She exchanges a glance with Czerniawska, who is sitting with her husband by the wall.
“Your wine will be rationed from now on. Father has determined it.” Roch, in his armchair, laughs, not looking up, so that it appears he is laughing into his boots. His light red hair sticks out under from his carelessly donned wig.
“Father is sick and won’t live long. Do not speak to me of him. I’ll throw up.”
Eva loses all her self-control. She leans in over her brother and hisses:
“Silence, you pathetic, tiny, stupid man.”
Roch covers his face with his hands. Eva turns abruptly, her lavish dress again sweeping up the scraps of fabric and scattering them about the room, and exits.
Czerniawski, embarrassed, sees that Roch is weeping.
“I am the most unfortunate of men.”
Of neshika, God’s kiss
The Lord dreams of that strange smell again, that ambrosia smell. A few hours later, the next attack arrives. The von La Roche family bring in for Jacob Frank the finest doctor in all of Frankfurt, and he in turn calls a consultation with his local Offenbach colleagues. They debate at some length, but it becomes clear that there is nothing they can do for Jacob. He is completely unconscious now.
“When?” Eva Frank asks them, as they are leaving Jacob’s room.
“That we cannot tell you. The patient’s organism is extremely strong, and his will to live is iron. But no one can survive such a powerful apoplexy.”
“When?” Czerniawski repeats.
“Only God knows.”
And yet the Lord survives. He regains consciousness for a moment and is cheered up by a green parrot that speaks, brought to him as a gift. Someone reads him the newspaper, although it is unknown to what degree the news from the papers, ever more apocalyptic, makes it into his mind. In the evening he proclaims that women must also be taught to ride horses. The women will also be warriors. He demands that all the expensive robes and carpets be sold so that they can purchase more weapons. He calls in Czerniawski in order to dictate letters to him. Czerniawski writes down everything Jacob says, not giving any indication, even with his eyebrows, what he thinks about it all.
The Lord also proclaims that a delegation must be sent to Russia, orders it readied. Most of the time, though, he lies there lost in thought, as if in his mind he had already traveled far away. He is delirious. And in his delirium, the same words appear over and over again. “Do as I command,” he calls out to everyone for the whole of one evening.
“The men will tremble,” he says, foretelling great riots and blood upon the city’s streets. Or he prays and sings in the old language. His voice breaks off, transforms into a whisper: “Ahapro ponov baminho,” or “I beg His countenance forgiveness.” He says: “I must be very weak if I am to approach death . . . I must renounce my strength, only then will it renew me . . . everything shall be renewed.”
Jakubowski, devastated, falls asleep at Jacob’s bedside. Later he will claim to have recorded Jacob’s last words, which he renders as follows: “Christ said that he came to free the world from Satan’s grip. But I came to free it from all the laws and statutes that have been in effect till now. When everything has been destroyed, the Good God will be discovered.”
The truth is that at the very end, Jakubowski wasn’t with the Lord. The women had come to replace him, and they no longer allowed anyone in. Eva with Anusia, old Matuszewska, Zwierzchowska, Czerniawska, and Eva Jezierzańska. They set out holy candles, put out flowers. The last person to converse with him—if it could be called a conversation—was Eva Jezierzańska. She had sat by his bedside the whole previous night, but come morning, she went to get a little sleep herself. Then the Lord sent for her, saying only: “Eva.” Some people thought he was summoning Her Ladyship, but he did not say “Ladyship,” only “Eva,” and he usually called his daughter Avacha or Avachunia. And so Old Jezierzańska came in, replacing Jakubowski and Eva, sitting down on the edge of the bed and immediately understanding what it was he wanted. She laid his head on her lap, and he tried to put his lips in the position they might take for kissing, but failed on account of the paralyzed half of his face. She pulled out a large, flabby breast and pressed it to the Lord’s lips. And he sucked it, although it was empty. Then he lost the last of his strength and stopped breathing. He didn’t say a word.
A shaken Jezierzańska left the room. She did not cry till she was out the door.
Antoni Czerniawski announces to the uneasy company come morning that the body has been washed now, changed, and laid upon its catafalque. He says:
“Our Lord has passed. He died of a kiss: neshika. God came to him in the night and brushed his lips with His lips, as He did with Moses. The Almighty God is now welcoming him into his chambers.”
A single mighty sob resounds, the news races through the galleries, flies out from the castle and whirls like a vortex down the narrow, impeccable streets of Offenbach. Soon the bells in all the local churches start to peal, regardless of denomination.
Czerniawski notices that all the elder brothers have already come downstairs except Jakubowski, who spent all night at the door. Suddenly he starts to worry whether something might have happened to him, too. He climbs the stairs to the last floor, thinking what a bad idea it was to put the elders up so high, that this needs to change.
Jakubowski is sitting with his back to the door, hunched over his papers, his gray, close-cropped hair with its woolen cap on a head that looks as small as a child’s.
“Brother Piotr,” Czerniawski says to him, but Nahman does not react.
“Brother Piotr, he has passed.”
There is a long silence, and Czerniawski understands that he ought to leave the old man to himself.
“Death is no bad thing,” Jakubowski says suddenly, without turning around. “And in fact, there’s no need to deny it, it belongs to the good God, who in this way mercifully saves us from life.”
“Brother, are you coming down?”