He had even become a source of comfort to others. One day, with tears in her eyes, Anat accosted him in the tractor shed and begged for a private talk. Azariah took her aside to the very spot behind the hayloft where, many years previously, a maniac had fired his revolver at everything in sight. She could not go on living like this any longer, she said. Udi had become an animal. Now that she was pregnant he was spending every night with Etan and his two whores in the swimming pool and not coming home until three in the morning.

Azariah recalled how this same tearful young woman had once taken cold-blooded pleasure in teasing him, in making him play peekaboo with the hem of her dress and her neckline, in driving him half out of his mind with the foul torments of lust.

He put his hand gently on the nape of her neck, overcame a momentary hesitation, and reminded her of all this. Not letting himself be flustered by her blushes, he proceeded to speak about the recalcitrance of the flesh, how it was different with men, far removed at times from any emotion, piercing, almost like pain. He tried to explain to her that Udi was still partly a child and that all his boastful war stories, his bravado about killing and death, and his deliberate coarseness came from the same inner fear of being tender or soft. When Anat’s eyes overflowed and she begged him to tell her what to do—look the other way? quarrel? move out?—Azariah only said, Anat, you know he is frightened, try to help him not to be, only don’t ask me how, because you are the one who knows him. She went on crying for at least ten minutes while Azariah stood there, holding her by the arm until she felt better.