rs and the
stove, cock their ears, and listen, Jewish drivers, who convey people
from one town to another, snatched a minute the first thing in the
morning, and dropped in with their whips under their arms, to hear a
passage in the Gemoreh expounded. And the women, who washed the linen at
the pump in summer-time, beat the wet clothes to the melody of the Torah
that came floating into the street through the open windows, sweet as a
long-expected piece of good news.

Thus Mouravanke came to be of great renown, because the wondrous power
of the Mouravanke Rabbonim, the power of concentration of thought, grew
from generation to generation. And in those days the old people went
about with a secret whispering, that if there should arise a tenth
generation of the mighty ones, a new thing, please God, would come to
pass among Jews.

But there was no tenth generation; the ninth of the Mouravanke Rabbonim
was the last of them.

He had two sons, but there was no luck in the house in his day: the sons
philosophized too much, asked too many questions, took strange paths
that led them far away.

Once a rumor spread in Mouravanke that the Rav's eldest son had become
celebrated in the great world because of a book he had written, and had
acquired the title of "professor." When the old Rav was told of it, he
at first remained silent, with downcast eyes. Then he lifted them and
ejaculated:

"Nu!"

And not a word more. It was only remarked that he grew paler, that his
look was even more piercing, more searching than before. This is all
that was ever said in the town about the Rav's children, for no one
cared to discuss a thing on which the old Rav himself was silent.

Once, however, on the Great Sabbath, something happened in the spacious
old house-of-study. The Rav was standing by the ark, wrapped in his
Tallis, and expounding to a crowded congregation. He had a clear,
resonant, deep voice, and when he sent it thundering over the heads of
his people, the air seemed to catch fire, and they listened dumbfounded
and spellbound.

Suddenly the old man stopped in the midst of his exposition, and was
silent. The congregation thrilled with speechless expectation. For a
minute or two the Rav stood with his piercing gaze fixed on the people,
then he deliberately pulled aside the curtain before the ark, opened the
ark doors, and turned to the congregation:

"Listen, Jews! I know that many of you are thinking of something that
has just