It was the time (and I don't mean our time, God forbid!) when boy-husbands were boarding with their in-laws, fathering, and sitting with folded arms in the synagogue. I say (he says) that I don't mean our time because the words "it came to pass," as our sages say, always herald a lot of trouble. Our trouble is that young husbands in those days were not as smart, except in their own matters, as young husbands in our time. Nowadays, young husbands do not know their own goals as they did in the past, and they are useless; quite simply because they need the kind of things that impractical idlers, much to our distress, and whether earlier or later, are lacking; and no one is prepared to speak out and berate them for it. It would be like making fun of a pauper for not closing some great business deal, or making fun of a mute for not talking, or a lame man for not dancing, or a cripple for not standing straight. But useless to themselves (maintain the moderns), those of the past couldn't even pin a tail on a donkey, that is to say, lie down for the nation of Israel. They couldn't pursue their own goals, and, woe to them and to their lives, they never gave a second thought to, never moved heaven and earth for, the goals of the Jewish people! . . . They were lazy and moldy, they never formed groups or unions, they never tried to hold assemblies, not at their own expense, coming or going. They had feet, but not for walking; mouths, so to speak, but not for talking or sermonizing. May such sluggishness befall our worst enemies! What did they understand, what did they know? . . . Stocks and bonds?- No!? Funds?- No.- "Culture"?- Forget it!- Well, then what? Nothing!
They yawned, went to synagogue, rose for midnight prayers, lamented the destruction of Jerusalem, peered into holy books, studied the Scriptures, and learned how to be broken Diaspora-Jews with their fine, high-falutin' Friday-night prayers: "How beautiful . . . !"
"Because of our sins we  were driven out."
It was for all these things that the wrath was poured out on those poor creatures. The beginning of all wisdom is: Get wisdom. But today, the beginning and end of all wisdom is to hell with the fathers, the past. "Ugh!" they say. "Ugh!" for old, bygone days! That is the entire wisdom, really quite Jewish, in the manner of a wise and intelligent people, the "People of the Book,"- and that, I'm afraid, is the trouble! . . .
But that, says the author, is neither here nor there.
And we can believe him, for, as it turns out in the end, his intentions really do lie elsewhere.
What I'm after, he says, is to tell what happened to me once in those days, when, as is the custom of sons-in-law, I was rooming and boarding with my mother- and father-in-law. My father-in-law, a simple man, fine and well-to-do, took me in, like a rare and precious thing; an earnest student, took me from the yeshivah for his one and only beloved daughter, the apple of his eye. It's hard to say how old I was because there was so much confusion about my age, and there was no way of untangling it. My mother counted my years after a great conflagration at the time of my birth. My grandmother, however, calculated after some great panic, and my aunts had different reckonings altogether. But whatever it was, and be that as it may, all I know is that when I got married, my face was pale, smooth, and beardless, like a boy's.
During the first few years of our marriage, nothing much happened . . . . All I knew how to do was pray, eat my mother-in-law's meals, and study. It never even occurred to me to do the tomfooleries that people sometimes do- and my wife didn't get any children .... In the beginning, I would simply come home to eat and drink - and that was all. Not to hear a nasty word, not to notice a nasty grimace. But then a slight change took place. I noticed peculiarities about my mother-in-law, a wry face, a pouting, and I was supposed to know what it was all about. But what I didn't know didn't hurt me- I merely went about my business and ate heartily. Little by little, the reason for her pouting was explained to me. First, by way of hints, allusions, insinuations, that is to say, she meant- children! How could a Jew not have children! . . . And next, my mother-in-law told me in so many words, with a simple straightforward explanation: "Listen!" she argued, highly excited, as though I had stomped on her toes. "Listen! You've been married for two whole years already and- nothing! ... Husbands who got married at the same time as you have been fathers for ages already, some with one child, some with two. They're mature and responsible, they know what their goals are . . . . How happy they are, and how happy their parents are! And you? A fine husband you are!"
And next, they worked around this matter in secret. I would often find my mother-in-law sitting with other women-neighbors, wives of rabbinical managers, women who administered the ablutions to women at the bathhouse, and my own wife in the middle, with downcast eyes red from weeping, and all the women whispering, winking at one another. An old Gentile woman (if you'll excuse my mentioning her in the same breath) also joined them a couple of times. It turned out that they were sitting there, wondering why my mother-in-law hadn't gotten any grandchildren from her daughter, that is to say, my wife. And they were using household remedies on her. Naturally, the old Gentile woman and the local healer had their fingers in the pie, along with the women who had been mothers many times over.
But I never thought about any tomfooleries. I ate heartily and studied heartily.
