by S. Y. Agnon
The train started up. Boruch Meir looked at the sleeping soldier and thought, I should have asked him what station to wake him at so he won’t miss it and be punished for being absent without leave.
A conductor entered the compartment, checked Boruch Meir’s ticket, and woke the soldier, who took out a chit and handed it to him. The conductor held the paper up to the light and left.
Before the soldier could fall asleep again Boruch Meir asked, “Well, do you like serving the Kaiser?”
“Yes, sir,” said the soldier.
“But you’d like to be home too,” said Boruch Meir.
“Oh yes,” said the soldier. “I would.”
Hirshl had come close to being a soldier himself, thought Boruch Meir. In fact, if not for what had happened to him, he might have been sleeping tonight in a uniform too. Though the thought had not crossed Boruch Meir’s mind until now, the soldier’s reply made him realize how lucky Hirshl was not to have been in Szybusz over the summer when the draft board arrived. “Justice is thine, O Lord,” he whispered, vindicating God’s ways.
He had barely finished the penitential prayer and was seeking to sleep when several passengers entered the compartment. One of them resembled his brother Meshulam, or at least reminded him of him. It had been twelve years, mused Boruch Meir, since he and Meshulam had last met or—apart from the New Year’s card and rhymed poem they exchanged once a year—even written each other. Why, I do believe his sons are old enough to be married, thought Boruch Meir. And there’s a daughter to find a husband for too, if I’m not mistaken. Who does he expect to get for her, some young modern rabbi? He’s a queer bird, Meshulam. Someone even told me he had joined a Zionist organization in Tarnow and was planning to become a farmer in Palestine. Some farmer he’ll make! He’ll end up a charity case there. But why am I thinking about him? That man doesn’t look like him at all.
Boruch Meir leaned his head against the window and dozed off. Noisily the train rushed on through the night, stopping, starting, and stopping. By the time he awoke it was daylight and he was already in Lemberg.
Hirshl had passed the whole summer in Lemberg. A little beard ringed his face, which had grown fuller and tanned. The fear and bewilderment were gone from it, as was the nervous fatigue. He was his old self again, and his movements flowed normally too. Three months of healthful living at Dr. Langsam’s, with its exercise in the sun every day and its long hours of sleep every night, had put him back on his feet. And yet he felt ill at ease, especially facing his father, who walked in smelling of Szybusz, which made Hirshl’s spirits sink at once. He shrank in Boruch Meir’s presence as if apologizing for causing so much trouble while hoping in his heart to be forgiven.
Boruch Meir threw his arms around his son, hugged and kissed him, and asked him a few commonplace questions as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He was equally tactful on the train ride home, until Hirshl became so conscious of this that he seized his father’s hand to thank him. Afraid of crying, though, he restrained himself and said nothing.
Boruch Meir had told the doctor how everyone in Szybusz was convinced that Hirshl’s madness was staged to dodge the draft. “It’s an ill wind that blows no good,” Dr. Langsam had replied. “Now, when Hirshl goes home, at least he won’t need to feel ashamed.”
Szybusz was a long way from Lemberg, and much had happened there in Hirshl’s absence. Looking at his son, Boruch Meir wondered where to begin. Should it be with the druggist who had sought a court order against him and Tsirl to prevent them from selling smelling salts without a license? Boruch Meir was uncertain who would win the case, the druggist or the firm of Hurvitz, but even if he had to drop the salts, he was doing a brisk business on a much faster-moving item, namely, paint—for Schleien, the master painter who had left for America, had unexpectedly returned to Szybusz, and the whole town was repainting its houses and shop signs. Indeed, so great an artist was Schleien that some shopkeepers had actually bankrupted themselves ordering new billboards from him. He had also redone the interior of the Great Synagogue, much to the displeasure of Hayyim Yehoshua Bleiberg, who had led a furious protest against the painting over of the old walls and ceiling. It was a token of Boruch Meir’s modesty, however, that he chose not to mention the Bleiberg affair to Hirshl, as this would have also obliged him to mention who had donated the paint to the synagogue. Boruch Meir did not like to boast of his own generosity, especially when its sole object had been to coax heaven into making his son well.
