"Wings," said the old man, sternly, "raise one into the height—when one has wings one cannot keep to the earth."
"Much it matters!" retorts the grandson, defiantly. "One is quit of living here and wallowing in the mud, one lives in the height. Is heaven not better than earth?"
The old man grows pale, and the son takes up the word:
"Foolish child! What is one to live on in the height? Air doesn't go far. There are no inns to hire up there, no 'contracts' to sign. There's no one of whom to buy a bit of shoe-leather—in the height—"
The old man interrupts him: "In the height," he says in hard tones, "there is no Shool, no house-of-study, no Kläus to pray and read in; in the height, there is no pathway, trodden out by past generations—in the height, one wanders and gets lost, because one does not know the road. One is a free bird, but woe to the free bird in the hour of doubt and despondency!"
"What do you mean?" and the young man starts up with burning cheeks and eyes.
But the grandmother is beforehand with him:
"What fools men are," she exclaims, "how they talk! And the rabbi? Do you suppose the rabbi is going to let him be circumcised? Is he likely to allow a blessing to be spoken over a child with wings?"
———
I give a start. The night spent outside the town, the drive, and the child with wings were all a dream.