Jacob Takes His Bride

052

Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in to her.”

And Laban gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast.

Now it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter and brought her to Jacob; and he went in to her.

And Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah as a maid.

And it came to pass in the morning, that behold, it was Leah. And he said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I served you? Why then have you deceived me?”

And Laban said, “It must not be done so in our country to give the younger before the firstborn.

“Fulfill her week, and we will give you this one also for the service which you will serve with me still another seven years.”

And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week. And he gave him his daughter Rachel to wife also.

(Genesis 29:21–28)

Laban and Jacob often took counsel together over the approaching …nuptial celebrations, and how Laban in general thought to hold the feast; … Jacob learned that his, father-in-law had ambitious plans and meant to celebrate regardless of expense.

“It will cost me,” Laban said, “a pretty penny, for there are now many more mouths, and I must feed them. But I shall not rue it, for lo, trade is not at all bad, rather fairly favourable in these times, thanks to many circumstances among which we should mention the blessing of Isaac. Therefore it is I can pay for more labour in the court, and have bought two maids in addition to that lazy Iltani, and they are quite seemly wenches, named Zilpah and Bilhah. And on the wedding days I will give these to my two daughters, Zilpah to Leah my eldest and to the second Bilhah. And at the marriage will the maid be thine, and I will give her thee as dowry and her price shall be reckoned as two-thirds of the mina of silver, according to our contract.”

“I embrace thee in thanks,” said Jacob, shrugging his shoulders.

“But that is the least of it,” went on Laban. “For all the feast will be at my sole charge, and I will 053invite people on the sabbath from far and near and have musicians who shall play and dance, and I will lay two bullocks and four sheep upon their backs, and comfort the guests with drink until they see all things double. All that will be a heavy charge but I will bear it and not pull a long face for is it not my daughter’s wedding? And besides I have in mind to make the bride a gift, that she may wear it and it will rejoice her heart. I bought it long ago of a traveller, and it cost much money and I have kept it in the chest: a veil, for the bride to shroud herself in, that she may be holy unto Ishtar and a consecrated one, whose veil also thou shalt lift. It may have belonged to a king’s daughter in times past, being the maiden garment of a daughter of princes, so artfully is it embroidered throughout with manifold symbols of Ishtar and Tammuz, but she, the spotless one, shall veil her head in it. For immaculate is she…, like to the bride of heaven, whom each year at the feast of Ishtar, the priests at Babel lead up to God before all the people up the steps of the stairs and through the seven gates, and take from her some piece of her garment and her ornaments at every gate, and at the last gate her shame, and they lead the holy maid naked into the uppermost bedchamber of the tower E-temenanki. There she receives the god upon the bed in the darkness of the night and exceedingly great is the mystery.”

“H’m,” said Jacob. For Laban opened wide his eyes and spread out his fingers at the sides of his head and put on an air of sanctimoniousness that in his nephew’s view suited him not at all. Laban continued:

“Of course, it is very fine and lovely when the bridegroom hath a house and court of his own, or is held in great esteem in the house of his parents, whence he cometh in great pomp to fetch the bride and to lead her in procession by land or by water to his own place, and his inheritance. But thou as thou knowest an but a fugitive and homeless man, fallen out with thine own, and sittest with me as my son-in-law, and I make no complaint. There will be no bridal procession by land or water, and you will sojourn here after the feast and the nuptial night; but when I have come between you and touched your foreheads, then we shall do as is the custom of our land in these cases and lead you with singing round the court and into the bridal chamber. Thou shalt sit there upon the bed with a flower in thy hand, and await the bride. For her too, the spotless one, shall we lead round about the court with torches and singing, and at the door of the chamber we put out the torches, and I lead the devoted one in unto thee, and leave you, that thou mayest hand her the flower in the darkness.”

“Is that the custom and lawful?” asked Jacob.

“Far and wide, thou sayest it,” replied Laban.

“Then will I also approve it,” responded Jacob. “And I assume that there will likewise be a torch burning, or a little lamp with a wick, that I may see my bride when I hand her the flower and also afterwards.”