In any event, there was no need to entertain Hirshl on the way, for a train ride to Szybusz, especially in the month of Elul, was entertainment in itself. The passengers, it turned out, were divided into four camps. The first of these, a party of esrog dealers on their way back from Greece, was in a bellicose mood. Why, to think of the weeks they had just spent running around that land of unscrupulous cutthroats without tasting a Jewish meal or hearing a Jewish prayer in order to bring Jews esrogs for Sukkos—and here the local Zionist press had the gall to attack them and blacken their names! The Zionists in the car shouted back that any Jew buying or blessing citrons from Corfu when Jewish farmers were sweating blood to grow the same fruit in Palestine was an out-and-out anti-Semite. At this point the fray was joined by a band of Hasidim, some of them returning from taking the baths and others on their way to their rabbis for the High Holy Days: anyone purchasing an esrog from Palestine, they yelled, was himself doing business with anti-Semites, which was what the irreligious Jewish farmers there were.
There were also ordinary Jews on the train who were neither esrog dealers, Zionists, nor Hasidim. At every station they bought apples, pears, and plums from the vendors on the platform, which they both ate themselves and passed around to their fellow passengers. True, none of these fruits was a match for an esrog, which came all the way from the isles of Greece and had a special blessing all its own; yet God had made them fragrant and juicy, and had not put any restriction on eating them. Slowly the car filled with the aroma of autumn fruit and the bitter quarrel subsided. The train stopped and started, its passengers getting on and off. Why, one still had half an apple in one’s mouth and here was Szybusz already!
Chapter thirty-three
Hirshl arrived home to be met by Mina with a baby in her arms that, cuddled in its white pillow, made him think of a bawling red beefsteak. He greeted his wife and ignored the child, feeling as unmoved by the sight of it as he had been by the news of its birth. Two blue droplets sparkled in its face, and he knew that it was looking at him. His lips trembled. He felt the need to apologize for having brought it into the world without loving it, without even the capacity to love it.
A greater Father than Hirshl, however, had other ideas. As much as Hirshl tried not looking at the child, as much as he tried not even thinking of it, tender feelings for it began to creep into his heart. Before long he was hugging and kissing the same infant he had been certain he could never love. Whereas only yesterday he had grimly told himself, Well, I have to put up with him because I’m to blame that he’s alive, his own life now seemed to him to exist solely for the sake of his son. (So God in heaven plays the father with us. As busy as He is making and unmaking cosmoses, He still finds time even for a small-town storekeeper, even—just as Hirshl did—for a baby in the cradle.)
What indeed made Hirshl leave the store and not only run to see his son but clap hands, hop like a frog, and whistle like a bird for him? Perhaps the joy of seeing the first beginnings of a smile on his face. All that a man really needs, Hirshl thought, is a little joy in his life. If I can’t be happy myself, at least my son can be. And while I never had the childhood I wanted, at least I can see to it that he does.
But what happiness could there be without love, and what child would want a childhood in which its parents did not love each other? Hirshl wondered whether it was possible for a Jew to hate his wife—and yet, though he did not really hate Mina, not loving her was almost as bad. Had his heart not been another’s, he might have been happy with
the woman he had. More than one man who failed to marry the wife of his choice had shared a contented life with someone else in the end. But Hirshl had given his heart away and no longer had it to share.
Blume was still not married. God in heaven knew who she was waiting for. Having turned down Getzel Stein, she showed no interest in anyone else. Could she have her eye on Yona Toyber, whose wife had recently died? Yona was still a young man. Barring war or cholera, anyone with habits like his was sure to live to a ripe old age.
