“How cruel of me to make you stand,” said I, “standing is hard on the toes.” “I don’t feel anything,” said Zippora. “I am afraid you may have said so only to put my mind at rest for detaining you,” said I. “I never speak like that,” said Zippora. “What do you mean — you never speak like that? What do you mean by ‘like that’?” “I never say things that aren’t true,” said Zippora. “What did you think, Zippora? Did you think I suspected you of telling a lie? I know that you always say what you think.” “That’s what Father told me,” said she. “How did it happen?” said I. “Once,” replied Zippora, “when Father and I were sitting together, he said to me, ‘Like mother like daughter.’” “Do you think your father was referring to the question of telling the truth? No doubt you have noticed, Zippora, that I talk to you as one talks to a grownup. Otherwise I would ask you which you like better, Father or Mother.” Zippora laughed. “Surely you know what I would answer, sir,” said she. “What would you answer?” Zippora laughed again. “Both the same,” she said.
“I have detained you again, Zippora,” said I, “but since we are standing talking, let me ask you something: Is Hannah like you too? Not in the matter of telling the truth, but in other matters.” “Mother says Hannah is like Father,” said Zippora. “In what way is she like your father?” I asked. But she was silent and did not answer.
“Who is that young fellow who passed us and greeted us?” I asked. “I believe I have seen him somewhere.” “That’s Yekutiel, Zechariah the fodder merchant’s son,” said Zippora. I struck myself on the forehead and said, “But of course I know him. I was in his father’s shop once. Do you know him?” “I know him by sight,” said Zippora, “but I haven’t talked to him.” “But the town isn’t large, and the people are few; so how is it you did not happen to talk to him?” “We have no horses, so we don’t need fodder, and we have no gardens, so we don’t need seeds,” replied Zippora. “That’s why I haven’t happened to talk to him.”
“Now I will go in to your father and see how he is,” said I. “What do you think, Zippora? Will your father let me call a doctor for him? You know Dr. Milch. He is my friend and he will not ask a fee. I have heard that people mock at him; there is an example of a man who behaves just like one of them. You cannot please everyone. If a man behaves arrogantly, people envy and hate him; if he lowers himself, they belittle him. So, what should he do? He should take the middle path. But not everyone can walk in the middle. And if even this basket in your hand, which has no will, sometimes sways to one side and sometimes to the other, how much more so do human beings. Goodbye, Zippora, goodbye.”
Chapter nine and sixty. Visiting the Sick
In the shed of our old Beit Midrash, on a rickety couch with three legs, supported on stones, lay Reb Hayim, covered with the coat I had given him. Beside him sat his daughter Hannah, her shoulders bowed and her feet shifting restlessly, as if the whole of her wanted to jump forward to help the sick man, and something like a question quivering on her lips: “Father, how can I make it easier for you?” Reb Hayim awoke and nodded his head as if he were saying: “God will help.” Hannah fixed her melancholy eyes upon him and a spark of hope gleamed from their dark depths. And the three types of reason that exist in man — pure reason, judgment, and practical reason — joined together and immediately separated. Reb Hayim looked at her and his lashes quivered. Finally, he lowered his eyes, like a father who sees that his daughter has grown up.
Hannah rose and greeted me, pressing my hand vigorously and looking at me with great affection. As she looked her face tensed and showed a kind of doubt. Almost certainly that young man Zvi had exaggerated in singing my praises, and now that she saw me she could see nothing in me. In a little while the doubt disappeared, but so did the affection she had shown me at first, and she behaved to me as one behaves to any man who is neither angel nor demon.
“This was not how I pictured you,” said Hannah. “And how did you picture me?” said I. “I don’t know,” said Hannah. “Where did you hear about me?” said I. Hannah blushed and said, “Do you think people don’t hear about you?” I lowered my eyes modestly and said, “I did not know that people spoke about me.” “That doesn’t mean that they mention you favorably,” said Hannah affectionately, and a sweet smile twinkled in her eyes. I said nothing, but looked at her.
Hannah was short and dressed in a broad, thick frock, which had been blue at first and now had faded into grey. She wore heavy sandals and no stockings. A colored kerchief, covering her head from the crown, was tied beneath her chin with a light knot. Her dress hung loose on her weary limbs. No doubt her limbs were fuller when she had the dress made, but with her illness she had lost weight, and it was now too big for her. The kerchief gave her the appearance of a married woman or a peasant girl, because the Jewish girls in our district were not in the habit of covering their heads before they were married, especially at this time, when even the married women went bareheaded. But the glow in her eyes moved the heart with its purity. This was the glow of a virgin, which is not to be seen in married women or in the daughters of the Gentiles. Her brow was broad like her father’s, her mouth was slightly open, and on her tongue lay something like a long “Nu?” as if she were asking, “Well, what have you to say?” Since I was silent and said nothing, she fixed her eyes on me again and said, “Well, that’s it, then.…”
At that moment Kuba came in. He said he had been looking for me in my hotel and had not found me; so he had gone to the Beit Midrash and found the door locked, and when he had heard a voice coming from the woodshed, he had entered. “Well,” said Kuba, “here you are. And what are you doing here?
In a moment he had pulled aside the end of the coat with which Reb Hayim was covered and bent down to examine the sick man. Reb Hayim said nothing and allowed the doctor to do as he liked.
Kuba took out a slip of paper and, leaning on the wall, wrote a prescription for the patient. Then he struck himself on the forehead, exclaimed to himself, “Fool!”—tore up the slip, and said, “But I have all these drugs at home. I will go and bring them.”