It is known that Novsky was arrested again during the terrible winter of 1937 and taken somewhere. The next year we uncover his tracks in distant Insulma. The last letter written by him has the postmark of Kem, in the vicinity of the Solovecski Islands.
The continuation and the end of Novsky's history is based on Carl Fridrichovich (who mistakenly calls him Podolsky, Instead of Dolsky); the setting: the distant, icy North, Norilsk.
Novsky disappeared from the camp in a mysterious and inexplicable way, most likely during one of those awful storms when the tower guards, the firearms, and the German shepherds were equally helpless. After the storm had died down, the pursuers set off in search of the fugitive, relying on the bloodthirsty instinct of their dogs. For three days the camp inmates awaited in vain the command "Get out!”; for three days the furious foaming German shepherds struggled to wrest free from their steel collars, dragging the exhausted pursuers over deep snowdrifts. On the fourth day, a guard spotted Novsky at the ironworks, unshaven and looking like an apparition, warming himself next to the furnace. They released the German shepherds. Following the howls of the dogs, the pursuers burst into the foundry building. The fugitive was on the ladder at the top of the furnace, illuminated by the flames. One eager guard began to climb up. As the guard approached him, Novsky leaped into the boiling mass. The guards saw him disappear before their very eyes; he rose like a wisp of smoke, deaf to their commands, defiant, free from German shepherds, from cold, from heat, from punishment, and from remorse.
This brave man died on November 21, 1937, at four o'clock in the afternoon. He left a few cigarettes and a toothbrush.
In late June 1956, the London Times, which still seemed to believe in ghosts, announced that Novsky had been seen in Moscow near the Kremlin wall. He was recognized by his steel dentures. This news was carried by the entire Western bourgeois press, eager for intrigue and sensation.
Dogs and Books
{FOR FILIP DAVID}
In the year of Our Lord 1330, on the twenty-third day of the twelfth month, it came to the vigilant ears of the Most Venerable Father in Christ, Monsignor Jacques, by the grace of God Bishop of Pamiers, that Baruch David Neumann, a refugee from Germany and a former Jew, had abandoned the blindness and perfidy of Judaism and been converted to the Christian faith; that he had received the sacrament of holy baptism in the town of Toulouse at a time of persecution, at the instigation of the devout Pastoureaux; and that afterward, "like a dog who goggles his vomit", this Baruch David Neumann used the opportunity-since in the town of Pamiers he had lived like a Jew with other Jews-to return to that sect offensive to God, and to his former Jewish ways, so that His Excellency the Bishop ordered that he be arrested and thrown in the dungeon.
Finally, he ordered that he be brought to him, and Baruch Neumann appeared before him in the Bishop's great hall, the left wing of which opened onto the torture chamber.
Monsignor Jacques gave the order that Baruch be brought through this chamber to remind him of the instruments God has mercifully placed in our hands in the service of His Holy Faith and for the salvation of the human soul.
Monsignor Jacques had beside him at the table as his helper Friar Gaillard de Pamiers, the representative of the Inquisitor of Carcassonne. Also present were the Magistrate Bernard Faissasier of Pamiers and the Magistrate David de Troyes, a Jew who had been called in as interpreter to His Excellency the Bishop, in case Baruch was brazen enough to touch on dogma and the Law, since he was known to be a specialist in the Old Testament, Jewish Law, and the Book of the Evil One.[10]
Monsignor Jacques began, therefore, to question Baruch about all these things, since the Jew swore on Moses' Law that he would tell only the truth, primarily about himself but also about others, living and dead, whom he would call as witnesses.
