ms with a pleasing pathos, and he went on until overtaken
by sleep. At first he resisted, he took a nice pinch of snuff, rubbed
his eyes, collected his thoughts, but it was no good. The covers of the
book of Psalms seemed to have been greased, for they continually slipped
from his grasp, the printed lines had grown crooked and twisted, his
head felt dreadfully heavy, and his eyelids clung together; his nose was
forever drooping towards the book of Psalms. He made every effort to
keep awake, started up every time as though he had burnt himself, but
sleep was the stronger of the two. Gradually he slid from the bench onto
the floor; the Psalter slipped finally from between his fingers, his
head dropped onto the hay, and he fell sweetly asleep....

And Berel had a dream:

Yom Kippur, and yet there is a fair in the town, the kind of fair one
calls an "earthquake," a fair such as Berel does not remember having
seen these many years, so crowded is it with men and merchandise. There
is something of everything--cattle, horses, sheep, corn, and fruit. All
the Tamschevate Jews are strolling round with their wives and children,
there is buying and selling, the air is full of noise and shouting, the
whole fair is boiling and hissing and humming like a kettle. One runs
this way and one that way, this one is driving a cow, that one leading
home a horse by the rein, the other buying a whole cart-load of corn.
Berel is all astonishment and curiosity: how is it possible for Jews to
busy themselves with commerce on Yom Kippur? on such a holy day? As far
back as he can remember, Jews used to spend the whole day in Shool, in
linen socks, white robe, and prayer-scarf. They prayed and wept. And now
what has come over them, that they should be trading on Yom Kippur, as
if it were a common week-day, in shoes and boots (this last struck him
more than anything)? Perhaps it is all a dream? thought Berel in his
sleep. But no, it is no dream! "Here I am strolling round the fair, wide
awake. And the screaming and the row in my ears, is that a dream, too?
And my having this very minute been bumped on the shoulder by a Gentile
going past me with a horse--is that a dream? But if the whole world is
taking part in the fair, it's evidently the proper thing to do...."
Meanwhile he was watching a peasant with a horse, and he liked the look
of the horse so much that he bought it and mounted it. And he looked at
it from where he sat astride, and saw the horse