Jacob Frank, in his high Turkish cap and his coat with the ermine collar, stands on a low step and says in his coarse though correct German:
“Once I set out on a long journey and was so tired that I sought some place to rest. Then I found one tree that gave great shade. Its fruits smelled from afar, and next to it was a source of the purest water. And so I lay down under that tree, ate its fruits and drank the water from that source, and I slept a fine slumber. ‘How can I ever repay you, tree?’ I asked. ‘How can I bless you? Should I wish you many branches? You have them already. Should I say: May your fruit be sweet and have a magnificent smell? You are in possession of that already, too. Say: May you have around you a source of fresh water? This has already been given to you. Thus I have no way to bless you other than to simply say: May all honest passersby rest beneath you and give praise to the God who has created you.’ And this tree—it is Brünn.”
It is February 10, 1786, and the snow is beginning to fall again.
Scraps: Jacob Frank’s sons, and Moliwda
I have always carried out my missions with devotion, for I knew that Jacob would distinguish me for it. For whom, if not me? I was fluent in Turkish and knew those local customs as well as my own. And yet the latest mishaps have caused Jacob to distance himself from me again, keeping company now more with the younger and more agile Jan Wo?owski, who, dressed up as a Cossack, his swarthy face cut crosswise by his bushy Polish mustache, has continued to be close to Jacob. He made Antoni Czerniawski, his brother-in-law, his second aide-de-camp. They’ve circled around him like flies, Matuszewski and Wittel also did their part, and most of all Eva, who defended him and slowly transformed from daughter into mother to Jacob.
Yeruhim and I had so much in common, and while the younger ones gave themselves over to what they rumblingly referred to as life, we preferred to talk about the old subjects, those no one here remembered anymore, nor valued. For we had been conducting our cause from the start, and we had seen more broadly than anyone out of our whole big machna. And I could take pride in the fact that I remained, the only one who had been with Jacob from the start, for after all, Reb Mordke, Issachar, even Moshe of Podhajce and his father, who were buried in that Cz?stochowa cave, are with us no longer, though I always think, really, that they have just gone off and are waiting for us all somewhere, sitting around a big wooden table, and the door to their room is somewhere here, in this great castle. Is not death merely appearance, like the many phenomena that appear in the world and in which we believe, like so many children?
I thought a great deal then about death, for during one of my absences from Warsaw, my Wajge?e died, giving life to a little girl whom I named Rozalia and whom I greatly loved. She was a child born too soon, and she was very weak; her mother, no longer young, could not endure the difficult labor. She passed away quietly in our apartment on D?uga, in the presence of her two sisters, who communicated to me this terrible information when I returned from Brünn. I judge that God wished to tell me something, giving me this little crumb of a child at a time so filled with doubt and wretchedness—me, a person who had never been close to his family; for by that time my physical intercourse with my wife was rare, and we had not had any real hopes for parenthood in a long while. What did God want to tell me, giving me Rozalia? I think that he was appointing me a father again in this way, reminding me of that role I had so forgotten, so that I could begin to watch over Jacob’s sons.
That is why I was glad to go back to Warsaw, where I pursued my own business, as well as the obligations I had to our great family, but above all I looked after both of Jacob’s sons, Joseph and Roch (leaving Rozalia for the time being with her aunts), to whom I dedicated more attention than I had my own. Placed in schools, they were training to become officers. Jacob knew very well what he was doing, putting them in my custody, for I tried to prevent them from dissolving into the heady concoction that was Warsaw, and I felt particular affection for them, especially for the elder of the two, Roch, who was close to my heart, and so many times did I count on my fingers those gloomy months in Cz?stochowa, when he came into the world, and when I was raised up by Jacob, and when I was forgiven so wondrously and generously for my misdeed. But Roch avoided me as much as possible and was even rather harsh with me. I had the impression that he was ashamed of me, that I was not Polish enough for him, that I was too Jewish, that he was irritated by my Jewish accent, and that he found me personally unbearable. When he would come up to me, he would wrinkle up his nose and say, “It smells like onions here,” which made me feel terrible. Meanwhile, his younger brother, guided by his sibling, also treated me roughly, but sometimes tenderly as well; I think that aside from me they had no one who was close to them. And they did not have it easy, those boys—constantly in other people’s houses, and then in the dormitories of the School of Chivalry, seemingly surrounded by peace and esteem, but really treated like freaks. They became willful, lawless, connected with each other only, as if the rest of the world were their enemy. They made sure to hide their Jewish origins, always more Polish than their Polish peers.
When they were younger, they were sent to the Piarists. Roch went first—I asked him how he was doing there, and he complained to me in tears that they had to wake up at six in the morning, and then go to mass right away, and after mass all they got was bread and butter, but if they wanted coffee, they had to send for money for it. At eight it was back to the classroom, where they had lessons into afternoon. Then there were the guards’ rounds, whoever was on guard duty, and only after that could they have lunch. Until two they were given time to play in the garden out behind the building, and from two they had more lessons until five. Until eight in the evening they were to study and do their homework, leaving them just one hour for entertainment, from eight until nine. At nine-thirty they were to go to bed. And so on, over and over again. Is that the life of a happy child?