Herbst took comfort in the tragedy, especially on sleepless nights when he was unable to read — because of ambivalence, because of emotional discord, because the text seemed to dissolve before he could grasp it — and drugs no longer brought sleep. He lay in bed picturing the lives of Antonia and Yohanan, of everyone else close to them in time and place, pondering, considering, plotting, arranging for them to meet. At times, it was all so sharp and clear that it could be written down and put in a book. Whether or not you believe it, Herbst sometimes saw the actual image of an image. Whether or not you believe it, he sometimes felt the tiniest trace of what a poet feels when he sees the character he has fashioned in his mind begin to take on flesh and blood. However, as joy is tinged with sadness in all of life’s pursuits, Herbst’s joy was tinged with sadness too, on his own account and on account of an imaginary character he had added to the tragedy, though the character was neither necessary to the tragedy nor validated by history. Who is it that Herbst invented from his imagination? A slave he called Basileios, whose soul was bound to his mistress and who suffered his love in silence. Needless to say, his mistress was unaware of this; nor did it ever occur to her that a slave would dare to covet her, for such a sentiment on the part of a slave would be offensive to his mistress. It was Schiller’s mistake, in his play about Mary Stuart, to allow young Mortimer to fall in love with her. Schiller, who knew only German duchesses and princesses, was misguided. Had he known a real queen, he would never have made such an error. In this connection, Herbst applauded the Scandinavian mythmakers who tell about a Norwegian queen who had several kings tortured and put to death for daring to seek her hand in marriage.
Let me return to Basileios clarifying and explaining how he interfered with Herbst’s happiness. Herbst didn’t know what to do with this slave who had sprung out of his imagination, much to his delight. He didn’t know what to do with him, yet he didn’t want to give him up, because, of all the characters in the tragedy, he alone was his creation. And, having created him without knowing what to do with him, he became a bother — so much so that Herbst was in despair and considered abandoning the tragedy altogether. After some manipulation, Herbst was able to deal with Basileios in such a way that his absence would not be a problem; that is, he found a way to account for his sudden disappearance.
I will reveal what he did and where he hid him. He made him a leper and hid him in a leper colony. Actually, in terms of the tragedy, this was a mistake, because Herbst was afraid to immerse himself in that disease, and explore it, to picture various aspects of leprosy, such as how do lepers relate to each other or how they function in conjugal terms. But, unless the mind becomes immersed in a subject, that subject remains vague. This is especially true in the realms of poetry and imagination, which require that the soul expand, and this expansion occurs only if two souls merge, giving life to a new soul, which the Creator deems worthy and endows with breath, as much breath as it can hold. Herbst didn’t achieve this, because he didn’t immerse his mind in the subject, for he was sensitive and found it difficult to tolerate infected blood. Despite the fact that he had been knee-deep in blood and pus when he fought for Germany in the last war, now that he was in Jerusalem, in peacetime, he avoided the whiff of a whiff of blood, the trace of a trace of pus — even more so leprosy, whose very name arouses metaphysical terror. So how was he to immerse his mind in a man with leprosy? I won’t be so ridiculous as to suggest that Herbst was afraid the leper would appear and display his leprous state. Nevertheless, he resisted thinking about him.
Most of all, Herbst was terrified of moving. Since the night he had heard gunfire at first hand, close to his ear, he recognized, understood, knew that he should move. But moving a household with three thousand books — apart from journals, offprints, and pamphlets — would involve giving up work for weeks, months, a year, even longer. Such an interruption, at a time when he was deeply involved in his work, would be emotional suicide.
I said three thousand books, but it’s not necessarily so, because books are sometimes counted by title, sometimes by volume. And sometimes, as a sign of affection, one includes a pamphlet or a booklet. So don’t be surprised if, in another context, I cite another figure in accounting for Herbst’s books.
His terror of moving led him to think about transporting the books from one apartment to another and arranging them in a new place, for he really must leave this apartment in Baka, where he has lived since he arrived in Jerusalem. Books that stand on shelves for many years are sedentary citizens, who prefer order and permanence to wandering. Even if they are sometimes willing to step out, to visit in another home, they have no desire to leave their place forever. True, years ago they were accustomed to wandering, but they were young then and few in number. Some of Manfred Herbst’s books remember being able to make do with two planks hung from four tightly woven wires on the wall opposite his bed. How charming Manfred was in those days. He was extremely appealing, with his chestnut hair, a lively devil who fingered those books constantly, covering them in colorful paper and showing them all manner of affection. He spread silver paper over the planks and fastened the paper with tacks that gleamed like gold. Some of the books are not very old, but their contents are ancient. They like to recall how and when they were acquired by Manfred. It happened at Manfred’s bar mitzvah. Some of his friends and relations, knowing there was nothing he cherished so much as books, brought them as gifts. How dear they are to Manfred. Though he has read them many times and actually knows some of them by heart, he still treats them graciously. Other books here are also not very old, but their discourse is like that of an aged relative. Were it not for the fact that they are scholarly books, which don’t deal in legend, they would have recounted the number of nights he did without sleep on their behalf, struggling to uncover their secrets, for the deep secrets they contain are disclosed only through great effort. There are still other books, four, five, six generations old, though they have been with Dr. Herbst not longer than half a generation. Although the authors of some of these volumes were mortal enemies, they live together in peace on Herbst’s shelf, clinging to each other in filial harmony, content with their situation, with the dim green light shining on them from the windows and garden, and with little Firadeus, who brushes them with a soft towel and sweeps off their dust. They don’t complain about the odd smell Dr. Herbst inflicts with a gadget that breathes smoke, to which they are unaccustomed. And now, my good people, lovers of peace, enemies of war, isn’t it criminal to uproot such books and crowd them into a tight city apartment? True, Henrietta is capable and conscientious, guided by good taste and intelligence, but her youthful vigor has been spent. Much as she would try to make the new apartment attractive, it wouldn’t be like this one. Surely not for the books.