h a man whose shaggy hair and swollen face
appeared at the open window. Meir knew the man, and silently wondered
what business the rich and pious Jankiel could have with a thief and
vagrant like the carrier Johel. But he did not think much about it,
and directed his steps, not towards home, but to a small passage near
the school, which would bring him out into the fields; he was longing
for space and air. He stood still for a few minutes. An odd murmuring
noise, rising and falling, mixed with an occasional wailing reached
his ear; it was dominated by a thick, hoarse voice alternately
reading, talking, and scolding.

A peculiar smile crossed Meir's face; it expressed anger and
compassion. He was standing near the school where the melamed Reb
Moshe infused knowledge into the juvenile minds. Something seemed to
attract him there; he leaned his elbows on the window-sill and looked
in.

It was a narrow, low and evil-smelling room. Between the blackened
ceiling, the wall and the floor full of dirt and litter, which filled
the air with a damp and heavy vapour, there seethed and rocked a
compact, gray mass which produced the murmuring noise. By and by, as
if out of a dense fog, childish faces seemed to detach themselves.
The faces were various, some dark and coarse, as if swollen with
disease; others pale, delicate and finely cut. As various as the
faces were their expressions; there were those who, with mouth wide
open and idiotic eyes stared into vacancy; others twitched and
fretted with ill concealed impatience but most of them, though
suffering, looked patient and submissive. Their outward appearance
showed an equal variety, from the decent coat of the rich man's
child, in gentle graduations to the sleeveless jackets and tatters of
the very poorest classes.

Some fifty children were crowded into that room which barely
accommodated half that number. They sat almost one upon the other, on
hard dirty benches, closely packed together. This was not the only
school in Szybow but none of the others was so eagerly sought after
by parents as the one conducted by Reb Moshe, known by his piety and
cabalistic knowledge, the favourite of the Rabbi. It must not be
thought that Reb Moshe initiated his scholars into the first steps of
learning; this would have been sheer waste of his capabilities--which
aimed at something higher.

The children he received were from ten to twelve years old, who had
already been taught in other schools