The Collected Stories

cape. They led her into the chamber where in olden times they had kept captive those who sinned against the community—it still contained a block and chain. The women dressed Akhsa there. Someone brought her a skirt and shoes. As they busied themselves about her, Akhsa beat her breast with her fist and recounted her sins: she had spited God, served idols, copulated with a Gentile. She sobbed, “I practiced witchcraft. I conjured up Satan. He braided me a crown of feathers.” When Akhsa was dressed, the rabbi’s wife took her home.
    After prayers, the men began to question the stranger as to who he was and how he was connected with Reb Naftali’s granddaughter.
    He replied, “My name is Zemach. I was supposed to become her husband, but she refused me. Now she has come to ask my forgiveness.”
    “A Jew should forgive.”
    “I forgive her, but the Almighty is a God of vengeance.”
    “He is also a God of mercy.”
    Zemach began a debate with the scholars, and his erudition was obvious at once. He quoted the Talmud, the Commentaries, and the Responsa. He even corrected the rabbi when he misquoted.
    Reb Bezalel asked him, “Do you have a family?”
    “I am divorced.”
    “In that case, everything can be set right.”
    The rabbi invited Zemach to go home with him. The women sat with Akhsa out in the kitchen. They urged her to eat bread with chicory. She had been fasting for three days. In the rabbi’s study the men looked after Zemach. They brought him trousers, shoes, a coat, and a hat. Since he was infested with lice, they took him to the baths.
    In the evening, the seven outstanding citizens of the town and all the important elders gathered. The wives brought Akhsa. The rabbi pronounced that, according to the law, Akhsa was not married. Her union with the squire was nothing but an act of lechery. The rabbi asked, “Zemach, do you desire Akhsa for a wife?”
    “I do.”
    “Akhsa, will you take Zemach for a husband?”
    “Yes, Rabbi, but I am not worthy.”
    The rabbi outlined Akhsa’s penance. She must fast each Monday and Thursday, abstain from meat and fish on the weekdays, recite psalms, and rise at dawn for prayers. The rabbi said to her, “The chief thing is not the punishment but the remorse. ‘And he will return and be healed,’ the prophet says.”
    “Rabbi, excuse,” Zemach interrupted. “This kind of penance is for common sins, not for conversion.”
    “What do you want her to do?”
    “There are more severe forms of contrition.”
    “What, for example?”
    “Wearing pebbles in the shoes. Rolling naked in the snow in winter—in nettles in summer. Fasting from Sabbath to Sabbath.”
    “Nowadays, people do not have the strength for such rigors,” the rabbi said after some hesitation.
    “If they have the strength to sin, they should have the strength to expiate.”
    “Holy Rabbi,” said Akhsa, “do not let me off lightly. Let the rabbi give me a harsh penance.”
    “I have said what is right.”
    All kept silent. Then Akhsa said, “Zemach, give me my bundle.” Zemach had put her bag in a corner. He brought it to the table and she took out a little sack. A sigh could be heard from the group as she poured out settings of pearls, diamonds, and rubies. “Rabbi, this is my jewelry,” Akhsa said. “I do not deserve to own it. Let the rabbi dispose of it as he wishes.”
    “Is it yours or the squire’s?”
    “Mine, Rabbi, inherited from my sacred grandmother.”
    “It is written that even the most charitable should never give up more than a fifth part.”
    Zemach shook his head. “Again I am in disagreement. She disgraced her grandmother in Paradise. She should not be permitted to inherit her jewels.”
    The rabbi clutched his beard. “If you know better, you become the rabbi.” He rose from his chair and then sat down again. “How will you sustain yourselves?”
    “I will be a water carrier,” Zemach said.
    “Rabbi, I can knead dough and wash linen,” Akhsa said.
    “Well, do as you choose. I believe in the mercy, not in the rigor, of the law.”
    In the middle of the night Akhsa opened her eyes. Husband and wife lived in a hut with a dirt floor, not far from the cemetery. All day long Zemach carried water. Akhsa washed linen. Except for Saturday and holidays, both fasted every day and ate only in the evening. Akhsa had put sand and pebbles into her shoes and wore a rough woolen shirt next to her skin. At night they slept separately on the floor—he on a mat by the