The Oath Read Online Free PDF Page A

schoolboy, he slid in and out of infatuations with disconcerting ease, yet he would have deemed it immoral—and puerile—to maintain two simultaneous affairs. Purely platonic affairs, to be sure; the women in question had no inkling that he desired them with such violence—or that he desired them at all—or even that later he abandoned them.
    His painful shyness made him unhappy. He would sometimes flee the very woman who for weeks had robbed him of his sleep. Blushing like a scolded child, he would stammer incoherent banalities, unable to understand himself what he was trying to communicate. In the presence of the beloved, or beloved-to-be, he assumed a guilty behavior.
    He would have preferred loving women for what, in his opinion, was their spirituality. To be sure, the mere sight of a bare shoulder caused him palpitations, but he repressed them.As soon as he summoned up the courage to respond to their advances, he would launch into lengthy and complicated scholarly discourses so as to persuade them that as far as he was concerned, their physical charms scarcely made an impression. Convinced that he did not appreciate them sufficiently, they took offense. This in turn greatly chagrined him, particularly since he exaggerated both their beauty and their intelligence.
    As he exaggerated their purity. This was an obsession which shaped his behavior and rendered him ridiculous. To his consenting, impatiently waiting partner, he would recite poems and sermons complete with footnotes and commentaries. The more burning his passion, the more compelled he felt to conceal it. Instead of embracing his companion, who would have been only too pleased, he outdid himself trying to demonstrate why it was important to sublimate one’s feelings and forgo their fulfillment. There were those who simply told him to go away, and those who became aggressive. He complained about both kinds, which moved Rachel to remark: “You are as fond of complaining as you are of loving.”
    An accurate observation. Common sense personified, that Rachel. She spoke to the child in Azriel; she loved it and yearned to protect it. A man in love becomes a child again; this is what makes him susceptible to loving. Any woman who fails to understand that will know a confused, false and necessarily incomplete love.
    For the child in Azriel, every woman he loved was immaculate, the better for being willing to wait. She lived in renunciation and anticipation. That she might have had lovers before him never occurred to him. In love, every time is the first time; repetition excludes love, and vice versa. Azriel was for the vice versa.
    Convinced that the union of the flesh mirrors that of the soul, which in turn stems from the primary mystery of creation, herefused to reduce it to the level of the senses. To prevent this sacrilege, he pursued the unavowed goal of uniting beings while circumventing their bodies. With Rachel he succeeded on occasion, but not with the others. He spent the night with a young widow, the mother of two beautiful children, and decided that she was a virgin and therefore not to be touched.
    Rachel knew this and was amused. She knew about everything. And yet, and yet. Not even she had succeeded in penetrating Kolvillàg and violating the sanctuary. Gracious Rachel, poor Rachel. She could not drive away the Marauding Angel. Nor could he. Had he married her, he might have saved her. But she had refused all compromise. The night she died Azriel remained at her bedside, watching her face, trying to discern the first signs of death, sure that he would succeed, even at the last moment, in annulling the decree. Toward dawn a long tremor tore through her, ripping her apart. She uttered a hoarse cry, charged with terror, a cry springing from the depths of her childhood, or perhaps already from the land of the dead. A cry of farewell, of distress. She changed color at a dizzying, unreal speed before settling into immobility and pallor. Then she fell