The Books of Jacob

In October 1752, near Rohatyn, Father Benedykt Chmielowski waits for a carriage. He studies a sign recently commissioned for his presbytery and blames the Jewish craftsmen for mistakenly painting one letter backwards. A young man named Roshko collects Chmielowski in a carriage, and they take a familiar journey to Rohatyn but become lost in the thick fog. They follow “the faint murmur of water” (890) from the Linden River and arrive in the bustling market town.

Chmielowski walks between “stands made out of every imaginable material” (887) and into the poorest parts of the town. He thinks about the “ambitious” (885) book that he has been writing about religion, and then enters a Jewish-owned general store. The store has been recommended by Father Pikulski as a place where Chmielowski might be able to acquire a heretical book. Anxiously making his request through an interpreter named Hrycko, Chmielowski is led into the rear of the shop to meet with “the venerable Elisha Shorr” (882). Explaining that a Catholic priest and author such as himself requires privacy and secrecy, Chmielowski says that he wishes to access the Rabbi’s library and offers one of his most valuable books as payment for this access. Rabbi Shorr considers the offer and Chmielowski wonders whether he is performing “some sort of magic contact with assorted demons” (876).

When the Rabbi fetches the book, he reveals that it is entirely in Hebrew; Chmielowski cannot read it. Chmielowski leaves two copies of his New Athens (an encyclopedia written in Latin) with the Rabbi and then leaves. After, Hrycko explains that he learned Hebrew after his parents died during a plague. The Rabbi helped him and his younger brother, Oles. As Chmielowski returns to his carriage, Hrycko explains that the Rabbi’s son Isaac will soon marry “the daughter of some Moravian Jews” (874).

Katarzyna Kossakowska travels from Lublin to Kamieniec with her “somewhat older lady companion” (872), Elzbieta Druzbacka. They stop in Rohatyn because Kossakowska is sick but struggle to find anyone who speaks Polish. They find the house of Szymon Labecki, Kossakowska’s distant cousin, and a doctor is called. Szymon is a habitual gambler and resents that his sick cousin’s arrival will prevent him from attending a card game. Kossakowska is treated by a Jewish doctor who has trained in Italy, and she begins to recover. She is the wife of the castellan of Kamieniec, and she is “by nature a predator” (867), especially in contrast to her wealthy but meek husband, who is expected to arrive soon.

Chmielowski visits the sick patient and, at dinner, talks to a highly-educated Benedictine priest named Gauenty Pikulski, who reveals that the Rabbi’s book given to Chmielowski is nothing more than “some ordinary Jewish fairy tales” (865) titled Jacob’s Eye. Pikulski offers to translate the text regardless. During the dinner, Kossakowska recovers enough to dine and talk with her hosts. She complains about the Jewish people in Poland. After discussing the economy, Szymon and his guests retire to the library. While Druzbacka talks about her poetry, Szymon and the Jewish doctor talk in private.

The Jewish doctor is a gloomy man named Asher Rubin. He leaves Szymon’s home and walks through Rohatyn, thinking about the divided nature of the town’s Jewish community which he believes is “mutually hostile” (860). Asher considers himself apart from these people, whom he views as pathetic. He walks to Rabbi Shorr’s house, where the family is preparing for a wedding. Asher visits the house regularly to treat Hayah, whose regular sicknesses lead “to a prophecy” (857). On this occasion, however, Asher has been called to treat an elderly woman named Yente who has traveled a long way with her family to attend the wedding but who is now seemingly on the cusp of death. Asher believes that she “won’t last the wedding” (855). While Asher tries to help the old woman, Rabbi Shorr teaches his youngest family members about the Jewish religion. Yente “never liked” (848) Shorr as she views him as unpredictable. As the wedding draws closer, every guest visits Yente, but she seems to be close to death.

Rabbi Moshko visits the house. Moshko is “particularly knowledgeable about Kabbalah” (846), the form of Jewish mystical numerology (See: Background). He consults his mysticism and determines that the wedding should go ahead even if Yente might die. At night, Shorr writes words in Hebrew on a piece of paper and places it inside an amulet. He takes the amulet to the sleeping Yente and lays it on her neck. When he is gone, Yente takes out the paper and swallows it “like a little pill” (844). The next day, her breathing is barely perceptible. The wedding takes place, and Yente realizes that she can “easily slide out of her body and be suspended over it” (843). Her out-of-body experience allows her to attend the wedding and then travel far beyond the town of Rohatyn.

Bishop Kajetan Soltyk has a “serious problem” (841). He cannot sleep because he has an addiction to gambling at card games and his debts are growing. Needing money, he sold his bishop’s insignia (an expensive decorative cross) to “those Zytomierz Jews” (839) and now he is debating whether he should use force to get it back. He tries to win his money back at the card table but fails, so he writes to his friend Bishop Mikolaj Dembowski of Kamieniec for help, blaming “the Jews” (837) for his situation.

Elzbieta Druzbacka “misses her daughter” (836). She visits Father Chmielowski in the local presbytery and notices “how very lonely” (833) the priest seems in his cold, quiet home. He talks about his book, New Athens, which is the first Polish-language encyclopedia. Now, he wants to expand his work by including information from Jewish texts but finds these books hard to acquire and understand. Druzbacka suggests that he write his book in Polish rather than Latin to make it more accessible.

After she leaves, he writes new entries for his encyclopedia. He thinks about Druzbacka’s “gloomy” (829) poetry and realizes that he never writes about himself. He begins to write his own biography but struggles to find anything interesting to say about a life dedicated to books and learning. Thinking back on his youth, he recalls an unrequited romance with Lady Joanna Maria Jablonowska who died before New Athens was published. Druzbacka once worked for Lady Joanna, and Chmielowski marvels at “this strange decree of Providence” (827). He writes to Druzbacka and waits for a response. When it finally arrives, she suggests again that he write his work in vernacular Polish.

Kajetan Soltyk writes a letter to a church envoy, Niccolo Serra, the Archbishop of Mitylene. Unsure how to start his letter, he recalls a local story about a boy named Studzinski who was found beaten outside Zytomierz. Soltyk says that a local Jewish couple was arrested and tortured until they confessed to hurting the boy. He takes credit for this example of “divine justice” (823) as he led a pogrom against the local Jewish population, resulting in many executions.

During this pogrom, a Jewish boy named Zelik escaped. Zelik’s father was one of the many Jewish people who loaned money to Soltyk, most of whom will be executed. He flees and, after a month on the run, reaches distant family members. Zelik is traumatized by the experience. He continues south, staying in Jewish homes and telling his story, and becomes famous among the Jewish regional population. Eventually, he reaches Rome and “finds himself standing face-to-face with the pope” (818).