Then a fresh anxiety rises within him: If the destined one be Lapei, where are they to live? Where can they go? What will they do? She hasn't a penny, and goes about tattered, a draggle-tail, and sells her birthright for a handful of cold potatoes. She takes two gulden for washing the floor of the house-of-study—not enough for dry bread—and he, what can he do? Of what use is he?
Were he not lame, he would be a messenger. He knows no trade, unless (he consoles himself) he became a teacher. All the householders will give wedding-presents, and he will hire a room with the money and start keeping school; he knows quite enough to teach, especially little children. Let come what may if only he has a wife. There are Jews who have uglier wives, and who are worse cripples ... but there they are! A wife is a wife! Only not to live alone and eat "days!"
And he may yet succeed in getting one of the other two, and once more he begins to invent a Paradise. And he smiles on at the mud and the leaden clouds.
Hush! something has occurred to him. If he knew for certain that poor Lapei was fated to die of the pestilence, he would gladly marry her. At least, poor thing, she would have had a husband before she died. If only for a month. Why not? Is she not a Jewish daughter? It wouldn't hurt him, and it would be fair on the part of His blessed Name. He does not wish her death, heaven forbid! On the contrary, he is sorry for her; he feels and knows the meaning of "misery," of being all alone, always all alone.
5
SAVITZKI AND YÖSSIL TOGETHER
One day, as Yössil, the beggar-student, was splashing through the mud, lost in thought, he suddenly felt himself caught hold of by the sleeve. He turned round in a fright and was still more alarmed on seeing before him—Dr. Savitzki.
Savitzki and Yössil had often passed each other outside the town, and Yössil had always taken off his torn cap and bowed low before the Christian. Savitzki, the first time, had spat out; the second time, he had thrown out an evil, anti-Semitic look; the third time, he had only glanced into Yössil's face. Later he half smiled—and to-day, for the first time, he had caught him by the sleeve.
They saw in each other's eyes that there was a link between them, that they had a common interest, a common hope, that something bound them together.
Savitzki was now quite alone in the town. At one time, he used to go in to the apothecary, but the latter had lately given him to understand, that he had done him harm; that people had grown afraid, on Savitzki's account, of buying bitter-water and castor oil, the apothecary's great stand-by.
The Christian townspeople had also begun to avoid him; they, too, believed that doctors poison people, and Savitzki was probably no better than the rest.