MARIANKA
103
"So you have a great love for her, the Bride that God sends to the
sons of Israel? ..."
I agreed with a nod, his Russian was superb, he had the real
Petrograd accent. His bearing had something innately noble about
it, and he diffused a deep peace that steeped the atmosphere in a
wise calm, you know what I mean, like a huge benevolent impulse.
His mere presence seemed to create a holiday atmosphere. I don't
mean a rowdy, boisterous festival atmosphere, but an intimate
joyousness, a feeling of tranquil happiness, almost exclusively a
spiritual happiness. Truly, the man had a beautiful personality.
Myriam brought in two Sabbath loaves, setting them down in
her father's place. She covered them with a fringed napkin and
sat down on the old gentleman's right, pulling her long fair braids
on to her lap. She had inherited her father's oval face, a slightly
arched nose, and from her mother, the pallid eyes; the delicate
mouth was a vivid scarlet.
She smiled at me, bending her head over one shoulder, and
one of the braids strayed across her cheek. I blushed violently and
turned away, pretending to look for a seat. I noticed a bench
against the wall, right next to the door which gave on to a little
passage way leading into Marianka. My hostess brought in a bottle
of spirits and small liqueur glasses, and Rabbi Mellakh began to
murmur the prayers.
Though this was not a total novelty for me, I gazed with great
concentration. The fantastic guttural sounds uttered by Rabbi
Mellakh, the invocations he seemed to weave in his very soul, the
cadenced rocking of the body, somehow cast a spell over my mind,
a kind of torpid serenity. My fancy roved to the outposts of crea–
tion, I heard the lamentations of a whole nation stranded in the
desert. I was present at solemn mysteries inspired-by what asso–
ciation of ideas?-by the tales of Karl May.
The flickering candle light painted a monstrous liquid shadow
that at each gesture from the old man darted across the ceiling in
th
directions like a titanic bat. There, this mobile shadow slyly
eeping about was Satan's own shadow and, whipped and tor–
ented by the old man's chanting, Satan writhed in agonies worse
any that hell could generate.
I watched the frightened shadow and wondered, wouldn't it
nquer the venerable master? Shroud him in its thick cloak and
