Nadirisms 36-38: The Nest that is Myself

36th Nadirism:

I am a nest for...thinkings, so be it. My poor thoughts come flying in, like birds soaked by the rain and battered by the storm, and they say: “Dear friend, let us in. If not, God forbid, we’ll have to spend the night out here.” I let the thinkings in; I give them the entire tent that is myself. There they frolic, sing, make love and...they forget about me. But I don’t begrudge them that. Just as the nest can resent neither the sparrows who built it, nor the emptiness, with its distant whistling, when the sparrows leave.

I am in your hands, my slaves! I must master my own end and I must be ready to come home for...shabes.

Do you understand me [now], my many thinkings?

Ikh bin mir a nest far...trakhtungen, gut. Kumen ontsuflien di bidne gedanken, vi feygl fun regn tsenetst, fun veter tsegesn un zogn: “guter frayn, loz arayn, anisht kumt undz oys, kholile, nekhtikn in droysn.” ikh loz arayn di trakhtungen, gib zey mayn gants ikh-getselt. Voyeven zey dortn, zingen, liblen zikh un...on mir fargesn zey. Ober keyn shlekht harts hob ikh af zey nisht. Vi di nest kon nisht hobn keyn beyz harts af di shvablen, vos hobn zi geboyt, vi af di leydikaytn, vos fayfn dortn, ven di shvablen flien avek.

Kh’bin ba aykh in di hent, shklafn mayne! Ikh muz derkinign mayn termin un fartik vern aheymforn af...shabes.

Farhsteyt ir mikh, trakhtungen mayne?

37th Nadirism:

...Once upon a time, people who smile to...Lady Immortality; these days, they hold her up for petty change.

...amolike yorn flegt men shmeykhln tsu...madam umshterblekhkayt. Haynt makht men af ir a “hold-op.”

38th Nadirism:

I’m publishing an article entitled “what should we be?” There I write that we have a good newspaper, but so what? We don’t know what we should be. Were we to be Zionist, we’d lose socialist readers. But if we were, on the other hand, to be something else, we still don’t know if it would be profitable, [let alone worth the trouble.] We have to make a decision unless we are to be nothing. But we can’t be that either...there’s simply too much competition in that department...

Ikh kum aroys mit an artikl vos heyst “vos zoln mir veln?” Dort dertseyl ikh az a blat hobn mir a guts, nor voden? Mir veysn nisht vos mir zoln veln. Zoln mir zayn tsienistish, veln mir farloyrn sotsialistishe leyners...ele vider zoln mir zayn epes andersh, veysn mir oykh nisht tsi se loynt zikh...kumt oys, haydn zayn gornisht. Un dos konen mir oykh nisht, vayl di konkurents...iz tsu groys...

By Moyshe Nadir

Translated by Corbin Allardice