"I wandered over the land, and good people did not neglect me. After many years I became old and white; I heard a great deal, many lies and falsehoods, but the longer I lived the more I understood that there were really no lies. Whatever doesn't really happen is dreamed at night. It happens to one if it doesn't happen to another, tomorrow if not today, or a century hence if not next year. What
difference can it make? Often I heard tales of which I
said, "Now this is a thing that cannot happen." But before a year had elapsed I heard that it actually had come to pass
somewhere.
No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but it is
only once removed from the true world. At the door of the
hotel where I lie, there stands the plank on which the dead
are taken away. The grave digger Jew has his spade ready.
The grave waits and the worms are hungry; the shrouds are
prepared - I carry them in my beggar's sack. Another
schnorrer is waiting to inherit my bed of straw. When the
time comes I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it
will be real, without complication, without ridicule,
without deception. God be praised: there even Gimpel
cannot be deceived."
Isaac Bashevis Singer, "Gimpel The Fool" |
