"No, I can't! I knew, before—and then the singing turned into—into—"
"Into what? What became of it?"
"A kind of playing—as though (lehavdîl) there were a fiddle inside me—or as if Yoneh, the musician, were sitting there and playing hymns, as he does at the Rebbe's dinner-table. Only it was better, more beautiful, more spiritual. And without a voice, without any voice at all—it was all spiritual."
"Happy, happy, happy, are you!"
"Now it's all gone (sadly), the doors of sense are reopened, and I am so tired, I am so—so—tired, that I—
"Rebbe!" he called out suddenly, clapping a hand to his heart, "Rebbe, say the confession of sins with me! They have come for me! They have come for me! There is a singer wanted in the Heavenly Family! An angel with white wings! Rebbe, Rebbe! Hear, O Israel! Hear, O Is—"
———
The entire little town wished as one man that it might die as blessed a death; but the Rebbe was not satisfied.
"Another fast or two," he groaned, "and he would have died beneath the Divine kiss!"[56]