Another man came up to me; he had a long face and a cheerful beard. He stroked his beard and said: “Who are you looking for?” I told him. He said: “I could manage to go with you to the concert.” I threw a look at him and shouted in amazement: “What! You?” He shook his beard and said: “Why not?” I repeated what I had said before, only with a great deal of sarcasm: “What! You?” He disappeared, and so did his beard. “What do we do now?” I thought to myself. I waved the tickets in the air, but nothing happened. The man I was waving at didn’t show up. So I said to myself: Not only can’t I give him the pleasure of a concert, I’m even preventing him from the pleasure of seeing the clown, as he won’t show his face in the audience as long as I’m here. I got up and left.
As this man didn’t wish to come, I gave up the idea of going to the concert; but, having told my wife that I wouldn’t be in before midnight, not until the singer had finished his recital, I had time to take a walk. I began thinking about what had happened, about these incidents which seemed to grow each out of the other, and yet there was no connection between them. I started from the beginning, from the ladder in the bookstore, The Poem of Jerusalem Liberated, and that small creature whose garb is a part of him.
After skipping over some matters, I got to thinking of Moshele, my own flesh and blood, who had escaped the fires of cremation and now was shuffling from one mound of refuse to another. As the concert had not yet come to an end and it was not yet time for me to return to my room, I was able to think a great many thoughts. As I strolled along I thought: If only I could find Moshele now that I am just strolling and have nothing else to do, I would talk to him and let him tell me all his troubles; I would appease him and bring him to the inn, give him food and drink and order a soft, warm bed, and we would part from each other with a hearty goodnight. As I was strolling and thinking such thoughts, it suddenly dawned on me that there could be nothing finer. But favors do not come at all times, or to anyone. Moshele had been saved from cremation, and as an added favor it had been given him to find his own flesh and blood. Whereas I, who was his flesh and blood — no favors at all were granted to me, and I couldn’t find Moshele again.
Finally, the singer ended his song and the audience went home. I too returned to the room at the hotel and closed the door behind me carefully, as an open door calls to uninvited guests. But there are guests who come no matter how tightly one’s door is shut, as they are the thoughts surrounding our actions. So many guests came that the air in the room got fouler and fouler, and I was afraid I was going to choke. I then untied the knot which the young lady had made in my tie, and that helped a little. Now there was more air to breathe, and the guests brought some more guests, and very soon I was choking again.
First Kiss
Friday afternoon; Sabbath eve. Father was out of town on business and had left me alone, like a kind of watchman, to take care of the store. Dusk. Time to lock up, I said to myself, time to go home and change my clothes. Time to go to the House of Prayer.
I took down the keys from where we keep them hidden, but as I went outside to lock the door, three monks appeared. They were bareheaded and wore heavy, dark robes and sandals on their feet. “We want to talk with you,” they said.
I thought to myself, If they’ve come to do business, Friday afternoon close to sunset is no time to do business; and if they’ve come to have a talk, I’m not the man for them. But they saw that I was hesitant to reply, and they smiled.
“Don’t be afraid,” one of them said, “we’re not about to delay you from your prayers.”
“Look to the heavens and see,” added the second. “The sun has yet to go down, we still have time.”
The third one nodded his head, and in the same words, or in different words, repeated what the first two had already said. I locked the door and walked along with them. It so happened that we came out opposite my house. One of the monks raised his left hand.
“Isn’t this your house?”
“This is his house,” answered the second.
“Of course it’s his house,” added the third. “This is his house.” And he pointed three fingers at Father’s house.
“If you’d like, we can go in,” I said.
They nodded their heads: “By your leave.”
We made a circuit of the entire street and walked down a short incline that took us below street level. I forgot to say that there are two entrances to Father’s house, one onto the street, where his shop is, and another onto an alleyway, opposite his House of Study. Both entrances are kept open on weekdays, but at dusk on Friday afternoon we close the door that gives onto the street and unlock the one to the House of Study.
I pushed open the door and we went in. I brought them into the parlor. They sat on chairs that in preparation for the Sabbath meal had been arranged around a table set for the Sabbath. Their robes dragged behind their sandals over the special rug that Mother lays out in honor of the Sabbath.
The eldest of the three, who sat at the head of the table, was fat and fleshy. The others sat on either side of him: one was long and thin, with pale hair and a small wound that glowed red on the back of his head where the monks leave a round spot without hair. The other had no distinguishing marks except for a large Adam’s apple. Myself — I didn’t sit down, but remained standing, as is only reasonable for a man who is in a hurry but has had to receive guests.
They began to talk; I kept quiet. When they saw the two candlesticks on the table they said, “There are three of you, aren’t there? There’s you, your father, and your mother. Why doesn’t your mother light a third candle for her son?”
“Mother is simply continuing a custom she began on the first Sabbath after her marriage,” I told them, “which is to light two candles only.”
They started discussing the various regulations that pertain to the ritual of candle-lighting, and what each one of them means.
“No,” I broke in, “it’s not for any of the reasons you’ve mentioned, it’s just that one candle is for the Written Law and one is for the Oral Law. And the two are actually one, which is why we refer to the Sabbath candles in the singular. But, anyway, I see you’re all quite expert in Jewish custom.”
They smiled, but the smile disappeared into the wrinkles in their faces.
“Well, and why shouldn’t we be experts in Jewish custom,” said the one that I’ve been calling the third. “After all, we belong to the order of—”
I thought he said they were Dominicans; but outside the monastery Dominicans don’t usually wear their habits, and these three had their habits on. So he must have named a different order, but his Adam’s apple got in the way and I didn’t catch what he said.
The conversation was preventing me from keeping track of time, and I forgot that a man has to make himself ready to greet the Sabbath. I asked the maid to serve refreshments. She brought in the special delicacies that we prepare in honor of the Sabbath. I put a flask of brandy in front of them. They ate and drank and talked. Since I was agitated about the time, I didn’t hear anything they said.
Two or three times it occurred to me that the hour had come to welcome the Sabbath. But when I looked out the window, the sun was in the same place it had been when the monks first accosted me. Now you can’t say there was some kind of black magic here, because I had mentioned the name of God any number of times during the conversation; and you can’t say that I’d made a simple mistake in time, because the sexton had not yet called for prayers. The whole thing was quite astonishing: when the monks first came, the sun was close to setting, and all this time they’d been eating and drinking and talking, yet the sun was precisely where I’d last seen it before they ever appeared. And it’s even harder, for that matter, to explain away the problem of our clock, because even if you claim that I was so preoccupied with my guests I didn’t think to set it for the Sabbath, all the same I assure you it’s a fine instrument, and would keep proper time even without a daily winding.