As the lunch goes on, the conversation turns to the economy, which, here in Podolia, is always floundering, though the riches of Podolia are so great. It could make a flourishing country. The potash, the saltpeter, the honey. Wax, tallow, canvas. Tobacco, cattle, horses—there’s so much, and yet it can’t be sold. But why? inquires ?ab?cki. Because the Dniester is shallow, and broken up by rapids, and the roads are terrible, impassable in the spring thaw. And how can trade proceed when Turkish marauders cross borders with impunity and, in packs, prey upon travelers—one must travel with armed guards, hire security.
“But who can afford it?” ?ab?cki laments. His dream is for things to be as they are in other countries, for trade to flourish and for the wealth of the people to increase. So it is in France, although of course the land is hardly better there, nor the rivers.
Kossakowska thinks all this is owing to the noblemen who pay the peasants in vodka, rather than money.
“Did you know that on the Potockis’ estates the peasants already have so many days of mandatory labor that they can only do their own work on Saturdays and Sundays?”
“We give them Fridays off, too,” snaps Kossakowska. “In any case, what matters is that their work is rotten. Half our crops go to them in exchange for the harvest of the other half, yet even those generous gifts from heaven cannot be turned to our advantage. To this day, my brother has an enormous heap of grain being feasted on by worms—there is no way to sell any of it.”
“Whoever hit upon the idea of fermenting cereals for vodka ought to be given a huge gold medal,” says ?ab?cki, and taking the napkin out from under his chin, he gives the sign to retire to the library, where they will smoke their pipes, according to time-honored custom. “Vodka goes by the gallon now in carriages that take it over to the other side of the Dniester. True, the Koran prohibits drinking wine, but it says nothing about vodka. And anyway, the land of the Moldavian hospodar is close enough, and there the Christians can drink liquor to their heart’s content . . .” He laughs, showing his teeth, which have yellowed from tobacco.
Starosta ?ab?cki is an accomplished man. In the library, the place of honor is taken by Instruccions for young Gentlemen by the Marquis de La Chétardie a Knight of the Army and highly distinguish’d at the Royal Court of France, here briefely assembled, in which a young Gentleman asks and receives answers, at the last Lwów academies, a Vale and farewel from His Lordship the Magnanimous Szymon ?ab?cki, Starosta of Rohatyn, this me? mento for his Friends duly submitted to print.
When Dru?backa politely inquires what the subject matter of this book is, it turns out that it’s a chronology of significant battles and that—this becomes clear after a longer speech by ?ab?cki—it is more of a translation than an original book written by him.
Which, it is true, is not entirely evident from the title.
Then everyone has to listen in the smoking room—the ladies, too, as both are passionate smokers—to the story of Starosta ?ab?cki giving the dedication speech at the inauguration of the Za?uski Library.
When the starosta is summoned because the doctor has arrived to perform his treatments, the conversation turns to Dru?backa, and Kossakowska reminds them that she is a poet, which takes the vicar forane by surprise, politely suppressed. When she produces a small tome, he greedily reaches out for it, since printed pages inspire in him an instinct that is difficult to master: the need to seize and not let go before getting a good look—if only a fleeting one—at the whole. And so it is now; he opens it, brings it to the light in order to get a better look at the title page:
“It’s a rhyming book,” he says, disappointed, though he quickly corrects himself and nods in apparent appreciation. A collection of spiritual, panegyric, moral, and worldly rhymes . . . He doesn’t like that they’re poems, he doesn’t understand poetry, but the volume rises in his esteem when he sees that it has been published by the Za?uski brothers.
From outside the not-quite-closed door comes the starosta’s voice, suddenly somewhat meek:
“Oh, wonderful Asher, this ailment makes my life so vile, my toes hurt, please do something, my dear man.”
Another voice follows immediately, this one deep and with a Yiddish accent:
“I’m going to give up trying to treat you. You were supposed to not drink wine and not eat meat, especially red meat, but you refuse to heed the advice of your medic, so it hurts, and it’s going to hurt. I do not intend to treat you by force.”
“Come, now, don’t take offense, they’re not your toes, they’re mine! You really are the devil’s medic . . .” The voice fades into the distance as the two men retreat deeper into the manor.
3.
Of Asher Rubin and his gloomy thoughts
Asher Rubin walks out of the starosta’s home and heads toward the market square. With evening, the sky has cleared, and now a million stars are shining, but their light is cold and brings down a frost upon the earth, upon Rohatyn. The first of this autumn. Rubin pulls his black wool coat tighter around him; tall and thin, he looks like a vertical line. The town is quiet and cold. Candlelight glimmers weakly from some windows, but, barely visible, it looks more like a mirage, and could easily be conflated with the trail left by the sun on your iris from a sunnier day, and Rubin’s memory goes back, lingering on objects it’s encountered before. He is interested in what we see when our eyes are closed, and where that thing we see comes from. Whether from impurities on the eyeball, or because the eye is configured more like the lanterna magica he saw in Italy.
The idea that everything he sees now—the darkness punctuated by the sharp points of the stars above Rohatyn, the outlines of homes, small, tilted, the lump of the castle, and not too far away the sharply pointed church tower, like apparitions, the well-pole shooting askew into the sky, as if in protest, and maybe even the rumble of the water from somewhere farther down, and the very light scraping of the leaves the frost has taken—the idea that all of that arises out of his own mind is both terrifying and alluring in equal measure. What if we’re imagining all of it? What if each of us sees everything differently? Does everyone see the color green the same? Or is “green” maybe just a name we use as if it were a paint to coat completely distinct experiences in order to communicate, when in reality every one of us is viewing something different? Is there not some way this can be verified? And what would happen if we were to really open our eyes? If we were to see by some miracle the reality that surrounds us? What might that be like?
Asher has these kinds of thoughts fairly frequently, and then he starts to be afraid.
Dogs begin to bark, and men’s voices rise, and shouts break out—that must be coming from the inn on the market square. He goes in among the Jewish homes, passing to the right of the big, dark mass that is the synagogue; from down where the river is comes the smell of water. The market square separates two groups of Jews who are in conflict with one another, mutually hostile.