Pinkas could not restrain himself and went out at once. He flits past buildings down a narrow band of shadow and glances furtively at the carriage that is just pulling up to the market square. Instantly a crowd surrounds it. Pinkas is afraid to look at it, and when he does force himself to raise his gaze, the sight absorbs him completely and takes his breath away, even though every little detail feels like a grain of salt rubbed into his pain.
The man who emerges from the carriage is tall and well built, and to his height is added a slim Turkish hat, which feels like an organic element of his stature. Dark, wavy hair pops out from under his hat, softening somewhat the emphatic features of a rather harmonious face. His gaze is insolent—so it seems to Pinkas—and he is looking slightly upward, so that you can see a bit of the whites at the bottom of his eyes, as though he were about to faint. He casts his eyes around the people standing about by his carriage and over the heads of the rest of the crowd. Pinkas sees the movement of his prominent, nicely shaped lips. He is saying something to the people, laughing—and now his even white teeth gleam. His face gives the impression of youth, and his dark beard seems to conceal even more of that youth, maybe even dimples. He looks both authoritative and childlike. Pinkas senses how this person might appeal to women, and not only to women, but also to men—to everyone—for he is extremely charming. This makes Pinkas hate him even more. When Frank stands up straight, other people reach up to his beard. His Turkish coat, greenish blue and adorned with purple appliqué, shows off his powerful shoulders. The brocade shimmers in the sun. This person is like a peacock among chickens, or like a ruby among rocks. Pinkas is surprised, astonished—he didn’t expect Frank would make such a big impression on him, and he cannot bear the fact that somehow he actually likes this man.
Aha, thinks Pinkas, but he must be frivolous, since he is wearing so much gold. And no doubt he is stupid, since he’s so impressed by such a carriage, although they call him Wise Jacob. Sometimes beauty is harnessed to evil’s interests, becoming a trick for the eye, a fake to stupefy the crowd.
When Frank walks, people make way to let him pass, holding their breath. Those too shy to speak reach out to touch him.
Pinkas tries to remember how he imagined him. He can’t. Purplish azure has filled up his brain. He feels sick. Even when he turns away from this proud march of Jacob Frank’s through the delighted crowd, and spits out of forced disgust, he still has him in his mind’s eye.
Late at night, close to midnight, Pinkas can’t sleep and tries to calm his mind by writing up a report to take to the kahal. They can add it to their file. The written word lasts forever, while colors—even the brightest ones—fade. The written word is sacred, and every letter will eventually go back to God, nothing will be forgotten. So what, then, is an image? Nothing. A vivid void. Even the brightest colors will dissipate like so much smoke.
This thought gives him strength, and he suddenly envisions what strike him as the true and proper proportions. For what is bearing, or charm, or a resounding voice? They are but raiments! In the bright light of the sun everything looks different, but in the dark of night, all that brightness pales, and you can see better what it conceals.
With a flourish he puts down the first words: “I saw with my own eyes . . .” Now he tries to be truthful, faithful, forget about the coat and carriage, and he even pictures Jacob naked. He sticks to that thought. He sees skinny, crooked legs and the rare hair across a sunken chest, one shoulder higher than the other. He dips his pen in ink and holds it aloft over the paper for a second, until a dangerously large black drop has gathered at the end; then he carefully shakes it off into the bottle and writes:
He was in fact rather horrible, ugly and contorted, coarse. His nose was crooked, probably from being struck. His hair was dull and matted, and his teeth were black.
In writing “his teeth were black,” Pinkas crosses an invisible line, but in his passion, he doesn’t realize it.
He did not look human at all, rather more like a demon or an animal. He moved about violently, and in these movements, there was not a drop of grace.
He dips the pen back in the well and starts thinking—what kind of habit is this, to think with a damp pen, it will no doubt result in a blot—but no, the pen leaps at the paper, and in a frenzy scratches out:
He spoke seemingly in many languages, but the truth is that in none of them was he able to articulate a single thing or write sensibly. Thus when he did speak aloud, he emitted a sound that was highly unpleasant to the ear, a high-pitched screeching, and only those who knew him well could really understand what he was after.
In addition, he was never really educated anywhere, so he only knows what he has heard here and there, and his knowledge is riddled with gaps. He seems to be acquainted only with fairy tales, the kind you tell to children, and his followers believe in these stories without exception.
By the time he is finished, it really seems to Pinkas that he saw not a person, but a three-headed beast.
The baptism
On September 17, 1759, after a solemn mass, Jacob Frank is baptized. He takes the name Joseph. The baptism is performed by the metropolitan of Lwów, Samuel G?owiński of G?owno. His godparents, meanwhile, are the not-quite-thirty-year-old Franciszek Rzewuski, elegant, dressed after the French fashion, and Maria Anna Brühl. Jacob Frank bows his head, and the holy water wets his hair, then flows over his face.
After Jacob goes Krysa, dressed like a member of the szlachta, in the traditional style of the Polish nobility, and in this new costume, his asymmetrical face seems dignified somehow. Now he is Bart?omiej Walenty Krysiński; his godparents are Count Szeptycki and Countess Mi?czyńska.