There are many more things to tell, but they might divert us from the story itself. I will therefore disregard them and tell about something that happened to Manfred. That night, after Manfred said goodnight to Henrietta and got into his bed, healthy and intact, his heart filled with good cheer and his soul content, he saw in his dream something he had heard about from Shira. A small object was walking around the room, but it wasn’t walking happily, and it made a sound like that of a new shoe. When Manfred looked to see what was walking around the room, he saw that it was a sandal. Startled out of his sleep, he looked up and saw that beggar, the Turk. He was there with Shira. They both entered the sandal and disappeared. Once again he was astonished, as he had been the day he brought Henrietta to the hospital to give birth to Sarah, when he observed the very same phenomenon. How can two people fit into a sandal, which is only one of the body’s trappings? Manfred’s dismay was exceeded by his sorrow over the fact that Shira had vanished.
In the morning, Manfred was sad. The dream he had dreamed that night disturbed him by day. Morning light was already beginning to shine, erasing all traces of the night, but his dream was not erased. A more painful consequence: while dreaming his dream, he had been lying in bed, his body seemingly relaxed. Now that he was out of bed, he had to drag himself around, his dream trailing behind him, allowing him no respite from either his body or his dream. For an instant, his dream seemed to be gone; the next instant, it recurred, and he couldn’t get his mind off it. When Henrietta saw he was depressed, she suggested that he go into town. She was wise enough not to ask why he was sad; she simply suggested that he go into town, where he would find distraction. On days when he didn’t have to go to the university, he used to spend the morning at home in his study, dressed in old clothes and slippers, so it was hard for him suddenly to mobilize, change his clothes, and go into town. Further, it would be a waste of time, and he didn’t even know what he would do in town. He began to look around his room for things to occupy himself with instead, which was his usual tactic when he couldn’t work any longer. As soon as he became involved in something, his passion for work was aroused, and he could get back to his routine. Henrietta, who knew him better than he knew himself, repeated, “Go into town and don’t wear yourself out needlessly.” He listened to her and went into town. Whether or not you believe it, on the way into town he met that blind beggar, the Turk, who stared at Herbst with his mocking, blind eyes. On the face of it, this was an ordinary event, for it is in the nature of beggars to wander everywhere seeking alms. But Herbst didn’t consider it an ordinary event. Because of it, he was even sadder than before. All of a sudden, it occurred to Herbst that this, too, was merely a dream. To test whether he was dreaming or awake, he took out a pack of cigarettes and approached the blind man, intending to say, “My friend, would you like a cigarette?”
Before he could reach him, he was jostled and swept along by the crowd, until he arrived wherever he arrived. Though he had never been there, he recognized the place. How? From the tragedy he had been working on before the visit to his daughter in Kfar Ahinoam. He took out his notebook and made a drawing of the place that was suddenly so real to him.
He returned the notebook to his pocket and began to think about the tragedy he had resolved to put aside when he was in Kfar Ahinoam. Though he had resolved not to pursue it, he was thinking about it again and considering: It may have been a mistake to add Basileios to the plot, since there was nothing in any of the notes or studies on Antonia and Yohanan about a manservant or maidservant at all similar to Basileios. On the one hand, Herbst was pleased to have added an original element, proving that, contrary to what he thought when he first began to write the tragedy, he wasn’t totally devoid of imagination, for he had added a character to those provided by history. On the other hand, although he had washed his hands of the play that night in Kfar Ahinoam, whatever a man touches, even if he washes his hands of it, retains a trace of this touch, a bit of life that continues to flutter, involuntarily.
We will now dwell on Basileios, the faithful servant. This Basileios was formed in Herbst’s imagination. Herbst didn’t know what he would do with him at first, but he was unwilling to relinquish him, since all the characters in the tragedy were historical and he alone was a product of Herbst’s imagination. It is truly no great feat to take something known and make a play out of it. Goethe used to tell poets: Don’t invent material. Use familiar stories. The essence does not lie in the plot, but in what a poet does with it. Herbst, however — and there were probably many others with him — did not agree. When Herbst saw Gerhart Hauptmann’s drama Heinrich the Unfortunate, he wondered why the poet had seen fit to take a lovely story told by an excellent storyteller and turn it into a play, which added nothing to the story. So, since Herbst didn’t know what to do with Basileios, in the end he made him into a leper, confined to the leper colony.
As we have already observed, Herbst’s contribution was not essential to the tragedy. One could say about this: It’s tragic, but it’s not tragedy. Still, Herbst took pride in Basileios, the product of his imagination.
Chapter seven
As I noted, Herbst put Shira out of mind and didn’t feel compelled to see her; indeed, when she wanted to give him her new address, he didn’t even take his notebook from his pocket to write it down.
As it happens, it happened that what he could have gotten with no effort he could not get later even with considerable effort. But I won’t jump ahead; I’ll relate things in their proper order.
At about that time, Professor Bachlam became sick and was taken to the hospital. Herbst went to visit him there. As he sat with his sick friend, it occurred to Herbst that he might see Shira. He felt not a trace of joy, only some curiosity about her. When he left Bachlam without seeing Shira, he decided it must be her day off. Some days later, he went back to visit Professor Bachlam and spent a long time with him. He sat there thinking: I’ll see her today, I’ll surely see her today. I’ll see her soon. In just a little while, I’ll see her. There’s no doubt that I’ll see her. I hear her footsteps now. As time passed and she didn’t appear, he began to wonder: This is the hospital she works in, so why doesn’t she come? Why doesn’t she come to look after the patient?
He had already stayed too long, and he began to imagine: Now Shira will come and suggest that I leave, so the patient can rest. But Shira didn’t come, and he didn’t leave, because, when Bachlam has someone to talk to, he doesn’t let him get away. Herbst sat with Bachlam, annoyed at the hospital for ignoring the patient, for not coming to ask if he needed anything. Since his arrival, no nurse had been in to see to the patient. Once again, his thoughts were of Shira. It made no sense: he had been here twice, and he hadn’t seen her. He finally concluded that she must work on a ward, whereas Bachlam was in a private room. He was annoyed at Bachlam for being in a private room rather than with the ward patients. He pictured the various sections of the hospital, the different halls and rooms, with special attention to the general ward where most of the patients were, where the beds were lined up in row upon row. He searched the vast room in his mind’s eye, looking for Shira. But he did not find her. He concluded that she was working elsewhere, perhaps in the maternity section, which explained why she never came to Bachlam’s room.