Just as a man is composed of matter and spirit, so are his actions composed of matter and spirit. A commercial traveler comes to deal with matters of money and converses with Babtchi on the affairs of his spirit. In the meantime, he is between two lawyers: the one who is arranging his divorce and the one to whom he has submitted his claim against the merchant. We would not venture to intrude between two lawyers and say which is the shrewder. In any case, it seems to be easier for a man to get rid of his wife than to get his money from a shopkeeper who has gone bankrupt.
Need the shopkeeper have gone bankrupt? When I went to his shop to buy cloth for my coat, it was chock-full of merchandise, and I doubt if he has sold it all, for I have seen no one who has had a new suit made, and one can assume that all the merchandise is still where it was. But what shall the shopkeeper do with all his cloth? Should he put it under his wife’s head — as she told me about Schuster’s wife, who puts her cloth under her head, because she does not have a pillow for her head?
Babtchi is a sensible girl and knows how to give advice to anyone who consults her. She teaches the commercial traveler how to win Zwirn over, whom she knows like the back of her hand. About the agent’s wife, whom he is about to divorce, Babtchi is silent, for when it comes to the soul’s affairs, her soul is confused, because there is no peace in her soul. Sometimes the material aspect is the stronger, and sometimes the spiritual. Sometimes she says to herself: Zwirn is rich, he lives on the fat of the land and has a number of houses in the town; if he means to marry her and not to play with her, he is worth paying some attention to. And sometimes she thinks about David Moshe the rabbi’s grandson, who is a handsome young man but does not earn enough, because he does not work on the Sabbath. He depends on his father, who makes up for the pay he loses on the Sabbath, for he is a cashier in a cinema — and he will always be dependent on his father, for if he should want to work on the Sabbath they will take away his position out of respect for his father, who controls the newspaper and can do harm. But then her hands, that is, Babtchi’s, are not tied, and she could fill in the gap. Or perhaps Zwirn lets her work for him as long as he is pleased with her, but if she marries someone else he will dismiss her, and she will find it hard to get another post. This world is like a plain, but suddenly it rears itself up like a mountain, which is full of smaller slopes as well. What was Babtchi missing before? She was happy with her friends, and her friends were happy with her. Suddenly she and her friends know happiness no more.
Mrs. Zommer does not know what is in her daughter’s heart — and even if she knew, she could not help. It would be good for her daughter to marry a rich man who earns more in one month than the whole town of Szibucz in a year. But this lawyer is a curse to the town: he sucks people’s blood and devours their substance. Even when he was an assistant to Ausdauer he was notorious for his malice, and now that he is his own master he is more malicious than ever.
On the other hand, the rabbi’s grandson is a fine young man, well educated and of good family, polite and courteous. He is equipped with the lore of his fathers and the lore of the world, talks Yiddish like the women’s prayer book and Polish like a lady. And if you object that he makes a poor living, Mrs. Zommer says: “In the old days, when money was money, money was not everything; all the more so in these days, when money is no longer money! He that gives life will give them a living. And as for the agent, who the gossips say is divorcing his wife for Babtchi’s sake — heaven almighty, if we paid attention to every commercial traveler who makes eyes at the women wherever he goes, we would never stop.”
My host sits as usual, with his pipe in his mouth and his eyes half closed — first, because his pains have been reawakened, and second, because he wants to think about days gone by.
In days gone by, a girl would sit in her father’s house and not in lawyers’ offices; she would help her mother in the home, and when she was finished with her work she would read a book. When she was ripe and ready, God sent her a mate and they lived together. Actually, a lawyer’s business is acceptable too, and if his father-in-law had been able to keep his word, perhaps he, Mr. Zommer, would also have become a lawyer. As for Dr. Zwirn, in whose office Babtchi works, the whole thing is not clear. What is not clear about it? If he does all kinds of doubtful things for the sake of his clients, it is only right that a lawyer should do whatever he can to win his clients’ cases. But it is not right that he should do all kinds of doubtful things for his own sake, to make money out of other people’s troubles. There was an old tinsmith in the town, a one-eyed man, Dr. Milch’s father; Zwirn involved him in all kinds of disputes until the old man sold him his house for a song. And as for David Moshe, the rabbi’s grandson, that good-for-nothing is quite out of the question. The only thing in his favor is that he is the rabbi’s grandson. And then we ought to ask: One way or the other — if you respect your grandfather, why don’t you follow in his footsteps? But if you don’t respect him, why should anyone respect you? As for that agent, it is obvious that he is a sober and sensible man. He pays his bills generously and tips Krolka. But there is no peace between him and his wife. Perhaps he is in the right and she is not. In any case, Mr. Zommer has no intention of going into this matter, although it affects Babtchi’s affairs. And if even Rachel did not obey him, it is all the more certain that Babtchi will not obey him either.
Babtchi left the agent sitting alone, for the time had come to go to her office, and since she got up suddenly and went off, the agent did not manage to ask if he might accompany her. He sits by himself and thinks about his wife and his young children. When was it he made up his mind to divorce his wife — before he came to Szibucz the first time, or after he came back? Everything goes to show that it was after he returned from Szibucz that he began to feel that he no longer loved his wife. But he says that even in the first year after their marriage he did not find her the right woman for him. If so, why did he stay with her? Because she became pregnant and he did not wish to grieve her. Before he had made up his mind, she became pregnant again, and it all went back to the beginning again, for he did not wish to grieve her by saying: I do not want you. Those who are always at home, and see their wives every day and all day, arrange things to suit themselves, but it is another matter with a commercial traveler who spends most of his time on the road: even if he makes up his mind to part with his wife, when he comes home and finds her all dressed up, and his table laid and his bed made, he forgets what he decided to do, and before he manages to reveal his intentions his wife is pregnant and he cannot grieve her.
Let us turn our attention away from the agent’s heart and look at his external actions. Well, the agent took his cigarette case out of his pocket again and extracted a new cigarette. Some distance away, at another table, sits Babtchi’s father, smoking his pipe. The agent says to himself: Perhaps I will get up and go to Mr. Zommer and light my cigarette from his pipe. Or perhaps I will go into the kitchen and take an ember. But if I find Mrs. Zommer there, perhaps she will start a conversation, for Mrs. Zommer is always talking, unlike her husband, who is usually silent. All other innkeepers are talkative, but this one is silent. Perhaps because he disapproves of the agent’s wish to divorce the wife of his youth, and he does not know that he would spend the rest of his life with her were it not for Babtchi.
This Babtchi, may God help her, whichever way she appears, whether in a leather jacket or in a simple dress, she drives him crazy. These women are always bad. If you hate them they are bad, and if you love them they are bad. How simple it was in the winter, when you neither loved nor hated her, and she would sit and joke with you until she shook with laughter. Now that you have cast a favorable eye on her, she will not meet your eyes. If it were not for the affair of the bankrupt shopkeeper, he would take his belongings and go back to his home town.