"'I want Yòsef to be a learned man!'
"'What besides?' I hardly escaped alive, and he, may his merits protect us, died the following week.
"Well? What lay between me and the riches? A hair's breadth! it was my own fault. If I had stood up to him and kept to it! Well!"
"At least," I inquire, "is your son learned?"
"He would have been," he replies in a broken voice, "only he won't learn ... even a Rebbe can't help that ... he won't learn—what can one do?"
"And the moral," interposes the Maskil, "is that one shouldn't keep rubbish heaps under the window, that you can do nothing without money, and, above all, that one shouldn't be frightened of any Rebbe!"
In one second the livid-faced Jew had flushed scarlet, his eyes shot fire, his person lengthened, and the room resounded with two slaps received by the Maskil.
———
I fear that his first request will equally go unfulfilled: he will yet die of hunger.
———