The news is like a lightning bolt. Moliwda wasn’t expecting it. When he reads the letter at the table, his face still expresses boundless surprise, but Castellan Kossakowski understands everything at once:
“Well, that’s just my wonderful little wife arranging things so she has somebody of hers right there at the primate’s side. Yes, that ?ubieński’s already been appointed primate. Did you not know all that?”
Prince Lubomirski has a crate of good wine brought up, and some Gypsies to play music, and now the card game stalls. Moliwda is overwhelmed, his thoughts keep racing away from him, ahead to the unimaginable future that awaits. Without knowing why, he is reminded of that day when, on Mount Athos, under the enormous parasol of the sky, he followed the path of a beetle, his head full of the monotonous cicada music. And here is where he’s ended up.
The next day, freshly shaved and beautifully dressed, he appears in Lwów before the archbishop.
Moliwda is put up in the episcopal palace, where it is clean and nice. He immediately goes out into town, to an Armenian warehouse, where he buys a lovely Turkish belt, masterfully woven, glittering with different colors, and a ?upan. He thinks about a light blue one, but practical considerations prevail—he chooses another, the color of dark water, a cloudy azure. He looks around the Lwów cathedral, but soon he is freezing, so he goes back to his room and unfolds his papers. He will write letters. But first, he undertakes the work he does daily, the assignment he has set himself, so as not to forget his Greek—his translation of Pythagoras. A few lines every day, since otherwise his brain will rot under this cold, hostile, enormous Polish sky:
“Flighty men, like empty vessels, are easily laid hold of by the ears.” Or: “The wise man leaves this world as he would a feast.” Or: “Time transforms even wormwood into sweet honey. Circumstance and necessity often lead a man to turn an enemy into a friend.” He intends to sprinkle the primate’s letters with these intelligent, eloquent quotes.
Meanwhile, the barber is applying suds to Archbishop ?ubieński. He caught a cold during his journey from Warsaw, where he spent two months, and now he has a cough. The curtains are pulled around his bed. Father Pikulski stands nearby and through the thin opening looks at the part of the archbishop’s hefty body the barber’s delicate hands are now tormenting.
Father Pikulski has the overwhelming impression that all of this has already happened, that he has already seen this, that he has already said these things to Bishop Dembowski, may he rest in peace, and stood before him in the same way, like a servant before a lord, trying desperately to warn him. Why are these Church hierarchs so naive? he thinks, and his eyes linger over the fanciful Turkish patterns on the curtains. He says:
“His Excellency ought not to permit any acceptation of this type of insolent demand, as it would create a precedent on the world stage.”
A moan emerges from behind the curtains.
“Because they were unable to legalize their sect within the framework of their Jewish religion, now they’re trying out some new trickery.”
He waits for a reaction, but in the absence of any, he continues:
“What does it even mean that they wish to preserve some of their customs and dress? What would it mean to ‘mark their Shabbat’? And keep their beards and their hairstyles? In any case, the Talmudists themselves do not want these Shabbitarians to go around dressed as Jews, since they consider them not to be Jews any longer. They don’t belong to anybody now—they’re like dogs without masters. This would be the worst possible solution—we’d be taking responsibility for a bunch of heretics, after having just dealt with heretics elsewhere.”
“Whom do you have in mind?” says a weak voice from behind the curtains.
“I have in mind those unfortunate Polish Brethren,” answers Father Pikulski, although in fact his mind has already moved on to something else.
“Baptism is baptism. Rome would like such a great baptism—ouch—would . . . ,” the archbishop says hoarsely from behind the curtains.
“But it must be unconditional. We must demand from them an unconditional conversion, no exceptions, and as soon as possible, in the best-case scenario immediately after the conclusion of this disputation we’re planning, as Your Excellency knows, for spring, as soon as it’s a bit warmer. No buts. Remember, Your Excellency, that it is we who dictate the conditions. The first to be baptized must be their leader, his wife, and their children. And with as much pomp and circumstance as possible, so that everyone hears of it and sees it. There can be no further discussion.”
When Moliwda comes in, he sees the archbishop being examined by some medic, a tall Jew with a gloomy gaze. He has taken a number of different glass lenses out of his bag and is putting them up to His Excellency’s eyes.
“I am going to wear these lenses, I have trouble reading now,” says the archbishop. “You wrote everything up very nicely, Mr. Kossakowski. Everything is set, I see. Your efforts to bring these people to the bosom of the church are significant and noteworthy. From here on out, you will occupy yourself with this same matter, but under my wing.”
“My merit is minor, but those lost little lambs’ desire is very great,” answers Moliwda humbly.
“None of your lost lambs here, that will not work on me, sir . . .”
“What does Your Excellency see now? Can you read these letters?” asks the Jew, holding up a piece of paper with a crooked inscription: THE MILLER GRINDS THE FLOWER.
“The miller grinds the flour. I can see well, very well, it is really quite the miracle,” says Archbishop ?ubieński.
“We both know that everyone will be better off by sticking to the side that’s strongest,” says Moliwda.
Apparently the next lens also works well, for the bishop grunts with pleasure:
“This is even better, oh, this one, this one. Goodness, how well I can see. Every little hair in your red beard, Asher!”
When the medic has packed up his bag and left, ?ubieński turns to Moliwda:
“And what of these accusations, known to the whole world, that the Jews need Christian blood for their matzah . . . So?tyk can prove this is true, can’t he?” He smiles broadly. “To me this is like playing with a knife’s blade without a handle.”
“That’s what they wanted. I suppose it’s a form of revenge.”
“The pope has definitively forbidden such blood accusations . . . But if they are making them of their own accord . . . There has to be something to it, then, doesn’t there . . .”
“I don’t think anybody believes it.”