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rags, sat Mordecai Joseph's only daughter, a monstrosity with a water-swollen head and calf's eyes. Mordecai Joseph's wet beard shone in the reflection of the glowing coals like molten gold, and his green eyeballs burned like a wolf's as he divulged the mysteries he had seen in his trance. His cadence was that of a dying man speaking his last words to those nearest him.
    "A great light shall descend on the world! Thou-sands and thousands times greater than the sun! It shall blind the eyes of the wicked and the scoffers! Only the chosen shall escape!"
    That night Rabbi Benish could not sleep.
    The shutters were barred, and thick candles burned in the two bent brass candlesticks. The old man paced back and forth with heavy tread, stopping from time to time to cock his ears, as though listening for a scratching in the walls. The wind tore at the roof, and sighed. Branches crackled with the frost, the long-drawn-out howls of dogs filled the air. There was silence and then the howling began again. Rabbi Benish took book after book out of the chest, studied their titles and leafed through the pages searching for omens of the coming of the Messiah. His high forehead wrinkled, for the passages were contradictory. From time to time Rabbi Benish would sit down at the table and press a key to his forehead so as not to doze off; nevertheless, he would soon be snoring heavily. Then he would lift his head up with a start, a crooked mark between his eyes. He paced back and forth, running into objects in dark corners, and his magnified shadow crept along the rafters, slid along the walls, and quivered as though engaged in a ghostly wrangle. Although the oven was glowing, a cold breeze stirred in the room. In the early morning, when Grunam the Beadle came to put more wood in the oven, Rabbi Benish looked at him as though he were a stranger.
    "Go, bring the legate to me!" he commanded.
    The legate was still sleeping in the inn, and Grunam had to waken him. It was early, and stars were still sparkling in the sky. Handfuls of dry saltlike snow fell across their faces. Rabbi Benish put on his outercoat and stepped over the threshold of the house to welcome the legate; putting up his beaver collar and crossing his arms, he thrust his hands up his sleeves. It was bitter cold and Rabbi Benish kept turning around, stamping his feet to keep warm. Somewhere from behind the snow hills, as huge as sand dunes, a man rose into view, wind-blown, dipped out of sight, and then emerged again, like a swimmer. Rabbi Benish glanced at the early morning sky. Fixing his gaze inwardly, he cried, "Master of the Universe, help us!"
    No one ever learned what Rabbi Benish said that morning, nor what the legate replied. But one thing soon became common knowledge: the legate rode away with no farewells from Goray, in the same sleigh in which he had arrived. It was late afternoon when the news spread that the legate had disappeared. It was Grunam the Beadle who imparted the information, with a stealthy smile in his left eye. Reb Mordecai Joseph blanched. He gathered immediately who was responsible for the legate's departure, and his nostrils dilated with anger.
    "Benish is to blame!" he screamed, and lifted his crutch threateningly. "Benish has driven him off!"
    For many years Reb Mordecai Joseph had been the rabbi's enemy. He hated him for his learning, envied him his fame, and never missed an opportunity to speak evil of him. At the yearly Passover wrangle he would incite the people to break Rabbi Benish's windowpanes, crying that the rabbi had only his own reputation in mind and gave no thought to the town. The thing that chiefly vexed Reb Mordecai Joseph was that Rabbi Benish forbade the study of the cabala; in defiance Reb Mordecai Joseph called the rabbi by his first name. And now Reb Mordecai Joseph hammered on his lectern, inciting controversy. "Benish is a heretic!" he shouted. "A transgressor against the Lord of Israel!"
    An old householder who was one of the