to her, she would make nothing of it. Henrietta doesn’t follow every turn of Manfred’s eye, especially when the young woman in question is the relative of an eminent professor, and Henrietta had surely noted, when she came with her uncle, that she wasn’t one of those meddling spinsters who pursue other women’s husbands.

I will clarify something that needs to be clarified. When Lisbet Neu told Dr. Herbst that she and her uncle had been in his house but hadn’t found him in, he expressed regret at having been denied the privilege of receiving his eminent professor in his home. Though Herbst didn’t see him, Henrietta did, and she surely told him so. Still, his words suggested that he hadn’t heard about the visit at all. In fact, Henrietta did tell him, and Professor Neu told him too, before leaving the country, so that what Herbst told Lisbet Neu was mere rhetoric.

Let us linger awhile with Henrietta. At about this time, she had begun to age rapidly. Wrinkles appeared on her face, and, though it is common for blondes to age before their time in this country, in her case it was due less to climate than to stress. Her relatives in Germany were in great distress, so her mind was totally fixed on getting them out of there and into the Land of Israel. Her concerns were imprinted on her face in the form of wrinkles, which, unlike others her age, she did nothing to conceal, making no attempt to improve herself for her husband. At night, when a woman is unencumbered by household tasks and can give her mind free rein, she would be scheming: what to do next, and how. And what she decided by night she acted on by day, running to the Jewish Agency, to lawyers, to the immigration office, from there to brokers, agents, advisers who, though they were not evil, behaved unscrupulously. When evil pervades the world, even those who are not evil behave in an evil fashion. Henrietta took all this on, sparing her husband the runaround and abuse so many of our people were subjected to in those days by English officials, Arabs, and those Jewish officials who allied themselves with all the others and were more cruel than the Gentiles. Since Manfred was spared these troubles, the One who was created only to make trouble came and troubled him, saying: Take a look at yourself and you’ll see — if you’re not young, you’re not old either. Though you and Henrietta are equal in years, there is a difference between man and woman. She is already aging, but you still have your youthful vigor. In such matters, one tends to accept idle talk as ultimate truth. This was true even for Manfred Herbst, the renowned scholar, the author of a six-hundred-page tome on the artifacts in the Byzantine church of Santa Sophia at the time of Leo iii, a work praised by most scholars, who found nothing to delete or add, beyond two or three questions which, according to other scholars, had to be studied further in order to determine whether the small beakers actually existed in Leo’s time or were introduced later. This same Manfred Herbst began to say: I’d better take over before old age overtakes me. How? Through the company of attractive young women. As long as Henrietta was young, while the girls were small and the house was in good order, he sat with his books, collecting material for an essay on burial customs of the poor in Byzantium, without giving a thought to finding companionship away from home. Now that Henrietta was aging, the girls were grown, and he was less confident about finishing his paper, he was drawn to follow his roving eye. But his eyes were slow to find what his heart was after. Then he made the acquaintance of Lisbet Neu. Though he realized she was not the girl he was seeking, his loftiest thoughts were of her. Were it my tendency to analyze, I would suggest that deep in his heart he was displeased with the winds that disperse illicit fantasies.

One day Manfred Herbst came out of the French Library on Ben Yehuda Street, carrying new novels from Paris. Some scholars boast of not having read a poem, story, novel, or anything else outside of their field since their schooldays. Others, when they wish to read for pleasure, choose a detective story and read it discreetly, so as not to be seen. Herbst read a great deal of poetry, as well as short stories and novels, and he was open about this. As he walked down the street, he treated himself to a taste of what he would soon be reading. Suddenly he felt a rush of warmth, a flash of radiance. Even before he could identify the source of the warmth and radiance, Lisbet Neu came toward him. She looked up, her black eyes flashing. Herbst forgot that he had told himself he had nothing to say to her and forgot that he had told himself that, should he talk to her, he had best be brief, as they were barely acquainted. By some miracle, it was she who began speaking. She said, “Please, Dr. Herbst, could you possibly give me a bit of your time? It won’t take long. I need some advice.” His heart was stirred by her voice, even more so by her eyes: the look of concern — had she overstepped? Perhaps she had asked too much…. Herbst hugged the novels he was holding and said, “Wherever you choose, I’ll be there. Anytime.” Lisbet was bewildered. This was beyond what she had in mind, though the consultation did, in fact, require a time and place. She braced herself and said, “If it’s all right with you, I’ll be at the Café Zichel tomorrow at six.” When Herbst repeated her words so he wouldn’t forget them, a note of furtive joy rang in every syllable he uttered. He was breathless, like someone anticipating joy but unable to wait for it. She soon took leave of him and was on her way.

Herbst didn’t watch her go, but in his mind he followed her footsteps as she made her way among passersby, unaware of the company they were in and that her every step was putting distance between them. All of a sudden he remembered something he did not want to miss. He turned to look after her. She was already far away, so that he could barely make out the fringe of her hat, blown by the evening breeze like a curtain designed to shut out the street.

I am skipping an entire day, which was in no hurry to pass — the day between meeting and meeting — but let’s see what followed. This sort of thing, O ye who seek novelty, is already common and recurs every day, at any time, at any hour: a married man, father of two daughters, lecturer at a university, arranges to meet a twenty-four-year-old woman of good family in a café. I will nonetheless recount it as if it were news, from beginning to end: how he waited for her, how he went into the café with her, sat with her, what he said to her, and all that ensued.

About an hour before the appointed time, Herbst stole away from home, since he had no way of knowing what his wife might ask of him, nor could anyone know who might suddenly appear at his door and how long it would be necessary to tarry, since a friend could drop in without calling ahead, and Herbst would not be free until the friend was ready to go. For these reasons, Herbst left home an hour before the appointed time.

When he got to Ben Yehuda Street, Herbst crossed from sidewalk to sidewalk, from the side the Café Zichel was on to the opposite side, then the reverse, afraid someone would engage him, for it is the custom in this land that, if you run into a friend and you are not busy, you attach yourself to him, whether or not you have something to say. One can imagine Herbst’s concern. Still, except for the cigarettes he took out and lit, one after the other, nothing engaged him. Between cigarettes, he consulted his watch, which did not alter its time, like an hourglass in which the grains of sand will not move until it is time, however much one taps it. When the appointed hour arrived and Lisbet Neu was not there, Herbst began to review every word he had said the previous day. He had, perhaps, said something inappropriate that turned her against him. Reviewing the entire conversation and weighing each word, he found no flaw, so his mind was at rest, but not his feet. He went into the café to see if she was there. Pressed between the crowded tables, he searched every corner without finding Lisbet Neu. As he didn’t find her, he left.