Satan in Goray

and silver objects could be purchased, and where the wealthiest men from Poland, Lithuania, Germany, and Bohemia sought husbands for their daughters. One of the young men even brought his fiddle along with him and played him Wallachian melodies. Amongst them Reb Itche Mates sat, weary and alien, gazing obliquely over their heads. Occasionally he would pull a hair from his beard, hold it close to his eye, stare at it long, and finally place it carefully between the leaves of the Zohar. Soon his head sank on his chest and he dozed off. His arms dangled limply and his nose looked pale and lifeless. His visitors stood up and chuckled behind his back. At night, when the important leaders of his sect came to escort Reb Itche Mates to bed, they took him aside for a whispered conference, remonstrating: "How can this be, Reb Itche Mates? To be fruitful and to multiply is the principle of principles!"
    The marriage bed was in a room in Reb Eleazar's half-ruined brick house. Before removing his clothes Reb Itche Mates read the prayers of Rabbi Judah the Devout for more than an hour. Next, beating his breast with his thin fist, and weeping, he made his confession. Then he walked innumerable times around a bench. Rechele lay in bed waiting for him, prepared to greet him with sweet talk and love, as she had been tutored by the women. Outside, dogs howled mournfully, grew silent, and then began again, as though lamenting some great crime perpetrated on them. Rechele became aware that the Angel of Death was outside. The wind tore at the shutters, icily swept through the room, and the tallow candle flickered and went out, leaving the room dark and smoky. Reb Itche Mates continued his chant as he shuffled from corner to corner, as though in search of something. It seemed to Rechele that there was someone besides Reb Itche Mates in the room, some airy and terrifying presence. The roots of her hair tingled with fear, and she drew the covers over her. At last, silently, Reb Itche Mates lay down beside her. His body smelled of bathhouse water and corpses. He warmed his frigid hands between her breasts, and his bristly hair pricked her, yet his teeth continued to chatter and his body shook so that the bed shook with it. Reb Itche Mates' knees were bony and sharp and seemed to be hollow; his ribs protruded like barrel staves. All at once he spoke, in a low hoarse voice full of childish mystery: "Do you see anything, Rechele?"
    "No! What do you see, Itche Mates?"
    "Lilith!" Reb Itche Mates cried, and it seemed to Rechele that the vision pleased him. "Look at her. Long hair like yours. Naked. Concupiscent."
    He rambled on in strange half-sentences, cryptic, incomprehensible, as though in mockery. Suddenly he began to snore, with a long, shrill whistle.
    "Itche Mates!" Rechele called in a voice which though muffled had a threat in it.
    "Eh...?"
    "Are you asleep?"
    "Uh...."
    "Why do you snore so loudly?" asked Rechele. Itche Mates listened, yet the snores continued even though he was awake.
    Rechele was terrified.
    "Itche Mates!" she cried, turning from him. "I am sick. Stop frightening me!"
    He could not sleep all night. He left the bed and began washing his hands and splashing water on the floor, while muttering prayers and humming. Toward dawn he stationed himself at the window and peered through the cracks in the shutters for sign of light. At the first hint of blue, he put on his clothes and left the house. Only then did Rechele sleep. Tormented by dreams, she saw her father lying in a field, empty-eyed and circled by a flock of vultures. Uncle Reb Zeydel Ber came to Rechele also. He was wearing a bloody shroud, and he waved a long butcher's knife in the air, and shouted angrily: "Your days are numbered! Descend, Rechele, descend into the dark grave!"
    She rose in the morning altered, as though by a mysterious disease, and it seemed to Rechele that the night had been longer than nights usually were. She could on no account remember what she had dreamed and what she had experienced. Her head was heavy; her hair hurt, as though it had been pulled; there were blue circles under her eyes, and her body was black and blue as though it had been pinched. Stiffly she walked to the oven and rubbed the flints together until the wick at last caught fire. Then she put a pot on the tripod, but so forgetful was she that the food burned. Reb Itche Mates returned from the study house at noon, wearing a kerchief around his loins and stooping as he carried a