‘All this,’ he began in a whisper, as if talking to himself, ‘once had an attraction for me that was both fascinating and terrifying. Everything, I mean, that took place on the other side of the boundary between Jews and Christians. I was still a child, of course. The women passing me on their way to church on Sundays and holidays for some reason attracted me. And the church itself, which was situated not far from our house, gave me no peace. People seemed to be divided into two separate species, utterly different from each other, as different as cats and dogs. In a little village, unlike a city, religion still plays an important role in life. The boundaries are well defined: Jews are Jews and Christians are Christians. You can’t possibly confuse the two. Especially in the little settlements of Galicia and Poland. My parents weren’t Orthodox but, nevertheless, they had nothing to do with Christians. In short: the Christians fascinated me in their strangeness. When I grew a little older, I would hang around the church on their holidays, moved and excited, waiting for something. The singing of the choir, threatening and obscure, would come pouring out into the fresh summer air like a slow stream of thick black tar. By then I already knew about the Inquisition, the Crusades, the persecution of the Jews, and I was constantly afraid that they would suddenly seize me and drag me inside and force me to do something terrible. And yet I kept on hanging around outside the church. You might say that in the depths of my soul I was even eager for the thing to happen. If they abducted me, I thought, and forced me to do something (I didn’t know exactly what!) it wouldn’t help them. I would suffer all the tortures of hell and I wouldn’t do their bidding. Once I dared to approach the door and look inside: I saw nothing but dense darkness, dotted with weak candle flames. I could see people kneeling too. From that day on, whenever I thought about Christians I would see something dark with flickering candles …’

‘And didn’t you ever go inside?’ asked Thea. ‘If you had gone inside, all the magic would have disappeared …’

‘Not there,’ said Gurdweill. ‘Later on, of course, I went into all kinds of churches in different towns, but not there. If I ever go back to my native town, I’ll go in. Not because it interests me now, but just for the sake of it.’

‘Why don’t you ever tell me about your first time with a woman?’ said Thea suddenly. ‘I’d be interested to hear about it.’

‘There’s not much to tell!’ replied Gurdweill, lighting a cigarette. ‘A banal affair with a maidservant.’

‘I’d still like to hear it, rabbit.’