"Scholem Alejhem!" (peace to you) they exclaimed.
"Alejhem & Scholem!" answered Meir, merrily.
"Will you not help us to-day?" asked one of the workmen jokingly.
"Why not?" answered Meir, approaching them.
Meir was fond of physical work. He practised it very often, and his grandfather's workmen were accustomed to it. One of them was about to give him his place at the log of wood, but at that moment. Lija appeared in the open window. She was just finishing braiding her hair, and said.
"Meir! Meir! where have you been so long? Zeide wishes to see you."
Hardly a quarter of an hour had passed since the Rabbi's visit. Saul still sat with his head between his hands, lost in half angry and half sad musing. A few steps from him sat Freida, bathed in golden sunlight and sparkling with diamonds. A very complicated process was going on in Saul's old breast. He disliked Isaak Todros. Without having deeply understood the real meaning of the action and position of either his ancestor Michael, or his father Hersh, he knew that they had great influence among their "own people," and enjoyed the general esteem of the mighty, although 'stranger' people. Therefore he was proud of these reminiscences of his family, and the knowledge of the wrong done to these two stars of his family by ancestors of Isaak Todros excited toward the latter a mute and not very well-defined dislike. Besides this, being rich, and proud of so being, he resented the misery and—as he said at the bottom of his soul—the sluttishness of the Todros. But all this was as nothing compared with the respect felt for the holy, wise, and deeply-learned man, who was the representative of all that was holiest, wisest, and most learned. Saul himself read with great zeal the holy books, but he could not become familiar with them, because for a long time his brain had been occupied with quite different matters. He read them, but understood very little of their obscure and secret sense, and the less he understood the more he respected them, and the deeper was his humility and dread. And now that dread and humility stood opposed to the true, tender love for his grandson, and he struggled between them.
"What profit can he draw from it?" thought Saul, and he met his grandson with angry looks.
Meir entered the parlour timidly. He already knew of the Rabbi's visit, and he guessed at the aim of it; he was afraid of his grandfather's anger and grief.
"Nu," said the old man, "come nearer. I am going to tell you beautiful things, at which you will rejoice greatly."