"Why not send him into the world?"
Saul thought a long time, and then replied:
"Your advice is not good. I cannot punish him severely. What would my father Hersh say to it, in whose footsteps he wishes to go, and whom I am not at liberty to judge. I cannot marry him quickly, because the child is not like other children—he is proud and sensitive, and does not brook any fetters. Besides, he is so disgraced and openly rebuked already that no wealthy or respectable Israelite will give him his daughter in marriage."
Again Saul's voice shook. He had lived to see his grandson, the most beloved of all his children, come down so low that no respectable family would receive him as son-in-law.
"I cannot send him away either," he continued, "because I am afraid that in the world he will lose all that is left of his father's faith. I am in the position of the great and wise Rabbi of whom it is written that he had a reckless son who ate pork in secret. People advised him to send his son out into the world and expose him to misery and a wandering life. But he replied: 'Let my son remain at home. The sight of his father's troubled and sorrowful face may soften his heart and lead him to a better life; stern misery would change it into hard stone.'"
Saul became silent—all around were silent; nothing was heard but now and then a sigh from the women.
The room became darker and darker.
After a while, in a subdued, almost timid, voice, Ber began:
"Allow me to open my heart before you to-day. I speak but seldom, because as often as I want to speak the remembrance of my younger years seems to rise before me and smother my voice; therefore it is the voice least heard of all the voices in the family. I left off speaking or advising, and looked only after my business and my family. But I must speak now. Why trouble so much about Meir? Give him his liberty; let him go into the world, and do not punish him either by your anger or by dooming him to poverty. What wrong has he done? He keeps all the commandments faithfully; has studied the holy books; all the members of our family, and even the poor, ignorant people love him like their own soul. What do you want from him? What has he done? Why should you punish him?"
Ber's speech, delivered in a lazy, half-timid voice, made a deep impression on all those present. His wife Sarah, evidently frightened, pulled him by the sleeve and whispered: