The Collected Stories

not repent, even in the Nether Regions. Although they had already learned the truth of things, their souls still pursued their lusts. Gamblers played with invisible cards, thieves stole, swindlers swindled, and fornicators indulged in their abominations.
    The townsfolk who heard the two were amazed, and Zeinvl the butcher asked, “How can anyone sin when he is rotting in the earth?”
    Getsl explained that it was, anyway, the soul and not the body that enjoyed sin. This was why the soul was punished. Besides, there were bodies of all kinds—of smoke, of spiderwebs, of shadow—and they could be used for a while, until the Angels of Destruction tore them to pieces. There were castles, inns, and ruins in the deserts and abysses, which provided hiding places from Judgment, and also Avenging Angels who could be bribed with promises or even with the kind of money that has no substance but is used in the taverns and brothels of the Nether World.
    When one of the idlers cried out that this was unbelievable, Getsl called on Beyle Tslove to attest to the truth of his words. “Tell us, Beyle Tslove, what did you really do all these years? Did you recite psalms, or did you wander through swamps and wastes, consorting with demons, Zmoras, and Malachais?”
    Instead of replying, Beyle Tslove giggled and coughed. “I can’t speak—my mouth’s dry.”
    “Yes, let’s have a drop,” Getsl chimed in, and when somebody brought over a tumbler of brandy, Liebe Yentl downed it like water. She did not open her eyes or even wince. It was clear to everybody that she was entirely in the sway of the dybbuks within her.
    When Zeinvl the butcher realized that the two dybbuks had made peace, he asked, “Why don’t you two become man and wife? You’d make a good pair.”
    “And what are we to do after the wedding?” Beyle Tslove answered. “Pray from the same prayer book?”
    “You’ll do what all married couples do.”
    “With what? We’re past all doing. Anyway, there’s no time—we won’t be staying here much longer.”
    “Why not? Liebe Yentl is still young.”
    “The Worka rabbi is not the Radzymin schlemiel,” Beyle Tslove said. “Asmodeus himself is afraid of his talismans.”
    “The Worka rabbi can kiss me you know where,” Getsl boasted. “But I’m not about to become a bridegroom.”
    “The match isn’t good enough for you?” Beyle Tslove cried. “If you knew who wanted to marry me, you’d croak a second time.”
    “If she’s cursing me now, what can I expect later?” Getsl joked. “Besides, she’s old enough to be my great-grandmother—seventy years older than I am, anyway you figure it.”
    “Numskull. I was twenty-seven years old when I kicked in, and I can’t get any older. And how old are you, bottle-bum? Close to sixty, if you’re a day.”
    “May you get as many carbuncles on your bloated flesh as the years I was short of fifty.”
    “Just give me the flesh, I won’t argue over the carbuncles.”
    The two kept up their wrangling and the crowd kept up its urging until finally the dybbuks consented. Those who have not heard the dead bride and groom haggle about the dowry, the trousseau, the presents, will never know what unholy spirits are capable of.
    Beyle Tslove said that she had long since paid for all her transgressions and was therefore as pure as a virgin. “Is there such a thing as a virgin, anyway?” she argued. “Every soul has lodged countless times both in men and in women. There are no more new souls in Heaven. A soul is cleansed in a caldron, like dishes before Passover. It is purified and sent back to earth. Yesterday’s beggar is today’s magnate. A rabbi’s wife becomes a coachman. A horse thief returns as a community elder. A slaughterer comes back as an ox. So what’s all the fuss about? Everything is kneaded of the same dough—cat and mouse, bear hunter and bear, old man and infant.” Beyle Tslove herself had in previous incarnations been a grain merchant, a dairymaid, a rabbi’s wife, a teacher of the Talmud.
    “Do you remember any Talmud?” Getsl asked.
    “If the Angel of Forgetfulness had not tweaked me on the nose, I would surely remember.”
    “What do you say to my bride?” Getsl bantered. “A whittled tongue. She could convince a stone. If my wife in Pinchev knew what I was exchanging her for, she’d drown herself in a bucket of slops.”
    “Your wife filled her bed before you were cold …”
    The strange news spread throughout the town: