Chapter 9 A Tale of Love and Darkness (9)

In the living room, a black glass-topped sideboard displays an ornate tableware set, long-necked glass jugs, ceramic and crystal cups, an ancient Hanuka lamp set, and vessels dedicated to Passover.Above the display case, two bronze statues: a sullen Beethoven confronting a tightly-lipped and poised Vladimir Debotinsky, carefully polished An officer's peaked cap, with an official belt on his breast.Uncle Joseph, sitting on his hands at the table, spoke in a high-pitched, effeminate voice, begging, sweet-talking, almost whimpering at times.He will talk about the national situation, the status of a writer and scholar, the responsibility of a cultural person, or he will say that his colleagues do not respect his research, his research findings, and his international status, while he himself does not care much about them, and actually despises them. Their narrow-mindedness despises their dull, selfish ideas.Sometimes he turned to international politics, worried about the subversive activities of Stalin's agents everywhere, contemptuous of the hypocrisy of the sanctimonious British, and afraid of the tricks of the Holy See, which never accepted, never accepted that Jews were small enough to run Jerusalem is big enough to rule the land of Israel, expressing cautious optimism towards the scruples of enlightened democracies, and admiring, but not without leaving, America, the head of democracies in our time, yet subject to vulgarity and materialism The immersion of culture and lack of cultural and spiritual heritage.Generally speaking, the heroes of the nineteenth century, such as Garibaldi, Abraham Lincoln, Greystone, etc., can be called great national liberators, outstanding interpreters of civilization and enlightenment values, while the new century (Second Century) tenth century) was under the heels of the two executioners, the son of the Georgian shoemaker who lived in the Kremlin, and the mad son of the beggar who took control of the homes of Goethe, Schiller and Kant.The guests listened respectfully and silently, or agreed with a few quiet words so as not to interrupt his eloquent speech.Uncle Joseph's dinner table conversations are not chatter but moving monologues.

Professor Klausner would accuse, berate, nostalgia from the dinner table, or just express opinions, assertions, emotional confessions on a series of things, such as the banal misfortune of the leadership of the Jewish Agency, always fawning on the heathen; Hebrew status, constantly threatened by Yiddish on the one hand, and by European languages ​​on the other; the narrow-minded envy of some colleagues in the workplace, the shallowness of young writers and poets, especially those native-born , have not mastered a European cultural language, and even Hebrew is weak; or European Jews cannot understand Jabotinsky's prophetic warning, and American Jews are still addicted to material comforts even though Hitler has appeared. Instead of settling in the hometown.Occasionally, a male guest asks a question or makes a comment, as if someone threw a frog on the bonfire. Few of them dare to start some kind of minor detailed topic, or intervene in the owner's conversation. Most of the time, they sit respectfully. There, a polite voice of approval, or a laugh when Uncle Joseph took a sarcastic or humorous tone, in which case Uncle Joseph inevitably explained that what had just been said was only in jest.As for the ladies, they do not take part in the conversation and their role is limited to nodding listeners.When Uncle Joseph generously showered them with wisdom, expect them to smile back and show joy in their facial expressions.I don't remember Aunt Zippora sitting at the table.She was always running back and forth between kitchen, pantry, and living room, filling biscuit plates and bowls of fruit, filling hot water for samovars in silver trays, always in a hurry, with a little apron round her waist.When she wasn't pouring tea, or adding cakes, biscuits, fruit, or a sweet concoction called Valen, she stood in the doorway between the living room and the corridor, at Uncle Joseph's right hand. Two steps behind, hands on belly

up, and wait to see if I need anything, or which guest needs anything, from wet rags to toothpicks, or if Uncle Joseph politely points out to her that she should pick up the latest issue of Come and Keep It from the upper right corner of his library desk. Slave, or Yitzhak Ramadan's new collection of poems, from which he wanted to cite something to support his argument.It was an unwritten rule in those days: Uncle Joseph sat at the dining table and babbled, while Aunt Cipolla stood there in a white apron, serving, or waiting, when she was called.However, the uncle and aunt are absolutely loyal to each other and love each other. An elderly couple suffering from chronic diseases and having no children, he treats his wife like a baby, extremely sweet and affectionate; she treats her husband like a spoiled child, Dress him up, tie a scarf, and in case he catches a cold, beat an egg, mix it with milk and honey, and soothe his sore throat.Once I happened to see them sitting side by side on the bed, his translucent hand in hers, while she carefully trimmed his nails and whispered all kinds of affections to him in Russian.

Uncle Joseph loved to write affectionate words on the book.He gave me a volume of The Children's Encyclopedia every year since I was nine or ten, and in one of the volumes he writes in a retracted format, sort of a retreat: To my industrious and bright little Amos sincerely wishes him to grow into a pillar of the nation Sincerely, Uncle Joseph.Now, more than fifty years later, as I gaze at the inscription, I wonder what he really knows about me.My Uncle Joseph, who usually puts a cool little hand on my cheek, and with a mild smile under his silvery beard, asks me what I have read lately and what he has written, these days Jewish children What to learn in school, which poems of Bialik and Chernykhovsky I recite, who is my favorite biblical hero.Without listening to my answer, he told me that I should be familiar with the Maccabees he wrote in "History of the Second Temple", and about the future of the country, I should read what he published yesterday in "The Observer". , or read his interview in this week's Morning Magazine.In the inscription, he took care to phoneticize the vowels where they would create ambiguity, and the last letter of his name flutters like a flag in the wind.

