A Simple Story

by S. Y. Agnon

  Among those who came to the clubhouse for non-Zionist reasons was Hirshl. It was difficult to say why, when most of the sons of the better-off families in town were Zionists, Hirshl was not. Perhaps there was something about the movement and its followers that he disliked. Perhaps he had simply not thought the Jewish problem through to the end. Or perhaps he had and had concluded that Zionism was not the solution for it.

  In any case, Hirshl’s parents had nothing against his joining the Society for Zion. As long as it did not interfere with his work and he did his fair share in the store, what objection could there be to his dropping in on the clubhouse at night to look at a newspaper? He might as well know what was going on in the world. Certainly it wouldn’t make him any less eligible a bachelor. Suppose, God forbid, that he had been attracted to the socialists instead? A generation that could no longer control its own children had better keep its complaints to itself. More than one well-bred boy or girl of Hirshl’s age had already fallen in with wild-eyed radicals, leaving their parents with nothing to do but groan and beat their breasts.

  And so once or twice a week Hirshl dropped in on the Zionist clubhouse, where, between lighting a cigarette and chatting with his friends, he read the latest news, the political dispatches, and the literary and art pages. On Thursday nights, when the librarian unlocked the bookcase and lent out books, Hirshl would borrow three, one for serious and two for light reading. And on wintry Friday nights, when the Sabbath meal was over and his parents were asleep and three candles still burned on the dinner table, one for Boruch Meir and one for Tsirl and one for Hirshl himself, he would sit reading until he fell asleep too. Still another candle burned in Blume’s room, where she too was sitting up with one of Hirshl’s books. Blume liked books: they opened up worlds for her and reminded her of the distant days when she had sat with her father, might his soul rest in peace, reading aloud with him.

  Hayyim Nacht, Blume’s father, had married Mirl, who was supposed to have married her cousin Boruch Meir, who, blinded by Shimon Hirsh Klinger’s fortune, had jilted her and married Tsirl instead. Shimon Hirsh Klinger, Tsirl’s father and Boruch Meir’s employer, was a wealthy storekeeper; yet after Tsirl’s brother went mad and died it was hard to find a good match for her, even though she was the only child of rich parents. A man who had lost his mind and died without it was not an easy stigma for a family to overcome. Of all life’s misfortunes, madness may have been the only one to which the afflicted person was himself insensible; to his family and relations, however, the blow was doubly cruel, for not only were other troubles gotten over and forgotten while this one was passed down from one generation to the next, but, while other chronic patients could be put in special wards run by chronic idlers, nobody wanted to care for a madman: on the contrary, people either fled at the sight of him or else tormented him and turned him into a bogeyman to scare their children. And so when Tsirl’s father saw that she was not getting any younger and that the matchmakers were not beating a path to his door, he decided to marry her off to Boruch Meir, who had a good head for business and was a hard worker with an impeccable record in the store. Moreover, being called Hurvitz carried a weight of its own, so that, even though Boruch Meir himself was not a direct descendant of the renowned sixteenth-century rabbinical authority Yeshaya HaLevi Horowitz, the name still entitled him to respect.

  Even after Boruch Meir’s marriage to Tsirl, Mirl’s parents stayed in touch with him; indeed, they seemed to esteem him all the more for having married into wealth. He too kept up his ties with them and sent them a New Year’s greeting each year. And when Mirl married Hayyim Nacht, he sent them a yearly card too: as with father and mother, so with husband and daughter.

  Hayyim Nacht was not well-off like Boruch Meir Hurvitz, nor was he regarded especially highly by others; for though he was a well-read and cultured man with a gift for languages, his education, like that of all the Nacht family, far outstripped his attainments. And though Mirl had married him with her father’s consent, the old man never stopped reminding her vindictively that, having failed to win the heart of a successful businessman, she had had to settle for a spendthrift of a scholar who frittered away her whole dowry without earning a penny for himself.

