The Collected Stories

scientist.
    After the German rabbiner’s sermon, there was a further eulogy given by the editor of a Hebrew magazine in New York. Then a cantor in a hexagonal hat, with the face of a bulldog, recited “God Full of Mercy.” He sang in loud and lugubrious tones.
    Near me sat a young woman dressed in black. She had yellow hair and red cheeks. I noticed a ring with a huge diamond on her finger. When the young rabbi was speaking in English, she lifted her veil and blew her nose into a lacy handkerchief. When the old rabbiner spoke in German, she clasped her hands and wept. When the cantor cried out, “In Paradise his rest shall be!” the woman sobbed with as much abandon as the women in the old country. She bent over as though about to collapse, her face drenched with tears. Who can she be, I wondered. As far as I knew, Dr. Walden had no relatives here. I remembered Liebkind Bendel’s words that somewhere in New York might be found a true admirer of Dr. Walden’s who would really love him. I had realized long ago that whatever anybody can invent already exists somewhere.
    After the ceremony, everyone rose and filed past the coffin. I saw ahead of me Professor Albert Einstein looking exactly as he did in his pictures, slightly stooped, his hair long. He stood for a moment, murmuring his farewell. Then I got a glimpse of Dr. Walden. The undertakers had applied their cosmetics. His head rested on a silk pillow, his face stiff as wax, closely shaved, with twirled mustache, and in the corners of his eyes a hint of a smile that seemed to say, “Well,
ja,
my life was one big joke—from the beginning to the end.”
    Translated by the author and Dorothea Straus

Powers

    I

    As a rule, those who come for advice to the newspaper where I work do not ask for anyone in particular. We have a reporter who turns out a regular column of advice to readers, and anyone dropping around is usually referred to him. But this man asked especially for me. He was shown my room: a tall man—he had to bend his head to come through the door—without a hat, with a shock of black hair mixed with gray. His black eyes, under shaggy brows, had a wild look that rather frightened me. He had on a light raincoat, although it was snowing outside. His square face was red from the cold. He wore no tie, and his shirt was open, showing a chest covered with hair as thick as fur. He had a broad nose and thick lips. When he talked, he revealed large, separated teeth that appeared unusually strong.
    He said, “Are you the writer?”
    “I am.”
    He seemed surprised. “This little man who sits at this table?” he said. “I imagined you somewhat different. Well, things don’t have to be exactly as we imagined them. I read every word you write—Yiddish and English both. When I hear that you’ve published something in a magazine, I run right out to buy it.”
    “Thank you very much. Please sit down.”
    “I’d rather stand—but—well—I will sit down. May I smoke?”
    “Certainly.”
    “I should tell you I am not an American. I came here after the Second World War. I’ve been through Hitler’s hell, Stalin’s hell, and a couple of other hells besides. But that’s not why I came to you. Do you have time to listen to me?”
    “Yes, I have.”
    “Well, everybody in America is busy. How do you have time to write all those things and to see people too?”
    “There is time for everything.”
    “Perhaps. Here in America time disappears—a week is nothing and a month is nothing, and a year passes by between yes and no. In those hells on the other side, a day seemed longer than a year does here. I’ve been in this country since 1950, and the years have gone like a dream. Now it’s summer, now it’s winter, the years just roll away. How old do you think I am?”
    “In the forties—maybe fifty.”
    “Add thirteen years more. In April I will be sixty-three.”
    “You look young—knock on wood.”
    “That’s what everybody says. In our family we don’t turn gray. My grandfather died at ninety-three and he had hardly any gray hair. He was a blacksmith. On my mother’s side, they were scholars. I studied at a yeshiva—I was a student at the yeshiva of Gur, and for a while in Lithuania. Only until I was seventeen, it’s true, but I have a good memory. When I learn something, it stays stuck in my brain. I forget nothing, in a sense, and this is my tragedy. Once I was convinced that poring over the Talmud would be useless, I took to studying