I said to myself: What will he do when the Divine Name is uttered during the prayers and in answering Amen? Is he not afraid they might realize that he is dead, and he will be put to shame? As in the case of the dead cantor, who used to slur over the Name when he prayed, because the dead cannot utter the Heavenly Name. Once a sage happened to be there, who sensed that the cantor was dead — and it is said: “The dead shall not praise the Lord.” He examined him and found that the Sanctified Name was sewn into his wrist. So he took a scalpel, cut into his flesh, and took out the Name — and immediately the body collapsed, and they saw that the flesh was already decomposed.
Mr. Klein did not perceive what I was thinking, and walked on. This is the greatness of Mr. Klein: if he decides to act, he pays no attention to anyone.
I dragged my feet and stopped at every step; perhaps the Almighty would find him some other topic on the way and distract his mind from the House of Study. He saw that I was lingering, and said with a smile: “If you had not told me your grandfather was dead, I would have thought I was walking with him.” I wanted to answer, but did not know what to say. To tell him the truth was impossible, but nothing else came into my mind.
The streetlamps had been lit, and the lights peered out feebly from the latticed windows. I breathed deeply and said, “It is late for the afternoon prayer.” He breathed deeply too, and said, “I feel warm — no, but…” He wrapped himself up better and began to fumble with his cane like a blind man, saying, “Do me a favor, see if there is not a House of Study here. Yes, there is one here.”
The worshippers stood bowed with their faces toward the wall. Mr. Klein went up to the most prominent place, and I remained standing by the door. Wherever they go, people like Mr. Klein find their places at the top. One old man turned his head from the wall and fixed his eyes on me. Mr. Klein gripped his cane. The cane trembled, and so did his hand. He was old, and his hands quivered.
A dim light shone from the four or five candelabra, of copper, of tin, of iron, and of clay. A peace not of this world pervaded the room, The worshippers finished their prayer and took two steps backwards, but the cantor still delayed the recitation of the final kaddish until the last of them should finish.
I looked around to see whom he was waiting for, and saw an old man standing in the southeastern corner, wrapped in his prayer shawl, covered in a fur coat up to above his neck. I did not see his face because it was turned toward the wall, but I saw his weary shoulders, those shoulders which the Holy One, blessed be He, has chosen to bear the burden of His Torah. My heart began to throb and fill with sweetness. The Almighty has still left us men who fill the heart with sweetness when we see them.
The old man turned his face, and I saw he was one of the princes of the Torah whose books I had been studying. I rushed forward and stood beside him. I knew that this was not a courteous thing to do, but I could not control myself. And I still wonder where I took the strength to do it.
Mr. Klein tapped me on the shoulder, took me by the hand, and said, “Come.” I looked at that illustrious scholar and went with Mr. Klein.
Mr. Klein noticed the president of the House of Study. So he left me and went up to him.
That illustrious scholar left the House of Study. As was always his way, so he behaved at that moment, not looking beyond the four cubits, either in front of him or behind him. Devoted as he was to the Torah, he saw nothing but the affairs of the Torah. As I looked at him, I saw that a deep hole was open at his feet. While he had been engrossed in prayer and study, a band of children, playing in front of the House of Study, had dug the hole and left it uncovered. I ran up and bowed before him, so that he should lean on me and pass over the hole.
But he, in his deep devotion to the Torah and the fear of God, saw neither the hole nor me, who had come to save him from it. I did not have the heart to raise my voice and warn him against the danger, in case I might distract him from his thoughts. I stood still, making myself like a staff, a stick, a block of wood, a lifeless object. The Almighty put it into the saint’s mind to lean on me. His body was light as an infant’s. But I shall feel it until they put dust on my eyes.
4
I went back home and lit the light. I opened a window and sat down to rest. The wind blew and threw the letter at my feet. I looked at the letter, and at my feet, and was too lazy to lift it, for I was so weary that my limbs had begun to fall asleep. I undressed and went to bed, thinking about the things that had happened to me and that saint I had seen, and I knew that a great event had happened that day. No greater event will ever happen to me again. I do not remember whether I was sad or joyful, but I remember that another feeling, to which no term of joy or sadness can apply, moved my heart. If I had departed this world at that hour I would not have been sorry.
I lay in bed and thought: Why do we fear death? Something whispered to me: Raise the blanket. Immediately my fingers were filled with that thing to which no term of joy or sadness applies. And it too, namely, that thing, spread gradually to my shoulders, and the nape of my neck, and the crown of my head. I still belonged to this world, but I knew that if I raised the blanket and put it over my head I could enter into another world in the twinkling of an eye. May all my well-wishers be privileged to experience such a good hour.
The wind blew again and moved the letter. The letter began to roll this way and that. I said to myself: If I die, the letter will remain without anyone to send it. I pushed off the blanket.
The moon peeped into the room, illuminating the floor, and a pale light covered my letter. I raised my right hand and made a kind of circle in the air. When I opened my eyes a second time I heard a bird twittering at my window. It noticed me and fell silent. Then it raised its voice and flew away.
A pleasant languor spread throughout my limbs, a languor that filled them with a pleasure beyond compare. My bones seemed to dissolve in my body and my spirit was light. Although I was lying among pillows and covers and blankets, I imagined that I was not lying among them, but was one of them, inanimate as they. I closed my eyes and lay still.
As I lay like this, a band of Arabs passed by; they sounded as if they were quarreling with each other, and the silence of the street doubled and redoubled their voices. I covered myself up to my head and over with my blanket, but the voices pierced the blanket. My peace had been interrupted, so I got out of bed.
Remembering my letter, I lifted it from the floor and spread it before me; then I put it aside and picked up a book to read, but I did not read it. I set aside my studies and sat down to copy out the glosses I had discovered, like those students of the Torah who write down comments and glosses in their notebooks. I dipped my pen in the ink, arranged the sheet of paper in front of me, and concentrated my thoughts in order to set them down. An hour passed, but nothing happened. Apart from the shadow of the pen, there was no shape of a letter to be seen on the paper. I bent my head over the sheet and looked at the shadow of my pen, which was coupled with the shadow of my fingers, like two different species who cannot be fertile.
I rose and picked up the pages I had written a few days before. As I read them, I began to feel a kind of writer’s itch in my hand, that sweet tingling one gets before starting work. I stretched out my hand over the paper and clothed my ideas in words. But the ideas disintegrated, like the snowman a child has made and wants to cover with a garment, which melts away as he tries to clothe it.