Satan in Goray

rise from their graves. The greatest rabbis and men of genius believed in this prophet and gave him tokens of their esteem.
    But he who raised the tumult in Goray to its highest pitch was a certain rabbinical legate, a Jew from Yemen.
    It was midwinter, early one January evening. All day a wind had been blowing, driving hills of snow and piling them up in front of the houses--blue, glassy, filling the air with dust, as in a field. Crows waddled about on their short feet, picked at a frozen cat, cawed with their crooked beaks, and flew low in the air to exercise their wings. Few windowpanes remained whole in their frames, and on these grew complicated frost patterns of trees that seemed to have been turned upside down by the storm, their stocks broken. The roofs hung low, stooping to the earth, and a column of milk-white smoke spiraled from every chimney, as though boring into the sky. God's stars trembled brighter and larger than usual, sparkling green and blue in the atmosphere. Circled by three pearl halos that reflected all the colors of the rainbow, a yellow moon, like an eye, looked down at the Jews hurrying to their afternoon prayers. Suddenly the sharp clanging of a bell was heard in the market place, and a sleigh drove up. A man with a snow-covered beard and long earlocks got out. He was wearing a red turban and a fur coat turned inside out. Darting fiery glances everywhere with his black eyes, he asked: "Where is the study house?"
    The newcomer appeared in the holy place between the afternoon and evening prayers. His arrival created a sensation. He stopped at the threshold, where he pulled off his felt shoes and stood in stockinged feet. Afterward, lie removed his outer garment, revealing a long smock black-striped like a prayer shawl, and girdled about with an embroidered sash. Washing his hands and feet for a long time at the copper water tap, the newcomer recited a benediction in a language that sounded like Aramaic. Then, ascending the dais with measured step, he turned his face to the eastern wall, and cried out in a trembling voice: "Judeans, I come to bring you good tidings! >From Jerusalem our holy city!"
    The newcomer's arrival immediately became known in town, and a throng came running to the study house. Womenfolk mingled with menfolk, young men and girls stood up together on reading stands and tables. Everyone gaped and listened. The stranger spoke in a broken voice, one that seemed to be full of tears: "Judeans," he said, "I come from our holy land. I am a pure-blooded Sephardi. I have been sent by my brothers into the Exile, to tell you that the Great Fish that lurks in the river Nile has succumbed at the hands of Sabbatai Zevi, our Messiah and holy king.... His kingship will soon be revealed, and he will take the sultan's crown from off his head.... The Jews from the other side of the river Sambation are ready and waiting for the battle of Armageddon.... The lion that dwelleth on high will descend from Heaven, in his mouth a seven-headed scorpion.... With fire issuing from his nostrils, he will carry the Messiah into Jerusalem. Gather your strength, O Judean, and make yourselves ready!... Happy is the man who shall live to see this!"
    The study house became so quiet that a solitary fly could be heard buzzing, beating its wings against the window. Women wrung their hands, and from their grimaces it was difficult to tell whether they were laughing or weeping. There was a sea of startled faces. The crowd stirred, as when the ram's horn is blown on Rosh Hashana. The legate looked about him.
    "Wonders and miracles are performed in Jerusalem.... In Miron a fiery column has been seen stretching from earth to heaven.... The full name of God and of Sabbatai Zevi were scratched on it in black.... The women who divine by consulting drops of oil have seen the crown of King David on Sabbatai Zevi's head.... Many disbelievers deny this and refuse to turn back at the very threshold of Gehenna.... Woe unto them! They will sink and be lost in the nethermost circle of Sheol!"
    "Jews! Save your-selves! Jew-ws!" someone suddenly shouted, as though he were choking.
    The crowd shuddered. It was lame Mordecai Joseph, a cabalist, with a thick, fiery beard and bushy eyebrows, a faster, a weeper, an angry man. As he prayed he would beat his head against the wall; on the Days of Awe he would fall to the ground at the Prayer of Petition, like the men of old, and groan out loud. He delivered funeral orations and on the