Satan in Goray - Isaac Bashevis Singer [37]
to stick in his throat. When the subject of marital relations came up he would shake his head, his dead eyes blinking in terror. "Yes... yes... of course," he would stammer. In the afternoons young men were despatched to Reb Itche Mates, grooms who were still boarding at their in-laws', to keep him occupied and pre-vent him from being melancholy. They asked each other riddles, played at Goats and Wolves, chess, and even dice. Some of them wrote in a fine, curlicued script to exhibit their learning; others kneaded soft bread into all kinds of birds and beasts. Those who could sing did so, and the bright ones thought up new turns of pilpul. A few young men who were students of world affairs conversed about the ancient wars of which they had read in Josephus, as well as about the remarkable behavior of rich lords and knights and of the Polish nobleman Wisniewcki, the friend of the Jews, who had impaled the haidarnaks on wooden poles. They enjoyed discussing the great fairs in Lublin, where the rarest volumes and manuscripts, precious gold and silver objects could be purchased, and where the wealthiest men from Poland, Lithuania, Germany, and Bohemia sought husbands for their daughters. One of the young men even brought his fiddle along with him and played him Wallachian melodies. Amongst them Reb Itche Mates sat, weary and alien, gazing obliquely over their heads. Occasionally he would pull a hair from his beard, hold it close to his eye, stare at it long, and finally place it carefully between the leaves of the Zohar. Soon his head sank on his chest and he dozed off. His arms dangled limply and his nose looked pale and lifeless. His visitors stood up and chuckled behind his back. At night, when the important leaders of his sect came to escort Reb Itche Mates to bed, they took him aside for a whispered conference, remonstrating: "How can this be, Reb Itche Mates? To be fruitful and to multiply is the principle of principles!" The marriage bed was in a room in Reb Eleazar's half-ruined brick house. Before removing his clothes Reb Itche Mates read the prayers of Rabbi Judah the Devout for more than an hour. Next, beating his breast with his thin fist, and weeping, he made his confession. Then he walked innumerable times around a bench. Rechele lay in bed waiting for him, prepared to greet him with sweet talk and love, as she had been tutored by the women. Outside, dogs howled mournfully, grew silent, and then began again, as though lamenting some great crime perpetrated on them. Rechele became aware that the Angel of Death was outside. The wind tore at the shutters, icily swept through the room, and the tallow candle flickered and went out, leaving the room dark and smoky. Reb Itche Mates continued his chant as he shuffled from corner to corner, as though in search of something. It seemed to Rechele that there was someone besides Reb Itche Mates in the room, some airy and terrifying presence. The roots of her hair tingled with fear, and she drew the covers over her. At last, silently, Reb Itche Mates lay down beside her. His body smelled of bathhouse water and corpses. He warmed his frigid hands between her breasts, and his bristly hair pricked her, yet his teeth continued to chatter and his body shook so that the bed shook with it. Reb Itche Mates' knees were bony and sharp and seemed to be hollow; his ribs protruded like barrel staves. All at once he spoke, in a low hoarse voice full of childish mystery: "Do you see anything, Rechele?" "No! What do you see, Itche Mates?" "Lilith!" Reb Itche Mates cried, and it seemed to Rechele that the vision pleased him. "Look at her. Long hair like yours. Naked. Concupiscent." He rambled on in strange half-sentences, cryptic, incomprehensible, as though in mockery. Suddenly he began to snore, with a long, shrill whistle. "Itche Mates!" Rechele called in a voice which though muffled had a threat in it. "Eh...?" "Are you asleep?" "Uh...." "Why do you snore so loudly?" asked Rechele. Itche Mates listened, yet the snores continued even though he was awake. Rechele was terrified. "Itche Mates!"