I said to myself, It’s now three days and three nights that I haven’t seen my wife and children, and they’re undoubtedly complaining about me; now I’ll be able to placate them with some chocolate.
As I stretched out my hand to take it, though, I saw that the druggist had not intended to give me the whole piece. I became ashamed of my greediness, I blushed and lowered my eyes.
Slowly looking up I saw some professor sitting to the right of my acquaintance. He had a short, blond beard, a cane rested between his knees, and a hidden sneer played on his lips. I nodded and greeted him.
At this he grasped my hands and informed me that he had ingeniously solved a great problem. That letter “L” in a certain word, which everyone mistakenly believes to be part of its root, is not etymologically related to the word and should be substituted with another letter.
The professor’s pronouncement was clear to me and the word he was talking about was completely explained. Yet, I was puzzled by a different problem of phonology…
In the meantime the day had cleared up, and I knew that in a certain spot near the edge of the table my acquaintance had left me a piece of bread — except that I couldn’t tell where it was. But in any case, the mass of people had begun once again its squeezing and shoving. I was pushed outside and found myself standing on a large balcony floating on an endless ocean.
Friendship
My wife had returned from a journey, and I was very happy. But a tinge of sadness mingled with my joy, for the neighbors might come and bother us. “Let us go and visit Mr. So-and-so, or Mrs. Such-and-such,” I said to my wife, “for if they come to us we shall not get rid of them in a hurry, but if we go to them we can get up and be rid of them whenever we like.”
So we lost no time and went to visit Mrs. Klingel. Because Mrs. Klingel was in the habit of coming to us, we went to her first.
Mrs. Klingel was a famous woman and had been principal of a school before the war. When the world went topsy-turvy, she fell from her high estate and became an ordinary teacher. But she was still very conscious of her own importance and talked to people in her characteristic patronizing tone. If anyone acquired a reputation, she would seek his acquaintance and become a frequent visitor in his house. My wife had known her when she was a principal, and she clung to my wife as she clung to anyone who had seen her in her prime. She was extremely friendly to my wife and used to call her by her first name. I too had known Mrs. Klingel in her prime, but I doubt whether I had talked to her. Before the war, when people were not yet hostile to each other, a man could meet his neighbor and regard him as his friend even if he did not talk to him.
Mrs. Klingel was lying in bed. Not far away, on a velvet covered couch, sat three of her woman friends whom I did not know.
When I came in I greeted each of them, but I did not tell them my name or trouble myself to listen to theirs.
Mrs. Klingel smiled at us affectionately and went on chattering as usual. I held my tongue and said to myself: I have really nothing against her, but she is a nuisance. I shall be walking in the street one day, not wanting anyone to notice me, when suddenly this woman will come up to me and I will ask her how she is and be distracted from my thoughts. Because I knew her several years ago, does that mean that I belong to her all my life? I was smouldering with anger, and I did not tell myself: If you come across someone and you do not know what connection there is between you, you should realize that you have not done your duty to him previously and you have both been brought back into the world to put right the wrong you did to your neighbor in another incarnation.
As I sat nursing my anger, Mrs. Klingel said to my wife, “You were away, my dear, and in the meantime your husband spent his nights in pleasure.” As she spoke, she shook her finger at me and said, laughingly, “I am not telling your wife that pretty girls came to visit you.”
Nothing had been further from my thoughts in those days than pleasure. Even in my dreams there was nothing to give me pleasure, and now this woman tells my wife, “Your husband had visits from pretty girls, your husband took his pleasure with them.” I was so furious that my very bones trembled. I jumped up and showered her with abuse. Every opprobrious word I knew I threw in her face. My wife and she looked at me in wonderment. And I wondered at myself too, for after all Mrs. Klingel had only been joking, and why should I flare up and insult her in this way? But I was boiling with anger, and every word I uttered was either a curse or an insult. Finally I took my wife by the arm and left without a farewell.
On my way out I brushed past Mrs. Klingel’s three friends, and I believe I heard one saying to the other, “That was a strange joke of Mrs. Klingel’s.”
My wife trailed along behind me. From her silence it was obvious that she was distressed, not so much because I had shamed Mrs. Klingel but because I had fallen into a rage. But she was silent out of love, and said nothing at all.
So we walked on without uttering a word. We ran into three men. I knew one of them, but not the other two. The one I knew had been a Hebrew teacher, who had gone abroad and come back rich; now he spent his time stuffing the periodicals with his verbiage. These teachers, even if their pupils have grown up, still treat them as schoolmasters do and teach them things of no importance. But in one of his articles I had found a good thing, and now we had met I paid him a compliment. His face lit up and he presented me to his companions, one of whom had been a senator in Poland, while the other was the brother of one of Mrs. Klingel’s three friends — or perhaps I am mistaken and she has no brother.
I should have asked the distinguished visitors if they liked the city, and so forth, but my wife was tired from the journey and still distressed, and it was hard to stop. So I cut the conversation short and took my leave.
My wife had already gone off without waiting for me. I was not angry at her for not waiting. It is hard for a young woman to stand and show herself to people when she is sad and weary.
While I was walking, I put my hand in my pocket and took out an envelope or a letter, and stopped to read: “The main trial of Job was not that of Job, but of the Holy One, blessed be He, as it were, because He had handed over His servant Job to Satan’s power. That is, God’s trial was greater than Job’s: He had a perfect and upright man, and He placed him in the power of Satan.” After reading what I had written, I tore up the envelope and the letter, and scattered the pieces to the wind, as I usually do to every letter, sometimes before I read it and sometimes at the time of reading.
After I had done this, I said to myself: I must find my wife. My thoughts had distracted me and I had strayed from the road; I now found myself suddenly standing in a street where I had never been before. It was no different from all the other streets in the city, but I knew I had strayed to a place I did not know. By this time all the shops were locked up, and little lamps shone in the windows among all kinds of commodities. I saw that I had strayed far from home, and I knew I must go by a different road, but I did not know which. I looked at a stairway bounded on both sides by an iron fence and went up until I reached a flower shop. There I found a small group of men standing with their backs to the flowers, and Dr. Rischel standing among them, offering them his new ideas on grammar and language.
I greeted him and asked: “Which way to…” but before I could say the name of the street I started to stammer. I had not forgotten the name of the street, but I could not get the words out of my mouth.
It is easy to understand a man’s feelings when he is looking for the place where he lives but, when he is about to ask, cannot pronounce the name. However, I took heart and pretended I was joking. Suddenly I was covered in a cold sweat. What I wanted to conceal I was compelled to reveal. When I asked again where the street was, the same thing happened again.