to speak, and with staring eyes. He sees nothing more, but he feels a
light, ethereal kiss on his cheek, and his soul is aware of a sweet
voice speaking. He tries to take out his hands from under the coverlet,
but he cannot--he is dying--it grows dark.

A still brighter and more unusual gleam comes into Sholem's eyes, his
heart swells with emotion seeking an outlet, his brain works like
running machinery, a whole dictionary of words, his whole treasure of
conceptions and ideas, is turned over and over so rapidly that the mind
is unconscious of its own efforts. His poetic instinct is searching for
what it needs. His hand works quietly, forming letter on letter, word on
word. Now and again Sholem lifts his eyes from the paper and looks
round, he has a feeling as though the four walls and the silence were
thinking to themselves: "Hush, hush! Disturb not the poet at his work of
creation! Disturb not the priest about to offer sacrifice to God."

* * * * *

To the Rav, meanwhile, lying in the other room, there had come a fresh
idea for the exposition of the Torah, and he required to look up
something in a book. The door of the reception-room opened, the Rav
entered, and Sholem had not heard him.

It was a pity to see the Rav's face, it was so contracted with dismay,
and a pity to see Sholem's when he caught sight of his father, who,
utterly taken aback, dropt into a seat exactly opposite Sholem, and gave
a groan--was it? or a cry?

But he did not sit long, he did not know what one should do or say to
one's son on such an occasion; his heart and his eyes inclined to
weeping, and he retired into his own room. Sholem remained alone with a
very sore heart and a soul opprest. He put the writing-materials back
into their box, and went out with the manuscript verses tucked away
under his Tallis-koton.

He went into the house-of-study, but it looked dreadfully dismal; the
benches were pushed about anyhow, a sign that the last worshippers had
been in a great hurry to go home to dinner. The beadle was snoring on a
seat somewhere in a corner, as loud and as fast as if he were trying to
inhale all the air in the building, so that the next congregation might
be suffocated. The cloth on the platform reading-desk was crooked and
tumbled, the floor was dirty, and the whole place looked as dead as
though its Sabbath sleep were to last till the resurrection.

He left the house-of-study, walked home and b