When this came to pass, he said and confessed as follows:
This year (on last Thursday it was exactly a month) the devout Pastoureaux arrived in Grenade armed with long knives, spears, and whips, with crosses made out of goatskin sewn to their clothes, carrying rebel flags and threatening to exterminate all Jews, Solomon Vudas, a young Jew, then found the Grand Defender of Grenade in the company of his scribe, the Jew Eleazar, and asked him, as he told me later, whether he would protect him from the devout Pastoureatix. He said that he would. However, since the Pastoureaux kept arriving in ever-increasing numbers and began searching even the houses of Christians and prominent citizens, he told Solomon that he would not be able to protect him any longer, and advised him to take a boat down the Garonne to Verdun, to a larger and safer castle belonging to a friend. So Solomon took the boat and set off downstream toward Verdun, When the Pastoureaux saw him from the bank, they also got a boat and oars, pulled him out of the water, and, after tying him up, took him to Grenade, all the while telling him he must be either converted or killed. The Grand Defender, who was watching all this from the bank, his hand on his forehead, approached them and said that if they killed Solomon, it would be as if they cut off his own head. They answered that if this were so, they would carry out his wish. Solomon said he did not wish the judge to be hurt in any way because of him, and asked the Pastoureaux what they wanted of him. They repeated: he must be either converted or killed, Solomon declared that he would rather be converted. At once they baptized him in the murky waters of the Garonne, along with Eleazar the scribe, since they had with them a young priest who surely knew the procedure. Two pious women sewed crosses of goatskin on their clothes and then they were let go.
The next day Solomon and Eleazar came to see me in Toulouse, told me all that had happened, and said that they were converted, but not of their own free will; if they could, they would like to revert to their own faith. They also said that if one day Yahweh mercifully opened their eyes and showed them that the new laws were better than the old, that the soul sinned less toward man and beast in the fold of the new faith, then they would convert of theft own free will, sincerely. I answered that I did not know what to advise them; perhaps they could, I told them, return unpunished into the fold of Judaism if their souls were freed from Christian laws, and that I would consult Friar Raymond Leinach, assistant to His Excellency the Inquisitor of Toulouse, who would certainly be able to give them advice and absolution. So together with Bonnet, a Jew from Ageo, I went to see Friar Raymond and the attorney Jacques Marques, notary to His Excellency the Inquisitor of Toulouse. I described the misfortune that had befallen Solomon, and asked them whether the conversion of someone against his will was licit, and whether faith accepted through naked fear for one’s life had any value. They told me that such a conversion was illicit, I returned at once to Solomon and Eleazar and brought them the message from Friar Raymond and attorney Jacques that their conversion did not have the force of true faith, and that they could return to the faith of Moses. Solomon subsequently delivered his person into the hands of Monsignor the Councillor of Toulouse, so that the latter would obtain for him the opinion of the Roman Curia about the efficacy of this conversion, since Solomon feared that his return to Judaism could be interpreted as a sign of hypocrisy.
10
"The Boob of the Evil One" is only one of the famous metaphors for the no-less-famous Talmud, In 1320 Pope John XXII had ordered that every copy of this heretical book be seized and burned at the stakes It is known that at (hat time throughout the entice Christian Archipelago soldiers at the customs barriers would search Jewish caravans, rummaging through smuggled merchandise-silks, leathers, and spices-while paying no attention to it (except out of personal greed), and chat Saint Bernard dogs, with their talent for sniffing out "the writings of the Evil One", would sniff the greasy caftans of bearded merchants and put their muzzles under the skirts of frightened women. Finally the dogs caused a severe epidemic of rabies, and began also biting Christian merchants and putting their muzzles under the robes of innocent pilgrims, priests, and nuns who were smuggling dried fish and Camembert, commonly known as crotte de diable (devil's dung), out of Catalonia. Tracking down the Talmud, however, did nor stop with this; in 1336 alone Jean Guy, called "en fer", "of Iron," seized and burned at the stake two cartloads of that Incriminated book, while his earlier and later accomplishments unfortunately remain unknown to the present researchers. This Jean Guy of Iron, си Fer (some of his opponents, carried away by the associations of the sound of en fer, and by envy pronounced and wrote as Enfer, meaning hell), showed himself much too zealous, it seems: along with the Talmud, he began to bum books not on the official Index of the Pope, and people too, so that for a period of time be was exposed to pressure from the clergy, who were mightily afraid of him, and who acted according to the Pope's, and God's, instructions, к is known that Jean Guy of Iron emerged from this bloody battle the victor, and that most of his opponents were burned at the stake. They say he died in his monastic cell half mad, surrounded by books and dogs.