One autumn night, the Lord has all the brothers and sisters awakened. Audible in the darkness is their footfall on the stairs; candles are lit. Sleepy people, without saying a word to one another, take up their places in the large hall.
“I am not who I am,” says the Lord after a sustained period of silence. In the nocturnal quiet, coughing can be heard.
“I was hidden before you under this name of Jacob Frank, but that is not my true name. My country is very far from here, seven years’ trip by sea from Europe. My father was called Tygier, and my mother’s signet was a wolf. She was the daughter of a king . . .”
As the Lord continues, Czerniawski looks around at the faces of those gathered. The elders listen attentively, nodding their heads, as though what they are hearing is a confirmation of what they have long known. They are used to whatever Jacob says being the truth. The truth is like a gnarled tree, made up of many layers that are twisted all around each other, some layers holding others inside them, and sometimes being held. The truth is something that can be expressed in many tales, for it is like that garden the sages entered, in which each of them saw something else.
The younger among them, meanwhile, listen at the start, and then that long and complicated story, almost like some Eastern fairy tale, bores them, and they fidget and whisper among themselves, most of them not hearing everything, since Jacob speaks quietly, with difficulty, and the story itself is so strange that they no longer even know who it is about. Is it about Jacob, that he is from a royal lineage, and he was given to the Jew Buchbinder to be raised in exchange for his son, also called Jacob, and that Buchbinder taught him the Jewish language—for show, to keep people at bay? Which is why his daughter Eva, Avacha—may her health be good—must only marry someone from a royal family, too.
The young appear to be more interested in the news coming from France, which the newspapers write of with rising unease. Some of that news is strangely in tune with what Jacob says when he cites Isaiah—that when the time comes for the baptism of all Jews, the words of the prophets shall be fulfilled: “He will make all equal: the big and the small, the rabbis and the sages, the masters and the demeaned and the illiterate. All will be dressed and look alike.” This makes an impression on the youths, but then when Jacob moves on to some sort of star named Sabbatai who will show them the way to Poland, where there lies some great treasure, they lose interest once more.
The Lord concludes this strange speech with these words:
“When they ask you where you’re from and where you’re going, make yourselves deaf, give the impression that you cannot understand their words. Let them say of us: Those people are lovely and good, but they are simpletons and have no understanding. Accept this.”
They all go off to bed cold and tired. The women are still whispering over the Lord’s long and unexpected monologue, but it pales and dissolves with the night, come sunrise.
The next day, tiny little Kapliński is baptized, for at the news of the Lord’s ailment, all the Kaplińskis have come in from Wallachia. Seeing them, Jacob livens up and starts to cry, so overwhelmed is he to see them, and Czerniawski and all the elder brothers cry, too, humbled by that subtle presence of Hana through her brother and ashamed somehow that time has treated them thus, without any mercy. Hayim, now Jacob Kapliński, has aged and hobbles now, but his face is still lovely, and it is so reminiscent of Hana’s that a chill passes through them all.
The Lord takes the little boy in his arms, and he submerges his own hand in the holy water brought in from the church. First he rinses off the child’s head, then he places a little turban on it to remind them of the Turkish religion. And, as a sign of the place where they are now, he ties a little silk handkerchief around his neck. During this ceremony, his drawn, suffering face, half motionless, is flooded with tears. For his words seem clear, as he says that the true believers are now sailing on three different ships, and the ship on which he, Jacob, is sailing, will offer his companions the greatest fortune. But the second is good, too, for it will sail nearby; those are the brothers in Wallachia and the Turkish lands. The third ship sails far, far into the world—that ship carries those who will disperse across the waters of the world.
Of Roch Frank’s sins
One day, while Jacob is ailing, and thus the castle is hushed, there is a sudden ruckus downstairs, and in spite of the guards posted all around, some woman gets inside the main entrance and keeps on going into the gallery, shrieking. Czerniawski runs down and finds his wife there, trying to calm this other woman down. She is young, and her blond hair has come undone in the scuffle that at last put an end to her progress. She unties the bulging bundle from her breast and places it on the ground. Czerniawski sees in horror that the bundle is moving; he tells the guards to leave, along with all the accidental witnesses to this event, so that it is only the three of them who remain:
“Who is the gentleman?” Anna Czerniawska asks, with great presence of mind.
She takes the girl by the elbow and leads her gently into the dining room. She tells her husband to bring something warm, since it is cold and the girl is shivering.
“Herr Roch,” says the girl, crying.
“Do not fear. All will be well.”
“He’ll marry me. That’s what he said!”
“You’ll receive compensation.”
“What does compensation mean?”
“All will be well. Leave the child with us.”
“It’s, it’s . . . ,” the girl begins, but Czerniawski can see for herself when she has cleared away the cloths around it. The child is sick, the girl must have bound her stomach. That is why the infant is so calm, his eyes moving around strangely, slobbering.
Czerniawski brings her some food, the girl eats with appetite. Husband and wife confer for a moment. Then Czerniawska decides, and her husband places several gold coins on the wooden table. The girl goes. That same day, the Czerniawskis go out into the country, and there, paying a generous sum to a certain steward, and giving him the child, they sign a long-term agreement with him.
These little love affairs of Roch’s cost quite a bit. This is the second time.
Eva Frank, informed by the Czerniawskis, has summoned Roch to her chamber, and is now reproaching her brother. Her dress sweeps away from before him the scraps of material left here by the seamstress who until a moment ago had been taking her measurements. Eva speaks in a hushed, tense voice that lashes Roch.
“You do not apply yourself in anything, you are incapable of doing anything of use, nothing even interests you. You are a pain in the ass that expects to be coddled. Our father has given you so many opportunities, and you have squandered them all. Women and wine—that’s all you’re good for.”