  Mirl, however, refused to criticize her husband. No matter how great a failure he was, she thought just as much of him. She was grateful to life for having delivered her from the hands of an overly strict father and given her a home of her own, and even when, as hard luck had it, she and her husband were left without a cent, she felt no less fond of him. Do I, she would ask, have to make him suffer at home just because he’s no great shakes in the marketplace? And as she pitied him, she loved him even more with a love that sought no earthly reward. Whatever he did seemed right to her. If only everyone else were as honest as her Hayyim, he too would have done well; the trouble was that men were either successful or honest in this world, and that the first group grew rich off the second while the second gullibly let them. Was it Hayyim’s fault that he had faith in people who fleeced him and made off with his capital? And since losing one’s money meant losing one’s credit along with it, Hayyim Nacht had lost all chances of ever recouping his losses. From sitting in a large shop he went to sitting in a small one; from a spacious apartment overlooking the big market he moved to cramped quarters where the sun never shone. For a while he still tried his hand at this or that small-time venture, trusting his luck to improve, but in the end he gave up and tried no more. He was not meant, he saw, for worldly advancement, and so he secluded himself with his books, which he studied in the hope of qualifying as an instructor of religion to Jewish students in the Austrian state schools. Yet here too he succeeded only partly, for while he passed his examinations he was never given a job, since wherever one was available it was bagged at once by some illiterate who had managed to bribe the school supervisors. Hayyim Nacht was not a man to get around anyone, not by flattery and certainly not by bribery, even if this meant leaving himself and his family in the cold.

  Finally, when he saw that no school would hire him, Blume’s father went and opened his own school—that is, he found a few pupils and tutored them in his home for a fee. Before long, however, not one of them was left, for the times were not what they once were: the desire for pure knowledge had vanished, and all that fathers now wanted for was their sons to get ahead in life, which meant that, if they were to receive any schooling at all, it should be something useful like bookkeeping rather than the fables, literature, and philosophy that Hayyim Nacht was cramming their heads with. True, there was not another tutor in town who could pen as fine a letter as he, but what good did his fine style do him if it was impossible to understand a word of his flowery phrases?

  By then Blume was old enough to see and understand what was happening. She saw her mother stitching patch on patch to cover their poverty and her father sitting by the window with an unread book in his hand, his blue eyes filled with tears and his silken-soft beard clenched between his teeth. Sometimes he would take Blume’s hand and say, “I know, my darling, that a man like me, a husband and a father who can’t provide for his own wife and daughter, should be sent to Siberia.” And how he cried when he read her the story of the thief who was brought before the caliph. “Why did you steal?” asked the caliph. “Because,” answered the thief, “my wife and children had nothing to eat.” “I acquit the man of thievery,” declared the caliph. “Now take him and hang him for having let his family go hungry.”

  When the time came for Blume to be given some education, her father took to sitting her beside him and reading together with her. “I know,” said Hayyim Nacht, “that I won’t be leaving you any riches, but at least I’ll have taught you how to read a book. No matter how black your life may be, you can always find a better one in books.”

  Blume was a quick learner. Almost before she knew all the letters of the alphabet she was reading fairy tales and legends. Yet it astounded her father, who shed so many tears when he read that they all but rotted
the pages, how little feeling she showed. None of the passages over which he was used to weeping or heaving a sigh, no one’s sufferings or sorrows, seemed to move her in the least. A tragic tale that made him break down in sobs left her totally dry-eyed.

  “But Papa,” she might say when he tried explaining the full poignancy of some character’s predicament, “it’s his own fault. If he hadn’t done what he did, it would never have happened to him.”

  “Blume, my Blume,” replied Hayyim Nacht. “How can any daughter of mine talk like that? A man does what he has to do. There isn’t a thing we do or don’t do that isn’t already our destiny at birth.”

  “I’d better go help Mama now,” Blume would interrupt him.

