illuminated
by the bright moonlight shining in through the window, so that
the white hair of his sparse Dutch sailor’s beard gleamed like
threads of metal; the other side was in pitch darkness.
On his bald head he wore a pointed crown cut out of gold
paper.
The room was filled with the acrid smell of leather. The
cobbler’s globe shone like the malevolent eye of some cyclopean monster, whose body was hidden in the darkness of the
room, and glinted on a pile of ten-guilder pieces on the table in
front of the prophet.
Eva, Sephardi and the members of the spiritual circle stood
close to the wall and waited. No one dared move; it was as if a
spell had been cast over them all. The poor shop assistant’s gaze
was fixed on the glittering coins.
The minutes crawled past in absolute silence, as if they
wanted to stretch themselves out into hours; a moth fluttered in
out of the darkness, circled in a white blur around the candle and
went up in a crackle of flame.
Motionless, as if carved out of stone, the prophet stared at the
globe, his mouth open, his fingers like claws tensed over the
coins, and seemed to be listening to words that came to him from
a great distance.
Suddenly a dull thud came from the tavern below and as
suddenly died away, as if someone had opened the outside door
and then slammed it to; the sound seemed to rush into the room
and then choke on the congealed air.
Then the deathly hush reigned once more.
Eva wanted to look over to Swammerdam, but was held back by a vague fear that she would read in his face the same foreboding of some approaching catastrophe that was almost choking her. For the length of a heartbeat she thought she remembered hearing a quiet, scarcely audible voice at the table say,
“Lord, let this cup pass from me”, then the impression faded as
scraps of noise from the distant fairground fluttered past the
window.
She looked up and saw that the tension in Klinkherbogk’s
features had relaxed, giving way to a look of confusion.
“There is a great cry in the city”, she heard him murmur, “and
their sin is very grievous. I will go down now, and see whether
they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is
come unto me; and if not, I will know.”
“‘T’hose were the words of Jehovah in the Book of Genesis”,
said Sister Shulamite with trembling lips, and crossed herself,
“before He rained brimstone and fire out of heaven. Oh let not
the Lord be angry, and I will speak but yet this once: Peradventure ten righteous shall be found there!”
Immediately the spark kindled in Klinkherbogk a vision of
the end of the world. In a monotonous voice, as if he were
reading aloud something he was not listening to himself, he
spoke to the wall:
“Behold, I see a stormwind arise, that shall rage over the
whole world, and all things that stand erect shall be made level
and the clouds shall be as flying arrows. The graves shall be torn
open and the stones and the skulls of the dead shall fall from the
air as a shower of hail; it shall blow the water from the rivers and
ditches, yea it shall spew it as from its mouth, and lay low the
poplars by the roads and the tall trees shall be as clumps of grass
that wave in the wind. And this He will do for the sake of the
righteous who have received the living baptism”; his voice
resumed its flat monotone, “but the King, on whom ye wait, will
not come until the time is fulfilled. First there must come the one
who shall go before Him to prepare the way of the Lord, and the
harbinger must be within you and a new man. And yet I say,
there will be many with new eyes and new ears, that it might not
be said of mankind what was said before, `They have ears, but
they hear not; eyes have they, but they see not’. But”, and a shadow of deepest sadness passed over his face, “Abram I cannot see among them. For with the same measure that ye mete,
withal it shall be measured to you again and
by the bright moonlight shining in through the window, so that
the white hair of his sparse Dutch sailor’s beard gleamed like
threads of metal; the other side was in pitch darkness.
On his bald head he wore a pointed crown cut out of gold
paper.
The room was filled with the acrid smell of leather. The
cobbler’s globe shone like the malevolent eye of some cyclopean monster, whose body was hidden in the darkness of the
room, and glinted on a pile of ten-guilder pieces on the table in
front of the prophet.
Eva, Sephardi and the members of the spiritual circle stood
close to the wall and waited. No one dared move; it was as if a
spell had been cast over them all. The poor shop assistant’s gaze
was fixed on the glittering coins.
The minutes crawled past in absolute silence, as if they
wanted to stretch themselves out into hours; a moth fluttered in
out of the darkness, circled in a white blur around the candle and
went up in a crackle of flame.
Motionless, as if carved out of stone, the prophet stared at the
globe, his mouth open, his fingers like claws tensed over the
coins, and seemed to be listening to words that came to him from
a great distance.
Suddenly a dull thud came from the tavern below and as
suddenly died away, as if someone had opened the outside door
and then slammed it to; the sound seemed to rush into the room
and then choke on the congealed air.
Then the deathly hush reigned once more.
Eva wanted to look over to Swammerdam, but was held back by a vague fear that she would read in his face the same foreboding of some approaching catastrophe that was almost choking her. For the length of a heartbeat she thought she remembered hearing a quiet, scarcely audible voice at the table say,
“Lord, let this cup pass from me”, then the impression faded as
scraps of noise from the distant fairground fluttered past the
window.
She looked up and saw that the tension in Klinkherbogk’s
features had relaxed, giving way to a look of confusion.
“There is a great cry in the city”, she heard him murmur, “and
their sin is very grievous. I will go down now, and see whether
they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is
come unto me; and if not, I will know.”
“‘T’hose were the words of Jehovah in the Book of Genesis”,
said Sister Shulamite with trembling lips, and crossed herself,
“before He rained brimstone and fire out of heaven. Oh let not
the Lord be angry, and I will speak but yet this once: Peradventure ten righteous shall be found there!”
Immediately the spark kindled in Klinkherbogk a vision of
the end of the world. In a monotonous voice, as if he were
reading aloud something he was not listening to himself, he
spoke to the wall:
“Behold, I see a stormwind arise, that shall rage over the
whole world, and all things that stand erect shall be made level
and the clouds shall be as flying arrows. The graves shall be torn
open and the stones and the skulls of the dead shall fall from the
air as a shower of hail; it shall blow the water from the rivers and
ditches, yea it shall spew it as from its mouth, and lay low the
poplars by the roads and the tall trees shall be as clumps of grass
that wave in the wind. And this He will do for the sake of the
righteous who have received the living baptism”; his voice
resumed its flat monotone, “but the King, on whom ye wait, will
not come until the time is fulfilled. First there must come the one
who shall go before Him to prepare the way of the Lord, and the
harbinger must be within you and a new man. And yet I say,
there will be many with new eyes and new ears, that it might not
be said of mankind what was said before, `They have ears, but
they hear not; eyes have they, but they see not’. But”, and a shadow of deepest sadness passed over his face, “Abram I cannot see among them. For with the same measure that ye mete,
withal it shall be measured to you again and
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