The Collected Stories

said in an angry voice, “or I’ll scream!”
    “Hush. I won’t force you, God forbid. I’m fond of you. I love you.”
    “If the master loves me then let him marry me.”
    “How can I! I have a wife!” Nathan said, surprised.
    “Well, what of it? What do you think divorce is for?” she said and sat up.
    “She’s not a woman,” Nathan thought, “but a demon.” Frightened by her and her talk he remained in the doorway, heavy, bewildered, leaning against the jamb. The Good Spirit, who is at the height of his power during the month of Elul, reminded him of
The Measure of Righteousness
—which he had read in Yiddish—stories of pious men, tempted by landowners’ wives, she-demons, whores, but who had refused to succumb to the temptation. “I’ll send her away at once, tomorrow, even if I must pay her wages for a year,” Nathan decided. But he said, “What’s wrong with you? I’ve lived with my wife for almost fifty years! Why should I divorce her now?”
    “Fifty years is sufficient,” the brazen servant answered.
    Her insolence, rather than repelling him, attracted him the more. Walking to her bed, he sat on the edge. A vile warmth arose from her. Seized by a powerful desire, he said, “How can I divorce her? She won’t consent.”
    “You can get one without her consent,” said the servant, apparently well informed.
    Blandishments and promises would not change her mind. To all Nathan’s arguments, she turned a deaf ear. Day was already breaking when he returned to his bed. His bedroom walls were gray as canvas. Like a coal glowing on a heap of ashes, the sun arose in the east, casting a light, scarlet as the fire of hell. A crow, alighting on the windowsill, began to caw with its curved black beak, as though trying to announce a piece of bad news. A shudder went through Nathan’s bones. He felt that he was his own master no longer, that the Evil Spirit, having seized the reins, drove him along an iniquitous path, perilous and full of obstacles.
    From then on Nathan did not have a moment’s respite.
    While his wife, Roise Temerl, observed the mourning period for her sister in Janov, he was roused each night, and driven to Shifra Zirel, who, each time, rejected him.
    Begging and imploring, he promised valuable gifts, offered a rich dowry and inclusion in his will, but nothing availed him. He vowed not to return to her, but his vow was broken each time. He spoke foolishly, in a manner unbecoming to a respectable man, and disgraced himself. When he woke her, she not only chased him away, but scolded him. In passing from his room to hers in the darkness, he would stumble against doors, cupboards, stoves, and he was covered with bruises. He ran into a slop basin and spilled it. He shattered glassware. He tried to recite a chapter of the Psalms that he knew by heart and implored God to rescue him from the net I had spread, but the holy words were distorted on his lips and his mind was confused with impure thoughts. In his bedroom there was a constant buzz and hum from the glowworms, flies, moths, and mosquitoes with which I, the Evil One, had filled it. With eyes open and ears intent, Nathan lay wide awake, listening to each rustle. Roosters crowed, frogs croaked in the swamps, crickets chirped, flashes of lightning glowed strangely. A little imp kept reminding him: Don’t be a fool, Reb Nathan, she’s waiting for you; she wants to see if you’re a man or a mouse. And the imp hummed: Elul or no Elul, a woman’s a woman, and if you don’t enjoy her in this world it’s too late in the next. Nathan would call Shifra Zirel and wait for her to answer. It seemed to him that he heard the patter of bare feet, that he saw the whiteness of her body or of her slip in the darkness. Finally, trembling, afire, he would rise from his bed to go to her room. But she remained stubborn. “Either I or the mistress,” she would declare. “Go, master!”
    And grabbing a broom from the pile of refuse, she would smack him across the back. Then Reb Nathan Jozefover, the richest man in Frampol, respected by young and old, would return defeated and whipped to his canopied bed, to toss feverishly until sunrise.
    V
Forest Road

    Roise Temerl, when she returned from Janov and saw her husband, was badly frightened. His face was ashen; there were bags under his eyes; his beard, which until recently had been black, was now threaded with white; his stomach had become loose, and hung like a sack. Like one dangerously