by S. Y. Agnon
She sighed again and replied: Yes, I am ill as ill can be. In the whole world there is no one so ill as I am. All the same, I am not deserted. Even here in Jerusalem, where nobody knows me, and nobody knows the honors done to me in my own town, even here there is one woman who waits on me, who comes to my room and fetches a drop of soup for my bedridden meal. What do you hear from my grandson? No doubt he is angry with me, because I have not written to thank him for the stove. Now I ask you, how shall I go out to buy ink and pen and paper for the writing of letters? It is hard enough even to bring a spoonful of soup to my lips. I am surprised that Tilli has not come.
If you are speaking, said I, of that gracious old woman who brought me here, she told me that she would come very soon.
Said the rabbanit, I cannot tell whether she is gracious: at least she is efficacious. Look you, how many holy, holy women there are about Jerusalem, who go buzzing like bees with their incantations and supplications, yet not one of them has come to me and said, “Rabbanit, do you need any help?”—My head, oh my head. If the pains in my heart won’t take me off, the pains in my head will take me off first.
I said to her, I can see that speech is difficult for you.
She answered: You say that speech is difficult for me; and I say that my whole existence is difficult for me. Even the cat knows this, and keeps away from his home. Yet people say that cats are home-loving creatures. He finds my neighbors’ mice more tasty, to be sure, than all the dainties I feed him. What was I meaning to say? I forget all I mean to say. Now Tilli is so different. There she goes, with the bundles of years heaped up on her shoulders, bundle on bundle; yet all her wits serve her, although she must be twice my age. If my father—God bless his pious memory—were alive today, he would be thought of as a child beside her.
I urged the rabbanit to tell me about this Tilli.
And did you not mention her yourself? Nowadays people don’t know Tilli; but there was a time when everyone did, for then she was a great, rich woman with all kinds of business concerns. And when she gave up all these and came to Jerusalem, she brought along with her I can’t say how many barrels of gold, or if not barrels, there is no doubt that she brought a chest full of gold. My neighbors remember their mothers telling them, how, when Tilli came to Jerusalem, all the best people here came a-courting, either for themselves or for their sons. But she sent them packing and stayed a widow. At first she was a very wealthy widow, and then quite a well-to-do widow, until at last she became just any old woman.
Judging from Tilli’s appearance, said I, one would think that she had never seen hard times in her life.
The rabbanit replied with scorn: You say that she has never seen hard times in her life: and I say that she has never seen good times in her life. There is no enemy of mine whom I would “bless” with the afflictions that Tilli has borne. You suppose that, because she is not reduced to living off the public funds, she has enjoyed a happy life: and I believe that there is not a beggar knocking on the doors who would exchange his sorrows for hers.—Oh, my aches and my pains! I try to forget them, but they will not forget me.
I perceived that the rabbanit knew more than she cared to disclose. Since I felt that no good would come of further questioning, I showed myself ready to leave by rising from my chair.
Said the rabbanit: “The sweep hadn’t stepped into the chimney, but his face was already black.” You have scarcely sat down in your chair, and already you are up and away. Why all this haste?
I said: If you wish me to stay, I will stay. She made no answer; so I began speaking of Tilli again, and asked if I might be told her story.
And if I tell you, said the rabbanit, will it benefit you, or benefit her? I have no liking for tale-bearers: they spin out their cobwebs, and call it fine tapestry. I will only say this, that the Lord did a mercy to that good man when He put the evil spirit into that apostate, may her name be blotted out. Why are you gaping at me? Don’t you understand the meaning of simple Yiddish?
I understand Yiddish quite well, said I, but I cannot understand what you are talking about, rabbanit. Who is the good man, and who is the apostate you have cursed?
