“Yes, indeed,” said Yolek. “So you’re the new boy from the fruit-packing plant at last. Kirsch sent you to us.”

“Not exactly.”

“Eh?”

“I’m afraid I am someone else. I came to see about joining.”

“What! You’re not Kirsch’s assistant?”

Azariah Gitlin looked down at the floor. Humbled. Disgraced. Lowest of the low.

“I see,” said Yolek. “You are indeed someone else. I beg your pardon.”

During the brief silence Yolek studied the pitiful creature seated across from him in wet socks, water streaming off it like sweat on a hot summer day. He noticed the long, sensitive fingers like those of a girl, the frail shoulders, the elongated face, the restless expression, the green eyes that betrayed some basic fear or despair. He reached for his cigarette once again, turned it around suspiciously to compare its two ends, and tamped it gently between his fingers. With his other hand, he pushed the pack toward the guest.

Azariah Gitlin snatched a cigarette, planted it in his mouth, thanked Yolek for it, thanked him once again for the lighted match he extended, and began to talk in a rush, swallowing his words, despairing of sentences halfway through and beginning new ones, gesturing continually with his hands, not daring to pause even to inhale. He was from Tel Aviv, a socialist by conviction, but sociable too, an orderly, hard-working type. His name, if he hadn’t mentioned it yet, was Azariah Gitlin. A few weeks ago—three, or three-and-a-quarter, to be exact—that is, roughly twenty-three days ago, he had been discharged from the army. Honorably discharged. He had a document to prove it. In writing. No, he had never been to a kibbutz before, not even on a visit. Except once, when he happened to spend two hours at Kibbutz Bet-Alfa. But what were two hours? Not enough time to skin a cat, so to speak. Besides, he had had a good friend in the army, a young boy from Kibbutz Ginegar, who had tried to kill himself in the quartermaster’s office and whose life he, Azariah, had saved at the last minute.

Not that any of this really mattered, by the way. All these details were, so to speak, incidental. The main thing was that he had developed an interest in the history of the kibbutz movement. He had talked to many people about it and had read a number of essays and even a novel—and, of course, Comrade Lifshitz’s pamphlet Facing the Future—so that he was by no means a stranger to the subject and had some idea who he had the honor to be speaking with. Was he truly not disturbing him? The fact was that he felt nothing but contempt for people who made pilgrimages to famous men’s homes simply to rob them of their time.