Why did they not ask Fishl what the reason was for his wearing the arm tefillah and why his head tefillah was on the fish? In truth, they did ask him, but just as a fish does not answer, so, too, Fishl did not answer, because his tongue, may the Merciful One preserve us, was taken from him and he became mute.
I do not know what the end of the fish was. Fishl’s end was thus: from then on he grew ever weaker until he died. But some say this is not so, that he regained his vigor, and that he even grew stronger, but on the Sabbath of Hanukkah, which was also the New Moon, between one pudding and another, he suffered a stroke once again and gave up the ghost. I do not know whether he died between the Sabbath pudding and the Hanukkah pudding, or whether he died between the Hanukkah pudding and the New Moon pudding. And, as you know, what is not clear to me, I do not say.
After he died his daughters built a great monument on his tomb, to honor the man lying beneath it. Since Fishl’s Hebrew name was Ephraim, who was blessed with the phrase “And they shall abound like fish”—the fish who are fruitful and multiply, and the evil eye has no power over them — and since he was born in Adar, the month of the constellation Pisces, the stonecarver carved a pair of fish on his grave. Such fine-looking fish you will not find on the graves of other Fishls or others born in the month of Adar, because the stonecarver used the orphan Bezalel Moshe to draw the form of the fish on the stone before carving them. Since before they carve letters or forms, stonecarvers customarily draw them on the stone, and since Bezalel Moshe became a specialist in the form of fish, having examined so intently that fish which Fishl had sent with him, he drew the fish well.
Years went by and the monument sank into the earth. Not only do the living finish beneath the earth, so, too, do the dead, and so, too, the things we fashion in their memory. Some people have the merit of having their monuments stand for one generation, and other monuments stand for two. In the end they gradually sink until they are swallowed in the earth. So, too, Fishl Karp’s monument sank and was swallowed in the earth, but its tip did not sink. One can still see a pair of fish there. In another city people would say that a fish is buried there, and they would make up alarming stories, such as that once, while a fish was being prepared for the Sabbath, it raised its head and called out, “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” So it was known that the soul of a Sabbath observer had been reincarnated in it, and the rabbi ordered it to be buried in the cemetery. In Buczacz people would not tell such a story. Just as Buczacz is full of Torah, so, too, is it full of wisdom, and it does not like wonder tales that are not consistent with nature. Buczacz likes things as they really happen, and just as they happened, so does Buczacz tell them.
And since I was born in Buczacz and raised in Buczacz, mine are the ways of Buczacz, and I tell nothing but the truth. For I say that nothing is finer than truth, since aside from being beautiful in itself, it also teaches men wisdom. What does the story of Fishl Karp teach? That if you are going to pray, do not set your eyes upon meat and fish and other delicacies, but let your path be holy. Lest you say that Fishl is one matter and you are another, He knows that if you are not avid in the pursuit of meat and fish, you are avid for other things. The question of which is better is still open. We recite a blessing on fish and meat, both before and after eating them. Which of your other desires merits a blessing? May all our actions be for a blessing.
Stories of Germany
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The involvement of Jews in German life and their identification with German culture constitute a rich history, a history that is reflected in and refracted through Agnon’s fiction. From his eastern European beginnings and a six-year sojourn in Palestine, Agnon came to Germany and immersed himself in the intellectual currents of both secular European and Jewish culture. The stories set in Germany convey keen absorption in the diverse and often conflicting styles of the people and the ideas he encountered.
These stories depict periods and settings that range from medieval Jewish communities in Germany to the period immediately following the Holocaust. Agnon makes us feel the paradoxical identification of Jews with German culture and society, as well as the inevitable strangeness of Jews within a social world that never completely accepted them. Through a variety of narrative modes from the realistic to the fantastic, these stories engage us in a complex cultural fabric. It is worth taking note of their assimilated milieu, because it runs counter to the general mold of Agnon’s fiction. A number of these tales can be read as explorations of the realm of the senses and sentiments in a world emptied of sacred time, space, and meaning.
Stories of Germany
“The Doctor’s Divorce” (1941) offers us the psychological portrait of a relationship as it takes shape and then dissolves. The narrative dramatizes the mind of the doctor whose desires and jealousies involve him in fantasies of a third person, his wife’s former lover. This long story belongs to the domain of Agnon’s psychological fiction, a literary terrain that includes “In the Prime of Her Life” (1923) and “Metamorphosis” (1941). Agnon demonstrates his skill at fashioning a central character whose point of view shapes the world of the fiction, however distorted it may be by passion or jealousy. If one is to question the reliability of the protagonist’s perspective, then one must assemble clues suggestive of an alternative view of circumstances and events. Like other modernist texts, among them the stories of Joyce’s Dubliners, “The Doctor’s Divorce” requires a level of suspicious interest combined with sympathetic involvement in the dilemma of the protagonist.
Through the eyes of the narrator, the unnamed doctor, we first encounter the woman who is the object of men’s desire. Set in Vienna, this story opens with a description of the “blonde nurse who was loved by everyone.” The doctor’s account of his own response suggests that his desire is first aroused by the sight of the nurse’s devotion to the patients in the hospitaclass="underline" “From the moment I saw her eyes, I was just like the rest of the patients.” (His attraction is reminiscent of the infatuation of Herbst, the middle-aged protagonist of the novel Shira, with the nurse Shira; not the least of Shira’s attractions is her response to human suffering.)
The doctor’s account of his infatuation with the nurse Dinah contains within it the seeds of the tormenting jealousy that will destroy the relationship, as he demonstrates repeatedly the role that others play in his attraction to her. Critic Dan Miron notes that the doctor is from eastern Europe, while Dinah is from a well-off Viennese family, an observation that underscores the dimension of cultural difference in this narrative of jealousy and desire. We come to realize that the presence of an invisible third party, most obviously Dinah’s former lover, forms an integral part of the relationship of the doctor and his wife. “The Doctor’s Divorce” creates a psychological drama through the consciousness of its central character. We can work through the character’s thoughts and responses to reach a level of insight and understanding that the character himself never achieves.