Satan in Goray

buried the corpse in a field, with neither mound nor cross to show where she lay.
    The most ancient in Goray could not remember such a time. It was difficult to get a loaf of bread, but meat was plentiful. Early each evening the butcher boys drove whole herds of calves, and sheep, and goats to the slaughterhouse. They brought cows whose udders had shrunken and had ceased giving milk. These animals had thin flanks overgrown with thick clumps of dung; their ribs stuck out like barrel staves; their bellies hung loose like empty bags; their black, damp, hairy muzzles were drawn with hunger and thirst; and the town resounded with their pitiful mooing. They fell at the butcher's first push, and expired without a struggle. Reb Gedaliya hurried about with his green slaughtering knife, expertly slashing at the shaven necks, and recoiling from the spatter of blood. Butchers moved about with hatchets chopping off the heads of the still breathing beasts, dexterously stripping hides, tearing bodies open, and dragging out red satin lungs, half-empty stomachs, and intestines. They inflated the lungs by blowing through the windpipe, and slapped the distended or-gans and spat into the flaps to see if there were any vents which would make the animal unclean. Reb Gedaliya stood in the center of the slaughterhouse, his knife clenched between his teeth, his earlocks and his long beard disheveled, his black eyes, deep set in the hairy pouches of his cheeks, rolling as he urged the butchers to finish the examination, remonstrating: "Hurry! It's clean! It's clean!"
    For Reb Gedaliya had to be very sparing of his time; the weight of all Goray lay on his shoulders. The elders waited at the town meeting to hear his views; the women required his advice on how to obtain dowries for orphan girls; it was he whom the lord of Goray had licensed to levy and collect taxes, in his wisdom; emissaries brought him letters from the Sabbatai Zevi sect in Zamosc and Ludomir; rich men from other towns pleaded for his salves and potions; persons possessed, brides under a spell, children with blown-up bellies were brought to him. The table in Reb Gedaliya's room was piled high with sheaves of parchment, goose-quill pens, hailstones from Heaven, balls of devil-dung. There was always a pot of leeches handy, and somewhere in the room Reb Gedaliya had a scroll inscribed with the names of angels and demons. Secreted elsewhere was a black- bordered mirror and a cross on a string of beads. Young men frequently came to study the circulars of Nathan of Gaza and Abraham Ha-Yachini. Reb Gedaliya trained these young men in the magical science of drawing wine from walls, and transporting themselves from place to place according to a cabalistic formula....
    Goray was elated. Every few days there was an-other wedding. Twelve-year-old brides walked the streets with swollen bellies, for pious women saw to it that their daughters and sons-in-law lay with each other often. Moreover, Reb Gedaliya and Levi had released from marriage all women who had been deserted--and they had lost no time finding new husbands. Reb Gedaliya's calculations were that the ram's horn would announce the coming of the Messiah in the middle of the month of Elul, and three days before Rosh Hashana a cloud would descend and the pious would climb aboard and be off to the Land of Israel. Daily, between the afternoon and the evening prayers, Reb Gedaliya told the congregation of the miracles that were about to take place. Every godfearing man would have ten thousand heathen slaves to wash his feet and care for him. Duchesses and princesses would act as the nurses and governesses of Jewish children, as had been foretold in the Book of Isaiah; thrice daily the Jews would fly like eagles to the mount of the Lord and there bow and prostrate themselves before the Holy Temple. The afflicted would be healed, the ugly made beautiful. Everyone would eat from golden dishes and drink only wine. The daughters of Israel would bathe in streams of balsam, and the fragrance of their bodies would suffuse the world. The sons of Israel would go girded in armor, swords on their thighs and equipped with bows and arrows with which to harry the remnants of the foes of Israel. Those of the nobility who had been kind to the children of Israel would be spared, along with their wives and children; they would be the servants of the upright.
    As the month of Elul approached, the faith of the people of Goray grew stronger. Shopkeepers no