Perhaps I should bless her then, perhaps, I should say, “Well done, Mistress Apostate, you who have traded a gold coin for a brass farthing.” See, again you are staring at me as if I talked Turkish. You have heard that my husband of blessed memory was a rabbi, wherefore they call me rabbanit; and have you not heard that my father too was a rabbi? Such a rabbi, that in comparison with him, all other rabbis might rank as mere schoolboys: and I speak of real rabbis, look you, not of those who wear the mantle and give themselves airs.—What a world, what a world it is! A deceitful world, and all it contains is deceit and vanity.—But my father, of blessed and pious memory, was a rabbi from his childhood, and all the matchmakers in the province bustled about to find him a wife. Now there was a certain rich widow, and when I say rich, you know that I mean it. This widow had only one daughter—would she had never been born. She took a barrel full of gold coins, and said to the matchmakers: “If you match that man to my daughter, this barrel full of gold will be his; and if it is not sufficient, I shall add to it!” But her daughter was not a fit match for that holy man; for she was already tainted with the spirit of heresy, as is shown by her latter end, and she fled away from her home, and entered the house of the nuns, and deserted her faith. Yes, at the very hour when she was to be wed, she ran away. That poor stricken mother wasted half her fortune in efforts to reclaim her. Her appeal went up to the Emperor himself; and even the Emperor was powerless to help. For anyone who enters a nunnery can never leave. You know now who that apostate was? The daughter of … hush, here she comes.
Tilli entered the room. She was carrying a bowl of soup, and seeing me she said:
Ah, you are still here! But stay, my friend, stay. It is a great mitzva to visit the sick. Rabbanit, how much better you look! Truly salvation comes in the wink of an eye; for God is healing you every minute. I have brought a little soup to moisten your lips: now, my dear, raise your head and I shall prop up your pillow. There, my dear, that is right. My son, I am sorry that you do not live in the City, for then you would see for yourself how the rabbanit’s health is improving day by day.
And do I not live in Jerusalem? I said. Surely Nahalat Shiva is Jerusalem?
It is indeed, answered Tilli. God forbid that it should be otherwise. Rather may the day come when Jerusalem extends as far as Damascus, and in every direction. But the eye that has seen all Jerusalem enclosed within her walls cannot get accustomed to viewing what is built beyond the walls of the City itself. It is true that all the Land of Israel is holy, and I need hardly say, the surroundings of Jerusalem: yet the holiness that is within the walls of the City surpasses all else. My son, there is nothing I have said which you do not know better than I. Why then have I said it? Only that I might speak the praise of Jerusalem.
I could read in the eyes of the rabbanit a certain resentment, because Tilli was speaking to me rather than to her. So I took my leave and went away.
Various preoccupations kept me for a while from going to the City; and after that came the nuisance of the tourists. How well we know these tourists, who descend upon us and upon the land, all because the Holy One has made a little space for us here! They come, now, to see what has happened; and having come, they regard us as if we were created solely to serve them. Yet one good thing may be said for the tourists: in showing them “the sights,” we see them ourselves. Once or twice, having brought them to the City to show them the Western Wall, I met Tilli there. It seemed to me that a change had come over her. Although she had always walked without support, I noticed that she now leaned on a stick. On account of the visitors, I was unable to linger. For they had come to spy out the whole land, not to spend time upon an old woman not even mentioned in their itineraries.
When the tourists had left Jerusalem, I felt restless with myself. After trying without success to resume work, I bestirred myself and walke
d to the City, where I visited of my own accord all the places I had shown to the visitors. How can I describe what I saw? He who in His goodness daily renews the works of creation, perpetually renews His own City. New houses may not have been built, or new trees planted; yet Jerusalem herself is ever new. I cannot explain the secret of her infinite variety. We must wait, all of us, for those great sages who will one day enlighten us.
I came upon the man of learning whom you already know, and he drew me to his house, where he set before me all his recent findings. We sat together as long as we sat, while I asked questions, and he replied; or raised problems, which he resolved; or mentioned cloudy matters, which he made clear. How good it is, how satisfying, to sit at the feet of one of the scholars of Jerusalem, and to learn the Law from his lips! His home is simple, his furnishings austere, yet his wisdom ranges far, like the great hill ranges of Jerusalem which are seen from the windows. Bare are the hills of Jerusalem; no temples or palaces crown them. Since the time of our exile, nation after nation has come and laid them waste. But the hills spread their glory like banners to the sky; they are resplendent in ever-changing hues; and not least in glory is the Mount of Olives, which bears no forest of trees, but a forest of tombs of the righteous, who in life and in death gave their thoughts to the Land.
