Srol walks ahead with eleven-year-old Miriam, his favorite, the chatterbox. Her mouth never closes, but she, too, speaks with wisdom. Her father deeply regrets that she was not born a boy, for she definitely would have become a rabbi.
Behind them walks the eldest, Esther, who has already taken on the obligations of a mother—small, bony, with the lovely, delicate face of a weasel, but she is stubborn as a mule. She was promised to a boy from Jezierzany, and her father had already paid the future groom, by way of dowry, money that was very hard to scrape together in such poverty. But the boy died of typhus four years ago, and his father did not give back the money. Srol is awaiting a verdict on it from the local court. He worries about Esther, for who will take her now, with no money, coming from such dire straits? It would be a miracle if he could marry off these daughters. Srol is forty-two years old, but he already looks like an old man—a wrinkled, weather-beaten face, dark, sunken eyes into which a kind of shade has crept, and an overgrown beard matted into a Polish plait. The Jewish God is clearly against him—why would he have only daughters? What sins did Srol commit to be given only girls? Must he expiate some long-standing offense of his ancestors? Srol is convinced this God is not the one for him. That there is another God, truer and better, not this earthly manager and leaseholder. To the true God it is possible to pray by way of Baruchiah, singing songs or trusting Jacob.
They had been in Ivanie since April. Were it not for those good Ivanie people, they probably would have starved to death. Ivanie saved their lives and health, Beyla feels better now, and isn’t coughing quite as much. Srol believes that once they have been baptized, they will be as well off as the Christians. They will receive a piece of land, Beyla will have vegetables in her garden, and he, Srol, will weave carpets, because he knows how to do that and is good at it. In their old age, once they have married off their daughters, the girls will take them in. That is his whole dream.
Nahman and his raiment of good deeds
As Nahman is speaking in the cathedral, his very young wife, Wajge?e, is giving birth to a daughter in Ivanie. The child is big and healthy, and Nahman breathes a sigh of relief. He already has a son, Aron, who is in Busk with Leah. Leah has still not remarried. They say the state of her soul is beclouded, that her heart is not easy. So he has two children, and in some sense, it could be said that he has fulfilled his duty. Nahman takes the birth of his daughter as a signal from God that they are on the right path. Henceforth, Nahman no longer feels the need to be intimate with women.
Yet that evening, as they are leaving the cathedral, where the seventh point of the disputation has just been discussed, Nahman loses the enthusiasm that has carried him through the past few days. It was not so much enthusiasm, even—more like a knack and a hopefulness. A joyful insistence. The excitement of a merchant who took a big risk in order to make a great fortune. Of a player who’s put everything on one card. Nahman is strangely excited, he has sweated a great deal during the disputation, and now he can smell on himself a ratlike odor, as though he had been in a physical fight with someone. He would like to be alone, but they are going in a group. Jacob has been staying at the ?ab?ckis’ estate—so that is where they are headed. They order a lot of vodka and dried fish for after the vodka. That is why this evening Nahman is able to record only a few sentences:
By life on earth, souls weave themselves a raiment out of their mitzvot, and after death, they will wear this raiment in the higher world. The raiments of bad people are riddled with holes.
I often picture what my raiment will look like. Many people must wonder the same, and no doubt see themselves as better, as if looking at themselves through the eyes of someone else. They see their clothing as clean and tidy, and maybe also nice—that is, in harmony.
But I already know that I won’t like the looks of myself in heaven’s mirrors.
Then, with his usual force, Jacob comes in to where he is and takes him back out. They’re going to celebrate.
When the baptisms begin, Nahman has Wajge?e and his little daughter sent for. He waits for them by the city gate, looking into every cart that enters, until finally he finds them: with Wajge?e are her mother and sister. The child is lying in a basket, covered in the thinnest baby blanket. Nahman rushes to pull it down from over the infant’s face—he is scared she might suffocate. The little girl has a tiny, scrunched-up face, her teeny-tiny fists clenched by her mouth. They are the size of walnuts. Wajge?e, flushed and full of milk, pleased, gazes at her husband in triumph. He has never seen her this way before.
The young mother doesn’t even notice the luxuriousness of Nahman’s room. On the carved backs of chairs she hangs blankets and diapers. They sleep in the vast bed with the child between them, and Nahman feels that from now on everything is going to go well, that they have turned the crucial corner. That even the seventh point had to be made.
He says to Wajge?e:
“Your name is Sofia.”
For the child, he chooses the name Rebecca, Rivka, just like the mother of the biblical Jacob, that will be her secret ancient name. The one she will take when she is baptized, however, is Agnieszka. Wajge?e signs up for lessons in Catholicism with the other women, but she is so focused on the child that nothing else can interest her. She can barely cross herself.
Father Mikulski’s bills and the market of Christian names