“Be silent,” cried Laban. “Would I might know what thou hast in thy mind, with thy unchaste speaking, to speak so before the father, to whom it is moreover painful and bitter to lead his child in unto a man that he may uncover her and sleep with her. At least in my presence hold thy lewd tongue and belonged restrain within thyself thy overgreat lustfulness. For hast thou not hands to see, and must thou also swallow up the spotless one with thine eyes to sharpen thy lust upon her shame and her maiden trembling? Have respect before the mystery of the high tower!”

“Pardon! said Jacob, “and forgive me. I have not meant it so unchastely in my thoughts as it soundeth in my mouth. Gladly would I have looked upon my bride with my eyes. But since it is far and wide the custom to do as thou sayest, I will be satisfied for the time.”

Thus the day of the fullness of splendor came on, and the nuptial feast, and in the house of Laban, the exceedingly prosperous breeder of sheep, and in his court, there was a slaughtering and a seething and roasting and brewing, so that everything steamed and all was bustle and noise, and all eyes watered from the smoke of the fires that burned under pots and ovens. For Laban was saving of charcoal and heated almost altogether with thorns and dung. And the master and mistress, and all that were in the house, including Jacob, hurried on the work and the servants, to make hospitality for so many and to prepare the banquet; for the wedding would last seven days and for all that time the supplies must be inexhaustible, of cakes and buns and fish bread, of thick soups and plantains and milk dishes, of beer and fruit juices and strong waters, not to mention the roasted mutton and joints of beef—else shame and mockery would be the portion of the household.

Rachel [only] sat still and idle in the house—for she might not see the bridegroom now nor he his bride—and examined the costly veil, her father’s present, which she should wear at the feast. It was splendid to see, a magnificent specimen of the arts of weaving and embroidering.… It was large and broad, a garment and over-garment, with wide sleeves to put one’s arms in at will; so cut that a piece of it could either be drawn over the head to cover it or else wound about the head and shoulders, or else left to hang down the back. And the maiden garment weighed uncertainly in the hand, for it was heavy and light at once, and of unequal weight in 054different places. The background was of palest blue, woven thin and fine as a breath of air, a misty nothing, to be squeezed together in one hand, and yet weighted heavily everywhere by the embroidered pictures which covered it with brilliant, glittering colours, carried out in close, fine work, in gold and silver and bronze, and every imaginable shade: white, purple, rose and olive, likewise black and white, all blended together like paintings in bright enamel. … The garment slipped through Rachel’s hands.

She sat and played with the bright-coloured weave, the splendid garment and veil; she wrapped it round her and turned herself about in it, she found new ways to drape its picture-book transparency. Thus she beguiled the time while she waited and the others prepared the feast. Sometime she had visits from Leah, her sister, who also tried the beauties of the veil upon her own person and afterwards they sat together, and caressed each other, with tears. Why did they weep? They alone knew—though I might go so far as to say that they had different reasons.

When Jacob sat and mused, with swimming gaze, and all the tales that had written themselves in the lines of his face and weighed down his life with their dignified burden came back and were present in his mind, as they had been on the day when he and his red-haired twin [Esau] had buried their father; then there was one day, and one story, which possessed beyond all others this power of presentness…that was like a rebirth and resurrection. … Present, I say, before all, was the story of his wedding day.

They had all, the people of Laban, washed their heads and limbs in the water of the blessed pond, had anointed and curled themselves to their taste, put on their festal garments and burned much fragrant oil, to receive the incoming guests with a sweet savour. And they came, on foot, on the backs of asses, in carts drawn by bullocks and mules, men alone, men with women, even with children, if they could not be left at home: the peasants and cattle-breeders of the neighbourhood, likewise anointed and curled and clad in festal garments; people like Laban, of the same heavy-handed tribe, with the same prosaic habits of thought. They saluted, hand to forehead, made enquiry into the health of all and sundry, and then settled down in house and court, round cook-pots and shaded tables. Water having been poured over their hands and feet, they smacked their lips and fell to upon the lengthy meal, amid loud invocations in praise of Shamash and of Laban, father of the bride and giver of the feast. The banquet was laid in the outer court … between the storehouses, as well as in the inner court round the altar, on the roof of the house and in the wooden galleries; and round the altar were grouped the musicians hired from Harran—they played on harps, drums and cymbals and likewise danced. The day was windy, the evening still more so. Clouds glided over the moon, hiding her altogether from time to time, a bad omen to many of those present though they did not expressly say so. They were simple folk, and made no distinction between complete darkening and a cloud passing over her face. A sultry wind went sighing through the steading, got caught in the chimney of the storehouses, made the tall poplars creak and groan, and whirling among the savours of the feast, the odours of the anointed guests and the fumes of the cookery, mingled them all together in gusts of vapour, and seemed to try to snatch the flames from the tripods where nard-grass and budulhu-gum were burning. Jacob, when he recalled his wedding day, always recognized in his nostrils that wind-driven mingling of spices and sweat and roasted meats.