Now since allusions didn't help, and explanations didn't help, and secrets didn't help, my mother-in-law finally resorted to homiletical discourse, i.e., sermons. She was a marvel at sermonizing. The minute she opened her mouth, out came pouring, as from a sack full of holes, a preacher, a torrent of speech, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hugger-mugger, Gentile sayings all mixed up with (please excuse my mentioning them in the same breath) Talmudic quotations (it sounded moronic) spiced with the bittersweet language of Yiddish prayers for women, so that it would have the proper Jewish flavor.
Her sermons about me were based on the verse: "My son-in-law is indecent". And she demonstrated at length that it was indecent of me to do this, and do that . . . . Indecent, like the peasant's proverb "Neither fish nor foul," which in Yiddish goes: "No bah, no moo, no cock-a-doodle-doo!" So what was I then? A dummy! That's what! And a further indecency: Any other father-in-law would take his son-in-law to the rebbe of Khandrikev- long may he live!- and if not personally, then through one of his followers, to turn the son-in-law into a decent human being . . . . And he would prosper, with "children and money,"- as it says in the Sabbath prayer. But as for me, she would exclaim- glaring at her poor husband, who had to put up with everything from her: As for me, oh God in heaven! It should happen to her worst enemies! I simply wasn't decent, amen, amen! . . .
When I hear the sermons of preachers nowadays, they fit me like a six-fingered glove. I merely look at them in pity, these poor people affecting wisdom, no doubt knowing very well, as well as I do, that their wise sayings are bogus, a swindle, a put-on. But my mother-in-law's sermons hooked into, my heart like leeches, they sucked out my blood. I still ate her food as heartily, I still studied heartily, but it just didn't taste quite right anymore. Something was itching, nibbling in my head, and I would sometimes daydream for minutes at a stretch, with bulging eyes, at random. But still, I was all right, there was no danger. I couldn't botch up my youth, until the time came for me to decide on one of the Jewish professions: teaching Hebrew school, running a store, keeping a tavern, for instance, and thereby become my own boss. But then a dybbuk got hold of me, the Evil Spirit himself, in the guise of a Hassid, and tried to talk me into the devil knows what, lead me off to the devil knows where . . . .
My Evil Spirit, the Hassid, was an ugly little mannikin with all the gestures, all the charm befitting such a person. His way of speaking was exquisite, he could talk holes into your head. For telling stories, there was never a creature like him, there isn't now, and there never will be, in all the world. The skies were open to him, he could do what he wanted to there, the gates of hell and of paradise stood open for him. Angels and demons were his servants, fire and water his playthings . . . . His stories could capture a person's soul. If he wanted, his stories could cast a sweet sleep on a person; a warmth flowed through all parts of your body, and you felt a delicious scratching. If he licked his fingers and smacked his lips- you would get. an urge to drink, simply to have a sip of spirits . . . 
That was my Evil Spirit, the one that caught hold of me (may all Jews be spared the like).
"Listen, shlemiel!" the Evil Spirit would start reproving me. "Just how long are you going to stay a shlemiel anyway? What can come of all this studying, day and night? Talmud-Shmalmud! You can brood over the Talmud all you wish, like a mother hen, but you won't hatch any children- and what's the sense of it anyway? You're a grown man, you shlemiel! . . . What a pity, I swear, such a young man . . . . I wouldn't care if you were a rationalist, an old recluse separated from your wife, a bookworm with a beard- to hell with him, the heretic! Keep sitting, keep swaying, get hemorrhoids, go through the Forty-nine Steps of Uncleanliness, and so much for you, you'll never get out! But you shlemiel, you're still a boy, you've still got time to exorcise the rationalist in you and become a decent man, a gifted person. Get on the right path while you still have time, and follow me, don't lag behind other young husbands, children of good families, don't lag behind, I tell you, and come . . . come . . . . Others may say to you: Come to Kandrivek, or come to Yehupets, to the rebbe of Yehupets, but I say to you: Boiberik! There are lots of rebbes around, you know, all of them alike, none of them, thank God, in any way sluggish about Jewishness- may they be healthy and strong! But all of them together are nothing but a garlic peel compared with the rebbe of Boiberik, long may he live. - Come, I tell you, come to Boiberik, he'll be able to help you. He's really an expert in barren women, the rebbe of Boiberik. Besides, your eyes will open when you look at his radiant face. 'You will warm yourself in his light,' you frozen yeshivah-student, you cold rationalist you. Like the noble children of Israel, you will see the Shekhinah, the Divine. Radiance, upon his face, and you'll be so enthusiastic that, like them, you will eat at his court and drink . . . . You've got the possibility now, you're boarding with your in-laws, you haven't touched your wife's dowery yet. Later on, I hope, you'll pawn something, you'll steal your wife's last bit of jewelry- and you'll take a wagon, or you'll walk, to Boiberik! . . ."