  “Go, then,” said her father. “Let your heart be your guide. You help your mother while I sit and hide my face from shame because the two of you must slave away while I do nothing. I tremble to think of Judgment Day. I tremble to think of the reckoning there will be. What will I say when I have to stand trial then?”

  And, never doubting that he would, Hayyim Nacht sank back in his chair, buried his face in his hands, and burst into tears. One day he sank back and never sat up again. Sorrow and humiliation had killed him prematurely, leaving his wife and daughter destitute.

  Blume remained alone with her mother. Little by little they sold off her father’s books. Next came his clothes, desk, and bed, and finally they moved out of their small apartment into one that was even smaller. Mirl’s father had died too by now, leaving them barely enough money to get by on. And then, whether because of her frailty, her grief, the damp quarters they lived in, or all of these things together, Mirl took sick. For years she lay in bed while the doctors and their cures consumed all her savings without curing her. God in heaven saw how she suffered and took her from this world.

  Seeing that Blume was an orphan, her neighbors sent her off to her cousins in Szybusz, in whose home she found room and board, partly because she was their relative and partly because she was their maid. If it were not such a human trait to complain, Blume would not have had cause to, for God in heaven had given her enough strength, charm, and brains to console the unhappiest person.

  Chapter four

  Blume sat alone in her room, reading a book. A candle burned on the table, which was spread with a white cloth. The day before, Hirshl had borrowed three books from the library; two he had kept for himself and the third he had lent her. God in heaven had given her the wits to sit and read, and rest for the body is rest for the soul. Her father and her mother were long dead. They did not die all at once but rather bit by bit. In fact, their whole life had been one long waiting for death. Blume had cried enough while they lived, and now, from under her lashes, only the traces of that sorrow could be seen.

  She sat in her cousins’ home, her open book opening worlds. She was used to sitting at home, which was something she had learned to do while caring for her sick mother. She was used to reading, too, books having been a part of her life from the time she was little. Hayyim Nacht was a greater prophet than he knew when he had said to her, “At least I’ll have taught you how to read. No matter how black your life is, you can always find a better one in books.”

  Blume owned nothing in the world. All she could call her own were her own two hands that she let out to others. But her mind was free and could rove where it pleased. The Sabbath candle made a pleasant sight in the room of this chaste young girl relaxing by its light from her week’s labors. Who of you could doubt her good fortune? God in heaven had lavished her with graces, and no one thought the less of her because of them. Never was she scolded for anything. Boruch Meir was a kindly soul whose eyes twinkled fondly at her when he watched her at her work. Indeed, Boruch Meir got along well with everyone, let alone with those who were born to serve him. Now and then it crossed his mind that a daughter of Mirl’s deserved better in life; yet if she was fated to be a servant, at least the Lord had found her a master like himself who, out of respect for her feelings, refrained from acting like one.

  Tsirl was pleased with Blume too. She had never had an easy time with help. After her wedding she had been given her mother’s maid, who managed everything by herself and left Tsirl without a worry in the house. But this old woman, whom Tsirl gladly would have kept till the end of her days, was soon called away by a letter from a distant town. Forty years after having been abandoned by the husband of her youth, she was informed by the man that he was on his deathbed and wished to see her one last time—and so, bundling up what possessions she had managed to accumulate during her long years of service, she set out. No one knew whether she found her husband alive there or how much longer she remained so herself. Tsirl’s maid was not one for writing letters, and when Boruch Meir himself finally sent an inquiry to the rabbi of the town, the latter wrote back that he had never heard of such a woman. From then on Tsirl knew no peace. Not a servant was good enough for her. One was wasteful, a second was quarrelsome, a third was not a good cook. And since Tsirl herself was no expert on housework, she only made things worse with her advice. The servants took note of this and did as they pleased. “If you don’t like it, ma’am,” they snapped back if she complained, “you’re welcome to do it yourself.”