He sat with the family among the feasting guests in the upper room, where seven years before he had first broken bread with his stranger kin; sat with the master, his fruitful wife and their daughters at a table heaped up with dessert and dainties of various sorts, sweet breads and dates, cucumbers and garlic, and pledged the guests who lifted their glasses to him and Laban. Rachel, his bride, whom soon he should receive for his own, sat beside him, and he kissed from time to time the seam of her veil that enveloped her in its heavy picture-folds. She did not lift it to eat or drink; it seemed the consecrated one’s hunger had been satisfied earlier. She sat quiet and silent, only bending meekly her shrouded head when he kissed her veil. Jacob too sat silent and dreamy, with a flower in his hand, a blossoming twig of myrtle from Laban’s well-watered garden. He had drunk beer and date wine and his senses were somewhat clouded; his soul could neither free itself for thought nor rouse itself to observation, but was heavy inside his anointed body, and his body was his soul. Gladly would he have thought, gladly comprehended how his god had brought all this to pass; how he had brought the beloved in the way of the fugitive, the human creature whom he had but need to behold for his heart to elect her and love her for all time and eternity—beyond itself, and in the children whom his love would beget. He tried to rejoice in his victory over time, that hard time of waiting, laid upon him, it seemed, in penance for Esau’s undoing and his bitter weeping; to lay it at the feet of God the Lord, in thanks and praise, this triumph…what had been but inward wish and waiting was now the present, and Rachel sat beside him in the veil, which in a little while he would be permitted to lift. He tried to partake of this joy in his soul. But with joy it 055is as with the waiting for it; the longer one waits, the less it is pure joy, the more it is filled with practical activities and living needs. And when it comes, that joy so actively awaited, it is not of the stuff of the divine, but has become bodily present and has material weight, like all life. For the life of the body is never pure bliss, but a mixture, in part unpleasant, and if joy becomes the life of the body the soul does also, and is no longer anything else but the body, with the oil-soaked pores, whose affair that once distant bliss has now become. Jacob sat, and spanned his thighs, and thought of his sex.

Laban sat opposite, leaning forward with his heavy arm on the table and looking steadfastly at his son-in-law.

“Rejoice, my son and my sister’s son, for thy hour is at hand and the day of rewarding, and thou shalt be paid the reward according to law and contract for the seven years that thou hast laboured for my house and my business to the reasonable satisfaction of its head. And the reward is neither goods nor gold but a tender maiden, my daughter, whom thy heart desireth, and thou shalt have her after thy heart’s desire, and she shall be submissive to thee in thy arms. I marvel how thy heart may be beating…[as] when in thy father’s tent thou wonnest the complete: blessing, as thou hast told me, thou crafty one and son of a crafty woman!”

Jacob did not hear. But Laban mocked at him with gross words before the guests:

“Tell me, then, son-in-law, hear me and answer how dost feel? Dost thou quake before the bliss of embracing thy bride? Hast thou not fear as once in that matter of the blessing, when thou wentest in to thy father with thy knees shaking? Didst thou not say the sweat ran down thy thighs for dread and thy voice stuck in thy throat even when thou wouldst win the blessing away from Esau the accursed? Thou happy man, pray that joy take not away thy manliness in the moment when thou needest it most—else the bride might take it ill!”

They all roared with laughter in the upper room, and…Jacob smiled and kissed the picture of Ishtar to whom God had given the hour. But Laban got heavily to his feet, swaying somewhat, and said: “Come then, for it is midnight, come up to me and I will put you together.”

The crowd pressed close to see Jacob and Rachel kneel down on the paved floor before the bride’s father, and to hear how Jacob answered to the questions according to custom. For Laban asked him whether this woman should be his wedded wife and he her husband, and if he willed to give her the flower—to which he answered yes. Asked whether he was well-born, whether he would make rich this woman and fruitful her womb; Jacob answered that he was the son of the great and would fill her lap with silver and gold and make fruitful this woman like the fruit of the garden. Then Laban touched both their foreheads, and stepped between them and laid his hands upon them. Then he told them to stand up and embrace each other and that they were wed. And he led the dedicated one back to her mother, but the nephew he took by the hand and led him in front of the guests, who crowded after, beginning to sing. They passed down the brick staircase into the paved court and the musicians left their stand and walked before them. Next came boys with torches and after them children in short smocks with censers hanging between chains. Jacob, led by Laban, walked in the sweet-smelling cloud, with the white blossoming myrtle twig in his right hand. He did not join in the traditional songs that swelled up as they marched, and only hummed a little when Laban nudged him and told him to open his mouth. But Laban sang in a love heavy bass and knew all the songs by heart; they were sentimental and amorous ditties about loving couples in general, on the verge of their nuptials, and how on both sides they can scarcely together wait. … And so they marched, in the windy, moon-darkened night, round Laban’s steading, once and twice, and came before the house and before the house door of palm-wood, and Laban passed through, with the musicians in the lead, and came to the bed-chamber on the ground floor, that likewise had a door, and Laban led in Jacob by the hand. He made light with the torches, that Jacob might see into the room and make out the position of table and bed. Then he wished him blessings on his manhood and turned back to the company that crowded about the doorway. They went away, singing as they went, and Jacob was alone.

After long decades, and in his great age, and even on his dying bed, where he still spoke solemnly of it, Jacob remembered naught more clearly than how he had stood alone in the darkness of the bridal chamber, where it blew, and was draughty, for the night wind burst through the window-openings under the roof and out again through the openings on the side toward the court, getting caught in the carpets and hangings with which, as Jacob had seen by the torchlight, they had adorned the walls.

Jacob … stood in the wind and the darkness while the train was fetching the bride and filling 056house and court with the noise of their singing and the trampling of their feet. He sat down on the bed and listened, the flower in his hand. The procession was leaving the house again, with the harps and cymbals at its head, bringing Rachel, his beloved, to whom all his heart belonged, and she walked there in her veil. Laban led her by the hand as he had done Jacob. … At last he heard the words:

“My beloved is mine, he is altogether mine;

I am a garden enclosed, full of pleasant fruits and

full of the odours of the finest spices.

Come, O beloved into thy garden!

Eat of thy pleasant fruits, take unto thee the

refreshment of their juices!”

The feet of those who sang were before the door, and the door opened a little so that snatches of the song and the music came through, and then the veiled one was in the room, ushered by Laban, who closed the door quickly and they were alone in the darkness.

“Is it thou, Rachel?” Jacob asked after a little while, during which he had waited for those outside to move away from the door. He asks as one says: “Have you returned from your journey?” when the traveller stands there in the flesh and it cannot be otherwise than that he has returned, so that the question is nonsense, only asked that the voice may be heard and the traveller does not answer but can only laugh. But Jacob heard that she bent her head, he knew it from the faint rustling and rattling of the light-heavy veil.

“Thou beloved, little one, my dove, and apple of my eye, heart of my heart,” he said fervently. “It is so dark … and bloweth. … I am sitting here upon the bed, if thou hast not seen it, straight into the room. … Comest thou now? Gladly would I come to meet thee, but that probably I may not, for it is by law and custom that I hand thee the flower while sitting, and though no one seeth us, yet we will hold to that which is prescribed, that we may be well and truly wedded as we have steadfastly desired through so many years of waiting.”

The thought overcame him, his voice broke. Memories of the time when in patience and impatience he had arisen for the sake of this hour, laid behold on him mightily and moved him to the depths; and the thought that she had waited with him and now on her side saw herself at the goal of her desires stirred the tenderest emotions of his heart. Such is love, when it is complete: feeling and lust together, tenderness and desire; and while feeling made the tears gush out of Jacob’s eyes, at the same time he felt the tension of his manhood.

