"So they hurried up?"

"Of course, as soon as he was twenty-one, they meant to send another envoy, and perhaps two."

"And meanwhile it was entered in the communal records?"

"That's where it is! The records remembered and the people forgot! Some say the record was burnt, that the trustee took the record, said Havdoleh over it, set fire to a little brandy, and--good-bye!

"The community, meanwhile, was growing; Jews, praise G.o.d, soon multiply. And they come in from other places; one person brings in a son-in-law, another a daughter-in-law, in a word, it grew. And the Gevir's heirs disappeared as though on purpose! The widow married again and left, one son after another went to seek his fortune elsewhere, to take a look 'round. The youngest remained. Kohol appointed him a guardian and married him, and gave him an experienced partner."

"Who led him about by the nose?"

"According to the law of Moses and of Israel!

"He had trouble with the partner and more still with the wife; and he signed a forged check and took himself off, bankrupt; townspeople and strangers collected and made a great noise, the case was heard in court, down came an inspector, no money to be seen anywhere, the wife hid the furniture, the inspector took possession of the Shool and the burial ground!

"The little town was thunderstruck, it was a bolt from the blue with a vengeance! Because, you see, the whole thing had been kept dark to the last minute!

"And all of a sudden, the community was seen hanging, as it were, by a hair!

"What was to be done? They drove to lawyers. What could they advise in a case like that? The best thing would be to have an auction, the inspector would sell the things and the community buy them at any cost.

The community was no community? The papers had been lost by the way?

They must find another Gevir, and buy in his name! The great thing was not to wait till the Gevir should die or go away!

"The advice seemed good, Kohol was quite used to loss of money; but there was not only _one_ Gevir, there were several! And heaps willing to act as diplomatic envoys. Whose name should they use? Who should be taken for an envoy? All were willing and might be offended. So they held a meeting and talked it over. And they talked it over till the talk became a dispute, and when _we_ have a dispute, it isn't settled in a hurry. Now and again it looks like peace, the flame of discord burns low, comes a peacemaker and pours oil on it, and it blazes up again and--blazes on!"

The Jew wiped his pale forehead and continued:

"Meanwhile something happened, something not to be believed!

"Only," he added with a smile, "it is night and the creature who walks the sky at night (he points at the moon) is called 'truth,' and at night, specially in such a quiet one, everything is credible."

"Well, yes"--I allow unwillingly.

"The story is a dreadful one.

"The inspector put his foot on the 'holy ground,' the corpses heard and must have grown angry--the tombstones move--the corpses rise up from beneath them--you believe me?"

"I am no heretic," I replied, "heaven forbid! And I believe in the immortality of the soul, only--"

"Only, friend, only?"

"I always thought, that only the soul remained--the soul that flies into heaven; but the body that goes into the grave, the image that decays--anyhow, it cannot move without the soul--cannot rise again."

"Well said!" he praises me. "May I ever hear the like!

"I am glad," he said, "that you are book-learned; but, my friend, you have forgotten the world of illusion! You say the soul goes to heaven, into the sky--very well--but to which part? One goes into Paradise, the other into Gehenna. Paradise is for the souls of the righteous, Gehenna for the souls of the wicked. The one, for his good deeds, receives a share of Leviathan, of Behemoth, wine of the ages,--the other, for his sins, boiling pitch; but that only means reward and punishment, and why reward and punishment? Because so long as a man lives, he has a free choice. If he wishes to do what is good, he does it, if to do evil, he does evil, and as he makes his bed, _ha?_ so he lies.

"But what is the sentence pa.s.sed when a man was no man, when his life was no life, and he did nothing, neither good nor evil, because he could not do anything? He had no choice, and he slept away his life and lived in a dream. What is such a soul ent.i.tled to? Gehenna? What for? It never so much as killed a fly. Paradise? For what? It never dipped a hand in cold water to gain it."

"What _does_ become of such a soul?"

"Nothing! It goes on living in a world of illusion, it does not detach itself from the body; but just as it dreamt before that it lived _on_ the earth, so it dreams now that it lives _in_ the earth!

"No one in our town ever really died, because no one ever really lived!

No one did either good or evil, there were no sinners and no righteous--only sleepy-heads and souls in a world of illusion. When such a sleepy-head is laid in the grave, it remains a sleepy-head--only in another lodging--that's all.

"And so dying with us was a perfect comedy! Because if a feather was put under the nose of a _live_ man, would he stir to brush it away? Not he!

And the same with a fly. They left off troubling about Parnosseh--they simply left off troubling about anything at all!

"So it went on.... There are many towns like it, and when it happens, as it has happened with us, that a corpse creeps out of its grave, it doesn't begin to remember that it has made its last confession of sins and drawn its last breath. No sooner have the potsherds fallen from its eyes than it goes straight to the house-of-study, to the bath, or else home to supper--it remembers nothing about having died!"

I do not know if it is the moon's fault, or whether I am not quite myself, but I hear, believe, and even ask:

"Did all the corpses rise? All?"

"Who can tell? Do they keep a register? There may have been a few heretics who thought it was the final resurrection and lay low; but there rose a whole community; they rose and fled before the inspector into the nearest wood!"

"Why into a wood?"

"They couldn't go into the town, because it was daylight, and it is not the thing to appear in winding-sheets by daylight--they might have frightened the young mothers."

"True. And the inspector?"

"You ask about a Gentile? He saw nothing. Perhaps he was tipsy--nothing--he did his work, made his inventory."

"And sold the things?"

"Nothing, there was as yet no one to buy."

"And the corpses?"

"Ah--the corpses!"

He rests for a moment and then goes on:

"Hardly had night fallen, when the corpses came back into the town; each one went to his home, stole in at the door, the window, or down the chimney--went hastily to the wardrobe, took out some clothes, dressed himself, yawned, and lay down somewhere to sleep.

"Next morning there was a whole townfull of corpses."

"And the living said nothing?"

"They never remarked; they were taken up with the dispute; their heads were full of it, they were all at sixes and sevens! And really, when you come to think of it, how much difference is there between a dead-alive person and a walking corpse in winding-sheets? When a son saw his father, he spat out three times, indignant with himself: 'To think of the dream I had--I dreamt I said Kaddish for my father and inherited him! May such dreams plague my enemies.'

"A widow saw her husband, and gave him a hearty slap. He had deceived her, the wretch! made game of her! and she, foolish woman that she was, had made him new winding-sheets!"

"And supposing she had married again?"