That was how the Evil Spirit talked, and how he talked me into things. And when he saw he hadn't gotten very far, that moralizing didn't help, he tried getting to me with alcohol. He would smack his lips wordlessly, and so tantalizingly that I got a yen for a shot of brandy. It began with drinks on anniversaries of people's deaths, and then one drink led to another, brandy to conclude a section of the Talmud in synagogue, a celebration here, an anniversary there, to sanctify the new moon, to usher in the new month, a holiday here, a Sabbath there, a social drink, and then finally, a brandy-for-its-own-sake drink. As a result, I went so far once that I was literally out if my skin, that is to say, my mind left my body, it leaped out of my flesh, I was intoxicated, in seventh heaven!
The things that I, or, more precisely, my soul; heard and saw if it were humanly possible, in heaven, can scarcely be described in human speech. I'll try anyway, as far as I can, only for the sake of my readers really, because my readers are very curious, they're dying to know about what goes on in heaven, in the world to come.
First of all, I was welcomed by an extremely long nose, as thick and swollen as a mountain, fiery red, slightly dazed, like a flame of burning alcohol, and studded over with warts, and moistened by wellsprings of sweat. After the nose came its owner, reeling, barely keeping himself on his feet, just barely . . . . Lot- the chief cup-bearer of the wine reserved for the righteous at the coming of the Messiah- Lot, in all his glory, more in the spirit than in the flesh, and then an oracular voice boomed out as from a huge, empty barrel: "Make way, make room, for our guest, Ployne the son of Sosye! . . ." Upon hearing this voice, I was overcome with trembling, like a woman in childbirth. The chief cup-bearer smeared my lips, and poured a hundred- proof bitter drop into my mouth, and I felt like a new man!
"I know," he said to me, "what you want, and why you've come. The voice of your mother-in-law, praying for her daughter, your barren wife, is rending the heavens. The healer's incantations are moving heaven and earth. I was ordered to welcome you, fortify you with a bit of liquor, and lead you to, the first division of our judicial apparatus, or as you call it down there, the first tavern, and since you're a bookworm and thereby under the supervision of the Angel of Study, we'll have to appeal to him, and he'll make sure your request goes to where it has to go .... Well, have another drink, and come along!"
And then he actually took me and carried me, the way a demon carries a scholar, so fast that my head swam. All at once, he threw me, pow! I landed on my feet all alone and suddenly there was light throughout my body. And I looked up and saw a palace before me, five hundred leagues high, all of marble and fine gold. And the palace had five hundred enormous gates, and each enormous gate five hundred tiny gates. Between them stood the Angels of Wisdom, the Angels of Intelligence, the Angels of the Talmud, the Guardian Angels of Hassidism, the Guardian Angels of Enthusiasm, the Guardian Angels of Religious Ecstasy. And I saw something like two fearfully long flashes of lightning crackle out of the palace, and a shape of a hand clutched a heap of black fire and made crowns for the letters in the Torah. My ankles buckled in terror and I collapsed on my face. I felt a hand touching me, and I heard a voice calling me: "Please stand up, you mortal. The Guardian Angel of Study has heard your mother-in-law's prayer!" And I could feel a frost run over my whole body, my teeth were chattering with cold, and, getting to my feet, I saw a cold angel before me, a hunk of ice!
"It is I," he said, "your angel, the Angel of Rationalist Scholars and Yeshivah Students, the Overseer of the Guardian Angels of the Talmud. Come, I shall take you, as I have been ordered, to the Guardian Angel of Conception, that is to say, of Pregnancy."
And the cold angel took me and carried me so fast, the way a demon carries a scholar, the cold devoured me, and I fainted dead away. Suddenly- pow! I was standing on my feet, and a delicious warmth was pouring through all my parts. I raised my eyes and saw a palace of five hundred stories, constructed of all kinds of gems and jewels, in a beautiful garden with all sorts of plants: roses, flowers, and trees- a delight for the eyes. And above them, a dark blue curtain was spread with a golden moon in the center and diamond stars, all looking like a lovely summer night. The garden was full of thousands of paths running every which way, both open and concealed, and there were angels strolling about in couples, kissing one another, pouring out a sweet, tender song. Amuriel, the Guardian Angel of Love, armed with a bow and arrow, was shooting, and playing with cherubs, like children, lying hidden among dense branches. And his arrows hit their marks. At – each shot, a cherub would spring from his hiding-place . . . . It was delightful to stand there watching. Something lured me on, as when you recite the Song of Songs. And then I heard Amuriel's voice calling my name:  -"Ployne the son of Sosye!"
"Here I am," I said, "I'm ready!"
"If you're ready, then fine! I've been expecting you and I'm about to fulfill your request."