“Here art thou,” he said, “thou hast found me in the darkness, as I found thee after more than seventeen days’ journey and thou camest on among the sheep and spoke: ‘Behold, a stranger!’ Then we chose each other among men and I have served for thee seven years and the time lies at our feet. My doe and my dove, here is the flower. Thou seest it and findest it not, and therefore I will guide thy hand to the twig that thou mayest take it, and I give it to thee and thus we are one. But thy hand I keep, since I so love it, and I love the bones of thy wrist, so well known unto me that I know it again in the darkness. … My sister, my love, let thyself down to me and sit by my side. … How good is God, that He lets us be two alone together, thee by me and me by thee! For I love only thee, for the sake of thy face that I cannot now see but saw a thousand times and kissed for very love, for it is thy loveliness that crowns thy body as with roses, and when I think that thou art Rachel, with whom I have often been, yet never thus, and who waited for me and likewise now waiteth for me, and upon my hast tenderness, then a bliss cometh upon me stronger than I am, so me that it overcometh me. … Tell me, my soul, thou too art enraptured by the greatness of this hour?”

“I am thine in bliss, dear lord,” she softly said.

“That might have been Leah who spoke, thy older sister,” he answered. “Not according to the sense, of course, but in the way of speaking. The voices of sisters are alike, indeed, and words come from their mouths with the same sound. For the same father begot them, upon the same mother, and they are a little distinguished in time and move with separate movement, yet are one in the womb of their origin. … [But] let us be glad of the distinction, that thou art Rachel and I Jacob, and not for instance Esau, my red brother! My forefathers and I, at night beside the flocks, have pondered much upon the person of God, who He is, and our children and our children’s children will follow us in our musings. But I at this hour will say and make clear my words, that the darkness may roll back away from them: ‘God is the distinction!’ And therefore now I lift thy veil, beloved, that I may see thee with seeing hands. … Lo, here is thy hair, black but comely, I know it so well, I know the fragrance of it, I carry it to my lips and what power hath darkness over it? It cannot come in between my lips and thy hair. Here are thine eyes, smiling night in the night, and their tender sockets and the soft places beneath them where so many a 057time I have kissed away the impatient tears, and my lips were wet from them. Here are thy cheeks, soft as down and the costliest wool of goats from strange lands. Here thy shoulders, which feel to mine hands larger than I see them in the day, and here thine arms, and here—”

He ceased. As his seeing hands left her face and found her body and the skin of her body, Ishtar pierced them both to the marrow, the bull of heaven breathed and its breath was as the breath of both that mingled. And all that windy night did Jacob find the child of Laban a glorious mate, great in delights and mighty to conceive, and she received him many times.

Later he slept on the ground beside her, for the bed was narrow and he gave her room and comfort for her rest, sleeping himself crouching beside the bed, with his cheek against her hand that hung over the edge. The morning dawned. Dim red and hushed it stood before the windows, and slowly filled with light the bridal chamber. It was Jacob who first awaked, from the daylight between his lids, and from the stillness; for until deep into the night the feasting had continued, with much laughter and noise in house and court, and only toward morning, when the bridal pair already slept, had quiet descended. And also he was uncomfortable—though how joyfully—and waked the easier. He stirred and felt her hand, remembering everything and turned his mouth to kiss it. Then raised his head to see his dear one in her slumbers. With eyes heavy and sticky from sleep, still unwilling to focus, he looked at her. And it was Leah.

He dropped his eyes and shook his head with a smile. “Ah,” thought he, while even then a chill crept round his heart and into the pit of his stomach, “what madness, what a morning-after mockery! Darkness was hung before mine eyes, and now that they are unblinded they see false things. Are then sisters so mysteriously alike, and show it in their sleep, though no likeness shows itself in their features? Let me look again!”

But he did not look, because he feared to, and what he said to himself was only a panic-struck gabbling. He had seen that she was blonde, and her nose somewhat red. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and forced himself to look. It was Leah who lay and slept.

