Satan in Goray

moment he lay at her side all the candles were extinguished, and he received a blow on the temples that flung him out of bed. Then he would hear a voice cry: "Touch her not, for she has made a covenant with me! Arise and go quickly!"
    From then on Reb Gedaliya avoided all intercourse with Rechele and left her alone. He even drove Chinkele away and took instead a mute servant girl, to keep people from discovering this latest disgrace. Because his beloved wife had been stolen from him, Reb Gedaliya began to drink and slept all day on his bench bed. His friends fell away from him, and he would certainly have been driven out of town if the butchers had not sided with him. Meanwhile, horrifying things happened to Rechele.
    Every night Satan visited Rechele to torment her. He was black and tall, fiery-eyed and with a long tail; his body was cold, his lips scaly, and he exhaled pitchfire. He ravished her so many times that she was powerless to move. Then, rising, he tormented her in numerous ways. Pulling the hairs singly from her head, he wound them about her throat; he pinched her in the hips and bit her breasts with his jagged teeth. When she yawned he spat down her throat; he poured water on her bedsheet and pretended she had wet her bed. He made her show him her private parts and drink slop. He seduced her into reciting the explicit name of God and blaspheming Him; on Friday nights he forced her to desecrate the Sabbath by tearing paper and touching the Sabbath candlesticks. Sometimes Satan told Rechele obscene tales, and Reb Gedaliya on the other side of the wall would hear her loud, mad laughter resounding at midnight. Once, Reb Gedaliya opened the door of the Holy Ark to take out the Torah scroll, only to find the scroll mantle slashed, and a piece of dung lying within....
    Rechele suffered extraordinary tortures. At times the evil one blew up one of her breasts. One foot swelled. Her neck became stiff. Rechele extracted little stones, hairs, rags, and worms from wet, pussy abscesses formed on the flesh of her thigh and under her arms. Though she had long since stopped eating, Rechele vomited frequently, venting reptiles that slithered out tail first. At times she barked like a dog, lowed like a cow, neighed like a horse, or made sounds of the lion and the leopard. There were days when she could not open her mouth; and there were others when she was deaf. Occasionally, she would squint and become cross-eyed, and her tongue would stammer incomprehensibly, as though she spoke in her sleep. The pills she was given for her illness remained in her throat, and she had to spit them out again.
    Rechele's name had become a byword. Reb Gedaliya struggled vainly to conceal what had happened, for the walls have ears. Her odd behavior was re-marked on everywhere. At night when the moon shone, Rechele went into the snow, barefoot and in her nightgown. Sleepwalking, she visited the cemetery, where she crawled among the tombstones; scratching in the dirt with her fingernails, she unburied dead infants, and she climbed up on the apex of sepulchers. She had been observed sitting at the rim of a well and crowing like a rooster. One woman swore she had seen Rechele riding on a broom, with a dog rolling after her on a hoop.
    The village runners encountered Rechele sitting on the banks of the river rinsing clothing. The tale of what had happened to Rechele spread to Yanov, Turbin, Zamosc, Krasnik, and even to Lublin, for her name was famous in all these places as that of a prophetess. The peasants, also, knew that Satan had entered into the body of a daughter of the Jews, and this visitation was spoken of at fairs and in taverns. The shutters of Reb Gedaliya's house were bolted day and night, and he did not show his face outdoors until dusk fell. Then Reb Gedaliya would wrap himself in his great coat and set out for the slaughterhouse, carrying a heavy stick and a lantern, afraid of people and the mockery in their glances.

    13

    The Dybbuk of Goray

    A marvelous tale treating of a woman that was possessed of a dybbuk (God preserve us): Taken from the worthy book The Works of the Earth and rendered into Yiddish to the end that women and girls and common folk might perfectly comprehend the wonder of it all and that they might set their hearts on returning to God's ways: And that they might be instructed in how great is the punishment of the sinner who staineth his soul (God save us): May the Almighty protect us from all evil and avert his