The priest does not know what to say, so surprised is he by these revelations, so the clever boy takes advantage of his surprise and keeps talking in a half whisper, almost directly into the Father’s ear.
“Now we have Turkish business—over the Dniester to Moldavia and into Wallachia we venture. The trade isn’t bad—the best is vodka. Over the river the kingdom of the Turk is Muslim, but there are still many Christians there, too, and they buy the good vodka from us. Besides, in their book, the Al-Quran, it says they are not allowed to drink wine. Wine! But not a word about vodka,” explains Hry?ko.
“Do you not know that this is a deadly sin? That you are a Jew . . .” The priest finally comes to. And then he adds quietly, in a whisper, leaning into the boy’s ear: “You could face trial, my son.”
Hry?ko smiles, and the priest thinks it’s an exceptionally stupid smile.
“But Father, you won’t go telling, this is like confession.”
“Lord Almighty . . . ,” repeats the priest, and feels a tingling sensation on his face, from his nerves.
“Don’t go telling on us, Father. In Rohatyn I’ve been with the Shorrs as good as always, since the Flood. People have forgotten what and how. What’s the sense in going on about it now. Now all of us are going to the Lord Jesus and the Holy Virgin together anyway . . .”
Suddenly the priest remembers what all these Jewish crowds are here for, and he understands the paradoxical situation of this boy with the bashed-out tooth. They are going to be baptized now, after all, so that he will have to become what he was, stand in place, while they cross over to where he is of their own accord. He tries clumsily to express this, but Hry?ko says mysteriously:
“It’s not the same.”
Then he disappears into the crowd.
The vicar forane Benedykt Chmielowski has chosen a pretty bad moment to come to Lwów on business.
From all angles come carriages and carts filled with Jews, Christian children running after them with a shriek, while residents of Lwów stand in the streets and look on in amazement, wondering what’s going to happen next. A townswoman bumps into him, and, trying to explain and excuse herself, she tries to kiss him on the hand, but she can’t in her rush, so she just says over her shoulder as she runs on: “They’re going to baptize the Jews!”
“Shabbitarians,” shout individual voices, but they get tripped up on that difficult word, and so it stays in motion, traveling from mouth to mouth, until its awkward angularity softens and straightens out. “Shabbycharlatans,” someone tries, but that doesn’t work, either. How to chant that, how to shout it? Suddenly the word comes back from the other side smoother and simpler, like a stone the water has been toying with for years: Shalbotels, Shalbotels, cries that side of the street, but the other is already calling: Ne’er-do-wells, ne’er-do-wells. The people who walk amidst these rows of insults, for these words are meant to be insults, seem to hear but don’t understand clearly what has been said. Perhaps they just can’t recognize themselves in this chanted Polish.
The priest can’t get Hry?ko out of his mind, and the chasm of his memory, which holds everything he encounters, everything his eyes run across and his ears overhear, goes back to the old days, back to the beginning of the century when a Radziwi??—Karol perhaps—issued a regulation that Jews could not take Christians into their service. All mixed marriages were forbidden once and for all. Which is why it was such a great scandal when in 1716 or 1717 (the priest was then in the midst of his novitiate with the Jesuits) it turned out that two Christian women had converted to the religion of the Jews and moved into Jewish quarters. One of them was already a widow, and the daughter—Father Benedykt remembers this part well—of some Orthodox priest named Ochryd of Vitebsk, and she with great stubbornness defended her conversion and showed no remorse about it. The second one was a very young girl from Le?ajsk who out of love converted to Judaism and went after her beloved. When they were both arrested, they burned the older woman at the stake, while the younger was beheaded by sword. That’s how those wretches wound up. The priest remembers that the penalty was much milder for the women’s husbands. They each got a hundred lashes and besides having to cover the costs of the trial were furthermore required to gift the churches wax and tallow. Today no one would punish this by death, thinks Father Benedykt, but the scandal would still be great. But—on the other hand—who would concern himself with someone like Hry?ko, who would take an interest in him? And yet. Would it not be better for his immortal soul if someone did turn him in? That is a nasty thought, and the priest has already chased it out of his mind. The accounts are in the black: even if one converts in that direction, in just a little while hundreds, or maybe even thousands, will convert the other, proper way.
Since he can’t get to the bishop to discuss his matter, he would like to use this stay in Lwów to have some of his stories printed and bound, in order to be able to send them out to friends—especially Bishop Za?uski, and of course Mrs. Dru?backa, that they might think with fondness of his humble name. He has collected the most interesting ones along with several little poems, and one especially for her, but he is embarrassed to take it into the Jesuits’ printer, where he had his Athens printed a few years ago, so instead he has found Golczewski’s modest workshop. He stands in front of its small, humble window and pretends he is reading the pamphlets spread out in it, wondering what to say when he goes inside.
The crowd is jostling for shade at the gates, there is nowhere for them to put their feet, it’s hot, so the priest retreats into the little courtyard of a two-story tenement house with a dark facade. He checks to see if his bag is in order, if the documents testifying to his innocence are still there. And he reminds himself again that today is August 15, 1759, and that it is a day of remembrance for Saint Louis, King of France. Since he was a peace-loving king, Father Chmielowski starts to believe that he will be able to solve his own problem peacefully that day.
A commotion reaches him from the market square, something like a collective sigh. Taking very small steps, breathing heavily, he goes out into the sun and manages to push his way out almost to the street. Now he can see what has so amazed his fellow onlookers—a town coach drawn by six horses, each of a different color, and alongside the carriage twelve riders richly attired in the Turkish fashion. The carriage rides around the market square and returns to the Halickie Przedmie?cie, where the Jews have spread out their carts. There he notices a tent with a striped roof, colorful, surrounded by Jews. And suddenly he has a kind of revelation in the matter of the runaway Jan. He is still owed something for those books he’s kept around his chambers for Old Shorr. The priest rushes back out of the heaving and excited crowd, smiling at everyone who passes him by.
At the printing press of Pawe? Józef Golczewski, His Majesty the King’s preferred typographer