The students cheered, then ran off to spread the news. The wedding album they gave the Elder still exists. It’s in a museum. On the cover it says: Adonenu Ha-Nasi. “Our lord, the Prince.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the wedding at last. It took place on a Tuesday, a lucky date, because twice on that day of creation God said, It is well. Another good sign: The sun was out, round and bright. The Church of the Virgin Mary shone in its rays. At noon the children were let out of the schools; they lined both sides of Lutomierska and waved cardboard copies of the new Baluty state flag. It was a half day in the factories, too. The dyers and tanners and cutters, the thousands of sewers and spinners, stood in back of the boys and girls. There were special marshals—the porters, the sweepers—to keep order in the crowd. Everyone was in a happy mood, laughing and chatting. A cheer went up whenever a special guest or even a Judenrat member drove by in a rickshaw. “Long live Chaim! Greetings to Chaim!” cried the Jews, straining to see if the Elder, or the Elder’s white horse, had come into view. A wonderful holiday!

Inside the church, with its thick walls, you could barely hear the shouting. But the sunshine came through. It struck the colored glass in the windows and made red spots, and blue spots, and blue and green ones, like lily pads, on the floor. Everything had been scrubbed and polished. Though the feathers and clothes had been carted away, the fluff floated through the rays of light and stuck to people’s hat brims, or to those few Jews who still dared to wear beards.

The wooden benches had been turned lengthwise and placed one tier above another, so that a kind of grandstand ran down either side of the aisle. The Judenrat, along with the top workers on the Jewish Council, were on one side, the distinguished guests on the other. At the end of the passage, on a platform, there was a canopy raised on four poles. Eight Jews, our biggest rabbis, held it up: Trunk, of the Devout Butchers; Kornischoner, from the Fur Trimmers; also Rabbis Martini, Lunt, Chill, and Wolf-Kitzes; Lakmaker, a proven cousin of the Zlotchov maggid; and lastly Kanal, who some said was a descendant of the zaddik of Pshiskhe himself.

Down the long aisle the last of the guests paraded. The church organ sounded a fanfare and Schotter, the announcer, made a megaphone out of his hands.

“Jews! Honored guests! The Security Minister!”

Krystal, with Lifshits helping, set off the flash lamp, and Fried Rievesaltes, in his pearl-button vest and built-up shoe, strolled between the two rows of benches. There was a woman by his side. She had a little bulge above her nipped-in waist, and the bare skin of her upper arm, where Rievesaltes gripped it, was plump and reddish. The dark-haired Nellie Brilliantstein. The couple stopped at a large table, already covered, overflowing, with gifts. They added theirs to the pile, then took their seats on the right-hand side.