Summary

In the rabbi’s study, Ester thinks that “something had sprung alive in her these years – slowly at first, then more powerfully with every passing day … Something had seized her. The city, its books” (176). At least once per month the rabbi sends her to arrange for books to be bound. She has “long feared a day” when the rabbi might realize that his library has grown larger than the needs of the household; now the rabbi can only study a few hours per day before he is overcome with fatigue, and only five of his pupils remain (176).

Jews are not permitted to touch the “the holiest books” and women could not even approach the Torah; among the Gentiles, all books are accessible (176). It has taken weeks for Ester to touch a Christian text, books that involve “questing inward, as though truth were to be...