Satan in Goray - Isaac Bashevis Singer [49]
soul, handsome one. I shall give thee sweet almonds and a string of beads. I shall set a crown on thy head, and thou shalt be my princess." The peasants in the villages did not speak their wrath. In silence each day they sharpened their scythes, though there was no crop to harvest, in silence they filed the blades of their axes. It was thought by some that they would rise in revolt, murdering the Jews as well as the Polish gentry. Others predicted Cossack armies advancing from the Ukraine and Wolhynia, as in Chmelnicki's days, to avenge the oppression of the people. As if this were not enough, there was an increase in the number of practitioners of the evil eye. Cattle stopped giving milk and women turned yellow with jaundice. In the village of Kotzitza the householders buried a witch alive. They nailed a horseshoe to her left foot to prevent her from running from her grave, and they stuffed her mouth with poppy seed. In the village of Maidan the peasants lured a witch into the woods, chained her to a tree, and built a fire about her, after stripping her of her clothes. The villagers watched the naked witch writhe and tear at her flesh in agony, calling upon the name of Satan, until the flames consumed her. Then four women hacked her body to pieces with sickles, and buried the corpse in a field, with neither mound nor cross to show where she lay. The most ancient in Goray could not remember such a time. It was difficult to get a loaf of bread, but meat was plentiful. Early each evening the butcher boys drove whole herds of calves, and sheep, and goats to the slaughterhouse. They brought cows whose udders had shrunken and had ceased giving milk. These animals had thin flanks overgrown with thick clumps of dung; their ribs stuck out like barrel staves; their bellies hung loose like empty bags; their black, damp, hairy muzzles were drawn with hunger and thirst; and the town resounded with their pitiful mooing. They fell at the butcher's first push, and expired without a struggle. Reb Gedaliya hurried about with his green slaughtering knife, expertly slashing at the shaven necks, and recoiling from the spatter of blood. Butchers moved about with hatchets chopping off the heads of the still breathing beasts, dexterously stripping hides, tearing bodies open, and dragging out red satin lungs, half-empty stomachs, and intestines. They inflated the lungs by blowing through the windpipe, and slapped the distended or-gans and spat into the flaps to see if there were any vents which would make the animal unclean. Reb Gedaliya stood in the center of the slaughterhouse, his knife clenched between his teeth, his earlocks and his long beard disheveled, his black eyes, deep set in the hairy pouches of his cheeks, rolling as he urged the butchers to finish the examination, remonstrating: "Hurry! It's clean! It's clean!" For Reb Gedaliya had to be very sparing of his time; the weight of all Goray lay on his shoulders. The elders waited at the town meeting to hear his views; the women required his advice on how to obtain dowries for orphan girls; it was he whom the lord of Goray had licensed to levy and collect taxes, in his wisdom; emissaries brought him letters from the Sabbatai Zevi sect in Zamosc and Ludomir; rich men from other towns pleaded for his salves and potions; persons possessed, brides under a spell, children with blown-up bellies were brought to him. The table in Reb Gedaliya's room was piled high with sheaves of parchment, goose-quill pens, hailstones from Heaven, balls of devil-dung. There was always a pot of leeches handy, and somewhere in the room Reb Gedaliya had a scroll inscribed with the names of angels and demons. Secreted elsewhere was a black- bordered mirror and a cross on a string of beads. Young men frequently came to study the circulars of Nathan of Gaza and Abraham Ha-Yachini. Reb Gedaliya trained these young men in the magical science of drawing wine from walls, and transporting themselves from place to place according to a cabalistic formula.... Goray was elated. Every few days there was an-other wedding. Twelve-year-old