As I stood up to go, the mistress of the house entered and said to her husband, You have forgotten your promise. He was much perturbed at this, and said: Wonder of wonders; all the time I have known Tehilla she has never asked a favor. And now she wants me to say that she wishes to see you.
Are you speaking, said I, of Tilli, the old woman who showed me the way to your house? For it seems that you call her by another name.
Tehilla, he answered, is Tilli’s holy, Hebrew name. From this you may learn that, even four or five generations ago, our forbears would give their daughters names that sound as though they had been recently coined. For this reason my wife’s name is Tehiya, meaning Rebirth, which one might suppose to have been devised in our own age of rebirth. Yet in fact it belongs to the time of the great Rebbe Yitzhak Meir Alter, author of the Hiddushei HaRim, who instructed my wife’s great-grandfather to call his daughter Tehiya; and my wife is named after her.
I said: You speak now of the custom four or five generations ago. Can it be that this Tehilla is so old?
He smiled, saying: Her years are not written upon her face, and she is not in the habit of telling her age. We only know it because of what she once let slip. It happened that Tehilla came to congratulate us at the wedding of our son; and the blessing she gave to our son and his bride was that it might be granted for them to live to her age. My son asked, “What is this blessing with which you have blessed us?” And she answered him: “It is ninety years since I was eleven years old.” This happened three years ago; so that now her age is, as she might express it, ninety years and fourteen: that is to say, a hundred and four.
I asked him, since he was already speaking of her, to tell me what manner of woman she was. He answered:
What is there to say? She is a saint; yes, in the true meaning of the word. And if you have this opportunity of seeing her, you must take it. But I doubt if you will find her at home; for she is either visiting the sick, or bringing comforts to the poor, or doing some other unsolicited mitzva. Yet you may perhaps find her, for between mitzva and mitzva she goes home to knit garments or stockings for poor orphans. In the days when she was rich, she spent her wealth upon deeds of charity, and now that nothing is left her but a meager pittance to pay for her own slender needs, she does her charities in person.
The scholar accompanied me as far as Tehilla’s door. As we walked together he discoursed on his theories; but realizing that I was not attending to his words, he smiled and said, From the moment I spoke of Tehilla, no other thought has entered your mind.
I would beg to know more of her, I replied.
He said: I have already spoken of her as she is today. How she was before she came to our Land I do not know, beyond what everyone knows; that is to say, that she was a very wealthy woman, the owner of vast concerns, who gave up all when her sons and her husband died, and came here to Jerusalem. My late mother used to say, “When I see Tehilla, I know that there is a worse retribution than widowhood and the loss of sons.” What form of retribution this was, my mother never said; and neither I, nor anyone else alive, knows; for all that generation which knew Tehilla abroad is now dead, and Tehilla herself says but little. Even now, when she is beginning to change, and speaks more than she did, it is not of herself. We have come to her house; but it is unlikely that you will find her at home; for towards sunset she makes the round of the schoolrooms, distributing sweets to the younger children.
A few moments later I stood in the home of Tehilla. She was seated at the table, expecting me, so it seemed, with all her being. Her room was small, with the thick stone walls and arched ceiling that were universal in the Jerusalem of bygone days. Had it not been for the little bed in a corner, and a clay jar upon the table, I would have likened her room to a place of worship. Even its few ornaments—the hand-lamp of burnished bronze, and a copper pitcher, and a lamp of the same metal that hung from the ceiling—even these, together with the look of the table, on which were laid a prayer-book, a Bible, and some third book of study, gave to the room the grace and still calm of a house of prayer.
I bowed my head saying, Blessed be my hostess.
She answered: And blessed be my guest.
You live here, said I, like a princess.
Every daughter of Israel, she said, is a princess; and, praised be the living God, I too am a daughter of Israel. It is good that you have come. I asked to see you; and not only to see you, but to speak with you also. Would you consent to do me a favor?
