Satan in Goray

sheets with red tooth-shaped fringes on the hems, embroidered pillow cases, and laceedged underclothes. The new linens crackled in the women's hands, and dazzled the eyes, like the snow outside the window. The house smelled of cinnamon, raisins, and preparation for the feast that ends a fast.
    In the evening the girls began to congregate at Rechele's house. The floor was sprinkled with yellow sand, and a few tallow candles were burning. The healer and his son, strumming on their fiddles, were paid in paper pennies for each number. Rechele sat in her bride's chair, wearing a white satin dress and borrowed jewelry. Around her neck hung a thick gold chain. From her pierced ear lobes dangled two long earrings, black with age, their stones clouded. Two girls who were still almost children sat on either side of Rechele. They were to be her bridesmaids, and it was their duty to remain at her side and to protect her. Since no wedding jester could be found in Goray, this role was taken by Doodie, a poor shoemaker blind in one eye. Frightened and pale, he stood at the door, hoarsely and mechanically reciting phrases in Yiddish, his manner so ambiguous it was impossible to tell whether he wished to make people merry or sad. His good eye remained fixed; the one with the tumor kept blinking rapidly. Doodie imitated women crying; he covered his face with dirty hands and bleated like a goat. The girls nudged one another and giggled. They performed first the Mad Dance and then the Scissors. Dance and the Water Dance, lifting their dresses as though to cross a puddle. Like strangers they averted their eyes. It was some time before they agreed to accept the pieces of honey cake which were their due; they tasted only a single berry of the jam set before them. Because the fool did not jest, some of the girls upbraided him; others flirted with the player, who wore an effeminate jacket and a plush hat with earlaps, and who kept making vulgar comments under his breath. The girls scolded him, surreptitiously shaking their fingers at him, convulsing with laughter.
    "The rascal!" they cried, falling into one another's arms.
    Rechele covered her eyes with a handkerchief, re-membering her father, Reb Eleazar Babad, who had been killed on the road and had not even been buried in a Jewish grave. Remorse consumed her; she had been unable to visit her mother's grave in Velodova and as was proper invite her to the wedding. Suddenly the women crowded together. The menfolk approached, accompanying the groom who came to cover the bride's head. They could be heard already on the stairs, and the girls tried to lock the door against them. But the door was forcibly pushed open and the men entered, drunk and in high spirits. They soon filled the house. Elbowing the women aside, so that Reb Itche Mates might not have to pass among them, his companions made a path for him, crying haughtily, "Women, to one side! Let us through! Girls--go home!"
    As is the custom at weddings, when frivolity is tolerated, a few young women screamed. Reb Itche Mates entered, in a borrowed fur coat which dragged behind him on the floor and wearing a sable hat that fell over his eyes. Before covering the bride's head he recited an interminable prayer. Rechele cried out only once. When Itche Mates covered her head, a rain of raisins and almonds fell on her, and all the women sobbed and blew their noses. The fool stood on tiptoe at the door so as to be seen, despite his smallness, and chanted in a melancholy way: "The haidamaks slaughtered and martyred us. They murdered young children, they ravished women.
    Chmelnicki slit open bellies, he sewed cats inside, (because of our sins!).
    This is why we wail so loudly and implore Revenge, 0 Lord, the blood of thy slaughtered saints!"
    A woman suddenly fainted, and they poured water over her. A boy suffocating in the crowd screamed in fright. Someone stumbled over the water tun. A vessel broke. And then the groom was escorted to the bridal canopy, which stood between the prayer house and the old cemetery. Small mounds filled the prayer house court, marking the graves of school children who in 1648 had died martyrs' deaths at the hands of haidamaks and Tartars rather than change their faith and be sold into slavery. The groom, in memory of the day of death, put on a white robe like a shroud and a white mitre. He had sprinkled with ashes the spot on his forehead where the phylacteries usually rested. Hunched under the canopy Reb Itche Mates