But Blume’s eye was not on Toyber, and Toyber’s eye was not on Blume. What Yona wanted was a capable housewife to light the stove, make the beds, do the wash, and take care of his tender orphans while he looked after his business. When he went and married the hunchbacked daughter of the ex-chicken slaughterer Stein, therefore, it was wrong of some Szybuszians to consider it God’s punishment for all the mismatches Yona had made. The fact of the matter was that Yona Toyber knew exactly what he was doing when he overlooked the ugliness of Getzel’s sister in favor of her many virtues, for not a day had passed since their wedding without proper meals served on time, a well-heated house, fresh sheets on the beds, and clean shirts to wear. Indeed, the bride’s own mother could not believe her eyes when she saw her monstrous shrew of a daughter washing Toyber’s children, dressing them in clean clothes, making them breakfast each morning, and trotting them off to school like little scholars. She even began to visit her regularly, not because her daughter needed help, but so as not to be accused of not giving it. Besides, it was a welcome opportunity to rest from her own housework, which had become too much to cope with, for though Getzel’s sisters had dreamed of getting rid of the hunchback for years, they were sorry now that they had. Not that they had regularly dined on caviar before. Yet at least there had been hot meals on the table, whereas now what food was infrequently served was always cold—nor was there anyone to complain to but their mother, since Getzel spent all his time at the new Workers of Zion club and their father was still on the road, soliciting the aid of Jewry’s leading lights in his chicken wars. No one knew when to expect him home. He was indeed making little progress, for it was difficult to cross a tzaddik’s threshold without first crossing his secretaries’ palms, and Getzel, the old man claimed, had stingily hid all his savings and refused to lend him a cent.
Actually, Getzel had put his savings in the bank—and while his account there was a small one, it was big enough to earn him a reputation for being a hardheaded fellow who knew all about such things as capital, compound interest, and putting one’s money to work. No longer did he waste his salary from the store on such frills as colorful ties, which his sister Saltshi had in any case stopped wearing to Viktor’s or anyone else’s. Either someone had put a hex on Saltshi or the love potions she had concocted to keep Viktor’s affections were having a bad effect on her, for she lay in bed surrounded by poultices and herbal remedies, turning greener by the day. As for Viktor, he had left town, while the Singer agent who had taken his place had found other girlfriends. Tastes vary. Even Viktor’s: sometimes he had liked Saltshi better than her sister Beiltshi, and sometimes he had liked Beiltshi better than her sister Saltshi.
A mournful silence hung over Getzel’s home. Were it not for Saltshi’s groans and Beiltshi’s attempts to comfort her, one might have guessed it was deserted. The sewing machine had moved out with the hunchback, as had the angry creak of its wheel. Not that it had any reason to be angry these days, for its mistress was treating it well: she did not overwork it, oiled it often, and even sang to soothe its jangled nerves. And while generally speaking the younger generation in Szybusz had forgotten the old songs, the new Mrs. Toyber sang the same sad, sweet ballads of love and death that her mother and her mother’s neighbors had sung, even though the mere mention of dying was enough to make her gray eyes glisten with tears. Could she be worried that Yona Toyber was not long for this world when he was still in the prime of life and had the habits of a man intending to live to a hundred and twenty? Having experienced so much misery in her life, perhaps she simply could not believe she had seen the last of it.
And yet the hunchback did not sing to complain about her fate but simply to pour out her soul—after which, sweetly solaced, she went back to finishing the new kittel for her husband, the fringed tallis koton for her stepson, or the blouse for her stepdaughter that she was working on. The children’s mother, God rest her poor soul, had been ill toward the end of her life and had let the house chores go untended. Yet what the good Lord took with one hand He restored with the other, and what Yona Toyber’s first wife never got done his second wife more than made up for.
Chapter thirty-four
Hirshl was wholly occupied with the store. Though he was not especially creative, he did his job well. True, he had done what was expected of him before his marriage too, yet then he had his mind on other things, while now he kept it on his work. No longer did he compare the woman customers with each other or wonder which attracted him most. If, as the old legend has it, God first created man half male and half female, with two heads and one back, and then sundered him, so that all men and women were born separate forever after, Hirshl had once stared at every woman as if it were his mission in life to find his other half; now, however, he had come to the realization that he was as complete as he ever would be and that the missing part of him would not be found. And though the thought of this sometimes saddened him, he slowly got over it as does someone who has lost something precious and must learn to make do with something else in its place.
