GIMPEL THE FOOL
311
"I don't know," she said, "there were a lot ... But they're not
yours." And as she spoke, she tossed her head to the side, her eyes
turned glassy and it was all up with Elka. On her whitened lips
there remained a smile.
I imagined that, dead as she was, she was saying, "I deceived
Gimpel. That was the essence of my brief life."
At night, when the period of mourning was done, once as
I lay dreaming on the flour sacks, there came the Spirit of Evil
himself and said to me, "Gimpel, why do you sleep?"
I said, "What should I be doing? Eating kreplach?"
"The whole world deceives you," he said, "and you ought to
deceive the world in your tum."
"How can I deceive all the world?" I asked him.
He answered, "You might accumulate a bucket of urine every
day, and at night pour it into the dough. Let the sages of Frampol eat
filth."
"What about Judgment in the world to come?" I said.
"There is no ,world to come," he said. "They've sold you a
bill of goods and talked you into believing you carried a cat in your
belly. What nonsense!"
"Well then," I said, "and
is
there a God?"
He answered, "There
is
no God, either."
"What," I said,
«is
there, then?"
"A thick mire."
He stood before my eyes, this spokesman, with a goatish beard
and horns, long-toothed and with a tail.
Hearing such words, I wanted to snatch him by the tail but I
tumbled from the flour sacks and nearly broke a rib. Then it hap–
pened that I had to answer the call of nature, and passing I saw the
risen dough which seemed to say to me, "Do it!" In brief, I let
myself
be
persuaded.
At dawn the apprentice came. We kneaded the bread, scattered
kummel on it and set it to bake. Then the apprentice went away and
I was left sitting in the little trench by the oven, on a pile of rags.
"Well, Gimpel," I thought, "you've revenged yourself on them for
all
the shame they've put on you." Outside the frost glittered, but
it
was warm beside the oven. The flames heated my face. I bent my
head and fell into a doze.
