In the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing, Moshe is awak­ened by a knock­ing at the door while he sits beside his ill wife Chona, who is rest­ing in bed. His anx­i­ety about her health is pal­pa­ble but is dis­rupt­ed when Addie informs him of a vis­i­tor — a man who has bought Mr. Fabicelli’s bak­ery. She describes him as want­i­ng to dis­cuss “hollers,” a term Moshe mis­hears as odd.

Frus­trat­ed by the dis­tur­bance, Moshe urges Addie to send the man away, yet she insists he is per­sis­tent and has vis­it­ed mul­ti­ple times. Moshe wres­tles with his feel­ings of help­less­ness, rem­i­nisc­ing about how Chona and Addie have always tak­en care of him, leav­ing him unac­cus­tomed to the role of deci­sion-mak­er. His hes­i­ta­tion man­i­fests as he con­tem­plates what he would do if Chona were to wake while he’s down­stairs.

He decides to con­front the man, who turns out to be small and stout, adorned with a thin mus­tache and imp­ish eyes. Their ini­tial inter­ac­tion is com­bat­ive, as Moshe firm­ly tells the man to leave, but the stranger insists he’s in need of flour for mak­ing chal­lah bread. The sit­u­a­tion esca­lates phys­i­cal­ly when Moshe attempts to close the door, but the man holds it open. As ten­sions rise, Moshe feels an over­whelm­ing sense of fatigue and help­less­ness, pos­si­bly wish­ing for back­up from friends or fam­i­ly.

The stranger per­sists, reveal­ing his iden­ti­ty as a dancer and bold­ly claim­ing that Moshe had sug­gest­ed he should attend a dance. As the man insists on tak­ing flour, Moshe attempts to turn the con­ver­sa­tion to what he con­sid­ers his pride — his wife’s health. The stranger even­tu­al­ly extends an offer of friend­ship, affirm­ing that he has found a wife, caus­ing Moshe to divert to the lack of con­cern he has for the man’s per­son­al pur­suits amidst his own strug­gles.

As Moshe recalls their first encounter at his the­ater, he rec­og­nizes the dancer as Malachi, bring­ing back warm mem­o­ries of their shared his­to­ry. This sets the stage for a poten­tial con­nec­tion and rebuild­ing of cama­raderie root­ed in shared expe­ri­ences and the cul­tur­al ties of their Jew­ish her­itage .

In “The Stranger,” Moshe is roused from his sleep by a per­sis­tent vis­i­tor seek­ing to see him at his home above their gro­cery store. It’s in the ear­ly hours before dawn, and both Moshe and the house­maid, Addie, who woke to answer the door, are deeply involved in car­ing for Moshe’s ail­ing wife, Chona. Addie, seem­ing­ly exas­per­at­ed by the vis­i­tor’s insis­tence, informs Moshe of his pres­ence. Despite Moshe’s reluc­tance, the urgency and mys­tery sur­round­ing the vis­i­tor’s mes­sage com­pel him to con­front him.

Open­ing the door, Moshe finds him­self face to face with a small, stout Jew­ish man claim­ing to need kosher flour for chal­lah bread, a plea Moshe ini­tial­ly rebuffs. How­ev­er, as their con­fronta­tion esca­lates, the stranger reveals his true pur­pose: he claims to have found a wife because Moshe had invit­ed him years before dur­ing a mem­o­rable dance at Moshe’s theater—an event sym­bol­iz­ing pros­per­i­ty, uni­ty, and joy among the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty. The stranger iden­ti­fies him­self as Malachi and rem­i­nisces about the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of dance and love, invok­ing mem­o­ries of a vibrant, com­mu­nal cel­e­bra­tion that Moshe had long for­got­ten.

The chap­ter paints a vivid scene of Moshe’s com­plex emo­tions and the weight of his respon­si­bil­i­ties, caught between the care for his sick wife and the unex­pect­ed reminder of joy­ful times past brought on by Malachi’s vis­it. The themes of mem­o­ry, iden­ti­ty, and com­mu­ni­ty inter­twined through Malachi’s insis­tence and Moshe’s reluc­tant rec­ol­lec­tion high­light a deep­er con­nec­tion between past joys and present bur­dens. As Malachi stands res­olute, demand­ing atten­tion and respect for his quest influ­enced by a fleet­ing moment of shared his­to­ry, Moshe is forced to con­front not just the stranger at his door but the echoes of his past and the uncer­tain future of his wife’s health.