Satan in Goray

were publicly shamed. There was much jesting and frivolity that evening. Nevertheless, this was not taken amiss in Reb Gedaliya, for he was already known for his unconventional ways. Only a few hidden foes spoke out against him, with no attempt to disguise their irritation.
    They whispered unpleasant things about him. They said that since becoming the slaughterer of Goray he had never once found any beast to be un-clean and unfit to be eaten--this in order to win the favor of the butchers. Whenever the question arose, he ruled the beast clean, and he had abandoned all the laws of purity. He permitted the women to go to the bathhouse and then to bed with their husbands soon after menstruation; according to him, they did not have to keep the additional seven days of abstinence. He explained to young matrons ways to enflame their husbands, and whispered in their ears that, ever since Sabbatai Zevi had been revealed, the commandment against adultery was void. It was rumored that young men were exchanging wives, and everyone knew that Nechele, the wife of Levi, received men in her house and sat up past midnight with them, singing prurient songs. A servant girl who had been sent to look through the keyhole was said to have seen Nechele unhooking her blouse and offering the visitors her breasts to press and the nipples to be kissed. Of Levi it was said that he had forced Glicke, his brother Ozer's daughter, to lie with him, and that he had paid Ozer three Polish gold coins as requital money, that the sin might not be discovered. The young men who studied together in the study house were up to all kinds of evil. They would climb into the women's gallery in the middle of the day, committing pederasty with one another, and sodomy--with the goats. Evenings they went to the bathhouse and, through a hole they had bored in the wall, watched the women purifying themselves. Other young scholars even went off to observe the women tending to their bodily needs....
    There were few old householders in Goray, and no one heeded their grumbling. Reb Gedaliya bribed some with rich gifts. Others were warned that, if they rebelled against his rule, he would place them under a ban, or have them arrested and bound to the post in the study house anteroom. He also presented himself before the lord of Goray; speaking a fluent Polish, he gained the lord's promise to take him under his protection and punish those who tried to overthrow him.
    Goray, that small town at the edge of the world, was altered. No one recognized it any longer.
    Ever since the advent of Reb Gedaliya and since the miracle of the prophetess, the town had pros-pered. From Yanov, Bilgoray, Krasnistav, Turbin, Tishevitz, and other settlements, people came to visit the holy pair. The water in which Rechele washed her body had restoring powers, Reb Gedaliya pro-claimed, and a barrel of it stood in the anteroom of his house. The dispirited who wandered from place to place in search of a cure came to Goray. They gathered before the porch of Reb Gedaliya's house: young women whose hiccuping was like the barking of dogs; barren women who yearned for a blessing that might unlock their wombs; monstrosities, with reptile outlines on their bodies; paralytics and epileptics. Chinkele the Pious stood at the door and let them in one by one. Many of the visitors had to wait at the Goray inns for a long time before being ad-mitted to Reb Gedaliya's house, so they might receive from him amulets and pieces of magical amber and salves to be smeared on the disturbed part of the body and pills to be swallowed. He licked the faces of sickly children, massaged arthritic women, and had them spend the night in his house. Daily the number who came to the miracle worker increased. They shopped in Goray, and slept on the bare floor in the homes of the townsfolk, avidly listening to the amazing tales concerning Rechele the prophetess. Every-where, they sat on benches in front of the houses. Their kerchiefs were pulled down over their eyes; their hands clutched baskets of food; between their breasts hung pouches containing the copper coins that were to buy them health. The young were bashful, and would say nothing. But the older women knitted stockings and recounted with relish their sicknesses and the cures they had been given by various magicians and miracle workers. Those whose menstrual flow had stopped prematurely were advised to eat the foreskin of a circumcised infant. Those who wished to please their