The thoughts tumbled over each other in his head. How came Leah here, and where was Rachel, whom they had brought in unto him and whom he had known this night? He staggered backwards away from the bed into the middle of the room and stood there in his shin, his fists to his cheeks. “Leah!” he screamed, in a strangled voice. She sat up at once. She blinked, smiled, and dropped her eyelids as he had so often seen her do. One shoulder and breast were bare; they were white and beautiful.

“Jacob, my husband,” she said, “let it be so, according to the father’s will. For he would have it so and so arranged it, and the gods shall give me that to make thee thank both him and them.”

“Leah,” he stammered, and he pointed to his throat, his breast and his brow, “since when is it thou?”

“Always it was I,” she answered, “and I was thine this night ever since I entered in the veil. And always I was tender toward thee and ready as Rachel, since I saw thee from the roof; and have I not proved it to thee the whole of this night? For say thyself if I have not served thee as well as any woman could, and been strong in desire! And certain I am in my inwards that I have conceived from thee, and it shall be a son, strong and brave, and we shall call his name Reuben.”

Then Jacob cast back and bethought himself how he had taken her for Rachel this night, and he went to the wall and laid his arm along it and his forehead on his arm and wept bitterly.

Thus for some while he stood, torn by his emotions, and each time the thought returned, how he had believed and had known her, how all his joy had been delusion and the hour of fulfilment turned to shame, for which he had served and conquered the time, it was with him as though his stomach and his brain turned over within him, and he despaired with his whole soul. But Leah knew no more to say, and only wept likewise, from time to time. … For she saw how little it had been she who had again and again received him, and only the thought that she would now in all probability have a fine son named Reuben came to strengthen her heart.

Then he left her and rushed out of the chamber. He had almost stumbled over the sleepers that lay everywhere outside in house and court, in the disorder from the feast, on the covers and mats or on the bare ground, sleeping off their debauch. “Laban!” he cried, and stepped over forms that emitted surly grunts, stretched out and snored again. “Laban!” he repeated more quietly, for torment and bitterness and the fierce demand for a reckoning did not slay in him all consideration for these sleepers … “Laban! where an thou?” And came before the master’s chamber, where he lay with Adina his wife, knocked and cried: “Laban, come forth!”

“What, what!” answered Laban from within. “Who is it calleth me in the early dawn, after I have been sleeping”

“It is I. Thou must come out!” Jacob cried.

“Oh, indeed,” said Laban. “So it is my son-in-law that, calleth, and sayeth ‘I,’ like a child, as though one could tell from that alone who he is, but I know the 058voice and will come forth to hear what he hath to tell to me in the dawning, though just then I was enjoying my best sleep.” And came forth in his shift, with rumpled hair, and blinking.

“I was asleep,” he repeated. “Such a deep sleep and doing me so much good. How comes it thou thyself sleepest not or dost according to thy new state?”

“It is Leah,” said Jacob, with trembling lips.

“Of a surety,” replied Laban, “and callest thou me in the grey dawn out of beneficent slumber after heavy drinking to tell me what I know as well as thou?”

“Thou monster, thou tiger, thou devilish man!” cried Jacob beside himself. “I tell thee not that thou mayest know it, but to show thee I know it and to bring thee to accounting in my torment.”

“Take care of thy voice above all then,” said Laban, “that thou lowerest it considerably. … ”

[Jacob answered,] “Thou hast deceived me beyond all bounds, with cruelty and shamelessness, and hast privily brought in Leah to me, thy elder daughter, in the place of Rachel for whom I have served thee. How shall I then deal with thee and with me?”

“Hearken now,” said Laban, “there are words which thou hadst best not take upon thy tongue and shouldst shame thyself to utter them aloud; for in Amurruland there sits as I know a shaggy-haired man [Esau] who weeps and tears his fleece and seeks after thy life, and he it is might well speak of deception. It is unpleasant when a man must blush him for another man because he blusheth not for himself, and thus standeth it at the moment between thee and me because of thy ill-chosen words. Sayst thou I have betrayed thee? In what respect? Have I brought in unto thee a bride who was no longer unspotted and unworthy to mount the seven stairs into the arms of the god? Or have I brought thee one deformed and incapable in body or who cried out at the hurt thou gavest her, and was not willing and serviceable to thee in thy lust? Is it after this fashion I have betrayed thee?”

