The Faraway Bride · Chapter
II explained
Tobit returns home for Pentecost, but his joy turns to sorrow when he learns of a strangled countryman.
What happens
Tobit returns home for Pentecost, but his joy turns to sorrow when he learns of a strangled countryman. He buries the dead despite mockery, and that night is blinded by sparrow droppings. His wife Anna takes up sewing and receives a kid goat as a gift, but Tobit suspects it is stolen, leading to a bitter argument.
Themes in this chapter
Moral Ambiguity and Self-Deception
Tobit's insistence that the kid is stolen, despite Anna's explanation, reveals his self-righteousness and blindness to his own failings.
Suffering and Redemption
Tobit's blindness and the mockery he endures for burying the dead exemplify suffering that may lead to eventual redemption.
Characters to notice
- Tobit
Returns home for Pentecost, buries a dead countryman, is blinded by sparrows, and argues with Anna over the kid goat.
- Anna Semionovna
Takes up women's work, receives a kid goat as a gift, and defends herself against Tobit's accusations of theft.
- Seryozha
Sent by Tobit to find a poor man; reports the strangled countryman.
Key passages
“And when I saw abundance of meat, I said to my son, Go and bring what poor man soever thou shalt find out of our brethren, who is mindful of the Lord; and, lo, I tarry for thee.”
Seeing the plentiful feast, Tobit instructs his son to find a poor, God-fearing man to share the meal.
Tobit's piety and charity are immediately established.
“But he came again and said, Father, one of our nation is strangled, and is cast out in the market place.”
Seryozha returns to report that a fellow Israelite has been murdered and left in the marketplace.
The discovery of the corpse sets the tragedy in motion.
“Then before I had tasted of any meat, I started up, and took him up into a room until the going down of the sun.”
Without eating, Tobit immediately retrieves the body and brings it inside until sunset.
Tobit's urgent response shows his commitment to burial rites.
“But my neighbours mocked me, and said, This man is not yet afraid to be put to death for this matter: who fled away; and yet, lo, he burieth the dead again.”
The neighbors ridicule Tobit for risking execution by burying the dead, recalling his previous flight.
The mockery highlights the danger and social pressure Tobit faces.
“And I knew not that there were sparrows in the wall, and mine eyes being open, the sparrows muted warm dung into mine eyes, and a whiteness came in mine eyes; and I went to the physicians, but they helped me not.”
Unaware of sparrows nesting in the wall, Tobit is blinded by their droppings, and doctors are unable to cure him.
The blinding is a pivotal moment of physical suffering.
“And my wife Anna did take women’s works to do. And when she had sent them home to the owners, they paid her wages, and gave her also besides a kid.”
Anna takes up sewing for others, and in addition to her wages, she receives a kid goat as a gift.
Anna's industriousness and the gift of the kid become a source of conflict.