13
I was quit of Zerach Kneip and his long finger-nail, but I was not so much the better off.
I was sixteen years old. The match-mongers were already catching at my mother's skirts, and I preserved the childish habit of collecting wax off the Shool table on the Day of Atonement and secretly moulding it in Cheder under the table.
The beadle hated me for this with a deadly hatred, and I was well served out for it besides.
"What have you got there?" asks Reb Yozel.
I am wool-gathering at the moment and lay my whole hand on the Gemoreh, wax on all the five fingers.
Reb Yozel has grown pale with anger. He opens the drawer, takes out a piece of thin string, and binds together my two thumbs, but so tight, a pang goes through me.
That was only the beginning. He went to the broom and deliberately chose and pulled out a thin, flexible twig. With this twig he whipped me over my tied hands—for how long? It seemed to me forever. And strange to say, I took the pain in good part; I felt sure God had sent it me that I might repent of my sin and give up going to the teacher.
When my hands were pretty well swollen and the skin had turned all colors, Reb Yozel put away the twig and said: "Enough! Now you'll let the wax alone!"
I went on moulding wax all the same.
It gave me the greatest satisfaction to make whatever I pleased out of it. I felt I had something to be busy about.
I would mould the head of a man, and then turn it into a cat or a mouse; then I drew the sides out into wings, divided the head into two, and it became an Imperial eagle. After that, out of the two heads and two wings, I made a bun in four pieces.
I myself was just such another piece of wax. Reb Yozel, the teacher, my mother, and anybody who pleased moulded me into shape. Gütele melted me.