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task. Of course he had had a Master, but he had turned out to be a clandestine Sabatean who aimed to redeem the world through sin. His Master spoke of the Messiah but was really referring to the imposter; he glorified the Shekinah but described her in terms of a sensual and vigorous woman, his own. While ostensibly initiating his disciple into the splendors of the secret tradition, he was in fact awakening him to forbidden lust and sensual play. “I who aspired to purity, I who saw my body as an obstacle, here I was, letting myself be lulled by sinful visions …” I told him I envied him. He had set a goal for himself, I had not. His exile was limited, mine was not. Every day brought him closer to deliverance.
    “How do you know?” he muttered impatiently. “Man’s goal is not defined by man. We are all too weak, too ignorant to foresee the outcome of our plans. True encounters are those set in heaven, and we are not consulted. Look, what if I told youthat the sole purpose of your wanderings was to hear me speak on this winter night in Dragmuresh?”
    I started. “Dragmuresh? You say we are in Dragmuresh? And here I was thinking I was in Petrova.”
    I am not sorry I mistook one village for another. Just as all suffering is a test invented by God, the sorrow of having been subjected to it is an invention of the devil.
    Another encounter, elsewhere, with another kind of
Na-venadnik
. Abrasha, like myself, wandered from one Jewish community to the next, though not as a penitent but as an agent of the Komintern. His mission was to arouse the youth, organize and activate it, arm and integrate it into the international revolutionary movement. A speaker of talent, a born activist, Abrasha succeeded so well with his recruitment campaign that every police force of the region was at his heels. There was a price on his head; his description was posted on every wall. He slipped through their nets with the help of his sympathizers. But he still had to reckon with parental hostility. Pious for the most part, parents fought emancipation and assimilation as much as atheism. To them communism represented both aberration of the mind and repudiation of the holy tradition. Therefore, it had to be opposed with vigor; all the more since the young, yearning for freedom, eagerly listened to its message.
    “You could be of real help to me,” Abrasha was saying. “You could take charge of a sector which as an outsider is closed to me: the Yeshivoth, the Talmudic schools. This is unbroken ground, unjustly so. My instinct is sure, infallible, in this domain. There are, inside the Yeshivoth, numerous, unsuspected comrades. They are waiting only for a signal, a firstcontact, to join us and militate with us. They are waiting only for you.”
    We had met at the outskirts of Batizov, a tiny hamlet in the mountains. Chased by an unfriendly dog, we were crossing the forest together. I had not disclosed to him who I was nor whence I came; as for my destination, I knew as little about that as he did. To him I was one of those mystical vagabonds he termed the true outcasts of the earth.
    “You could keep up your way of life,” he said. “You would be my double. Together we would accomplish—I was about to say miracles, but no—useful, important things. We would help our fellow-men, transform them into free and happy creatures. We would abolish slavery and injustice. We would build a new society, create a new man …”
    “All that?” I exclaimed. “Aren’t you overestimating my abilities?”
    “Therein lies the beauty of the revolutionary ideal. You and I must change the world. You and I—that is a lot. You think we are alone? The movement has many comrades like you and me.”
    Robust, energetic, dynamic and obstinate to boot, he impressed me.
    “All that is very nice,” I said, “but …”
    “But what?”
    “You want me to be your double? You must be joking. Did you take a good look at me?”
    “Appearances, you worry about