Job Quotes

“Era como un segundo matrimonio, un matrimonio repetido, esta vez con la fealdad, con la amargura, con el envejecimiento progresivo de su mujer. Y, sin embargo, la sentía más cerca, casi asimilada a su cuerpo, inseparable y para siempre, pero insoportable, atormentadora y también un poco odiada. De ser una mujer con la que uno sólo se una en la penumbra, se había convertido como quien dice en una enfermedad, a la que está uno ligado día y noche, que le pertenece a uno del todo, que uno no tiene ya que compartir con nadie bajo cuya fiel hostilidad sucumbe”.”
― Joseph Roth, Job

“I have committed grave sins, and the Lord has closed his eyes. I have called him an izpravnik. He has covered his ears. He is so great that our badness becomes small.”
― Joseph Roth, Job

“One rainy day in summer the children dragged Menuchim out of the house and stuck him in a tub in which rainwater had been collecting for half a year, worms were floating around, fruit scraps and mouldy bread crusts. They held him by his crooked legs and plunged his broad gray head a dozen times into the water. Then they pulled him out, with pounding hearts, red cheeks, in the joyful and horrible expectation of holding up a corpse. But Menuchim lived. His breath rattled, he spat up the water, the worms, the mouldy bread, the fruit scraps and lived. Nothing happened to him. Then the children carried him silently and anxiously back into the house. A great fear before God's little finger, which had just waved very softly, seized the two boys and the girl.”
― Joseph Roth, Job

“It was as if he had only just now lost his homeland and in it Menuchim, the most faithful of all the dead, the farthest away of all the dead, the closest of all the dead.”
― Joseph Roth, Job

“I am no longer Mendel Singer. I am the remains of Mendel Singer.”
― Joseph Roth, Job

“Menuchim, Mendel's son, will grow healthy. There will not be many of his like in Israel. Pain will make him wise, ugliness kind, bitterness gentle, and illness strong. His eyes will be far and deep, his ears clear and full of echoes. His mouth will be silent, but when he opens his lips, they will herald good things.”
― Joseph Roth, Job

“God had bestowed fertility on his loins, equanimity on his heart and poverty on his hands.”
― Joseph Roth, Job

“El dolor le hará sabio. La deformidad, bondadoso. La amargura, tierno. Y la enfermedad, fuerte.”
― Joseph Roth, Job: Historia de un hombre sencillo

“Mira, Deborah, los vecinos vienen a verme, para consolarme. Pero a pesar de que son muchos y de que todos se estrujan el cerebro, no hallan consuelo para mi situación. Mi corazón aún late. Mis ojos aún ven. Mis miembros aún se mueven. Mis pies aún caminan. Como y bebo, rezo y respiro. Pero mi sangre se paraliza. Mis manos están marchitas. Mi corazón, vacío. Ya no soy Mendel Singer. Soy lo que queda de Mendel Singer. América nos ha matado.”
― Joseph Roth, Job: Historia de un hombre sencillo

“Tu vida fue una vida llena de miseria, sin sentido. Cuando éramos jóvenes gocé tu carne. En los últimos años la he desdeñado. Tal vez fuera ése nuestro pecado. Como el calor del amor no estaba en nosotros, sino el hielo de la costumbre, todo a nuestro alrededor ha muerto, todo se atrofió y se echó a perder. Tienes suerte, Deborah. El Señor ha tenido compasión de ti.”
― Joseph Roth, Job: Historia de un hombre sencillo