On the title page of David Frischmann's translation, he wrote another inscription, wishing me in the third person: May he succeed in life Thinking not of the masses of men—the thoughts of the masses of men in this age, Uncle Joseph who loved him Jerusalem—Tara Piut, August 5714 Jewish Calendar At one such Sabbath meeting, Uncle Joseph said something like this: " Ladies and gentlemen, I am childless after all, my books are my children, I have poured my heart into them, and after I die, they and they alone will pass on my spirit, my dreams to the future generation." To which Aunt Kippola responded, "Hey, Osiah, stop. Shh, Oshinka, stop, stop. You know the doctor told you not to get excited. Now your tea is cold, ice cold Don't, don't, my dear, don't drink, I'm going to pour you a new glass." Uncle Joseph was filled with righteous indignation at the hypocrisy and despicability of his opponents, and sometimes he raised his voice, but the voice was never a roar, but a high decibel The bleating of sheep is more like a sobbing woman than a mocking and scolding prophet.Sometimes he tapped the table with his frail hands, but it was more of a stroke than a blow.Once, in the middle of a tirade attacking Bolshevism or the Bund, or those who suggested speaking the Judeo-German jargon (which he defined as Yiddish), he knocked over a can of ice-cold lemonade, which spilled over his lap Aunt Cipolla, who was standing by the door wearing an apron, was standing just behind him. She bent down and wiped his pants with the apron, said sorry, helped him up, and led him to the bedroom.

Ten minutes later, she brought him back among her friends, neat and clean, and they sat around the table politely waiting for him, talking in low voices about the host and hostess, who were like a pair of carrier pigeons: he treated her like an elderly daughter , but in her view, he is like a cute child, who is like an eyeball.Sometimes she would interlace her fat fingers with his transparent fingers, and at that moment the two would exchange glances, then lower their eyelids and smile shyly at each other.Sometimes, she gently took off his tie, helped him take off his shoes, and let him lie down and rest for a while.His sad head rested on her chest, and his thin body leaned against her plump body.Either she would be scrubbing in the kitchen, weeping silently, and he would come up behind her and put his pink hands on her shoulders, making a series of chirps, clucks, squeaks, as if coddling a baby, or would be willing to be hers. baby.As a child, what I admired most about Professor Joseph was that I heard he coined for us a few simple everyday Hebrew words that seem to have become household names and in permanent use, including "pencil", "glacier" , "Shirt", "Green Room", "Toast", "Cargo", "Drab", "Colorful", "Sensual", "Crane" and "Rhino". (Just think, what would I wear every morning if Uncle Joseph hadn't coined for us the words "shirt", "colored coat"? How would I write without his pencils, lead-point pens? Let alone "sensual", That was a special gift from this ethical uncle.) Joseph Klausner was born in Olkeniki, Lithuania in 1874 and died in Jerusalem in 1958. At the age of ten, the Klausner family Migrating from Lithuania to Odessa, in Odessa, he explored from a traditional Jewish religious elementary school to a modern-style seminary, and then became a member of the "Love of Zion" circle. At the age of nineteen, he Published the first article entitled "New Words and Excellent Creation".

In this article, he argued that the scope of the Hebrew language needs to be expanded, and even foreign words must be introduced, so as to make it a living language. In the summer of 1897, he went to study in Heidelberg, Germany, because Jews were forbidden to go to university in Tsarist Russia.During the five years in Heidelberg, he studied philosophy with Professor Cuno Fischer, was deeply attracted by Renan's version of Eastern history, and was deeply influenced by Carlyle.During his five years in Heidelberg, his fields of study ranged from philosophy, history to literature, Semitic languages ​​and Orientalism (he mastered a dozen languages, including Greek and Latin, Sanskrit and Arabic, Aramaic, Persian and Amish Haric).At that time, his friend from Odessa, Czernykhovsky, was also studying medicine in Heidelberg, and the friendship between the two deepened and became a sincere and beneficial affinity. "A passionate poet!" Uncle Joseph would say of him, "a poet of the Hebrew language like an eagle, with one wing reaching for the Bible and Canaan, and the other spreading all over modern Europe!" Sometimes He said that Chernikhovsky had "a child-like simple and pure soul, and a Cossack's strong and strong physique!" Uncle Joseph was elected as a representative to represent Jewish students at the first Zionist Congress held in Basel. At one point in the ensuing session, he even had a brief exchange with Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism. ("He is handsome! Like an angel of God! His face glows with inner light! He looks to us like the king of Assyria, with his black beard and dreamy, divinely inspired look! His eyes, I To die to remember his eyes, Herzl had the eyes of a young poet in love, burning, sad, and fascinated all who gazed at it. His high forehead also gave him a sublime look!") Back to Odessa Later, Klausner wrote, taught, and devoted himself to the Zionist movement.

At the age of twenty-nine, he inherited from Ahad Ha'am the editorship of Hashloah, the central monthly journal of modern Hebrew culture.More precisely, what Uncle Joseph inherited from Ahad Ha'am was a "periodical literature," which Klausner immediately turned into a monthly by inventing the Hebrew word for "once a month." .A man capable of inventing new words and injecting them into the bloodstream of language seems to me only slightly inferior to the man who created light and darkness.If you write a book, you're lucky enough to keep people reading it for a while until something better comes along and replaces it, but inventing a new word is almost immortal.To this day, I sometimes close my eyes and imagine that dry and frail old man with a protruding white goatee, a soft beard, slender hands, wearing Russian spectacles, and absent-mindedly walking along thin steps alone, like Gulliver He was in the kingdom of adults, and in the kingdom of adults, a group of colorful and indifferent giants, tall storks, and mighty rhinos all bowed politely to him gratefully.