Midnight had come but our talk had not come to an end. Two or three times I rose to go, but the rabbi kept me back. Finally, when I took my leave, he rose and accompanied me outside.
The new moon showed clearly. The ground shone with the snow and the cold seemed to have thawed slightly. The air seemed to be changing gradually — heaven only knew whether for good or evil.
Chapter two and thirty. In the Marketplace
From the day that Hanoch disappeared and Reb Hayim started to serve in his place, I have been free to my own devices, for Hanoch used to bring wood, water, and kerosene, and sweep the floor on Sabbath eves, while I used to look after the trimming of the candles and the lighting of the stove, but now Reb Hayim performs all these duties himself. He even lights the stove, because one day I was late in coming, so he came and lit it; from then onward he has been the one to light the stove.
That day I went out to the marketplace. First, because for several days I had not seen the town, and second, because the stove had been repaired and plastered, and the smell disturbed me.
The frost had weakened somewhat, and the snow had shriveled and blackened; even in places where it had gathered in heaps it began to show cracks. The blackened snow and the cracks, although they announced that the frost was less, made me feel melancholy. The town was almost empty. The shopkeepers stood in their shops, but no customers came to buy, so not a living soul was to be seen. Perhaps a crow or a raven showed in the skies above, but on the earth below there was no one to be seen but I, who was occupied in making my way through the mud, until I reached the post office.
When I saw the post office I remembered the days of my youth, when I sat tranquilly in my father’s house and poured out my thoughts in letters to friends about the idleness and the boredom and the weakening faith in the heart and the future that was wrapped in mist. The sun shone in the heavens and the gardens flourished and the trees produced fruit and the fields were full of corn and a man’s livelihood was secure and a Jew could live like a human being. Nevertheless a grey sadness hung heavily over our heads and the heart was not joyful. Sometimes this sadness would luxuriate in melancholy like a maggot in an apple, and sometimes the melancholy would gnaw into it like a maggot. What did we lack at that time? Our main lack was that we did not know what we lacked. Suddenly a new light gleamed and lit up the heart. From far and near we heard that we too were like all the nations, we too had a land like all other lands, and it depended only on our own will to go up to this land and become a nation. The clever people of the time made a jest of the whole matter and showed with the clearest arguments that it was no more than an illusion. Even worse, if the nations heard that we were ambitious to become a nation, they would say: If so, what do you want here? Be off with you and go to your own country. On the surface these seemed to be sensible words, but the heart did not agree with them. In those days the maggot ceased to gnaw at the heart, and that sadness, which was hard as iron, became a kind of gracious melancholy, like the grace of a man who has longings for something he loves. What can I add, what more can I tell? Anyone who has not experienced it does not understand it, and anyone who has experienced it knows it by himself. Then speech was given to the dumb, and the writer’s pen to the heavy of hand. The boy could not yet write two or three words correctly, and he already wrote poetry. According to reason he should have first learned language and grammar, and read the books of the poets before him; yet he did not do so, but wrote poems from his heart. And lo and behold, a miracle happened to him. A handful of words, which were not even enough to draw up a shopkeeper’s bill, sufficed for the writing of a poem. It was then that I wrote my song, “Devotion Faithful unto Death.” This was the song with which Yeruham Freeman reproached me, saying that all his troubles began with it, because he went up to the Land of Israel, with all that followed. Many years have passed and again we stand here in the marketplace of Szibucz as in the early days, when tedium devoured the heart and idleness weakened our hands.
There stands this man in Szibucz, like a stone the sculptor has wrenched from the mountain to give it a shape, but thrown aside because it was not fit to take a shape. There lies that stone in the place from which it was taken, yet it does not adhere to its place. Dust and grit cling to it, and it sprouts grass like the good earth, and the Holy One, blessed be He, brings forth the dew and brings down the rain, and the grass grows higher and higher. Really, according to reason, that stone should be content, for it has become a plot of soil in itself, which produces grass and even buds and flowers. Why then is it not joyful? Because it does not forget the hour when it lay in the sculptor’s hand. Why did the craftsman not give it a shape? The craftsman is engrossed in his work and does not respond to every questioner. And even if he were ready to respond, the stone is unable to roll over and over and go to him to ask, for it is hard to move because the dust and grit cling to it. And since the stone lies in its place, it looks out over its surroundings.
Like that stone, let us, too, look. After all, we are free to look and to see.
The well of the marketplace stood as usual, pouring out water on all sides, and setting free a damp chill from itself and its two pipes, and from the damp straw in which it was wrapped. Whenever I see the ocean, or a river, or a brook, or a lake, or a spring, or a well, I like to gaze at the water. But at that moment I said to myself: If only I had a wagon, so that I could go back to the hotel and throw myself on my bed.
No wagon came to take me to the hotel, so I remained standing in the marketplace. In front of me sat a few peddler women wrapped in rags, with sacking wound around their legs and various kinds of boxes lying before them, from which rose all kinds of smells of pickled cabbage and apples that had rotted. No doubt there were goods for sale in or on these boxes. Languidly, the peddler women fixed their eyes on me and asked, without word or speech: What kind of goods are you looking for? Three or four women were walking around the marketplace with their baskets in their hands. Among them was Krolka. She did not see me, and it was good she did not, although I did not know why I should care whether she saw me or not. Finally she turned her head toward me and said, “You here too, sir? I came out to buy something in the market, but there’s nothing to buy — only pickled cabbage or rotted carrots. But what I refused yesterday I will buy today. Isn’t that what they say, ‘The Jews despised the manna and now they eat filth’?”
The women went away. The peddlers shrank into their rags, screwed up their eyes, and closed their lips, and the marketplace was silent. The well suddenly gave tongue, its water flowed faster, and a damper chill began to rise.
One woman opened her eyes and looked at me, saying, “Will the gentleman buy something?” I said to myself: What does this foolish woman want me to buy from her? There was Krolka, the servant at the hotel, who had inspected all the boxes and yet went away empty-handed, and this peddler woman says, “Buy something from me.”
“Sir,” said the woman’s neighbor, “buy from her. Buy from her, sir. You’ll be doing a great good deed — a house full of orphans, living orphans.” “What shall I take it in, mother?” said I, “I haven’t a basket.” “Buy whatever you like, sir,” said she, “and Hanoch’s wife will bring you the goods to any place you say. Isn’t that so, Hanoch’s wife?” Hanoch’s wife nodded her head to indicate yes. Said her neighbor, “Why don’t you tell the gentleman that you will bring him his goods?” And to me she said, “She’s a sorrowful woman and she finds it hard to speak. Alas, Hanoch’s wife, you want to be a peddler but you don’t want to open your mouth. As I’m a true Jewess, sir, it’s good stuff she has, apples and eggs. Apples you would think had just been picked from the tree.”