Satan in Goray by Isaac Bashevis Singer Read Free Book Online Page B

home. The wet floor had already been swept and spread with sand. Three candles in memory of Granny's soul were burning in a sand-filled box. Uncle stood in a white smock, wearing cloth shoes, his head covered by a white mitre that was embroidered with golden fringe. His black beard was combed and wet, his earlocks, as long as braids, were still dripping from the bath. He resembled one of those holy and God-fearing Masters of whom Rechele had read in her little books in Yiddish. He placed both hands on her head and said in a sorrowful voice, "May the Lord make thee as Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah.... Be Blessed and of pure spirit, 0 child, and tend to the house... in God's Name!" Rechele opened her lips to answer, but Uncle violently thrust the door open, and rushed out, almost extinguishing the candles. Rechele remained standing in the middle of the room; she looked about in amazement, as though in a strange place. A blood-red fragment of the sky filled the small window near the rafters, and outside a great wailing was heard. Lublin's narrow streets, lighted by the setting sun, were now full of men wearing the white Yom Kippur robes; they looked like corpses in shrouds. The women wore white dresses with trains, and silk scarves; they were arrayed in pearls and heavy necklaces, pins and bracelets, brooches and long earrings which quivered like jelly. Those women who had been widowed or had lost children recently ran with outstretched arms, as though insane, hoarsely repeating the same phrase over and over. Neighbors who had been at each other's throats throughout the year embraced and clung swaying to and fro, as though nothing could separate them.... Young matrons walked proudly, holding in one hand the gold- trimmed prayer books while the other caught up the trains of their gowns. Laughing and crying they fell upon each other's necks. Four girls conveyed a paralyzed dowager some hundred years old on a red-up-holstered chair. The old woman's golden dress blazed in the sunset and her high bonnet set with beads and precious stones glittered, its satin ribbons fluttering in the wind. A blind old man, with a white windblown beard, stood leaning on his crutches, his blue hands groping to bless all who passed by. The street leading to the prayer house was filled with low tables on which stood alms bowls. The crooked, the dumb, the lame sat on footstools and counted the silver and copper coins with which the crowd redeemed their souls for the holy day. Yerucham, the Lublin Penitent, stood as he did every year, at the door of the prayer house barefoot, his clothes unfastened. Wringing his hands, he wept for his sins.
    "Jews, have mercy, Jew-ws!... Compassion.. Compassion!..."
    But here, in this lonely street, inside the thick walls, Rechele heard only an echo. She stood there, ears cocked and eyes wide. This was her first time alone on Yom Kippur eve. In the past Granny had invited girls in to sit with her, and they would pass the evening braiding each other's hair and talking in hushed voices while huddled at the table. The night before Yom Kippur is a frightening time. Often, on that night, lords would fall upon Jewish homes and ravish the young, unprotected girls. Sometimes the candles would droop, and the children alone in the house would have to run outside to find a gentile to straighten them. Fires in which small children perished were frequent. Everyone remembered the catastrophe in the great synagogue when someone had called out that the city was on fire and in the panic many men and women had been trampled on and crushed. Moreover, it was common knowledge that on this, the holiest of nights, when the awesome prayer of Kol Nidre was chanted, the air was full of those ghosts that could find no resting place in the Hereafter. Rechele and her friends had once seen with their own eyes such a ghost pass by the candle and disappear in the hearth.... The candle flame smoked and sputtered for a long time after-ward.
    Now Rechele was