The Spinoza of Market Street - Isaac Bashevis Singer [39]
--- Translated by Elizabeth Follet
Caricature
The walls of the study where Dr. Boris Margolis sat reading his manuscript were lined with books and on the floor and sofa was a litter of newspapers, magazines, discarded envelopes. In addition, there were two wastepaper baskets crammed with papers which the doctor had forbidden anyone to discard until he had one more look at them. Books, their pages still uncut, manuscripts, his own as well as other people's, letters which remained unopened, had become a curse in the apartment. They were dust collectors; bugs were to be seen crawling on them. The smell of print, sealing wax, cigar smoke, was omnipresent in the place, an acrid and musty odor. Every day Dr. Margolis argued with his wife, Mathilda, about cleaning the room but the ash trays remained filled with cigar butts and pieces of food. Mathilda kept him on a diet and hunger was forever assaulting the doctor. He was constantly nibbling egg-cookies, halva, chocolate; he also liked a taste of brandy. He had been warned about scattering ashes, but, nevertheless, there were small gray heaps on the window sill and armchairs. The doctor had ordered that no window be opened; the wind might blow his papers away. Nothing could be discarded without his agreement and Dr. Margolis never agreed. He would peer at the paper in question from beneath his bushy eyebrows and plead, "No, I'd better keep this around just a little bit longer."
"How much longer is that?" Mathilda would ask. "Until the coming of the Messiah?"
"Indeed, how much longer?" Dr. Margolis would say with a sniff. When you are sixty-nine years old and have a weak heart, you can't postpone things forever. He had taken on so many obligations--the day was too short. Scholars kept writing to him here in Warsaw from England and America, even from Germany where that maniac Hitler had come to power. Since Dr. Margolis published criticism in an academic journal from time to time, authors sent him their books to review. He had once subscribed to several philosophical magazines and, though he had long since given up renewing his subscriptions, the issues continued to arrive along with demands for payment. Most of the scholars of his generation had died. He himself, for a while, had been as good as forgotten. But the new generation had rediscovered him, and he was now showered with letters of praise as well as all sorts of requests. Just when he had at last resigned himself to never seeing his masterpiece in print (the work had been the labor of twenty-five years), a Swiss publisher had got in touch with him. He had gone as far as to give Dr. Margolis a five hundred franc advance. But now that the publisher was waiting for the manuscript, the realization had come to Dr. Margolis that the work was full of mistakes and inaccuracies, even contradictions. He was uncertain whether his philosophy, a return to metaphysics, had any value. At sixty-nine he no longer had the need to see his name in print. If he could not bring out a consistent system, it was better to keep silent.
Now Dr. Margolis sat, small, broad-shouldered, his head bent forward, his white hair blowing about his head like foam. His goatee pointed upward and to the side of his gray moustache, singed from the cigars he had smoked down to the butt, his cheeks hung limp. Between the thick, bushy eyebrows and the pouch-like bags underlining the eyes, were the eyes themselves, dark, and despite their keen, penetrating gaze, good-natured. The retinas were covered with brown, hornlike specks; cataracts had begun to form and sooner or later the doctor would have to undergo an operation. A small beard sprouted from the doctor's nose and wisps of hair protruded from his ears. Every morning Mathilda reminded him to put on a dressing gown and slippers, but as soon as he arose, he dressed in his black suit, his spats and a stiff collar and black tie. He heeded neither his wife nor his doctors. He poured the medicines which had been prescribed down the drain, threw away the pills, smoked continually, consumed