Part 41 (2/2)
”Dear old goose,” she said, leaning across to pull his beard. ”You are not a bit like that--you know a thousand times more, you know you do.”
The old Rabbi held up his hands in comic deprecation.
”Yes, you do,” she persisted. ”Only you let him talk so much; you let everybody talk and bamboozle you.”
Reb Shemuel drew the hand that fondled his beard in his own, feeling the fresh warm skin with a puzzled look.
”The hands are the hands of Hannah,” he said, ”but the voice is the voice of Simcha.”
Hannah laughed merrily.
”All right, dear, I won't scold you any more. I'm so glad it didn't really enter your great stupid, clever old head that I was likely to care for Pinchas.”
”My dear daughter, Pinchas wished to take you to wife, and I felt pleased. It is a union with a son of the Torah, who has also the pen of a ready writer. He asked me to tell you and I did.”
”But you would not like me to marry any one I did not like.”
”G.o.d forbid! My little Hannah shall marry whomever she pleases.”
A wave of emotion pa.s.sed over the girl's face.
”You don't mean that, father,” she said, shaking her head.
”True as the Torah! Why should I not?”
”Suppose,” she said slowly, ”I wanted to marry a Christian?”
Her heart beat painfully as she put the question.
Reb Shemuel laughed heartily.
”My Hannah would have made a good Talmudist. Of course, I don't mean it in that sense.”
”Yes, but if I was to marry a very _link_ Jew, you'd think it almost as bad.”
”No, no!” said the Reb, shaking his head. ”That's a different thing altogether; a Jew is a Jew, and a Christian a Christian.”
”But you can't always distinguish between them,” argued Hannah. ”There are Jews who behave as if they were Christians, except, of course, they don't believe in the Crucified One.”
Still the old Reb shook his head.
”The worst of Jews cannot put off his Judaism. His unborn soul undertook the yoke of the Torah at Sinai.”
”Then you really wouldn't mind if I married a _link_ Jew!”
He looked at her, startled, a suspicion dawning in his eyes.
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