"Morejne," he moaned, "don't be angry with me for having opened my heart to you. Be wise. May the learned and rich not complain of you to God, for the man who is under the ground is better off than he on whom they shall turn their angry hands."
Then he returned to his hut, and did not notice that Lejbele was not standing at the wall of the house. When Meir departed, the pale child followed him. With hands still muffled in the sleeves of his ragged gown, and with wide opened mouth, the child of Schmul the tailor followed the tall, beautiful man. At the end of the street only, as a being afraid to go further, the poor boy said, in a hoarse, guttural voice:
"Morejne!"
Meir looked back. A friendly smile brightened his face when he saw the boy. The dark, dull eyes of the child were raised to his face, and from the gray sleeve a small, thin hand was stretched toward him.
"Hala," said Lejbele.
Meir looked around for a huckster's stand. Along the street stood several miserable barrows, by which the women, their thin bodies scantily clad in rags, were selling loaves of bread, hard as stone, and some heads of onion, as well as a black, unappetising preparation made of honey and poppy-seed.
From Meir's white hand to the dark, thin hand of the child again passed a big hala. Lejbele raised it to his mouth with both hands, and, turning, he walked slowly and gravely down the middle of the street toward his home.
After a while Meir reached the square of the town. It seemed to him that he came back to the light of day from a dark cavern. The sunlight flooded everything around, dried the mud, and kindled golden sparks in the windows of the houses. In the yard of the pious. Reb Jankiel, some large, new structure was being erected. The red-haired owner inspected the workmen personally, evidently satisfied with the increase of his wealth. The noise of axes and the gnashing of the saws filled the air, and in front of the low inn stood a couple of carriages belonging to passing guests. Further along the street stood Morejne Calman in the piazza of his house, shining in his satin halat. With one hand he held to his smiling mouth a cigar, and with the other he caressed the golden hair of a two-year-old child, who sat on a bench holding a loaf of bread abundantly spread with honey, which he had smeared all over his plump face, casting the while admiring glances at his magnificent father.
In the court-yard of the Ezofowich mansion there was plenty of noise, sunlight, and gaiety. In the centre two broad-shouldered workmen were sawing wood for the winter, and in the soft sawdust several cleanly-dressed children were playing. At the well a buxom and merry servant girl was drawing water, joking with the workmen, and through the open windows of the house could be seen Raphael's and Abraham's grave heads—they were talking over business affairs with great animation—and Sarah, standing by the fireplace, and pretty Lija, who stood before a mirror smoothing her luxuriant tresses.
When Meir entered the gate, the workmen stopped sawing, and smiled and nodded to him. They came from the same poor, dirty street he had just left, and evidently knew him very well.