The Collected Stories

ushering out of the Sabbath, and went to sleep. The old men sat in the study house. One recited the Valedictory Prayers, another read
The Beginning of Wisdom,
a third cleaned his pipe with a wire, a fourth patched a sacred book. A few candles flickered. The rabbi gave a final look at the study house. “A ruin,” he murmured. He had packed his satchel himself. Since his wife’s death, he had grown accustomed to fetching his own linen from the chest where the maid placed it. He took out several shirts, some underwear, and long white stockings. He didn’t even pack his prayer shawl and phylacteries. What for?
    The rabbi stole away from the village. How convenient that the moon was not shining. He did not take the highway but walked along the back roads, with which he had been familiar as a boy. He did not wear his velvet hat. He had found a cap and a gaberdine from the days when he was a bachelor.
    Actually, the rabbi was no longer the same man. He felt that he was possessed by a demon who thought and chattered in its own peculiar manner. Now he passed through fields and a forest. Even though it was Saturday night, when the Evil Ones run rampant, the rabbi felt bolder and stronger. He no longer feared dogs or robbers. He arrived at the station only to learn that he would have to wait for a train until dawn. He sat down on a bench, near a peasant who lay snoring. The rabbi had recited neither the Evening Prayer nor the Shema. I will shave off my beard, too, he decided. He was aware that his escape could not remain a secret and that his Hasidim might seek him out and find him. Briefly, he considered leaving Poland.
    He fell asleep and was awakened by the ringing of a bell. The train had arrived. Earlier, he had bought a fourth-class ticket because in those carriages there is never any illumination; the passengers sit or stand in the dark. He was apprehensive of encountering citizens of Bechev, but the car was full of Gentiles. One of them struck a match, and the rabbi saw peasants wearing four-cornered hats, brown caftans, linen trousers—most of them barefoot or with rags on their feet. There was no window in the car, only a round opening. When the sun rose, it cast a purple light on the bedraggled lot of men, who were smoking cheap tobacco, eating coarse bread with lard, and washing it down with vodka. Their wives reclined on the baggage and dozed.
    The rabbi had heard about the pogroms in Russia. Bumpkins such as these killed men, raped women, plundered, and tortured children. The rabbi huddled in a corner. He tried to cover his nose from the stench. “God, is this your world?” he asked. “Did you attempt to give them the Torah on Mount Seir and Mount Paran? Is it among them that you have dispersed your chosen people?” The wheels clammered along the rails. Smoke from the locomotive seeped through the round hole. It reeked of coal, oil, and some indiscernible smoldering substance. “Can I become one of these?” the rabbi asked himself. “If God doesn’t exist, neither did Jesus.”
    The rabbi felt a strong urge to urinate but there were no facilities. These passengers seemed to be flea- and lice-ridden. He felt an itch beneath his shirt. He began to regret having left Bechev. “Who prevented me from being an infidel there?” he asked himself. “At least I had my own bed. And what will I do in Warsaw? I have been impetuous. I forgot that a heretic too needs food and a pillow under his head. My few rubles will not last long. Simcha David is a pauper himself.” The rabbi had been informed that Simcha David was starving, wore tattered clothes, and in addition was stubborn and impractical. “Well, and what did he expect? There is no lack of charlatans in Warsaw.”
    The rabbi’s legs ached and he lowered himself to the floor. He shoved the visor of his cap lower on his forehead. Jews boarded the train at various stations; someone might recognize him. Suddenly he heard familiar words. “Oh, my God, the soul which Thou gavest me is pure; Thou didst create it, Thou didst form it, Thou didst breathe it into me; Thou preservest it within me; and Thou wilt take it from me but wilt restore it unto me hereafter …” “A lie, a brazen lie,” something in the rabbi exclaimed. “All have the same spirit—a man, an animal. Ecclesiastes himself admitted this; therefore, the sages wanted to censor him. Well, but what is a spirit? Who formed the spirit? What do the worldly books say about that?”
    The rabbi