  There was yet another problem with help these days, which was that at night they had a life of their own. The times were gone when you could find good domestics whose only thought was for their masters and who were ready to work around the clock for them. A new nation of housemaids had arisen in Szybusz that could not have cared less for its employers. No longer were songs and music heard in each house as its servants went about their work; a sense of hostility reigned there instead, as though it had fallen to enemy troops.

  Who was to blame for this? None other than a local citizen named Dr. Knabenhut, who had brought to town the new gospel that all men were equal and that no man was better than another, which he preached at public gatherings that put a lot of half-baked notions into a lot of heads. Try calling a servant a nasty name nowadays and off she went to Knabenhut, who took you right to court for defamation of character. No longer was a housemaid part of the household. She found her pleasures elsewhere and put her earnings in the bank. Some were not even ashamed to call themselves socialists, or to behave toward the lady of the house as though she should serve them. Had Tsirl not been busy all day long in the store, she would have hired some Ukrainian peasant girl, but as it was, having no time to look after things at home or to make sure that the kitchen was kept kosher, she had to rely on uppity Jews.

  Since the day of Blume’s arrival, however, all this had changed for the better. There was nothing that Blume would not do. She performed all that she was asked to and a good deal more besides. Food was cooked, jams were made, laundry was washed, clothes were mended, socks were darned, and every corner of the house was made to sparkle without the least fuss or commotion. If a good housewife is no better than her help, Tsirl could once more consider herself the best of housewives. As good as were the days in which she had had her mother’s old servant, the days in which she had Blume were even better. Whatever Blume did was done with a flair. Seven pairs of hands working seven days could not do what she did in one.

  Blume was a credit to herself, a credit to the house, and not least of all a credit to Tsirl, who had reached the age when what concerns a woman most is what she has to eat and drink. Nor was Tsirl like some of her friends, who nibbled all day on almonds and raisins and, if they chanced to come across a pickled herring, ravaged it down to the tail. No, what Tsirl liked best was a proper meal: a good roast, stew, or cut of rare beef; gizzards, kishke, and spleen; stuffed goose neck; oven-baked egg farfel served in a gravy that made it melt in one’s mouth; a chicken with a filling of groats. Even before it was dinnertime she would sit herself down at the table, her body overflowing her chair, and review in her mind each single dish that was about to be served to her; while when the food came, she leaned over it and filled her plate as lovingly as if it were a prize hen being fa
ttened up to be sold.

  The trouble was that not all of Tsirl’s meals were what they should have been. A dish might be well cooked but not the way she liked it; or the way she had liked it yesterday but not how she wanted it today; or how she wanted it today but followed by the wrong dessert. As long as her mother’s old servant was in the house everything had always been right: sweet horseradish for potted meat and hot horseradish for a roast; the roast today and the pot meat tomorrow; sweet stewed plums with the first and sour stewed plums with the second. One would have thought that any cook could have done as much—or at least, any cook who cared about whom she was cooking for. No matter what pains Tsirl took to teach her help what she liked, no meal was ever put on the table without something being the matter. Nature itself had gone awry, so that you had no idea anymore whether it was summer, winter, spring, or fall. Once upon a time a body eating cherry blintzes had known it was summer and one eating kasha cakes had known it was not, whereas now it was kasha and gravy, or else gravy and kasha, all year long, in hot weather and cold, on Sabbaths no less than on weekdays.

  Since the day of Blume’s arrival, however, nature had resumed its proper course as if the months of the year were inscribed right over the stove. Each season had its own dishes and each dish its own taste. The Lord only knew where Blume had learned it all.

  Chapter five

  Hirshl was still a growing boy when Blume entered his life. In age she was almost his twin.

  Blume had blossomed like a lily of the valley that is protected against all harm. No matter how often you looked at her, you could never look enough. Though she was thin when she first came to Szybusz, her limbs had now filled out, yet her every movement was still full of grace. Her work had made her agile, and she was as quick on her feet as a bird in flight. By the time your eyes came to rest on her there was nothing there but her shadow.