Judah the Pious

by Francine Prose

  “Ah,” sighed King Casimir, interrupting the rabbi, “if only Judah ben Simon had been wiser, he could have been the one to make use of Rachel Anna’s talents, to combine true love and happiness with financial success.”

  “Perhaps,” murmured Eliezer thoughtfully, “though one might well inquire whether a contented woman is likely to sell as much patent medicine as a sad one. Nevertheless, one is tempted to assume that Judah ben Simon could have benefited from any assistance, no matter how trifling. For, as Jeremiah Vinograd was climbing toward the peak of his success, his former student was slipping further and further into poverty and failure.”

  “Then it was wrong for him to think that his fortune would improve in distant lands?” asked the king, who had often been attracted by the same notion.

  “Yes, he was,” nodded the rabbi. “So wrong, in fact, that it took him less than a month to understand the extent of his error. Judah ben Simon needed only to cross the Hungarian border and hear the strange yawp of the Magyar tongue in order to realize that he would probably starve before he could learn how to advertise his products. He cursed himself for having overlooked this obvious obstacle, for having failed to consult his teacher about the rudiments of other languages.

  Still, hoping for some burst of enlightenment which might suddenly enable him to solve the puzzle of Czech, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, and Italian, he continued with his foreign journey, sleeping in the unfamiliar forests, and barely subsisting on his dwindling resources. Finally, at the end of a long, frozen winter, the traveler found himself at the foothills of the southern Alps—penniless, hungry, asking in sign language for the road back to Poland.

  It was then that Judah ben Simon resolved to conquer his pride, and to try his luck among the aristocratic ladies of Kuzman.

  XIV

  “THE MORNING OF JUDAH ben Simon’s arrival in Kuzman,” began the Rabbi Eliezer, “was filled with sunlight and the scent of May flowers, all the clarity of winter and all the sweetness of spring. The traveler stood in the outskirts of the settlement, feeling the cool, fresh wind on his face, gazing up at the pine-covered mountains, and wondering if he had actually stumbled in upon his future home in paradise.

  But, as his glance moved downward, he soon realized that heaven would never quarter its celestial hosts in a town which had made such a pitiful attempt to hide its squalor beneath a thin veneer of quality and comfort. The ramshackle huts were plainly visible behind their false fronts, paneled doors, and carved shutters; even a shell of new masonry could not conceal the crumbling wooden shingles of the ancient Orthodox church. Everything in Kuzman seemed new, unused. The trees which lined the market place were spindly and half-grown; the cobblestones had not yet been worn smooth.

  Despite all his knowledge of human nature, the mountebank found it hard to evaluate this evidence of new wealth, and difficult to comprehend how so many of the local inhabitants could afford to deck themselves in caracul caps, silk scarves, and ivory buttons. For, though it was almost noon, the villagers hunkered sluggishly outside the teahouses, grinning lazily and puffing on their hookahs as if the day had not yet begun. Indeed, the stranger might never have understood the town’s evident prosperity, if some sporadic activity along the dusty side streets had not given him a clue:

  Two porters bearing crates of fragrant Mandarin oranges staggered through an alley. A trapper squatted on the ground, surrounded by heaps of russet-colored pelts. In the shade of a doorway, a cobbler stitched delicate embroidery on a soft, leather slipper, so small that it could only have been intended for the foot of a queen.

  These sights convinced Judah ben Simon that Jeremiah Vinograd had finally given him some good advice. “Even the air smells of rich women,” he thought excitedly, as he passed a perfume-maker’s stall. And, eager to take advantage of this perfect opportunity, he rushed to the center of the market place, set down his bench, and began to shout at the top of his lungs.

  Suddenly, Eliezer lowered his head, and, for just a moment, King Casimir glimpsed the traces of a blush on the old man’s wrinkled cheeks. “To speak the truth,” murmured the rabbi, looking up, “I am reluctant to narrate this scene, which portrays my hero in a somewhat unflattering light. Therefore, I will merely summarize the events which transpired after the mountebank ascended his platform.

