The Collected Stories

for Wojtek was not clear, though people said that the thieves of Radoszyce paid a weekly salary to Sokal for defending every knave in town.
    “While Sokal lingered in the courthouse, where the Count was sitting in his official robes, with a cross hanging from a golden chain around his neck, doing official business, a mob of peasants gathered outside waiting for news. Suddenly the door opened and Sokal appeared waving a paper. Malecki had given him a signed order releasing Wojtek immediately and compensating him for the abuse. When the peasants saw Sokal with the paper, they went mad. They began to scream in vile voices and threw themselves on him. I am told that in less than a minute Sokal was torn to pieces. The coffinmaker, a neighbor of ours, later told us that there was little left of the body to put in the coffin. From the courthouse to the jail was only two steps. The enraged peasants broke down the door and dragged out Wojtek; someone quickly got a rope, and they hanged him on a lamppost. With the noose on his throat, he managed to call, ‘Brothers, remember that I am an orphan.’ And one of the peasants called back, ‘You will soon stop being an orphan.’
    “When the Jews heard what was going on, they were frightened. The storekeepers in the market immediately closed their shops and everyone hid. It could easily have happened that the peasants in their fury would attack the Jews. Naphtali Gorszkower didn’t even bother to close his store. He began to run and he kept on running until he reached America. I just say so. He disappeared, and his wife was considered a deserted woman. Only, a year later a letter came to her from New York. But I will make it short. One of the rabble called out, ‘Let’s get Malecki!’ And that’s all the peasants needed. They tore into the courthouse and killed the Count. All this took place in a matter of minutes.
    “When the governor learned what the peasants had done, he sent a commission with a hundred Cossacks to Radoszyce, and an investigation began, which lasted months. First of all, they put the thieves in chains and sent them to the prison in Radom, or perhaps it was some other town. The merchants in Radoszyce were relieved. However, the Jews still had plenty to worry about. There were some county officials who incited the commission against them, saying that the Jews were the ones who had set fire to Stach Skiba’s house and pointing out that this was the reason Naphtali Gorszkower had run away. They even put Naphtali’s wife in jail for a few weeks.
    “What could the Cossacks do? They rode back and forth on their small horses, waving their whips. Whoever happened to pass by on the street got whipped. About a dozen peasants in Bojary were sent to Siberia without a trial. One of them was the father of the little girl who saw Wojtek put stones before Skiba’s door. He was accused of making his daughter bear false witness, because he had once quarreled with Wojtek about a pig Wojtek had stolen. How can a commission help? They cannot revive the dead. All I can say is, there was a lot of grief because of Count Malecki’s misplaced pity. I once read in a Yiddish commentary on the Bible that those who pity the wicked end up by being cruel to the innocent.”
    “It’s in the Gemara,” Meir the eunuch corrected him.
    It was quiet in the Radzymin study house, and one could hear the wick in the lamp sucking kerosene. Old Jeremiah happened to recite the chapter of the psalms which spoke of God’s mercy in slaying Sihon the King of the Amorites and Og the King of Bashan and giving their land to Israel as a patrimony. The two beggars had opened the door of the oven, and with their bare fingers shoved out the roasted potatoes. Reb Levi Yitzchok removed the black glasses from his red eyes and wiped them with the hem of his coat. Meir the eunuch touched his hairless cheeks. He threw a glance toward the window and the sky. The moon was not yet full, but one could discern the missing crescent. After a while, Levi Yitzchok put his dark glasses back on and said:
    “There was no lack of crazy squires in Poland. Some lost their minds from too much drinking, others from too much luxury. That Count Malecki had perhaps heard of the Jewish law that no one should be judged for a sin without the testimony of two people who had admonished the culprit and told him of his crime’s punishment before he committed it. It is said in the Mishnah that a court that pronounced a death