“No,” Jacob said, “not after such a fashion. Leah is great in conceiving. But thou hast gone behind me and duped me, and made it so that I did not see and took Leah for Rachel throughout the night, and I have given to the wrong one my soul and all the best of my strength, so that it repenteth me beyond my power to utter. This, thou wolf-man, hast thou done unto me.”

“And thou callest it betraying and shamelessly likenest me to wild beasts and evil spirits because I held with the custom and as a righteous man did not presume to reject that which is sacred and traditional? I know not how such things are in Amurruland … but in our land we give not the younger before the elder; that would be to smite tradition in the face, and I am a respectable man and law-abiding. Thus did I what I did, and dealt wisely against thy unreason and like a father who knoweth what is owing to his children. For thou hast bluntly affronted my love to my eldest born, saying to me ‘Leah speaketh not unto my manly desires.’ And therefore hast thou not deserved a correction and called down upon thee an admonishment? For now thou hast seen whether she speaketh to thy manly desires or no!”

“I have seen nothing at all,” Jacob cried. “It was Rachel whom I embraced.”

“Yes, so the dawning hath proven,” answered Laban mockingly; “but the truth is that Rachel, my little one, hath nothing whereover to complain. For the reality was Leah’s but the intent was Rachel’s. And now have I also taught thee the intent for Leah, and whichsoever thou embracest in the future there will be the reality as well as the intent.”

“Wilt thou then give me Rachel?” Jacob asked.

“Of a surety,” answered Laban. “If thou wilt have her and pay me the legal price, thou shalt have her.”

But Jacob cried:

“I have served thee for Rachel seven years!”

“Thou hast,” responded Laban with dignity and solemnity, “served me for a child. Wilt thou now have the second, as would be agreeable unto me, then thou must pay again.”

“Wolf-man!” cried Jacob, hardly restraining himself “And thou wilt give me Rachel only after another seven years!”

“Who hath said so?” countered Laban, superiorly. “Who hath even so much as suggested such a thing? Thou alone pratest without any reason and in thy haste comparest me to a werewolf; for I am a father and I will not that my child pine after the man until he is old. Go thou now to thy right place and keep thy week and thine honour. Then shall the second be given thee in all stillness, and thou shalt serve me as her husband other seven years.”

Jacob hung his head and was silent.

“Thou art silent,” Laban said, “and canst not bring it over thyself to fall at my feet. Truly I am curious, whether I shall yet succeed to awaken thy heart to thankfulness. That I stand here in the dawning in my shift, disturbed out of my most needful slumber and deal with thee, it seems is not enough to engender in thee such a feeling. I have not mentioned yet that with the second child thou receivest likewise the second maid which I bought. For to Leah I give Zilpah as dowry, and to Rachel Bilhah, and two-thirds of the mina of silver that I give thee shall be reckoned in. Thus thou hast four 059wives overnight and a women’s house like the king of Babel, thou that sattest so lately barren and forlorn.”

Jacob still kept silence.

“Thou cruel man,” he said at last, with a sigh. “Thou knowest not what thou hast done unto me; thou knowest and thinkest not on it, I must believe, nor can have any imagining of it in thy iron heart. I have squandered my soul and all the best of me upon the wrong woman this night, and that crusheth my heart together at thought of the right one for whom it was meant and I shall have to do with Leah all the week, and when my flesh is weary for I am only human, and it is sated and my soul all too drowsy for high feelings, then shall I be given the right one, Rachel, my treasure. And thou thinkest it is good so. But that can never be made good, which thou hast done to me and to Rachel thy child, and even unto Leah, who sitteth there upon her bed in tears because I had her not in my mind.”

“Dost thou mean,” Laban asked, “that after the marriage week with Leah thou wilt have no more manhood left to make fruitful the second?”

“Not that, may God forbid,” answered Jacob.

“All the rest is whimseys and moonshine,” concluded Laban. “Art satisfied with our new contract, and shall it be so or no between me and thee?”

“Yea, it shall be so,” said Jacob, and went back to Leah.

Copyright 1943 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Excerpted from Joseph and His Brothers, by Thomas Mann, translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter, by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in to her.”