  “For almost two hours,” he continued hastily, “Judah ben Simon delivered a thoughtful, sincere, learned, and unimaginably boring dissertation on pharmaceutical medicine. Most of the village men assumed that only a fool could be so humorless, and did not even bother to leave their seats at the edge of the market place; no one came forward except the most desperate old grandfathers, who, after thirty years of indigestion, were willing to try anything.

  But the response of the local women was not nearly so lukewarm. Too thunderstruck to comprehend one word of Judah ben Simon’s speech, they stood motionless until he had finished; then, coughing, spitting, holding their heads and moaning in pain, they stormed the platform with a battery of ailments. The mountebank treated their ills with smiles and placebos, but found himself unable to concentrate on their tales of meddling in-laws, thankless children, and insensitive husbands; for he was too busy seeking the lady whose fancy clothes and chronic neurasthenia would brand her as a member of the upper class. However, when night had come without bringing any sign of such a woman, Judah sighed, picked up his bench, and squandered his last few coppers on a room at the grimy village inn.

  “Perhaps these noblewomen have no need of mountebanks,” thought the young man, tossing on his lumpy straw pallet. “Perhaps they are so lovely that they scorn cosmetics, so wealthy that they need not fear the loss of youth and beauty, so prudent that they never suffer from female complaints.”

  As it happened, however, Judah ben Simon’s prospects were not nearly so dim as he imagined. Early the next morning, he answered a timid knock on his door to discover a fat, teen-aged girl, gazing at him with great moon-eyes and trembling from head to foot. Unlike the majority of dark-skinned, strong-boned mountain women, Judah’s visitor had the pale, blotched, unhealthy look of adolescents who have spent too much time fretting indoors.

  The girl watched him expectantly for several minutes; her chubby face crumpled in disappointment. “You do not remember me?” she whispered.

  “I most certainly do not,” replied Judah ben Simon.

  “I was there in the market place when you spoke yesterday,” she explained, beginning to fiddle with a few strands of oily hair. “I was standing in the front row, the entire time. I was sure that you looked straight at me.”

  “Then why did you not consult me then?” demanded the mountebank, angrily comparing his dreams of graceful aristocrats with the reality of this lumpish peasant.

  “Oh, no, sir!” protested the young woman, curtseying frantically as the words became jumbled in her mouth. “I am not here on my own behalf, sir, but on that of my mistress, the Princess Maria Zarembka. Yesterday, when I returned from town, I told the ladies how handsome you were, how learned, how cultured, how sophisticated and genteel. And I asked them if there was anyone in their households who needed the services of a mountebank.

  “The three ladies only laughed,” continued the maid; but, before she could utter another word, Judah had taken her elbow and ushered her into his room, as gallantly as if she had been the Queen of Sheba, come on a royal visit. “And what do these ‘ladies’ of yours call themselves?” he asked.

  “Aside from the Princess Maria,” she replied, giggling hysterically when she realized that there was nowhere for her to sit but the rumpled mattress, “there is the Countess Catherine and the Baroness Sophia. But, here in Kuzman, people speak of them only as ‘The Three Sisters.’”

  “Then they are related?” inquired the mountebank.

  “That would be as rare as apples, plums, and peaches growing on a single tree,” answered the maid, beaming as if she herself had invented the simile which had long ago made the rounds of local wits. “No, they call them
that because the ladies keep so closely to themselves, and rarely come to town, not even to attend the Easter mass.”

  “Then your mistresses are shy?” said Judah. “Slow in adjusting to a new place. Still ill-at-ease in a town full of strangers?”

  “No, sir,” said the girl, curtseying again, “that is not it at all. During the many years they have lived here, they have had a thousand opportunities to meet their neighbors. And perhaps they would have done so if it had not been for the rude and curious stares which follow them through town, and the vicious lies which gossips spread concerning their unmarried state.”

  “What lies?” asked the young man, thanking heaven for having sent him such a cooperative informant.

  “They are not worth the trouble of repeating,” declared the servant, with a note of genuine outrage in her voice. “I will only assure you that they are false and wicked. Of course, I cannot claim to understand why such lovely women should remain unmarried; at certain times of year, their homes are full of handsome suitors, meandering from room to room and complaining of the ladies’ heartlessness.”

