No one who has not seen the rabbi of Tishewitz's dressing-gown would ever know the reason why the rebbitzin, his third wife, though hardly middle-aged, already wears a large pair of spectacles on her nose. The dressing-gown looks as if it were simply made of patches.
"If only," complains the rabbi, "the town would give me another two gulden a week, I could get along. Asö is gor bitter! But I shall get my way. Their law-suits they can decide without me; when it is a question of pots and pans, any school-teacher will do; questions regarding women, of course, cannot be put off; and yet I shall get my way, I'm only waiting for the election of the elders; they can't have an election without a rabbi. Imagine a town—no evil eye!—a metropolis in Israel, without elders! And if that won't do it, I shall refuse to try the slaughtering-knives—I've got them fast enough!"
It was no easy matter to divert the rabbi's thoughts from his own grievances, but on the Maskil's promising to do his utmost to induce the community to raise his salary, he begged us to be seated, and listened to our tale.
"Nonsense!" he said, "I know you! Tell the fools I know you."
"They run away from me!"
"Ett![72] They run away! Why should they run away? Who runs away? After what? Well, as you say they run away, I will go out with you myself."
"In what will you go?" calls out a woman's voice from behind the stove.
"Give me my cloak," answers the rabbi.
"Give you your cloak! I've this minute taken it apart."
"Well," says the rabbi, "the misfortune is happily not great. We will go to-morrow."