The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer Read online

  PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS

  Collected Stories

  Isaac Bashevis Singer was born in 1904 in a village near Warsaw, Poland and grew up in the city’s Yiddish-speaking Jewish quarter. Although he initially considered becoming a rabbi like his father, Singer abandoned his religious studies in his twenties in favour of pursuing a career as a writer. He found a job as a proofreader for a Yiddish literary magazine and began to publish book reviews and short stories. In 1935, as the Nazi threat in neighbouring Germany grew increasingly ominous, Singer moved to the United States of America. He settled in New York, where he worked as a journalist for a Yiddish-language newspaper and in 1940 married a German-Jewish refugee.

  Although Singer published many novels, children’s books, memoirs, essays and articles, he is best known as a writer of short stories. In 1978, he won the Nobel Prize, and he died in Florida in 1991.

  ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER

  Collected Stories

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN CLASSICS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published in the United States of America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1982

  Published in Penguin Books 1984

  Published in Penguin Classics 2011

  Copyright © Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1953, 1954, 1957, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982

  Renewal copyright © Isaac Bashevis Singer 1981, 1982

  All rights reserved

  Many of these stories originally appeared in The New Yorker. ‘Gimpel the Fool’ and ‘The Little Shoemakers’ originally appeared in A Treasury of Yiddish Stories, edited by Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg, reprinted with the permission of Viking Penguin Inc.

  The moral right of the author and translators has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-196862-9

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  GIMPEL THE FOOL

  THE GENTLEMAN FROM CRACOW

  JOY

  THE LITTLE SHOEMAKERS

  THE UNSEEN

  THE SPINOZA OF MARKET STREET

  THE DESTRUCTION OF KRESHEV

  TAIBELE AND HER DEMON

  ALONE

  YENTL THE YESHIVA BOY

  ZEIDLUS THE POPE

  THE LAST DEMON

  SHORT FRIDAY

  THE SÉANCE

  THE SLAUGHTERER

  THE DEAD FIDDLER

  HENNE FIRE

  THE LETTER WRITER

  A FRIEND OF KAFKA

  THE CAFETERIA

  THE JOKE

  POWERS

  SOMETHING IS THERE

  A CROWN OF FEATHERS

  A DAY IN CONEY ISLAND

  THE CABALIST OF EAST BROADWAY

  A QUOTATION FROM KLOPSTOCK

  A DANCE AND A HOP

  GRANDFATHER AND GRANDSON

  OLD LOVE

  THE ADMIRER

  THE YEARNING HEIFER

  A TALE OF TWO SISTERS

  THREE ENCOUNTERS

  PASSIONS

  BROTHER BEETLE

  THE BETRAYER OF ISRAEL

  THE PSYCHIC JOURNEY

  THE MANUSCRIPT

  THE POWER OF DARKNESS

  THE BUS

  A NIGHT IN THE POORHOUSE

  ESCAPE FROM CIVILIZATION

  VANVILD KAVA

  THE REENCOUNTER

  NEIGHBORS

  MOON AND MADNESS

  Author’s Note

  IT IS difficult for me to comment on the choice of the forty-seven stories in this collection, selected from more than a hundred. Like some Oriental father with a harem full of women and children, I cherish them all.

  In the process of creating them, I have become aware of the many dangers that lurk behind the writer of fiction. The worst of them are: 1. The idea that the writer must be a sociologist and a politician, adjusting himself to what are called social dialectics. 2. Greed for money and quick recognition. 3. Forced originality—namely, the illusion that pretentious rhetoric, precious innovations in style, and playing with artificial symbols can express the basic and ever-changing nature of human relations, or reflect the combinations and complications of heredity and environment. These verbal pitfalls of so-called “experimental” writing have done damage even to genuine talent; they have destroyed much of modern poetry by making it obscure, esoteric, and charmless. Imagination is one thing, and the distortion of what Spinoza called “the order of things” is something else entirely. Literature can very well describe the absurd, but it should never become absurd itself.

  Although the short story is not in vogue nowadays, I still believe that it constitutes the utmost challenge to the creative writer. Unlike the novel, which can absorb and even forgive lengthy digressions, flashbacks, and loose construction, the short story must aim directly at its climax. It must possess uninterrupted tension and suspense. Also, brevity is its very essence. The short story must have a definite plan; it cannot be what in literary jargon is called “a slice of life.” The masters of the short story, Chekhov, Maupassant, as well as the sublime scribe of the Joseph story in the Book of Genesis, knew exactly where they were going. One can read them over and over again and never get bored. Fiction in general should never become analytic. As a matter of fact, the writer of fiction should not even try to dabble in psychology and its various isms. Genuine literature informs while it entertains. It manages to be both clear and profound. It has the magical power of merging causality with purpose, doubt with faith, the passions of the flesh with the yearnings of the soul. It is unique and general, national and universal, realistic and mystical. While it tolerates commentary by others, it should never try to explain itself. These obvious truths must be emphasized, because false criticism and pseudo-originality have created a state of literary amnesia in our generation. The zeal for messages has made many writers forget that storytelling is the raison d’être of artistic prose.

  For readers who would like me to say something “more personal,” I quote here a few passages (though not in the order in which they were written) from a recent memoir of mine: “My isolation from everything remained the same. I had surrendered myself to melancholy and it had taken me prisoner. I had presented Creation with an ultimatum: ‘Tell me your secre
t, or let me perish.’ I had to run away from myself. But how? And where? I dreamed of a humanism and ethics the basis of which would be a refusal to justify all the evils the Almighty has sent us and is preparing to bestow upon us in the future. At its best, art can be nothing more than a means of forgetting the human disaster for a while.”

  I am still working hard to make this “while” worthwhile.

  I have had the good fortune to work with three highly talented and true editors, Robert Giroux, Cecil Hemley, and Rachel MacKenzie. I dedicate this collection to Rachel MacKenzie’s sacred memory. She was blessed with wisdom, charm, and humility, and embued with a perfect understanding of literature—a great editor and, more than that, a great person.

  I.B.S.

  July 6, 1981

  Gimpel the Fool

  I

  I AM Gimpel the fool. I don’t think myself a fool. On the contrary. But that’s what folks call me. They gave me the name while I was still in school. I had seven names in all: imbecile, donkey, flax-head, dope, glump, ninny, and fool. The last name stuck. What did my foolishness consist of? I was easy to take in. They said, “Gimpel, you know the rabbi’s wife has been brought to childbed?” So I skipped school. Well, it turned out to be a lie. How was I supposed to know? She hadn’t had a big belly. But I never looked at her belly. Was that really so foolish? The gang laughed and hee-hawed, stomped and danced and chanted a good-night prayer. And instead of the raisins they give when a woman’s lying in, they stuffed my hand full of goat turds. I was no weakling. If I slapped someone he’d see all the way to Cracow. But I’m really not a slugger by nature. I think to myself: Let it pass. So they take advantage of me.

  I was coming home from school and heard a dog barking. I’m not afraid of dogs, but of course I never want to start up with them. One of them may be mad, and if he bites there’s not a Tartar in the world who can help you. So I made tracks. Then I looked around and saw the whole market place wild with laughter. It was no dog at all but Wolf-Leib the thief. How was I supposed to know it was he? It sounded like a howling bitch.

  When the pranksters and leg-pullers found that I was easy to fool, every one of them tried his luck with me. “Gimpel, the czar is coming to Frampol; Gimpel, the moon fell down in Turbeen; Gimpel, little Hodel Furpiece found a treasure behind the bathhouse.” And I like a golem believed everyone. In the first place, everything is possible, as it is written in The Wisdom of the Fathers, I’ve forgotten just how. Second, I had to believe when the whole town came down on me! If I ever dared to say, “Ah, you’re kidding!” there was trouble. People got angry. “What do you mean! You want to call everyone a liar?” What was I to do? I believed them, and I hope at least that did them some good.

  I was an orphan. My grandfather who brought me up was already bent toward the grave. So they turned me over to a baker, and what a time they gave me there! Every woman or girl who came to bake a batch of noodles had to fool me at least once. “Gimpel, there’s a fair in Heaven; Gimpel, the rabbi gave birth to a calf in the seventh month; Gimpel, a cow flew over the roof and laid brass eggs.” A student from the yeshiva came once to buy a roll, and he said, “You, Gimpel, while you stand here scraping with your baker’s shovel the Messiah has come. The dead have arisen.” “What do you mean?” I said. “I heard no one blowing the ram’s horn!” He said, “Are you deaf?” And all began to cry, “We heard it, we heard!” Then in came Rietze the candle-dipper and called out in her hoarse voice, “Gimpel, your father and mother have stood up from the grave. They’re looking for you.”

  To tell the truth, I knew very well that nothing of the sort had happened, but all the same, as folks were talking, I threw on my wool vest and went out. Maybe something had happened. What did I stand to lose by looking? Well, what a cat music went up! And then I took a vow to believe nothing more. But that was no go either. They confused me so that I didn’t know the big end from the small.

  I went to the rabbi to get some advice. He said, “It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself.” Nevertheless, the rabbi’s daughter took me in. As I left the rabbinical court she said, “Have you kissed the wall yet?” I said, “No; what for?” She answered, “It’s the law; you’ve got to do it after every visit.” Well, there didn’t seem to be any harm in it. And she burst out laughing. It was a fine trick. She put one over on me, all right.

  I wanted to go off to another town, but then everyone got busy matchmaking, and they were after me so they nearly tore my coat tails off. They talked at me and talked until I got water on the ear. She was no chaste maiden, but they told me she was virgin pure. She had a limp, and they said it was deliberate, from coyness. She had a bastard, and they told me the child was her little brother. I cried, “You’re wasting your time. I’ll never marry that whore.” But they said indignantly, “What a way to talk! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? We can take you to the rabbi and have you fined for giving her a bad name.” I saw then that I wouldn’t escape them so easily and I thought: They’re set on making me their butt. But when you’re married the husband’s the master, and if that’s all right with her it’s agreeable to me too. Besides, you can’t pass through life unscathed, nor expect to.

  I went to her clay house, which was built on the sand, and the whole gang, hollering and chorusing, came after me. They acted like bear-baiters. When we came to the well they stopped all the same. They were afraid to start anything with Elka. Her mouth would open as if it were on a hinge, and she had a fierce tongue. I entered the house. Lines were strung from wall to wall and clothes were drying. Barefoot she stood by the tub, doing the wash. She was dressed in a worn hand-me-down gown of plush. She had her hair put up in braids and pinned across her head. It took my breath away, almost, the reek of it all.

  Evidently she knew who I was. She took a look at me and said, “Look who’s here! He’s come, the drip. Grab a seat.”

  I told her all; I denied nothing. “Tell me the truth,” I said, “are you really a virgin, and is that mischievous Yechiel actually your little brother? Don’t be deceitful with me, for I’m an orphan.”

  “I’m an orphan myself,” she answered, “and whoever tries to twist you up, may the end of his nose take a twist. But don’t let them think they can take advantage of me. I want a dowry of fifty guilders, and let them take up a collection besides. Otherwise they can kiss my you-know-what.” She was very plainspoken. I said, “It’s the bride and not the groom who gives a dowry.” Then she said, “Don’t bargain with me. Either a flat yes or a flat no. Go back where you came from.”

  I thought: No bread will ever be baked from this dough. But ours is not a poor town. They consented to everything and proceeded with the wedding. It so happened that there was a dysentery epidemic at the time. The ceremony was held at the cemetery gates, near the little corpse-washing hut. The fellows got drunk. While the marriage contract was being drawn up I heard the most pious high rabbi ask, “Is the bride a widow or a divorced woman?” And the sexton’s wife answered for her, “Both a widow and divorced.” It was a black moment for me. But what was I to do, run away from under the marriage canopy?

  There was singing and dancing. An old granny danced opposite me, hugging a braided white hallah. The master of revels made a “God ’a mercy” in memory of the bride’s parents. The schoolboys threw burrs, as on Tishe b’Av fast day. There were a lot of gifts after the sermon: a noodle board, a kneading trough, a bucket, brooms, ladles, household articles galore. Then I took a look and saw two strapping young men carrying a crib. “What do we need this for?” I asked. So they said, “Don’t rack your brains about it. It’s all right, it’ll come in handy.” I realized I was going to be rooked. Take it another way though, what did I stand to lose? I reflected: I’ll see what comes of it. A whole town can’t go altogether crazy.

  II

  At night I came where my wife lay, but she wouldn’t let me in. �
�Say, look here, is this what they married us for?” I said. And she said, “My monthly has come.” “But yesterday they took you to the ritual bath, and that’s afterwards, isn’t it supposed to be?” “Today isn’t yesterday,” said she, “and yesterday’s not today. You can beat it if you don’t like it.” In short, I waited.

  Not four months later, she was in childbed. The townsfolk hid their laughter with their knuckles. But what could I do? She suffered intolerable pains and clawed at the walls. “Gimpel,” she cried, “I’m going. Forgive me!” The house filled with women. They were boiling pans of water. The screams rose to the welkin.

  The thing to do was to go to the house of prayer to repeat psalms, and that was what I did.

  The townsfolk liked that, all right. I stood in a corner saying psalms and prayers, and they shook their heads at me. “Pray, pray!” they told me. “Prayer never made any woman pregnant.” One of the congregation put a straw to my mouth and said, “Hay for the cows.” There was something to that too, by God!

  She gave birth to a boy. Friday at the synagogue the sexton stood up before the Ark, pounded on the reading table, and announced, “The wealthy Reb Gimpel invites the congregation to a feast in honor of the birth of a son.” The whole house of prayer rang with laughter. My face was flaming. But there was nothing I could do. After all, I was the one responsible for the circumcision honors and rituals.