  “Ah,” sighed the mountebank sympathetically, “with no husbands to protect and amuse them, your mistresses must lead insecure and lonely lives.”

  “It is not so bad in summer,” answered the maid, “when noblemen from all over Poland flock to their balls and parties. But from the first of October to the end of June I do believe their isolation must be almost unbearable.”

  “Is that so?” murmured Judah ben Simon, scarcely able to suppress an excited grin. “In that case, they must surely have welcomed the news of a cultivated young stranger, newly come to town.”

  “Not at all,” she mumbled, staring uncomfortably at the floor. “As I started to say before, they only laughed at me, and accused me of all sorts of wicked things. Then, when I persisted, the Baroness Sophia became annoyed, and swore that she would not dose her lowest servant with the poisons of a wandering charlatan. But late last night, my own lady came into my room, and confessed that her pet kitten had indeed seemed out of sorts lately, in need of a suitable tonic.”

  “I see,” thought Judah ben Simon bitterly. “These snobbish women dare not trust me with anything more significant than the spirits of a peevish cat.” Nevertheless, concealing his emotions, he went immediately to work. He opened every herbal packet and held each colored bottle up to the light. He presented them for the maid’s inspection, and explained their contents in a tone and vocabulary which were in themselves implicit compliments to her intelligence. He promised instant recoveries, described miraculous cures, and so dazzled the provincial girl with his radiant smiles that, by the time she clutched up her bag of catnip and departed, she was swaying from side to side and gasping for breath.

  That afternoon, she again appeared at Judah ben Simon’s door—bearing a gilded invitation to the home of the Princess Maria Zarembka.

  Just after sunset, the young man put on his blue mountebank’s robe and started towards the mountains north of town; arriving at the huge stone mansion, he was ushered to the threshold of the main dining room. “And there,” smiled the Rabbi Eliezer, “my hero came upon a sight so exquisite that it might well have blinded the sensitive eyes of your greatest court artist.

  “The whole interior of that long, low-ceilinged hall shimmered with a weird phosphorescence, like the strange, silvery sheen which sometimes appears on the surface of the finest silk carpets. The crystal chandeliers seemed to hover in mid-air, casting a pale, unearthly light on the tapestries which lined the paneled walls. Beneath this glow, the colors of the room formed a muted pattern of deep burgundy and purple, moss green and rich, wood brown. These hues were repeated in the woven cloth which covered the long, narrow table and set off the lustrous and harmonious arrangement of pewter dishes, iron candlesticks, plates of hammered brass, and old silver goblets, filled with dark, red claret.”

  “When does this narrative take place?” interrupted King Casimir, as if he had just discovered an important clue to the rabbi’s meaning. “I cannot remember a time when the nobles of our land set their tables in the manner of a tinsmith’s stall.”

  “But it was not these furnishings,” continued Eliezer, ignoring the boy’s question, “which lent the room its opalescent quality. Rather, it was the beauty of the gray-velvet-clad woman standing at the far end of the hall, whose face gave all her elegant surroundings the air of a plain background designed to exhibit a single smoky topaz.

  Judah saw that she was tall, black-haired, about thirty, with olive skin and the strong, strangely tragic features of a Corsican or a Greek. But, as she glided towards him, like a figure in a dream, the young man was soon obliged to discontinue his appraisal of the lady’s charms. For suddenly, he noticed that his powers of observation had begun to fail, and that the woman’s smooth, hypnotic pace was causing him to feel an odd dizziness and nausea, not unlike the final stages of a drunken stupor.

  “Was this setting really so strange?” broke in the King of Poland. “Or was your hero just another peasant bumpkin, overwhelmed by the magnificence of ordinary aristocratic life?”

