The person who has been dictating this letter to Goliński now takes it from him and sprinkles it with sand. The sand dries the words, and thus they gather strength.
Coffee with milk: The effects of consumption
Jacob seems to have been harmed by this new fashion for drinking two elements mixed: coffee and milk. It started with some slight indigestion, but soon it was as though his digestive processes had ceased completely, and the weakness that came over him could only be compared with the one that afflicted him in Cz?stochowa, when he was given poisoned hosts. In addition, his creditors keep pounding at the doors, and there is nothing to pay them with, as enormous amounts have gone to Vienna and been lost on legations. Waiting for Kapliński, Paw?owski, and Wo?owski to return from Warsaw with money, he has ordered all expenditures on food to be restricted, and for a contingent of the guests whose maintenance has been a major burden on the court to be sent home. So weak and exhausted he cannot even sit any longer, he dictates letters to the machna in Warsaw, his beloved community. He urges them to be strong like the tree that despite the wind whipping around its branches still stands in place. They are to strengthen their hearts and be brave. He concludes his letter with the words: “Fear nothing.”
The dictation so exhausts him that come evening he falls into a deep, deathlike sleep.
This crisis lasts for several days, with the Lord lying in slumber, nothing near him altering except his caretakers, who moisten his lips, and change his bedding. The windows are covered, the communal meals canceled, so that now only simple food is served, bread and potatoes with a tiny bit of lard. No one is allowed onto the second floor, where the Lord’s rooms are. The roster of guards is determined by Zwierzchowska, who roams the hallways, tall and skinny, slightly hunched, clanking the keys clipped to her hips. It is she who, still sleepy on her feet one morning as she goes to open up the kitchen, sees the Lord in just his nightshirt, barefoot, standing in the doorway, swaying on his feet. Just look, his lady guardians have dozed off, and he has gotten well. Zwierzchowska wakes up the whole court; they make him broth he refuses to so much as touch. From now on he eats baked eggs, no bread or meat, just eggs, and soon he is himself again. Once more he strikes out on his own for his long walks outside town. Zwierzchowska discreetly sends someone from the court to keep an eye on him.
A month later, completely recovered, he solemnly sets out for the Dobrushkas’ home in Prossnitz, where there is a gathering once a year—as is known only to the initiated—of true believers from all over Europe. At the Dobrushkas’, they pretend it is a family occasion, who knows whose or what kind. As with the wedding of Isaac Shorr (now Henryczek Wo?owski) twenty-seven years ago, everyone is here. Jacob Frank comes in a sumptuous carriage surrounded by his own Hussars. One of them is lightly wounded. They were attacked by Jews just outside Brünn, but the Jews were not well armed. Szymanowski, who always has a loaded gun, shot at them a few times, and they all scattered.
Yente watches all of this—the similarity of the events draws her attention. Over time, moments occur that are very similar to one another. The threads of time have their knots and tangles, and every so often there is a symmetry, every once in a while something repeats, as if refrains and motifs were controlling them, a troubling thing to notice. Such order tends to overburden the mind, which cannot know how to respond. Chaos has always seemed more familiar and safe, like the disarray in your own drawer. And so it is now, here in Prossnitz, that they remember the day in Rohatyn, twenty-seven years ago, that Yente didn’t exactly die.
There the wagons rode in the mud, carrying people in damp kapotas. Oil lamps flickered in the low-ceilinged rooms, the men’s thick beards and the women’s rich skirts gave off the smell of the omnipresent smoke, the wet wood and the fried onions. Now, down the Moravian highways glide carriages on leaf springs, soft and comfortable inside. They drive up to the Dobrushkas’ large home, people who are washed and well-fed, nicely dressed, poised and polite. They greet each other in the courtyard, and it is clear just from looking at them that they treat the world as if it were their own cozy apartment. They are nice and friendly toward each other, which just goes to show that this is one big family that has gathered here. And that is exactly how it is. The two local taverns rent them guest rooms. The town’s residents examine the newcomers, who speak German with a lilt, but their interest does not last long. Maybe it’s a golden anniversary at the Dobrushkas’. That he is a Jew everyone knows, there are plenty of Jews here. They live honestly and work hard. They are different in some way from those other Jews, but no one seems to care exactly how.
For the duration of the proceedings, the women are completely separated from the men and will spend the whole three days in their own company, covering in great detail all questions of who, when, with whom, how, why, and where. These conversations will yield more advantages later on than the setting down of doctrines. They provide ideas for marriages, offer fashionable names for children not yet born, discuss appealing places for the treatment of rheumatism, and connect those seeking good posts with those who need good help. In the morning they read sacred texts and also debate them. In the afternoon they turn their attention to musicmaking—Sheyndel and her daughters are very gifted and have a lot of sheet music in their possession. As the girls play, the older women, including Sheyndel, pour themselves glasses of cherry liqueur, and that’s when a discussion no less interesting than the one taking place on the other side of the wall, among the men, really gets under way.
One of the Dobrushka daughters, Blumele, who is particularly talented, accompanies herself on the piano and sings an old song of the true believers, translated into German now:
In a hiding place of iron, in an air balloon,
My soul sets sail on open seas.
No man?made walls can hold it in,
Nor can the heart’s own Babylon.
It pays no heed to reputation,
To pompous guests at lavish feasts,
To smoothness, courtesy, great nations.
My soul breaks free through any border,
Ignores the keepers of your order,
Flies over words ranged end to end
And what words cannot comprehend.
It knows not pleasure or night’s terror—
Your beauty, like a poor relation,
My soul drives out, dumps in the sand.
O God in heaven up above,
Give me Your word, that I may stand
Beside You, catch up with Your truth.