“It certainly comes easier to the husbands to be ‘broken down,’ as you call it, while the women feel horrible afterward.”
He looks her over carefully, stunned by what she’s said.
“Give the women the right to say no,” says Wittel.
His look darkens:
“Well, don’t announce it, because then their husbands will tell them to say no.”
Wittel says after a moment:
“The women are not that stupid. The women are happy to be with other men . . . Many of them are just waiting for permission; if they don’t get the permission, some will do it anyway. It’s always been like that, and it always will be.”
Following his return from Prossnitz to Brünn, Jacob falls ill again. Wittel Matuszewska claims that these illnesses arise from his complete lack of moderation in eating the local Hermelín, the cheese they make here, which the Lord insists on eating warm and in great quantities. No stomach can digest it, she rages. And this time, his painful hernia returns. At the base of his abdomen, almost in his groin, a thickening appears, protruding from his belly. He had the same thing back in Ivanie. Zwierzchowska and those who serve the Lord day or night tell everyone excitedly that the Lord has two members. In the kitchen it is said that the second member shows itself when something important is to happen. The women giggle, their cheeks pink.
Although there seems to be no medicine for the hernia—and maybe this illness is in fact a visible blessing—the Lord heals on his own. In the forest he loves just outside Brünn there are oak groves; there the Lord selects a young oak’s branch and has it cut in half lengthwise, then lights a fire and puts both stone and singed tinder upon his ailment. He wraps the oak around himself and tells everyone to leave. He does this several times, and the hernia abates.
At the same time, he has sent Eva to Vienna and brought in an artist who specializes in miniatures. The Lord has ordered three. Eva has been posing, displeased at having been taken away from the imperial court when at any moment the emperor might summon her. The miniatures are sent to the brothers from Hamburg and Altona with a request for financial support for the court and for the Lady herself, who has been spending so much time with the emperor, a point Jacob insisted be emphasized repeatedly.
At the nightly talks, which often go on until quite late, Jacob first tells fairy tales and parables, and then the more serious discussions begin. His listeners sit on whatever they can find—the older ones in armchairs and sofas, chairs and benches brought in for this purpose from the dining room. The younger ones sit on the floor, on the Turkish pillows that are everywhere here. Those who don’t listen let their minds wander to their own affairs, and only from time to time are they dragged back from their musings by someone’s not particularly intelligent question or a sudden burst of laughter.
“We will take three steps, remember,” begins the Lord.
Three steps—the first is baptism, the second is their entrance into Daat, and the third is the Kingdom of Edom.
Lately the Lord has mostly spoken about Daat, which in Hebrew means knowledge, the greatest knowledge, the same knowledge that is held by God. But it may be made available to humans. This is also the eleventh sefira, which stands in the very center of the Sefirot Tree yet has never been discovered by any person. He who goes with Jacob goes straight into Daat, and when he gets there, all will be annulled, even death. That will be deliverance.
During the lecture, J?drzej Dembowski gives out printed leaflets with the image of the Sefirot Tree. He came up with this idea not long ago, and he is pleased they have arrived at such modern and enlightened teaching methods. In this way, Jacob’s listeners can easily visualize where salvation lies within the larger plan of creation.
Of a proclivity for secret experiments on substances
Thomas von Sch?nfeld, who after his father’s death invested money in overseas trade with his brothers, is now collecting his first profits. Several times a year he travels to Amsterdam and Hamburg, and also to Leipzig, and returns with good contracts. His brothers have set up a small bank in Vienna and give out loans and collect interest on them. Thomas also conducts research on the emperor’s behalf on the subject of Turkey, though the purpose of this research isn’t altogether clear; throughout it, he is delighted to make use of the wide-ranging contacts of his uncle, Jacob Frank.
Jacob often summons him by mail and borrows money from banks in Vienna through him. Thomas carries bills of exchange. He urges Jacob to lend the money that comes in from Poland, and get interest off it, or to invest it properly, instead of keeping it in barrels in the cellar, as Czerniawska and her husband want, since they are the court treasurers now.
But the most important thing over the course of this unique unclenephew love affair are the strange visits from Thomas’s “brothers,” as he calls them, such as Efraim Joseph Hirschfeld and Nathan Arnstein, both wealthy industrialists from Vienna, or Bernard Eskeles, a banker who is not interested in money at all, or the printer who is a count and godfather to Thomas von Sch?nfeld. This count will soon apply for a noble title for his godson.
For now, Thomas uses the “von” without having any right to it, most often when he goes away to Germany or France. Simultaneously, and also through him, correspondence is now under way regarding the title of baron that Jacob Frank would like to have. Here, in Brünn, he uses the last name Dobrucki, which is justifiable, since he is, after all, related to the Dobrushkas of Prossnitz. Thus: Joseph, Count Dobrucki. Jacob is his name for special occasions, like a purple coat worn on holy days.