Tsirl no longer urged him to go for walks. Anyone as busy as Hirshl had no time for them. The place for a walker was the Gildenhorns’ wall, on which hung a picture of a slim young man with a rattan cane beneath his arm and one foot poised to set out. Hirshl had better things to do. Like most other Szybuszians he stepped out once a week, on Saturday afternoons, for a breath of fresh air—and never in the direction of Synagogue Street. Variety was good for a man, and too much of one thing led to boredom. Unlike Akavia Mazal, whose passion was the study of antiquities, Hirshl had seen enough of that street, each stone and building of which, from the Catholic church that stood on the site of the old synagogue to the ruined convent whose grass came up red, was familiar to him. His whole life was ahead of him—why spend it walking down the same street? Nor was the fact that it was also lived on by Tirza Mazal, who had no more interest in ancient history than Hirshl, any reason for him to change his mind, for Tirza lived on Synagogue Street only because of her husband, just as Blume Nacht worked there only because of Tirza. Once Blume had had a job in the center of town; now she had one on the edge of it.
When a man was preoccupied, he was best off being by himself. Once his worries were over, however, he belonged with others, especially if he could take his wife along with him. Not every day did a man have time for his wife.
The Sabbaths after the Sukkos holiday were delightful. The rained-on ground was no longer hard on the feet, the low sky seemed almost near enough to touch, the sun was warm without being hot, and the dust was gone from the streets. The clouds had wrung themselves out over the holiday, and soon it would be time for snow. If the good Lord was putting off the cold weather, this was only for the last potatoes to be dug and the last logs to be split for firewood.
Hirshl and Mina strolled side by side. Once Hirshl had liked to walk with Toyber; then he had walked by himself; now he was walking with his wife. It was to Yona Toyber’s credit that he had brought Hirshl and Mina together even though it had cost him a walking partner.
Hirshl was wearing his Saturday afternoon clothes that were neither too dressy for a casual stroll nor too casual for the Sabbath. As shrewd as it had been of his mother to have such an outfit made for him, however, it now fitted him too tightly, for the days spent at Dr. Langsam’s had put some flesh on his bones. Not even his father could complain anymore that he had gained no weight since his wedding.
Mina too had filled out and was no longer so aristocratically thin. Th
ough the automatic spoon had still not been invented, her waistline had grown by at least a fraction of an inch. Perhaps it was the aftereffect of her pregnancy, or perhaps she had become less chary of lifting her spoon to her mouth. In any case, only a misanthrope could have failed to enjoy seeing her with Hirshl.
The two of them were far from alone. Many husbands were taking the Sabbath air with their wives, some of them businessmen and some of them workingmen, since while the former did not choose to pass the whole day in the synagogue, neither did the latter spend it all listening to Dr. Knabenhut preach. Not that it would have done the burghers of Szybusz any harm to sit one day out of seven with a holy book, which was something they were too busy making money to do the rest of the week; yet if anything held true of the middle-class Szybuszian, it was his greater concern for the needs of the body than for the needs of the soul. And the same went for the working class. Though it might have learned something from Dr. Knabenhut, it liked the sound of its own small talk better than any of his big ideas.
Hirshl promenaded with Mina through the streets of Szybusz, stopping often to chat with people he knew. The sight of Hirshl Hurvitz being so sociable when he had been written off by everyone as a recluse just went to show how wrong public opinion could be. Even the town’s greatest snob, its resident newspaper correspondent, Vovi Tshortkover, who had been the first to accuse Hirshl of snobbishness, now admitted that he was a pleasure to talk to. Although Hirshl was not really interested in everything that was said to him, he knew how to be a good listener.