In the afternoon of that same March day, a cross is brought from Kamieniec, a gift from the bishop, and a letter with an invitation.
Jacob first speaks with Rabbi Moshe, and then, considerably moved, he has everyone gather in the common room at dusk. He is the last to arrive, dressed in his finest Turkish gown with his tall hat on his head, which makes him seem even taller. The women line up, and he stands in the middle with the cross.
“The world is sealed with the emblem of the cross,” says Jacob.
First, he puts it to his head and is silent for a long time, and then he moves through the common room, in this direction and that, the women behind him, while the men line up, each holding on to the shoulders of the one before him and walking after Jacob and the women, singing. Then Jacob, as though suddenly remembering, holding the cross by its ribbon, throws it in every direction in turn, so that they must jump out of its way, but they catch it instinctively, for it is not known whether this cross is foe or friend, so when they catch it and hold it for a moment, and then give it back to Jacob, it seems like some kind of game. In the end, Rabbi Moshe, who is just behind Jacob, clusters them all together and asks them all to hold on to each other, leaning on each other, and then Jacob starts to repeat in a resounding voice: “Forsa damus para verti, seihut grandi asser verti.” They all repeat it after him, even those who consider these words a spell that will protect them from evil. And so they dance, clinging on to one another, faster and faster, until the draft extinguishes almost all the lamps. Only one remains, placed very high, and its light illuminates just the tops of their heads, so that it looks as though they’re dancing in some sort of dim abyss.
20.
What Yente sees from the vault of Lwów cathedral on July 17, 1759
The ticket doesn’t cost much, a mere six groszy, so there is nothing to keep the rabble from entering the Lwów cathedral in droves. Enormous as it is, it cannot hold every interested party. All those still camping out in the Halickie Przedmie?cie want desperately to get in, especially the crowds of Sabbatians and poor Jewry, but also the local tradesmen, women vendors, children. Of course, many of them don’t have even that many groszy, and if by some miracle they got that many, they would probably choose to spend it on bread.
Order around the cathedral is kept by guards from the Lwów garrison. Thanks to the prudence of the priest who administers the tickets, there are seats to spare. Now merchants from Lwów are going in, while others who came from out of town just for the occasion are already inside: there is the Rohatyn starosta, ?ab?cki, and his wife, Pelagia; near them sits the vicar forane Benedykt Chmielowski, and farther on, the Kamieniec castellan Kossakowski, with his wife, Katarzyna, along with other powerful people from the vicinity.
There are also many Jews—not something you see every day in a Catholic church—and youth of every background, who came out of pure youthful curiosity.
In the very front, in the first rows, sit theologians from various religious orders, as well as priests and church dignitaries. Behind them, the regular clergy. Next come the Contra-Talmudists, standing in a semicircle a little to the right, next to a double row of benches. They’re a small group of around ten, the rest having lacked carts to make the journey from Ivanie, as they explain. Yehuda Krysa and Solomon Shorr stand at the very front. Krysa’s clever face, sliced in half by his scar, is eye-catching. Shlomo, tall, slender, in a rich overcoat, inspires respect. Opposite them are the Talmudists, all of whom look like the same person: bearded, dressed in bulky black robes, and—as Asher notices, standing near the entrance—a generation older. The Talmudists have already designated three people to participate directly in the disputation: Nutka, the rabbi of Bohorodczany, Lwów’s Rabbi Rapaport, and David, the rabbi of Stanis?awów. Asher stands on his tiptoes and looks for Jacob Frank—he would like to see him at least—but he can’t find anyone who looks like he could possibly be him.
In the middle, on the platform, is the Lwów administrator, Father Mikulski, nervous and sweaty, in wonderful shades of purple, as well as the king’s dignitaries, among them Ordinate Zamoyski and Margraves Wielopolski, Lanckoroński, and Ostroróg, all in elegant flowing kontusze tied with Turkish belts, the slits in their sleeves revealing equally colorful silk ?upans.
Yente looks down on them from the top of the vault. She sees a sea of heads, big and small, in hats, caps, and turbans, and they remind her of a bumper crop of mushrooms—all sorts of honey fungus growing in clusters, each one similar to the next, chanterelles with fantastical headdress and the little stems of lone Boletus, embedded powerfully in the ground. Then, in a flash, her gaze travels to the nailed-up, half-naked Christ on the cross, and Yente gazes through the eyes of that wooden face.
She sees men focused on maintaining their seriousness and calm, although it is obvious that they are not calm. Maybe that one who is sitting in the middle, the most colorful one—he is thinking about some woman who stayed behind, in bed, and more precisely, about her body, and more precisely about one particular place on her body, wet and fragrant. Nor are those to either side of him fully present in the cathedral. One is still with the bees in his hives, for the bees have left them to go swarm on a linden—will he ever be able to get them back? The other is going over his accounts, he keeps getting his numbers mixed up and having to start over. They are all wearing Sarmatian hats adorned with a big jewel and a peacock feather, and the colors of their costumes are cheerful as parrots’ plumage, which is no doubt why all three of them have wrinkled brows, frowning so as to counterbalance the licentious colors of their dress with the severity of their faces. These three are the most majestic-looking.