“Genendel,” said I, “don’t trouble yourself. I am going with Aaron to eat in my hotel.” Genendel stared at me with wide-open eyes and said, “We’re not riffraff who lick the plates at hotels. My son Aaron has a home and he can eat like a respectable person. Even there, in Nikolsburg, I showed the nobles what a housewife can do. Even that doctor — may the devil make Gehenna hot for him — kept out of my way and let me behave like the mistress of the house. And when I lit the candles in honor of the Sabbath, and he came and scolded me, I stood my ground quietly as if I were in my own home, and after I had prayed for myself and my relations, I lifted up my eyes to heaven and lifted up my voice so that he should hear, and prayed for him too, that he should live to die in torment speedily with all the enemies of Zion. My friend, we do not have much pleasure in this world, but anyone who has a head on his shoulders gets himself a bit of satisfaction on the side. If you had seen him at that moment you would have kissed your fingers for joy. Now, my friend, I will go and make you a fine meal fit for the honor of your mother’s son. I have heard that you don’t eat meat. If I gave you meat you would eat, but there’s no morsel of meat in the whole town. Tell me, my friend, if you don’t eat meat what do you do with all the worms you find in your books? I thought you roasted them and ate them, but after all you don’t eat meat. A fine thing — pity I haven’t time to laugh a little.”
Before she came back Schutzling explained to me what had happened at Nikolsburg. At the beginning of the war, the government had seen that all the people of Galicia were streaming to Vienna, and they were afraid Vienna might be filled up with them. So they erected huts in Nikolsburg and surrounded them with barbed wire, one fence inside the other, and brought most of the refugees there. These huts were divided into rooms six feet square, with four beds in each room, two on one side and two on the other, two below and two above — and into each room they put men and women, whether close relatives or distant strangers. They did not get enough bread to eat, but on the other hand the lice got more than enough. The authorities set sentries in front of the huts, with rifles in their hands, and anyone who tried to escape was shot. This they did with great good will, for anyone who escaped cost the camp authorities money, as the government paid according to the number of souls. If a man wanted to attend to nature’s demands, he had to ask for a permit from the overseer. If the overseer was in a congenial mood, he would say, “I know you don’t really need that thing; what you really want is to meet a woman there.” And he said the same to the young women as to the young men. These overseers were teachers who had no posts, and when they now got this post showed that they were fit for it. A doctor was appointed to look after the sick, a young fellow of good family from Szibucz. If a man fell ill, the doctor would scold him thoroughly and say, “You’re a cheat, you’re perfectly healthy.” In the end, he too fell sick and died, for diseases multiplied and carried away good and bad. It would have been better if he had died earlier, but even so it was a good thing, for he did not manage to add to his wickedness.
When I had entered the house I had felt that there was a man sitting there, though he could not be seen and his voice was not heard. After Genendel left, he came forward and stood before us. He looked about sixty, of medium height, round-shouldered, with his head tilted to one side; his beard was full and round, with more black in it than white, his teeth coarse, yellow, and bent, his eyes grey and bashful. He had a pen in his hand, and books and pamphlets under his arm.
He put the pen behind his ear, held out his hand and greeted me, saying, “My dear sir, here you are. How glad I am to see you, especially today, which is a special day for me!” I returned his greeting and looked at him. He lowered his eyes and said, “Don’t you recognize me, my dear sir? You and I were well acquainted.”
I recognized him immediately: it was Leibtche Bodenhaus. This Leibtche Bodenhaus was the husband of a woman who sold shoes; I used to talk to him about the theory of poetry and style. He never attracted me; in fact you might say he bored me, but he had one good quality, or perhaps two. First, he was twenty years older than I was, and it is a young man’s way to respect the old; second, he belonged to another town, and since I was weary of Szibucz, anyone who came from somewhere else seemed important to me, even if he was not important. He was married to a woman older than himself, who treated him with respect in front of other people, but provoked and reviled him when no one else was present. “If I hadn’t been an old maid that no one wanted you wouldn’t have got me,” she used to say. When he wanted to run away, she would take off his shoes, and he would sit complaining until her brother came and made peace between them. This brother of hers was a well-to-do businessman, who went in for culture, and had a large shoe store and set up a branch for them; it was next to Zommer’s shop on the one side and the shop of Zwirn’s father on the other — he too sold shoes — and they would compete with each other for customers.
Since the day I went up to the Land of Israel I had not heard of him or called him to mind. When I returned to Szibucz I heard talk of him, but I did not happen to see him, because he did not leave his house on account of a sore on his foot. For this sore, people said, he was indebted to his wife, who once left him barefoot, without shoes, all one winter’s day, and his foot got frostbitten. But some said: Not at all, he was in perfect health and there was another reason why he did not leave his house — because he was writing a book, so as to leave some name and sign behind him, for he had no sons to preserve his memory after his death.
Leibtche Bodenhaus was a distant relative of Genendel’s on his wife’s side. When his wife died of one of the nine hundred and ninety-nine diseases that followed the war, and Leibtche remained without a wife, without a shield, Genendel took him into her house, gave him a bed and a table, clad and shod him, and bought him a bottle of ink and a pile of paper, so that he should sit and write his book. “The poor fellow,” said Genendel, “has never had any enjoyment in this world, and I hope they won’t beat him in the next for his foolishness.”
Never since the day he was born has Leibtche been so soaked in delight as he is in Genendel’s house, for Genendel lives on the fat of the land, since her sons send her money, some in dollars and some in marks and francs. Genendel has been fortunate in bearing nine sons, nine prosperous bakers, who make a good living and keep their mother in comfort. Before the war, Szibucz used to supply half of Europe with poultry and eggs and millet and all kinds of peas and lentils, and now it provides the world with bread. Szibucz itself has no bread, but the bakers who came from Szibucz can bake bread that does not have its like anywhere in the world.
Let us go back to Leibtche. Leibtche sits in Genendel’s house and spends all his days and nights turning the Bible into rhymes. He has a double purpose in doing this: first, because the Bible is beautiful and it is a good thing to beautify it; and second, because rhymes are beautiful and fitting to beautify the Bible with. Moreover, rhymes are easy to remember, as even Schiller realized; that was why he clothed his sublime ideas in rhymes.
The day I came to Genendel’s was a great day for Leibtche, for it was the day he had succeeded in completing the entire Book of Genesis in rhymes. He came and sat down before us, opened his books, and started to read. So he sat and read, until sleep overtook Schutzling and he dozed off.