by Elie Wiesel
“This is the first time—” His voice trailed off, and then, as if remembering that he had left the sentence suspended he picked it up: “the first time I’ve seen an execution.”
My father and mother were there too, and the grizzled master, and Yerachmiel. Their silence stared at me.
David stiffened and began to sing the Hatikva.
John Dawson smiled, with his head against the wall and his body as erect as if he were saluting a general.
“Why are you smiling?” I asked.
“You must never ask a man who is looking at you the reason for his smile,” said the beggar.
“I’m smiling,” said John Dawson, “because all of a sudden it has occurred to me that I don’t know why I am dying.” And after a moment of silence he added: “Do you?”
“You see?” said the beggar. “I told you that was no question to ask a man who is about to die.”
Twenty seconds. This minute was more than sixty seconds long.
“Don’t smile,” I said to John Dawson. What I meant was: “I can’t shoot a man who is smiling.”
Ten seconds.
“I want to tell you a story,” he said, “a funny story.”
I raised my right arm.
Five seconds.
“Elisha—”
Two seconds. He was still smiling.
“Too bad,” said the little boy. “I’d like to have heard his story.”
One second.
“Elisha—” said the hostage.
I fired. When he pronounced my name he was already dead; the bullet had gone through his heart. A dead man, whose lips were still warm, had pronounced my name: Elisha.
He sank very slowly to the ground, as if he had slipped from the top of the wall. His body remained in a sitting position, with the head bowed down between the knees, as if he were still waiting to be killed. I stayed for a few moments beside him. There was a pain in my head and my body was growing heavy. The shot had left me deaf and dumb. That’s it, I said to myself. It’s done. I’ve killed. I’ve killed Elisha.
The ghosts began to leave the cell, taking John Dawson with them. The little boy walked at his side as if to guide him. I seemed to hear my mother say: “Poor boy! Poor boy!”
Then with heavy footsteps I walked up the stairs leading to the kitchen. I walked into the room, but it was not the same. The ghosts were gone. Joab was no longer yawning. Gideon was looking down at his nails and praying for the repose of the dead. Ilana lifted a sad countenance upon me; Gad lit a cigarette. They were silent, but their silence was different from the silence which all night long had weighed upon mine. On the horizon the sun was rising.
I went to the window. The city was still asleep. Somewhere a child woke up and began to cry. I wished that a dog would bark, but there was no dog anywhere nearby.
The night lifted, leaving behind it a grayish light the color of stagnant water. Soon there was only a tattered fragment of darkness, hanging in midair, the other side of the window. Fear caught my throat. The tattered fragment of darkness had a face. Looking at it, I understood the reason for my fear. The face was my own.
Also by Elie Wiesel
NIGHT
DAY (previously THE ACCIDENT)
THE TOWN BEYOND THE WALL
THE GATES OF THE FOREST
THE JEWS OF SILENCE
LEGENDS OF OUR TIME
A BEGGAR IN JERUSALEM
ONE GENERATION AFTER
SOULS ON FIRE
THE OATH
ANI MAAMIN (cantata)
ZALMEN, OR THE MADNESS OF GOD (play)
MESSENGERS OF GOD
A JEW TODAY
FOUR HASIDIC MASTERS
THE TRIAL OF GOD (play)
THE TESTAMENT
FIVE BIBLICAL PORTRAITS
SOMEWHERE A MASTER
THE GOLEM (illustrated by Mark Podwal)
THE FIFTH SON
AGAINST SILENCE (edited by Irving Abrahamson)
THE OSLO ADDRESS
TWILIGHT
THE SIX DAYS OF DESTRUCTION (with Albert Friedlander)
A JOURNEY INTO FAITH (conversations with John Cardinal O’Connor)
A SONG FOR HOPE (cantata)
FROM THE KINGDOM OF MEMORY
SAGES AND DREAMERS
THE FORGOTTEN
A PASSOVER HAGGADAH (illustrated by Mark Podwal)
ALL RIVERS RUN TO THE SEA
MEMOIR IN TWO VOICES (with François Mitterand)
KING SOLOMON AND HIS MAGIC RING (illustrated by Mark Podwal)
AND THE SEA IS NEVER FULL
THE JUDGES
CONVERSATIONS WITH ELIE WIESEL (with Richard D. Heffner)
WISE MEN AND THEIR TALES
THE TIME OF THE UPROOTED
Hill and Wang
A division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 1961, 2006 by Elie Wiesel
Translation copyright renewed © 1989 by Elie Wiesel
Preface copyright © 2006 by Elie Wiesel
All rights reserved
Distributed in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.
Originally published in 1960 by Éditions du Seuil, France, as L’Aube
English translation originally published in 1961 in the United States by Hill and Wang
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wiesel, Elie, 1928–
[Aube. English]
Dawn / Elie Wiesel; translated from the French by Frances Frenaye.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-2116-3
I. Frenaye, Frances, 1912–II. Title.
PQ2683.I32A913 2006
843’.914—dc22
2006041063
www.fsgbooks.com