"Исаак Башевис Зингер. Taibele and her demon " - читать интересную книгу автора

in old men's beards, but he was weak and unable to possess her.
She had never seen him in such a wretched state. Her heart misgave her.
She asked: "Shall I get you some raspberries with milk?"
Hurmizah replied: "Such remedies are not for our kind."
"What do you do when you get sick?"
"We itch and we scratch..."
He spoke little after that. When he kissed Taibele, his breath was
sour. He always remained with her until cockcrow, but this time he left
early. Taibele lay silent, listening to his movements in the hallway. He had
sworn to her that he flew out of the window even whet it was closed and
sealed, but she heard the door creak. Taibele knew, that it was sinful to
pray for devils, that one must curse them and blot them from memory; yet she
prayed to God for Hurmizah.
She cried in anguish: "There are so many devils, let there be one
more..."

On the following Sabbath, Taibele waited in vain for Hurmizah until
dawn; he never came. She called him inwardly and mutterer the spells he had
taught her, but the hallway was silent. Taibele lay benumbed. Hurmizah had
once boasted that he had danced for Tubal-cain and Enoch, that he had sat on
the roof of Noah's Ark, licked the salt from the nose of Lot's wife, and
plucked Ahasuerus by the beard. He had prophesied that she would be
reincarnated after a hundred years as a princess, and that he, Hurmizah,
would capture her, with the help of his slaves Chittim and Tachtim, and
carry her off to the palace of Bashemath, the wife of Esau. But now he was
probably lying somewhere ill, a helpless demon, a lonely orphan - without
father or mother, without a faithful wife to care for him. Taibele recalled
how his breath came rasping like s saw when he had been with her last; when
he blew his nose, there was a whistling in his ear. From Sunday to
Wednesday, Taibele went out as one in a dream. On Wednesday she could hardly
wait until the clock struck midnight, but the night went, and Hurmizah did
not appear. Taibele turned her face to the wall.
The day began, dark as evening. Fine snow dust was falling from the
murky sky. The smoke could not rise from the chimneys; it spread over the
roofs like ragged sheets. The rooks cawed harshly. Dogs barked. After the
miserable night, Taibele had no strength to go to her store. Nevertheless,
she dressed and went outside. She saw four pallbearers carrying a stretcher.
From under the snow-swept coverlet protruded the blue feet of a corpse. Only
sexton followed the dead man.
Taibele asked who it was, and the sexton answered: "Alchonon, the
teacher's helper."
A strange idea came to Taibele - to escort Alchonon, the feckless man
who had lived alone and died alone, on his last journey. Who would come to
the store today? And what did she care for business? Taibele had lost
everything. At least, she would be doing a good deed. She followed the dead
on the long road to the cemetery. There she waited while the gravedigger
swept away the show and dug a grave in the frozen earth. They wrapped
Alchonon the teacher's helper in a prayer shawl and a cowl, placed shards on
his eyes, and stuck between his fingers a myrtle twig that he would use to
dig his was to Holy Land when Messiah came. Then the grave was closed and