ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER
209
Haint
to
The Moment
a dozen streets away, over all the buildings, all
the rooftops, and settled down right into their printing room, into
this item. Is it possible that demons did the job?
If
you can explain
this .... '
'''Really, I cannot believe it,' Gavza said. 'This must be some
trick, some kind of practical joke. Maybe someone glued in the line.
Let me see it again.'
"'No trick and no glue,' I said. 'This line fell out of my article
and appeared in
The Moment
last Friday. I have another copy of
The
Moment
in my pocket.'
"'My God, how could this have happened? Gavza asked. Again
and again he compared my manuscript with the line in
The Moment.
Then I heard him say,
'If
this can happen, anything can happen.
Maybe demons really did steal your line from
The Haint
and carry it
to
The Moment.
'"
For a long while we stood looking at each other with the painful
feeling of two adults who realize that their world has turned to chaos,
with logic gone and so-called reality totally bankrupt. Then Gavza
burst out laughing. 'No, it wasn't the demons, not even the angels. I
think I know what happened,' he exclaimed.
"'Tell me quickly before I burst,' I said.
"And this was his explanation. The Jewish National Fund often
publishes an appeal in both
The Haint
and
The Moment.
Sometimes
they make changes to adjust the appeal for the readers of the respec–
tive newspapers. Then they don't make a matrix but carry the whole
metal page by car from one newspaper to the other for adjustments.
By error, my line must have been put into the metal page of the ap–
peal.
It
was carried over to
The Moment
and there someone noticed
the mistake, took out the line from the appeal page, and it promptly
got stuck into this news item. 'The chances that such a thing should
happen are not as small as one may think, considering our sort of
typesetters and proofreaders,' Gavza said. 'They are the worst
bunglers. No, let's not put the blame on the poor demons. No
demon is as ignorant and as careless as our printers and printers'
devils.'
"We had a great laugh, and in honor of that historic solution,
we went and had coffee and cake. We spoke about old times and the
countless absurdities published in the Yiddish press, God bless it.
Especially strange were the misprints listed in the back of Yiddish
books, such as : "On page 69 it is printed, 'She went to see her mother
in. Bialystok'-It should read: 'He had a long gray beard.' Or: On
