The truth is that he has not felt good for some time, either on his own or in company. Lately he has been thinking about giving up this anxious waiting game in Warsaw, this hoping for some kind of miracle, and instead setting out east, for Mi?dzybó?, but then little Immanuel died, and the first thought that came into Nahman’s mind was that the Besht had taken the little boy with him, and that this made sense. The Besht took the child in his arms and carried him away, into the night—to protect him from them. So it occurred to Nahman-Jakubowski, and he even wrote it down, with a racing heart, in the margins of his book.
Recently in Warsaw it was said that when, sometime during his illness, the Baal Shem Tov came to expect that he would die, he had all of his students gather around him, and he gave them the objects he had been using himself up until then. To one he gave a snuffbox, to another a prayer shawl, to another a beloved psalter. When he got to his favorite student, however, none of his property remained. The Besht said that he would give him his stories: “You will travel the world so that people might hear these stories.” The student, truth be told, was none too pleased with such an inheritance, for he was quite poor and would have preferred to receive something more material.
He forgot about it for a time, however, and lived in poverty as a milkman. Until one day the news reached his village that some wealthy man in Russia would pay a great deal to hear some stories about the Besht. Then the milkman’s neighbors reminded him of his inheritance and sent him off to Russia. When he got there, it turned out that this man hungering for stories was the head of the kahal, a man who was prosperous, but sad.
A small feast was organized, to which important guests were invited. The milkman was seated in the middle, and after an abundant refreshment, once things had quieted down, he was asked to begin. He opened his mouth, took a big breath—and nothing. He had forgotten everything. He sat down, confused, and the other guests showed all their disappointment. So it went the next night, too. And the next. It seemed that the milkman had lost the power of speech. Thus, very ashamed, he quietly made preparations to take his leave. But once he was sitting in the wagon, he experienced a kind of breakthrough, and his memory, so vast until then, so filled with stories, let slip one little reminiscence. He seized on this minor occurrence and had the horses stopped. He hopped out of the cart and said to his host, who had just been bidding him farewell in an icy tone: “I remembered something. One minor occurrence. Nothing major . . .”
And he began to speak:
“One time, the Baal Shem Tov came and grabbed me in the night while I was sleeping, telling me to harness the horses and go with him to a distant village. There he got out in front of one rich house by the church, where a candle was still burning, and he disappeared inside it for half an hour. When he returned, he was somewhat agitated and asked to go home.”
Here the milkman cut off again and fell silent. “And? What happened next?” the others asked him, but then, to everyone’s amazement, the head of the kahal burst into tears, sobbing loudly, unable to control himself. Only after a while, when he had calmed down a little bit, did he say: “I was that man to whom the Baal Shem Tov paid a visit.” Understanding nothing, everyone demanded further explanation with their eyes.
So the head of the kahal kept talking:
“At that time, I was a Christian; I was an important official. Among my responsibilities, I was charged with organizing forced conversions. When the Baal Shem Tov came to me that night, I jumped up from the table where I was writing out ordinances. I was surprised by the sight of that bearded Hasid, who furthermore began to yell at me in Polish: ‘How much longer? How long is this going to take? How much more will you make your brothers suffer?’ I looked at him in utter astonishment, thinking the old man had lost his mind and confused me with someone else. But he would not stop yelling: ‘Are you not aware that you are a rescued Jewish child, taken in and raised by a Polish family who always hid from you your true origins?’ Before the holy man disappeared, as suddenly as he had come in, I was overcome by great confusion, guilt, and regret. ‘Is it possible for me to be forgiven everything I have done to my brothers?’ I asked in a trembling voice. Then the Baal Shem Tov replied: ‘On the day when someone comes and tells you this story, you will know that you have been forgiven.’”
Jakubowski would also like for someone to come and visit him and tell him such a story. Jakubowski would also like to be forgiven.
The larch manor in Wojs?awice and Zwierzchowski’s teeth
The manor house was fully restored over the summer. It received a new roof, a new truss, and larch shingles. The rooms were repainted, the stoves cleaned out, and one was completely redone in beautiful white tiles that came all the way from somewhere near Sandomierz. There are six rooms, two of which are intended for the ladies, Hana and her little daughter, while in the others the women who accompany Hana and serve her have taken up their lodgings. In one of the rooms lives the Zwierzchowski family. There is no drawing room—they all just meet in the big kitchen, where it is warmest. The rest of the company is confined to the grange, under poor conditions, for those dwellings are moldy and damp.
The worst is that from the start they are afraid to walk into the village. Everyone glowers at them there—the Jews who take up the little marketplace and run the businesses, and the goyim, too, are hostile. Someone has painted black crosses on the door of the manor, and they don’t know who did it and what they mean. The two brushstrokes going across one another make a sinister impression.
One night someone sets the shed on fire, and it’s just lucky that it starts snowing, and the fire goes out.
Zwierzchowski and Piotrowski have gone to see that woman, Kossakowska, who now watches over them from the palace of her cousins the Potockis, in Krasnystaw, and complain of idleness.
“To do business we would need to go to Krasnystaw, or even Zamo??, because they won’t let us in here. We had a stand at the fair, but they overturned it in the snow, and much of what we had to sell was stolen and destroyed,” says Piotrowski, following Kossakowska with his gaze as she paces up and down the length of the room.
“They took apart our carriage—we don’t even have a way to get anywhere,” Piotrowski adds after a moment.
“Her Ladyship is afraid to leave the house,” says Zwierzchowski. “We had to set up guards around the orchard. But why should we have to have guards, when it’s mostly just women, children, and the elderly?”
After they leave, Kossakowska sighs to her distant cousin Marianna Potocka: