The Collected Stories

even became indebted to the Jew who managed the business of his ever-diminishing estates. Three years passed like this. One day a carriage approached Karlowski’s castle, and who do you think was inside? His wife—not alone but with a small child, a bastard. The people who saw her arriving were sure Karlowski would come out with a gun or a sword and kill her. What can be worse than a wife who comes back to a husband with a child born of whoredom? But he forgave her. I wasn’t there, but I am told that she fell on his throat, lamented, and swore that she had been yearning for him all the time. It was the fault of that young stallion who bewitched her, seduced her, and brought her to shame. How is it written? ‘And thou hadst a whore’s forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed …’ She ate and wiped her mouth and said, ‘I have done no harm.’ She kept crying and Karlowski tried to soothe her. It didn’t last long, and she again became ruler of the castle. She found other sinners, or perhaps the old ones returned. Karlowski, because of his litigations, had often to go to Lublin or Warsaw. He even appealed to the synod in Petersburg, hoping to find justice there. His debts had become so huge that he was on the verge of bankruptcy. But then a hundred-year-old aunt of his died and left him a small fortune. So he paid his debts and could afford new litigations.
    “Don’t think that you have heard the whole story. One day another carriage came to the castle, and who do you think was there? The father of the baby. He had committed some crime for which he could go to jail. He made believe he had come to see his child, but it was only a pretext to ask its mother for money. It seems that she could not forget him. I am told that she pawned her pearls to pay his debts. If I am not mistaken, he had played with marked cards and his parents had disowned him. I think he was also ill, from drunkenness or from bawdiness. Well, and what do you think Karlowski did? He became an ardent friend of his wife’s debaucher, took him into his castle, called doctors to cure him. Even the priests in the surrounding villages condemned Karlowski and his insane behavior. However, Karlowski had a private chapel on his estate and his own deacon, who preached that his lord behaved as a pious Christian should, forgiving his enemy and turning the other cheek.”
    “What happened then?” Zalman the glazier asked.
    “What could have happened?” Levi Yitzchok said. “That rake remained in the castle for a long time, rested, became healthy and fat. The wife was not young enough for him any more, and he was looking for younger prey. He soon found some governess or stewardess who was ready to put herself at his disposal. One day he broke open Karlowski’s safe, took out everything of value, even his mistress’s jewels, and ran away with that other woman. I think she was a distant relative of the wife’s. Karlowski himself continued with his litigations. One day, when the judge brought a verdict against him, he became so shocked that he dropped dead. His wife tried to find solace with her coachman or some other servant, but meanwhile creditors seized the estate and evicted her. She died soon after.”
    “What happened to the illicit child?” Zalman the glazier asked.
    “I really don’t know,” Levi Yitzchok said. “But what ever happens to the wicked and their seeds? As the psalmist says, they are like chaff driven by the wind.”
    For a long while it was quiet again in the study house. One of the beggars had stretched out on a bench and fallen asleep. He was snoring, murmuring, and from time to time a whistling came from his nostrils. The other beggar sat down to listen to the stories. He had a little yellow beard and large eyes, like those of a calf. He kept on nodding to every one of Levi Yitzchok’s words until he, too, dozed off. Meir the eunuch wiped the frost off the windowpane with his palm and gazed toward the sky, as if to make sure that the moon was not yet completely full. He turned and said:
    “What Squire Malecki was doing had nothing to do with pity. Ecclesiastes has said, ‘In the place of justice even there was wickedness.’ All these judges and lawyers need criminals, just as a doctor needs patients. From the honest who were wronged they will not draw any profit. As for the other squire, what was his name—Karlowski—he knew quite well what his shrew was doing, but he enjoyed letting her have her rotten ways. What