“Even to the half of my kingdom,” I replied.
She said: It is right that you should speak of your kingdom; for every man of Israel is the son of kings, and his deeds are royal deeds. When a man of Israel does good to his neighbor, this is a royal deed. Sit down, my son: it makes conversation easier. Am I not intruding upon your time? You are a busy man, I am sure, and need the whole day for gaining your livelihood. Those times have gone when we had leisure enough and were glad to spend an hour in talk. Now everyone is in constant bustle and haste. People think that if they run fast enough it will speed the coming of Messiah. You see, my son, how I have become a chatterer. I have forgotten the advice of that old man who warned me not to waste words.
I was still waiting to learn the reason for her summons. But now as if she had indeed taken to heart the old man’s warning, she said nothing. After a while she glanced at me, and then looked away; then glanced at me again, as one might who is scrutinizing a messenger to decide whether he is worthy of trust. At last she began to tell me of the death of the rabbanit, who had passed away during the night, while her stove was burning, and her cat lay warming itself at the flame,—till the pall-bearers came, and carried her away, and someone unknown had taken the stove.
You see, my son, said Tehilla, a man performs a mitzva, and one mitzva begets another. Your deed was done for the sake of that poor woman, and now a second person is the gainer, who seeks to warm his bones against the cold. Again she looked me up and down; then she said: I am sure you are surprised that I have troubled you to come.
On the contrary, I said, I am pleased.
If you are pleased, so am I. But my pleasure is at finding a man who will do me a kindness; as for you, I do not know why you should be pleased.
For a moment she was silent. Then she said: I have heard that you are skilful at handling a pen—that you are, as they nowadays call it, a writer. So perhaps you will place your pen at my service for a short letter. For many years I have been wanting to write a letter. If you are willing, write for me this letter.
I took out my fountain-pen. She looked at it with interest, and said: You carry your pen about with you, like those who carry a spoon wherever they go, so that if they chance upon a meal—well, t
he spoon is ready at hand.
I replied: For my part, I carry the meal inside the spoon. And I explained to her the working of my fountain-pen.
She picked it up in her hand and objected: You say there is ink inside, but I cannot see one drop.
I explained the principle more fully, and she said: If it is so, they slander your generation in saying that its inventions are only for evil. See, they have invented a portable stove, and invented this new kind of pen: it may happen that they will yet invent more things for the good of mankind. True it is that the longer one lives, the more one sees. All the same, take this quill that I have myself made ready, and dip it in this ink. It is not that I question the usefulness of your pen; but I would have my letter written with my own. And here is a sheet of paper; it is crown-paper, which I have kept from days gone by, when they knew how good paper was made. Upwards of seventy years I have kept it by me, and still it is as good as new. One thing more I would ask of you: I want to write, not in the ordinary cursive hand, but in the square, capital letters of the prayer-book and the Torah scroll. I assume that a writer must at some time have transcribed, if not the Torah itself, at least the scroll of Esther that we read on Purim.
As a boy, I answered, I copied such a scroll exactly in the manner prescribed; and, believe this or not, everyone who saw that scroll praised it.
Said Tehilla, Although I have not seen it, I am sure you know how to write in a good straight script, without a single flaw. Now I shall make ready for you a glass of herb tea, while you proceed with your writing.
Please do not trouble, I said, for I have already taken something to drink.
If so, how shall I show hospitality? I know: I shall slice you a piece of sugar-loaf; then you can say a blessing, and I can add, Amen.
She gave me some of the sugar. Then, after a short silence, she said:
Take up the quill and write. I shall speak in Yiddish, but you will write in the holy tongue. I have heard that now they teach the girls both to write and to speak the holy Hebrew language: you see, my son, how the good Lord is constantly improving His world from age to age. When I was a child, this was not their way. But at least I understand my Hebrew prayer-book, and can read from the Bible, and the Psalms, and the Ethics of the Fathers.—Oh dear, oh dear, today I have not finished my day!