His listeners breathe a sigh of relief. There are murmurs and whispers from all corners. It’s a good story, people like it.
But Nahman is making it up. In reality, he fainted by the donkeys, and no one came to save him. His companions picked him up from there later. And it was only in the evening, as he was lying in a dark room with no windows, cool and quiet, that Jacob came to him. He hesitated at the threshold, leaned his arm against the door, and peered into the room from there—Nahman saw only his outline, a dark silhouette in the rectangle of the doorway against the backdrop of the stairs. Jacob had to lower his head to come into the room. He paused before taking this step, which of course he didn’t yet know would change his life. In the end, he made up his mind and went in, to Nahman on his sickbed and Reb Mordke sitting next to him, on top of the sheet. Jacob’s hair flowed in waves from the fez he was wearing to his shoulders. The light played over his abundant dark beard for a moment, eliciting ruby gleams. He looked a bit like a big kid.
When Nahman, having recovered, went out into the streets of Smyrna, passing hundreds of people hurrying about their business, he couldn’t shake the thought that among them might be the Messiah, but that no one was able to recognize him. And the worst of it was that the Messiah himself might not be aware of it.
When he heard this, Reb Mordke nodded his head a long time before saying:
“You, Nahman, are a sensitive instrument. Sensitive, delicate. You might even be this Messiah’s prophet, just as Nathan of Gaza was the prophet of Sabbatai Tzvi (of blessed memory).”
And after the long pause it took him to crush the bits of resin and mix them with his tobacco, he added mysteriously:
“Every place has two characters—every place is double. What is sublime is also fallen. What is clement is at the same time base. In the deepest darkness lies the spark of the most powerful light, and vice versa: where omnipresent clarity reigns, a pit of darkness lurks inside the seed of light. The Messiah is our doppelg?nger, a more perfect version of ourselves—he is what we would be, had it not been for the fall.”
Of stones and the runaway with the horrible face
Suddenly, as everyone is talking over one another, and Nahman is rinsing his throat with wine, there’s a thudding against the roof and the walls, and there’s a cry, then a commotion. Through a broken windowpane, a stone has flown into the room, knocking over some candles; lustfully, fire starts to lick the sawdust sprinkled over the floor. An older woman rushes to the rescue, putting out the flames with her heavy skirts. Others have already raced outside, crying and screaming, and in the darkness, those on the inside can hear men shouting to one another, although the hail of stones has stopped. After a long while, people begin to trickle back inside, their faces flushed with anger and excitement, but then shouts sound again from outside, and soon several men burst in great agitation into the main room, where people were dancing until moments ago. Among them are two of the Shorr brothers—Shlomo and Isaac, the bridegroom—as well as Moshek Abramowicz of Lanckoroń, Hayah’s brother-in-law, a strong, sturdy man who has in his grip some skinny wretch who kicks and spits furiously all around him.
“Haskiel!” Hayah shouts at him, and goes to look him in the face. Covered in snot and crying with rage, he turns away so that he doesn’t have to look her in the eye. “Who was with you? How could you?”
“You bad seeds, you traitors, you heretics!” he cries, till Moshek punches him in the face so hard that Haskiel staggers and falls.
“Leave him alone!” cries Hayah.
So they let him go, and he struggles to get up off his knees, searching for the exit as blood from his nose stains his light-colored linen shirt.
Then the eldest of the Shorr brothers, Nathan, goes up to him and says calmly:
“Nu, Haskiel, tell Aron not to try any more of that. We don’t want to shed your blood. But Rohatyn is ours.”
Haskiel bolts, tripping over the edges of his coat. By the gate, his gaze falls on a figure standing calmly by. Its face is horrible, deformed, and at the sight of it, Haskiel begins to yelp in fear.
“A golem. A golem!”
Dobrushka from Prossnitz is shaken and holds his wife to him. He complains the people here are all savages, that in Moravia everyone does whatever they want in their own homes, and no one interferes in it. Just imagine, throwing stones!
A displeased Nathan Shorr gestures to the “golem” to go back to the shed where he lives. Now they’ll have to get rid of him, lest Haskiel rat them out.
The runaway—that’s what they call this big, silent fugitive peasant with the frostbitten face and red hands. His features have been blurred by the scars that remained after he thawed. His great red hands are bulblike, beaten up and swollen. They inspire respect. He is strong as an ox, and gentle. He sleeps in the cowshed, in an annex that shares one warm wall with the house. He is enterprising and hardworking, and he does his work earnestly and well, slow but steady. His dedication is strange, for who are the Jews to him? As a peasant, he surely holds them in contempt, hates them as the reason for many of his own misfortunes—they lease out the nobles’ holdings, they collect the taxes, they intoxicate the peasants in their taverns, and as soon as one of them starts to feel a little more confident, he takes to acting like a serf-owner.
Yet there is no sign of resentment in this golem. It may be that there is something wrong with his head, that in addition to his face and hands some part of his mind was affected by the frostbite—that would be why he is so slow, as if perpetually ensconced in ice.