  “I swear to you, King Casimir,” replied the rabbi, “that even Your Majesty himself has never experienced an atmosphere so dark, so heady, so full of promise, mystery, and danger. Indeed, considering the circumstances, it was remarkable that the mountebank was able to regain his wits so soon. Shortly after the Princess Maria had taken his sweaty hand and led him to the table, the young man’s composure started to return. He decided that his faintness had been a simple matter of optical confusion, brought on by the peculiar light of the chandeliers and the gleaming candles. In this same calm spirit, he acknowledged the princess’s greeting, gave his name as Stanislas the Physician, and reassured himself that his otherworldly hostess was just another woman—richer and more beautiful than any he had yet encountered, but equally capable of being captivated and delighted. Therefore, he fixed her with his most ingratiating smile, and inquired about the welfare of his patient.

  “If you are referring to my servant girl,” replied the Princess Maria, smiling slyly, “then I must inform you that she was half-dead of faintness and palpitations by the time she reached our doorstep.”

  “No,” stammered Judah uneasily, “I was speaking of your pet. I hope that you will permit me to observe the creature’s condition, since firsthand diagnosis is the only truly reliable method of diagnosis.”

  “My dear Stanislas,” answered the woman, with a musical laugh, “I have not invited you here for an animal show. Come now, we are both experienced in the ways of the world; we both know that this entire catnip affair was merely a charade designed to procure me the assistance of a handsome traveler in whiling away these last evenings before the start of my social season. Furthermore,” she continued, wrapping her long fingers around a wine goblet and leaning gracefully towards him, “my friends and I do not pay court to the God of Science.”

  As Judah stammered in helpless amazement, twelve somber, uniformed servants entered the room, bearing huge platters of roast beef, grilled pheasant, mutton stews, wine broths, and jellied aspics. These fragrant reminders of all the days he had gone hungry jolted the bewildered young man into a desperate attempt at genteel expression.

  “Then am I to understand,” he said, “that my lady is a devotee of religion?”

  The princess’s eyes glinted merrily, and her deep voice took on a mocking tone. “In my house,” she said, “the image of Cupid is placed above that of Our Blessed Mother.”

  “But what has that to do with my medicine?” asked the mountebank.

  “Simply this,” the woman replied. “It has often been said that scientists are among the God of Love’s most disobedient servants.”

  “On the contrary,” he smiled, rising to her challenge. And so it happened that Judah ben Simon and the Princess Maria Zarembka came to debate the nature of love and science.

  Unfortunately, the young man was such a stranger to this witty and artificial st
yle of conversation that it took him almost the entire meal to learn its rules and patterns. At first, he could not understand why the lady did not inquire about his travels or his studies, and endeavored to engage her on the subject of her day-to-day existence; then, when he began to see that such inconsequential chatter was out of fashion among the aristocracy, he committed himself to the subject at hand. Still, in his efforts to achieve the proper tone, Judah often stumbled, and relied upon the princess’s disapproving looks to point out his errors in demanding precise definitions of love and science, and in averring that passion might perhaps be nothing more than an elixir of certain chemicals and animal instincts. Thus, it was not until the table was heaped high with mountains of frosted cakes that Judah ben Simon felt sufficiently self-confident to lead their discussion down a new and unexplored path.

  “Suddenly,” he began, helping himself to a fourth glass of claret, “it occurs to me that all our lamentations concerning the incompatibility of love and science have been unfounded. In fact, the two spheres are as harmonious and well-matched as the opals in your lovely earrings. How could I have prattled on so long without confessing that I am something of an expert on human behavior? In this capacity, I have never attempted to banish love into the realm of dim longings and irrational impulses. Rather, I have studied it objectively, and can offer positive proof that passion and science may actually be combined in an effort to understand the gentle workings of the heart.”

  “And what have these studies taught you?” asked the Princess Maria, suppressing a smile.

  “Many things,” declared the mountebank proudly. “Many things. For instance: have you not noticed that, when ugly men and women look for love, they consider nothing so much as the physical beauty of their mates? Is it not true that sleeplessness is the surest symptom of passion, that loss of appetite plagues the rejected lover? And certainly, my lady, you do not need a scientist to tell you that, while satiation soon quenches the flames of adoration, an unsatisfied desire can burn throughout a man’s whole life. Indeed, madam, these few examples should enable a woman of your intelligence to comprehend my system, and to acknowledge the truth and universality of these scientific laws of love.”