licking the sharpened tip with an expression of wistful shrewdness on his face, as though his soul had been stung by a genuine idea. Not a day had passed before Ben Attar observed that the rabbi was using it to inscribe words upon an unfamiliar strip of parchment. The slowness of the writing, on the one hand, and the speed with which the parchment was concealed whenever Ben Attar approached, on the other, attested to the fact that it was not some new homily that was being indited, or a commentary on a difficult text, or an elaborate ethical argument, but something else. Ben Attar kept watch from a distance and noticed how a line was added or deleted and replaced by another, which was crossed out in its turn. Eventually his curiosity got the better of him, and he instructed the son of the desert to approach the rabbi’s bed while he slept and extract the parchment. What he saw confirmed his fears. He discovered the disjointed lines of a poem or hymn, which began in Arabic and continued in the holy tongue.
Secretly, by the light of a candle, Ben Attar attempted to decipher the writing, at first word by word and eventually line by line. What he read filled him with sadness. The hints of the rabbi’s desire for Ben Attar’s wives in the last two lines impugned his honor, but as he was about to tear up the parchment and throw it overboard, he remarked to himself that a poem composed so laboriously was indubitably etched on the mind of the author, who would write it out again and take all the more pains to conceal it. So he had the parchment restored to its place, so that he could continue to watch over it. While the black slave unfastened the robe of the sleeping poet so as to reinsert the poem furtively in the inside pocket and in doing so perhaps absorb some of the heat that the unseen god vouchsafes to those who believe in him, the ship’s owner continued to reflect on the rabbi whom his uncle had attached to him. Would he really be of any help? Surely he was supposed to pay him not for writing verses of unrequited longing, but for compiling subtle and persuasive textual arguments against his partnerAbulafia’s new wife, who had come between them and had left him in a spot, with no buyers for his merchandise. Overcome once more with pity for his rejected wares, he found himself making his way under the triangular canvas of the sail to peer into the hold. Here, in the fragrant darkness pierced by rays of moonlight filtering through the timbers of the deck, the ropes binding the great jars and sacks seemed to have dissolved, and the containers stood before him like a company of men possessed by a sense of fellowship in the face of common misfortune, for which their master would soon be called to account. One of the great sacks suddenly stood erect and strode toward the trembling Jew, who strangled a scream. But it was only Abu Lutfi, who liked to sleep close to his hidden store of daggers encrusted with precious stones. He too was unable to sleep, as in the Roman inn in the hills above Barcelona on those summer nights of the years 4756 and 4757 of the creation of the world, according to the Jewish way of reckoning, when Abulafia was arriving later and later for their appointed meetings.
It was only two years later that Ben Attar had realized that if he had only taken the trouble to understand the cause of the delays, he might have reached an earlier appraisal of the repudiation that was taking concrete shape in the north. For it was during those years that the first threads were being spun that were to tie Abulafia to a new woman, a widow who had come to Francia from a small town on the banks of the River Rhine. At that stage Abulafia was mentioning her only as a loyal customer, not as a possible bride, but by reading between the lines it should have been evident that a new hand was involved, wittingly or unwittingly, in Abulafia’s ever-lengthening delays. Abu Lutfi, to his credit, did not delude himself, and was
Secretly, by the light of a candle, Ben Attar attempted to decipher the writing, at first word by word and eventually line by line. What he read filled him with sadness. The hints of the rabbi’s desire for Ben Attar’s wives in the last two lines impugned his honor, but as he was about to tear up the parchment and throw it overboard, he remarked to himself that a poem composed so laboriously was indubitably etched on the mind of the author, who would write it out again and take all the more pains to conceal it. So he had the parchment restored to its place, so that he could continue to watch over it. While the black slave unfastened the robe of the sleeping poet so as to reinsert the poem furtively in the inside pocket and in doing so perhaps absorb some of the heat that the unseen god vouchsafes to those who believe in him, the ship’s owner continued to reflect on the rabbi whom his uncle had attached to him. Would he really be of any help? Surely he was supposed to pay him not for writing verses of unrequited longing, but for compiling subtle and persuasive textual arguments against his partnerAbulafia’s new wife, who had come between them and had left him in a spot, with no buyers for his merchandise. Overcome once more with pity for his rejected wares, he found himself making his way under the triangular canvas of the sail to peer into the hold. Here, in the fragrant darkness pierced by rays of moonlight filtering through the timbers of the deck, the ropes binding the great jars and sacks seemed to have dissolved, and the containers stood before him like a company of men possessed by a sense of fellowship in the face of common misfortune, for which their master would soon be called to account. One of the great sacks suddenly stood erect and strode toward the trembling Jew, who strangled a scream. But it was only Abu Lutfi, who liked to sleep close to his hidden store of daggers encrusted with precious stones. He too was unable to sleep, as in the Roman inn in the hills above Barcelona on those summer nights of the years 4756 and 4757 of the creation of the world, according to the Jewish way of reckoning, when Abulafia was arriving later and later for their appointed meetings.
It was only two years later that Ben Attar had realized that if he had only taken the trouble to understand the cause of the delays, he might have reached an earlier appraisal of the repudiation that was taking concrete shape in the north. For it was during those years that the first threads were being spun that were to tie Abulafia to a new woman, a widow who had come to Francia from a small town on the banks of the River Rhine. At that stage Abulafia was mentioning her only as a loyal customer, not as a possible bride, but by reading between the lines it should have been evident that a new hand was involved, wittingly or unwittingly, in Abulafia’s ever-lengthening delays. Abu Lutfi, to his credit, did not delude himself, and was
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