with your family
to-day? Why is your forehead pale and your eyes sad, when to-day is
the joyful Sabbath? In heaven the whole celestial family rejoices,
and on earth all pious people should keep their souls mirthful."

All this was said by a strange-looking man. He was rather small and
thin; he had a large head covered with thick, coarse hair. His face
was swarthy and round, covered with abundant hair, which formed a
long, coarse beard. His round eyes cast sharp glances from beneath
their thick eyelids. The thinness of the man was increased by a
strange dress--more strange than the man himself. It was a very
simple costume, consisting of a bag made of rough gray linen, girded
around the neck and waist with a hemp rope, and falling to the ground
it covered his bare feet.

Who was the man in the dress of an ascetic, with fanatical eyes, with
lips full of mystic, deep, almost intoxicated joyfulness?

It was Reb Moshe, melamed or teacher of religion and the Hebrew
language. He was pious-perfect. No matter what the weather--wind,
rain, cold, and heat--he always went barefooted, dressed in a bag
made of rough linen. He lived as do the birds--nobody knew
how--probably on some grain scattered here and there. He was the
right hand and the right eye of the Rabbi of Szybow, Isaak Todros,
and after the Rabbi he was the next object of reverence and
admiration of the whole community.

Hearing those words pouring tumultuously from the melamed's mouth and
directed towards himself, Meir Ezofowich, great-grandson of Hersh and
the grandson of old Saul, did not sit at the table, but with eyes
cast on the ground, and a voice muffled by timidity, he answered:

"Reb! I was not there where they are joyful and do good business. I
was there where there is sorrow and where poor people sit in darkness
and weep."

"Nu!" exclaimed the melamed, "and where today could there be sadness.
To-day is Sabbath. Everywhere it is bright and joyful. . . . Where,
today, could it be dark?"

A few older members of the family raised their heads and repeated the
question:

"Where to-day could there be darkness?"

And then again they asked him:

"Meir, where have you been?"

Meir did not answer. His face expressed timidity and inward
hesitation. At that moment one of the girls--the same who had
introduced the old grand mother--the girl with the swarthy face and
dark, frolicsome eyes, exclaimed mirthfully, clapping her hands:

"I know where it is dark