The Magician of Lublin [antikvár]

Author's Note I wish to express my gratitude to those who made possible the publication of this book. Elaine Gottlieb and Joseph Singer (a son of my late brother I. J. Singer, author of The Brothers Ashkenazi, etc.) have both spared no effort to make this translation as true to the Yiddish original as a translation can be. Elaine Gottlieb did all the final editing. Viola Dick and Elizabeth Pollet have both helped me with their valuable advice and careful reading of both the manuscript and the proofs. Finally I wish to thank my friends, Cecil Hemley and Dwight Webb, the editors of the Noonday Press, who have for years encouraged me in the difficult task of introducing Yiddish writing to the American reader. Their advice and aid at all stages has been invaluable. I.B.S. I One 1 That morning Yasha Mazur, or the Magician of Lublin as he was known everywhere but in his home town, awoke early. He always spent a day or two in bed after returning from a trip; his weariness required the indulgence of continual sleep. His wife, Esther, would bring him cookies, milk, a dish of groats. He would eat and doze off again. The parrot shrieked; Yoktan, the monkey, chattered; the canaries whistled and trilled, but Yasha, disregarding them, merely reminded Esther to water the horses. He needed not have bothered with such instructions; she always remembered to draw water from the well for Kara and Shiva, their brace of gray mares, or, as Yasha had nicknamed them. Dust and Ashes. Yasha, although a magician, was considered rich; he owned a house and, with it, barns, silos, stables, a hay loft, a courtyard having two apple trees, even a garden where Esther grew her own vegetables. He lacked only children. Esther could not conceive. In every other way she was a good wife; she knew how to knit, sew a wedding gown, bake gingerbread and tarts, tear out the pip of a chicken, apply a cupping-glass or leeches, even bleed a patient. In her younger days she had tried all sorts of remedies for barrenness, but now it was too late - she was nearly forty. Like every other magician, Yasha was held in small esteem by the community. He wore no beard and went to synagogue only on Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur; that is, if he happened to be in Lublin at the time. Esther, on the other hand, wore the customary kerchief and kept a Kosher kitchen; she observed the Sabbath and all the laws. Yasha spent his Sabbath talking and smoking cigarets among musicians. To the earnest moralists who attempted to get him to mend his ways, he would 7