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Heshl Ansheles
- Northwestern University Press
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✦ 181 ✦ Heshl Ansheles (About an Occurrence in Present-Day, Occupied Poland) 1 Heshl Ansheles was well known among the intelligentsia of the city—among journalists, writers, and the like. They would often come to ask his expert opinion about work they had finished, and, when they planned something requiring exact knowledge they lacked, they drew on him in advance—as from a reference book, an encyclopedia. He was very gifted. Still young, twenty-five or twenty-six years old, but so learned and well-read that he already seemed a little too much so. The head on his neck was somewhat bent over. His face was drawn and pale, as befits someone occupied solely with learning. The hair on his head was already pretty spare. His temples were sunken, and the skin on his hands thin and transparent—like the body of a little chick (when one blows on its downy feathers). It should also be mentioned that a rather heavy inheritance weighed on him. First of all, there was his mother, who, while she still lay in childbirth, was befallen by muteness; suddenly, she stopped answering the well-wishing and congratulations of family members and friends who came to her bedside. She 182 ✦ der nister showed indifference to her child, her baby—and not like other mothers. When the child was brought to her bed for nursing, she wouldn’t give it her breast. She just didn’t remember . (And often, even while nursing, she forgot the infant and somehow lost herself in wild thoughts.) The silence didn’t stop after her confinement, either. On the contrary, it just intensified. It went so far that people were afraid of trusting her with the child—lest she forget herself and it fall from her hands. Presumably, that had happened to her once. Doctors were called in, and they examined her thoroughly and talked it over a few times, consulting one with the other. And they came to the conclusion that the child should be taken away from her, because, in a condition like that, she was incapable of fulfilling her motherly duties; also, she should be placed in an appropriate hospital for recovery. That is what happened. And no time had passed at all before her situation already worsened. She sank even deeper inside herself. She gave up eating and drinking and wouldn’t permit herself to be nourished, even by force. Her end was bad. One day, when the hospital staff wasn’t paying attention and looked the other way, she got hold of a sharp object—a knife or fork—and she tried to cut her throat. That time, after they saved her and the wound had healed, she grew subdued. For a while she apparently didn’t want any sharp objects in her hands—or even to look at them. Then another opportune moment presented itself, and this time she put an end to herself for good: she cut deep into her throat, until death. ✦ That was his mother. His father—who, it was clear, loved her very much—took the matter so deeply to heart that he thought his own life was over, too. He went about devastated, and for a [3.144.10.14] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 23:15 GMT) heshl ansheles ✦ 183 long time he wouldn’t let anyone console or excuse him. . . . And when, as is the custom, matchmakers later presented themselves at the house with various proposals, not only did he not want to let them finish speaking—as soon as they said anything, he screamed at them and simply drove them off. At first, the matchmakers shrugged their shoulders, thinking it was temporary—because the grief was still fresh. But after they had tried to approach him again and again, and he, with more and more anger, loosed his curses on them, they saw that it was serious—it was not feigned or just for show. Then, they began to stay away and no longer appeared before him. He, the father, also gave up his business. When he married , his wealthy parents had provided him with ample gifts. These, in addition to the dowry that came from the bride’s family, had made it possible for him, soon after the wedding, to take up wholesale trade—with prospects for further gain (as rich people can expect after marriage). Now that misfortune had struck him, he cleared out and withdrew from all that. He became a recluse and wouldn’t...