The Certificate by Bashevis Singer Isaac

Author:Bashevis Singer, Isaac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Goodreads Press
Published: 2023-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

3

MY brother was talking with Susskind Eikhl. I listened with one ear: they were maligning Russian writers who, despite all their Communist pieties, pulled every string they could to go abroad. A considerable number had managed to get to Paris, Warsaw, Berlin—and they were in no hurry to return. But Susskind Eikhl did want to return to the Soviet Union and let it be known that he had ties with important political figures. The talk veered to an anthology that Susskind Eikhl was planning to edit and an important literary conference in which my brother was to take part.

With the exception of myself, everyone in the room was a person of significance. Susskind Eikhl pointed them out to me: this one was a poet; that man was a journalist; the old fellow with the white mustache wrote Hebrew textbooks; the little fellow with the gold-rimmed glasses was a Hebrew poet. Susskind Eikhl said all this with ill-concealed irony. In his view everyone in the room except himself was a trivial fellow. He even accused my brother of distancing himself from the radical writers. "Even a blind man can see," he said, "that the reactionaries are in full retreat."

Susskind Eikhl then ordered tea and kichel for the three of us.

Good Lord, only yesterday the idea of being in the Writers' Club was unimaginable, and here I was drinking tea. Writers passing by looked my way; several of them stopped at our table and my brother introduced me. Each time it happened, Eikhl said of me, "He writes too," and winked.

I knew that I ought to have felt myself lucky. How long had I been wandering about Warsaw like a lost soul? Yet I sat there feeling helpless and knowing I was being laughed at. Aharon was hardly known here, and I was his brother.

On top of everything, I was afraid Edusha might come in at any moment. I knew that I would blush if she appeared. I was even afraid that someone would mention her name. I did all right as long as I was alone with a woman, but in a social situation all my cheder-boy shyness reappeared and I lost my tongue and stammered. I spoke foolishly, provoking laughter. Even now I felt myself blushing. I was warm, and my collar was moist. I had wanted to be here; it seemed to me I could spend hours watching the writers, but at the same time I felt fretful and wanted to leave. I had put on a fresh shirt, and yet my skin itched.

I wanted to participate in Aharon's conversation with Eikhl, but never had the chance to say a word. The two of them laughed and told jokes, and all I could do was sit and listen. I knew that Spinoza described my state as one involving affects. Yes, I was controlled entirely by feelings. Though I had carefully studied the fifth chapter of the Ethics, I still did not know how to control my emotions. Where was

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