Having spoken these words, he turned to another angel and said: "Go and open the treasury of souls and bring me a lively little soul for this man." The angel hurried off on his errand, but soon he came back empty-handed.
What was wrong? They couldn't open the treasury, the key was gone!
There was an uproar, the angels scurried about in alarm, seeking high and low, until they found out, alas, that the rebbe of Boiberik had the key! Opening the hole in heaven through which the prayers from Boiberik came, they pleaded with the rebbe: "Damn it, give us the key for a barren woman!" But they were wasting their breath, he stuck to his guns: "No- let the woman come to me! . . ."
Amuriel became furious at the rabbi of Boiberik and poured out his anger on me and on all Jews: "You Jews are simply impossible! You grab the keys to all treasures, and you want to make us guardian angels your servants. You push in everywhere, and no rage in heaven is complete without you . . . .
"Where are you crawling?" he yelled at me. "Your place is down there in the Jewish district with the other Jews! What's a Jew doing up here? Kick him out!"
I got punched and kicked so much that I lost my senses. And when I opened my eyes, I found myself lying in bed in my own little cubicle, with the family standing around me, all talking at once: "He's come back from the dead! He's alive again!"
What was wrong? Can you imagine, I had been lying in a coma for three days!
A person lying in a coma looks dead, as everyone knows. His body is here in this world, but his soul is gone, it's hovering in heaven, as they say. There, they decide his fate: Should he come, should he go? Is he a goner, a newcomer. Should he come back to earth, where he came from, should he go on to the world to come? While they cast lots for his coming and going, the man's soul wanders freely around heaven, seeing wondrous sights. Very marvelous tales from olden days are told or else can be found in ancient tomes. These tales were told by people who had gone to heaven in a coma and then come back. Rabbi Joseph, the son of Joshua ben Levi. (says the Talmud) was very ill and fell into a deathlike coma.
When he regained consciousness, his father asked him: What did you see there? And the son told him that he saw something topsy-turvy- the lowered were raised, and the raised were lowered . . . . His father asked him: What about sages and scholars, how do things look for us up there? And the son replied, short and sharp: The same (so to speak) as here! .. . And he told him other, similar things.
Thus, if the whole matter of a coma is so important, no one will be surprised that people, big and little, young and old, fell upon me like locusts when I regained my strength, they were dying to have me tell about what was happening in heaven, and what was new up there. They were so eager that they drooled as they gazed at me in deep respect. If I had been smart, I would have known which side my bread was buttered on, in fact, I could have earned my bread and butter like many other heavenly people among us, who made an income from their comas. Like them, I could have told tales, vast exaggerations, and if the fools had heard them they would have loved them, and I would be swimming in gold. But I was a raw youth, boarding with my in-laws, I knew only the Talmud and little of the bitter taste of earning one's living at hard work. So, fool that I was, I stuck to the truth, and only told people what I knew. I told the same thing to our rabbi, Lord preserve him.
He asked me, as a scholar: "How are things for us Jews up there?" I replied: "They don't want us."
It was dreadful to see his face, the poor man, as he heaved a deep, heartfelt sigh.
And now, after all these things, my Evil Spirit, the Hassid, urged me all the more strongly with his dishonest gestures:
"So you see, simpleton, how revered and venerated he is up there, may God preserve him! C'mon, say something . . . ."
"It should only happen to our worst enemies," I muttered under my breath, remembering the abuse I had heard.
"So what!" he said, "what's the difference if they talk among themselves? But he is powerful, he does hold the world in his hands, and he does have the key to the treasures, and he can make decisions .... Just go to Boiberik! I simply don't understand what's eating you."
And something was really eating me! Boiberik was eating me! To me and to everyone around me, it seemed absolutely weird! And Jewish stubbornness was eating me, and having to put aside the Talmud, to which I had been accustomed ever since childhood. But on the other hand, I have to admit that, except for the reason that forced me to go there, I got to like Boiberik, it grew on me. Weird as the people of Boiberik may appear, if you look hard, you'll find few virtues in them. They're very devout. Gloom and worry are sins, ugh! The rabbi of Boiberik said people should be merry. All of them, young or old, rich or poor, maintain a comradely tone with one another. They're not so dry, not so cold, with somber troubles, like the Jews in my town. They can sometimes have a drink and dance a jig, not necessarily at Purim or the Feast of the Torah, but on an ordinary weekday. I was all prepared to follow my Evil Spirit, when suddenly something happened . . . .
My wife- can you imagine!- got pregnant without the Boiberik rebbe and she up and gave birth to twin boys!
This weakened my Evil Spirit a bit. Boiberik became less important to me, and I stood there like a Jew on the Sabbath, with one foot inside the prescribed Sabbath area and one foot outside it- I didn't know whether I was coming or going!.. I was neither here nor there!