Two Tales: Betrothed & Edo and Enam by S. Y. Agnon

was courting Tamara and her mother approved of the match. As for Tamara herself, she said that she had no objection to marriage but that she did not see why it should be with this man in particular, even though he did have a good position at the school where Rechnitz taught.
    Tamara’s hair, one supposes, was ash-grey; her eyes, it may be assumed, were blue; but the blue-tinted radiance that lit up her features and dazzled the eyes made these two colors seem interchangeable. At first sight she might have escaped your notice. Later, if not for the narcissus or carnation pinned on her breast, you might miss the presence of a heart underneath. Her real name was Tamar but she liked to be called Tamara, and since she was such a dear child, let us call her by the name she preferred. Her conversation was not notably wise; if one cared to say so, it even tended to silliness; but her lips caressed your heart much as the red flower on her own heart was caressed by the tip of her nose. One time Rechnitz had set his lips to hers; they had quivered slightly and just touched his in return. A touch that was hardly a touch at all. Heavens above, if that was the shadow of a kiss, what would a true kiss be like? No girl in the world had such lips as hers, and, besides this, every touch of her hand was like a kiss. But was there any man in Jaffa who knew it?
    Tamara had this virtue too: she never used to complain or seem angry. She would look up at you admiringly and accept whatever you said as a gift of grace. So you would sit contentedly surveying the tip of her nose and letting the radiance of her face wrap you in a sweet blue mist. Only once had Rechnitz kissed Tamara and he did not repeat the performance; he was, after all, her teacher, and it was not proper for teachers to kiss their pupils. This applied even though there were teachers who permitted themselves such conduct and even though Tamara had now left school and belonged to his group of friends. At times Rechnitz regretted the kiss; at other times he regretted not having made a second attempt. However that may be, it was a good thing that he had no occasion to be alone with her, for more reasons than one. Since the school Secretary had his eye on her with a view to marriage, it would not have been decent to spoil someone’s life for the sake of a fleeting pleasure. That was a sufficient reason, but there was still another one which Jacob buried in his heart.
    XX
    A strange shriek interrupted the train of Rechnitz’s thoughts. The parrot, which on the evening before last had perched in his cage at the hotel imitating the jackals’ screams, was now in the garden answering the sound of the striking clock. Before him stood the old Baron, dressed in white, with a tropical sun-helmet on his head. The Baron was holding out an apple and the parrot, standing on one leg, extended the other, snatched the apple and pecked at it. “ Schmeckt’s, Herrchen? – Tasty for you sir?” the Baron asked. The parrot shook his hooked beak and cried, “ Schmeckt, Herrchen!”
    “A fine bird,” said the Baron to Rechnitz. “I bought it from a hunter who had caught it to eat. There are places, you know, where they eat parrot meat. “ Verflucht! Dammit! ” he called to the parrot.
    “ Verflucht! ” it answered back.
    The Baron laughed and wagged his finger at the bird.
    “ Verflucht ,” he said to it, “Dammit, bird, you mustn’t curse!”
    The parrot replied with a shriek, “ Verflucht! Verflucht! Dammit! Dammit! ”
    When Rechnitz had disengaged himself from the Baron, he went on to the hotel. By now, he reflected, the Consul will have awakened from his nap and lit the cigar he smokes out of boredom. I shall go across to him, perhaps he will be grateful to me for rescuing him from his boredom. And what will Shoshanah have to say? She will say nothing be-cause that is her way. There are some people whose silences are awesome; we imagine their minds to be full of great thoughts beyond our