"What does he say?" he asked the people at the window.
There was no answer. All eyes were riveted upon the sage, and on the melamed's face there was an expression of ecstatic rapture.
"My good people, tell me what he said," repeated the nobleman.
A deep voice, as if in sarcastic retribution, answered with another question.
"Did the gracious lord not understand?"
This ingenuous question put an end to the young man's self-control, and he burst out into a peal of laughter and turned towards the door.
"Savages!" he murmured to himself, and he still laughed as he crossed the precincts, and the people who crowded round the Rabbi's window looked after him with astonished and deeply-offended eyes. The young man laughed, tickled by the ludicrous aspect of the whole scene; yet under his apparent merriment there was an under-current of resentment and anger, that the Wise Men of Israel should have shown themselves to him like savages, who did not even speak the language of the country whose air they breathed, and that had nourished them for many centuries. The people around the Rabbi's hut followed him with looks of displeasure almost amounting to hatred, because he had blasphemed what they loved and revered beyond anything. Poor sages of Israel with their worshippers! Poor Edomite laughing at the sage and his worshippers! But poorest of all, the country, the sons of which after journeying together for so many centuries do not understand each other's heart and language.
At the gate of the precincts Jankiel Kamionker met the young nobleman.
"Well, Jankiel," he said, "you have indeed a wise and learned Rabbi."
Jankiel did not reply to this, but began at once to speak about the agreement and the Kamionka distillery. He spoke glibly and easily, and did not appear to remember what had occurred or refer to it. Neither did the lord of Kamionka, upon whom the whole scene had left an impression of astonishment and amusement. The young prophet, and Jankiel with his red curls trying to evict him; the Rabbi, who only spoke the Jewish language, and his companion in the wonderful costume: it was as good as a play. How his friends would enjoy his description; how the good-natured Sir Andrew would laugh, and his daughter, the beautiful Hedwiga, of whom he thought night and day as the believer in his paradise, would smile!