Part 66 (1/2)

And there came over him a great longing, a longing after Jews, after companions, after All-Israel. It was no trifle, not meeting a single soul.

”Long after no one,” said the Brisk Rabbi, ”this is a palace for me and for you--you will also, some day, be Rabbi of Brisk.”

And the other was more terrified than ever, and laid his hand against the wall to help himself from falling. And the wall burnt him. Only not as fire burns, but as ice burns.

”Rabbi!” he gave a cry, ”the walls are ice, simply ice!”

The Brisk Rabbi was silent. And the other cried again:

”Rabbi, take me away hence! I do not wish to stay alone with you! I wish to be with All-Israel!”

And hardly had he said it when the Brisk Rabbi disappeared, and he was left alone in the palace.

He knew of no way, no in and no out; a cold terror struck him from the walls; and the longing for a Jew, to see a Jew, if only a cobbler or a tailor, waxed stronger and stronger. He began to weep.

”Lord of the world,” he begged, ”take me away from here. Better in Gehenna with All-Israel than here one by himself!”

And immediately there appeared before him a common Jew with the red sash of a driver round him, and a long whip in his hand. The Jew took him silently by the sleeve, led him out of the palace--and vanished. Such was the dream that was sent him.

When he woke, before daylight, when it had scarcely begun to dawn, he understood that this had been no ordinary dream. He dressed quickly, and hastened toward the house-of-study to get his dream interpreted by the learned ones who pa.s.s the night there. On his way through the market, however, he saw a covered wagon standing, and beside it--the driver with a red sash round the waist, a long whip in his hand, and altogether just such a Jew as the one who had led him out of the palace in his dream.

Nach (it struck him there was something behind the coincidence) went up to him and asked:

”Whither drives a Jew?”

”Not _your_ way,” answered the driver, very roughly.

”Well, tell me anyway,” he continued. ”Perhaps I will go with you!”

The driver considered a little, and then answered:

”And can't a young fellow like you go on foot?” he asked. ”Go along with you, _your_ way!”

”And whither shall I go?”

”Follow your nose!” answered the driver, ”it's not my business.”

The Rebbe understood, and now began his ”exile.”

A few years later, as before said, he emerged into publicity in Byale.

How it all happened I won't tell you now, although it's enough to make anyone open his mouth and ears. And about a year after this happened, a Byale householder, Reb Yechiel his name was, sent for me as a teacher.

At first I would not accept the post of teacher in his house.

You must know that Reb Yechiel was a rich man of the old-fas.h.i.+oned type, he gave his daughters a thousand gold pieces dowry, and contracted alliances with the greatest rabbis, and his latest daughter-in-law was a daughter of the Rabbi of Brisk.

You can see for yourselves that if the Brisk Rabbi and the other connections were Misnagdim, Reb Yechiel had to be a Misnagid, too--and I am a Byale Chossid, well--how could I go into a house of that kind?

And yet I felt drawn to Byale. You can fancy! The idea of living in the same town as the Rebbe! After a good deal of see-sawing, I went.

And Reb Yechiel himself turned out to be a very honest, pious Jew, and I tell you, his heart was drawn to the Rebbe as if with pincers. He was no learned man, himself, and he stared at the Rabbi of Brisk as a c.o.c.k looks at a prayer-book.[141] He made no objections to my holding to the Byale Rebbe, only he would have nothing to do with him himself. When I told anything about the Rebbe, he would pretend to yawn, and yet I could see that he p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, but his son, the son-in-law of the Brisk Rabbi, would frown and look at me with mingled anger and contempt, only he never argued; he was silent by nature.