Meir looked around. In the next room the older women were speaking of their households, and how clever their children were. The young girls were seated in a corner, whispering, giggling, and humming.
From Meir's face it could be seen that he was not attracted by any of these groups of people filling the house. He was among his own people—among those who were nearest to him in blood and affection—but it might be said that he was in the desert, so lonely did he stand in the room, and so sorrowfully did he look around him. He went out. Descending the stairs leading from the piazza he passed the dark square, and entered the little house of Reb Jankiel.
After the large, clean, well-lighted, and comfortable rooms of his grandfather's home, the dwelling of Reb Jankiel, the possessor of the largest inn in Szybow, whisky merchant, and a member of kahal, seemed to Meir narrow, dark, dirty, and mean. The Sabbath feast was over. It never was long, for it was scanty and passed in gloomy silence, interrupted only by quarrelling and the biting remarks of the father of the family. It was known that Reb Jankiel was avaricious. He gathered much money, but he did not care for the comfort of the house, because he was seldom there, being busy with whisky distilleries, with dram-shops in the neighbouring villages, returning to the town only when religious affairs required his presence. His wife, Jenta, and two grown-up daughters conducted the business of the inn.
The appearance of riches in his house only occurred when Reb Jankiel received eminent guests, as the saintly Rabbi, with whom he was a great favourite, the colleagues of the kahal, or wealthy merchants. Cleanliness and gaiety were well-known virtues.
In the first room, which Meir entered through a door opening into the dark hall, only one little candle burned in a brass candlestick. The smell of the food, which was just cleared off the table, was here mingled with the mustiness of the dirty walls and the greasy exhalations from the smoky chimney. It was dark and dull here. From the other room, completely dark, sounded the loud snoring of the master of the house, who was already fast asleep. In the third small room, filled with beds and trunks, Meir perceived, by the light of a small lamp burning in the stove around which was suspended a quantity of cabbages, a woman who was rocking a cradle with her foot, and trying to lull to sleep a crying child. Meir greeted her, and she answered him in a friendly manner and continued to hum.
Behind the closed door could be heard the muffled sound of human voices. Meir opened that door and entered the room of Eliezer.
Eliezer the cantor and the possessor of that marvellous voice, was not alone. Around the table, lighted by a tallow candle, sat several young men, members of the Ezofowich family—the same who had eaten Supper with Meir. Meir breathed deeply, perhaps because the air was purer there than in the other apartments, or perhaps because he was among friendly figures, on which he liked to gaze, and which, seeing him, smiled in a friendly manner.
Eliezer raised his turquoise-like eyes to the face of the newcomer as he sat at the table.
"Meir!" he exclaimed in his musical voice. "Well?" answered his guest.
"You were impatient to-day, and said to the melamed things of which there was no necessity to speak. They told me of your dispute with him."