We were both tired with walking, and we sat down on a seat at the street side.

The beadle explained:

"You see--according to law, if one house is not built far enough away from another, the roofs must be separated by a fire-wall. What the distance has to be, I don't know; _their_ laws are incomprehensible; I should say, four ells or more.

"A fire-wall is with them a charm against fire. Well, this house was built by a very poor man, Yeruchem Ivanovker, a teacher, and he couldn't afford a fire-wall.

"Altogether, to tell the truth, he built without a foundation, and out of that, as you will hear presently, there came a lawsuit, at which his wife (peace be upon her) told the whole story, beginning after the custom of women-folk with the sixth day of creation. This is how it happened:

"Malkah had not spoken to her husband for about fifteen years. She was naturally a sour-tempered woman,--G.o.d forgive me for talking against the dead,--tall and thin, dark, with a pointed nose like a hook. She rarely said a word not relating to Parnosseh--she was a huckstress--and n.o.body wanted her to do so. Her look was enough to freeze you to the bone. All the other huckstresses trembled before her--there was an expression in her eye. So, you see, Yeruchem was quite content that she should be silent--_he_ never said a word to _her_, either.

"For all this silence, however, they were blessed with two boys and three girls.

"But the desire to become householders made them conversational. The conversation was on this wise:

"'Malke!' (No answer.)

"'Malke!' (No answer.)

"He Malke's and she doesn't stir.

"But Yeruchem stands up and gives a shout:

"'Malke, I am going to build a house!'

"Malke could resist no longer, she raised an eye, and opened her mouth.

"'I thought,' she said afterward, 'that he had gone mad.'

"And it _was_ a madness. He had inherited the narrow strip of land you have seen from a great-grandfather, and not a farthing in money. The wife's trash, which was afterwards sold for fifty-four gulden, used to be in p.a.w.n the whole year round, except on Sabbaths and holidays, when Yeruchem took them out on tick.

"When the desire calls the imagination to its help--who shall withstand?

"No sooner has he a house, than all good things will follow.

"People will place confidence in him, and he will borrow money to buy a goat, and there will be plenty in the home. He will let out one room as a drink-shop, and he, G.o.d helping, will keep it himself. Above all, the children will be provided for. The little boys shall be sent one way or the other to a rabbinical college, the girls shall be given a deed as their dowry, promising them, after his death, half as much as the boys will get, and the thing's done.

"'And how is the building to be paid for?'

"He had an answer ready:

"'I,' said he, 'am a teacher, and thou art a huckstress, so we have two Parnossehs: let us live on one Parnosseh, and build on the other.'

"'Was there ever such an idiot! We can't make both ends meet as it is!'

"'G.o.d helps those who help themselves,' said he, 'here's a proof of it: the teacher, Noah, our neighbor, has a sickly wife, who earns nothing, and six little children, and it seems they are well and strong--and he lives on nothing but his teaching,'

"'There you are again! He is a great teacher, his pupils are the children of gentlefolk.'

"'And why do you think it is so? What is the reason? Can he "learn"

better than I do? Most certainly not. But G.o.d, blessed be His Name, seeing that he has only one Parnosseh, increases it to him. And then, another example: Look at Black Brocheh! A widow with five children and nothing but a huckstress--'

"'Listen to him! _That_ one (would it might be said of me!) has a fortune in the business, at least thirty rubles--'

"'That is not the thing,' he gives her to understand, 'the thing is that the blessing can only reach her through the apples. The Creator governs the world by the laws of nature.'

"And he manages also to persuade her that they can economize in many ways--one can get along--

"And so it was decided: Yeruchem gave up taking snuff, and the entire household, sour milk in particular and supper in general--and they began to build.

"They built for years, but when it came to the fire-wall, Malkah had no wares, Yeruchem had no strength left in him, the eldest son had gone begging through the country, the youngest had died, and there was a fortune wanting--forty rubles for a fire-wall.

"Well, what was to be done? A coin or two changed hands, and they moved into the new house without building a fire-wall."

He took possession with rejoicing. He was a member of the Burial Society, and the community gave him a house-warming. They drank, without exaggeration, a whole barrel of beer, besides brandy and raisin-wine. It was a regular flare-up, a glorification.

But the bliss was short-lived.

A certain householder quarrelled with a neighbor of Yeruchem, with Noah the teacher. Now Noah the teacher had once been a distinguished householder, a very rich man. Besides what he had inherited from his father, he disposed of a few tidy hundreds. He had carried on a business in honey. Afterwards, when there was the quarrel relating to the Lithuanian rabbi, they got his son taken for a soldier (he is serving in the regiment to this day, with a bad lung), and he himself got involved in a lawsuit for having burnt out the rabbi.

Well, it was a great crime. One is used to denouncing, but to heap sticks round a house on all sides and set fire to it, that's a wicked thing.

Whether or not he had anything to do with it, the lawsuit and the son together impoverished him completely, and he became a teacher. Being so new to the work, he hadn't the knack of getting on with the parents, one of them took offense at something, removed his child, and sent him to Yeruchem instead.

Noah was deeply wounded, but he was a man of high courage; he hung day and night about the office of the district commissioner, and used both his tongue and his pen. Well, in due time, up came the matter of the fire-wall, and down came the senior inspector.

Noah meantime had been seized with remorse. He did all he could to prevent the affair from being carried on. A coin or two changed hands, and the affair was hushed up.

All might yet have been well, but for a fresh dispute about "blue."

Yeruchem was a Radziner,[64] and wore blue "fringes,"[65] and Noah, a rabid Belzer,[66] called down vengeance.

The dispute grew hotter, up crops the fire-wall, and the law was called in a second time.

There was a judgment given in default, and the court decided that Yeruchem should erect a fire-wall within a month's time, otherwise--the house was to be taken to pieces.

There wasn't a dreier. This time Noah had no remorse; on the contrary, the quarrel was at its height, and there was nothing to be done with him. Yeruchem sent to call him before the rabbi, and he sent the beadle flying out of the house.

When Malkah saw that there was no redress to be had, she seized Noah by the collar in the street, and dragged him to the rabbi like a murderer.

There was a marketful of Belzers about, but who is going to fight a woman? "He who is murdered by women," says the Talmud, "has no judge and no avenger." Noah's wife followed cursing, but was afraid to interfere.

At the rabbi's, Malkah told the whole story from beginning to end, and demanded either that Noah should build the fire-wall, or else that the matter should be dropped again.

Our rabbi knew very well that whichever party he declared to be right, the Cha.s.sidim on the _other_ side would be at him forthwith, and he wormed himself out of the difficulty like the learned Jew that he was.

_He_ couldn't decide--it was a question of the impulse to do harm--_be-me_. There was no decision possible--the case must be laid before the Rebbes.[67]

Noah naturally preferred the Belzer Rebbe, Yeruchem had no choice, and to Belz they went.

Yeruchem, before he left, made his brother-in-law his representative, and trusted him with a few rubles which he had borrowed (people lent them out of pity).