Two Scholars Who Were in Our Town and Other Novellas by S. Y. Agnon Page A

Shlomo responded, “Even though you are mistaken to think of me as being unique in this generation, my grandfather never said that I would sit in his chair; he said only that one of his seed would come to dwell among you. And who knows what that righteous one meant to infer?”
    The whole time that this had been going on, the rabbi’s wife had been gazing upon her husband the rabbi and praying in her heart that the words of the dignitaries would have an impact on him. But the rabbi took no notice of his wife and apparently even the Holy One blessed be He did not heed her prayers. And when they had finished the meal and chanted the grace after meals, the rabbi arose from the table and said, “Sit for a while with my wife while I briefly visit my study.” When he had gone, the rabbi’s wife said, “Did you see him? He’s only forty seven and already he’s gone grey. All of his troubles come from nowhere else but the mother of that lad from the village. I heard the old woman involves herself with practitioners of witchcraft.” In the middle of this she heard her husband’s footsteps and stopped talking. The rabbi returned with a book in his hand as was his custom whenever he had visitors over, so that in case they rose in his honor, they rather would be standing in honor of the book in his hand. He looked and observed their despondency and the unhappiness on their faces. He smiled and said, “I had expected that my wife would bring you something hot to drink.” The rabbi’s wife got up and brought over tea with Assyrian apples, which we call lemons. The dignitaries sat and drank, and never again mentioned anything from all of those discussions.
    34.
    Now let us leave aside Reb Shlomo’s town and return to our town and dissipate a bit of the anguish of the conflict by recounting the virtue of the charitable souls of our town.
    Prior to his death one of our town’s wealthy people allocated a specific sum for charity to go towards a perpetual fund to purchase houses, yards and fields and distribute annually on the anniversary of his death the revenue from the houses, etc., to the poor Jews of the town under the supervision of the town’s rabbi, to be managed by three trustees appointed by him during his lifetime, as they saw fit. However, in his will he set a precondition that the poor within his family would take precedence to other poor folk in benefiting from his bequest. The brother of the honorable deceased came accompanied by other relatives who did not reside in our town, demanding a significant portion from the perpetual fund. And a doubt arose as to whether the brother of the deceased had a right, inasmuch as he had not been poor at the time of the endowment. And further, as to how far to extend the priority of kinship. And the appointed trustees of the bequest were concerned about the commentary of our sages of blessed memory as follows: “The apportionment of charity to the poor of a town cannot be overseen by that town’s own authorities.” Therefore, as they were wont to do, they turned to the sage Reb Shlomo for a legal ruling.
    Several weeks passed without an answer. And here the anniversary of the death of the benefactor was fast approaching. The poor relatives were expecting to get their share, and even the rest of the poor were pounding on the doors of the trustees. And the trustees were at a total loss as to what to do. And the days were days of winter, and the mail was unreliable due to the snows and the cold. And even the wagon masters, who are in the habit of endangering themselves even for small wages, went out very infrequently during that time, inasmuch as due to the heavy snows the roads were covered and the horses would get mired in the snow, unable to free themselves. At the end of several such days, a letter arrived from Reb Shlomo that he was going to attend his sister’s daughter’s wedding in some other town and since it so happened that the town was close to our town, he intended