First, from pride in their husbands with their Torah; secondly, from the crackling fire, and thirdly, with confusion before a stranger, a man, and a "German" to boot. One caught a corner of her apron in her mouth, the other moved a few steps backward, as in the synagogue at the end of the Kedushah. Both look at me in astonishment from under low foreheads with hairbands of plaited thread.
The young men, however, soon recover themselves. They have heard of the note-taker, and have guessed that I am he!
The note-taking goes quickly. The Shochet gets four rubles a week, besides what he earns in the villages; were it not for the meat brought in from the villages round about, he would be doing very well.
The shop does not bring in much, but always something. Parnosseh, thank God, they have! As for the children, they will live with the parents, and when, in God's good time, the parents shall have departed this life, they will inherit, one, the father's profession, the other, the shop; the house will be in common.
They look better off than any in the town; better off than the traders, householders, workmen, better off even than the public-house keeper and the Feldscher together. There will come a time—I think as I go out—when even teaching will be one of the best paid professions.
It is all not so bad as people think: besides being a rabbi, a Shochet, a beadle, and a teacher, there is yet another good way of getting a living.
In the Shochet's house there is a female lodger; she pays fifteen rubles a year. The door is locked; through the window, which looks into the street, I see quite a nice little room. Two well-furnished beds with white pillows, red-painted wooden furniture; copper utensils hang on the wall by the fire-place; there is a bright hanging-lamp. The room is full of comfort and household cheer.
She has silver, too, they tell me. I see a large chest with brass fittings. There must be silver candle-sticks in it, and perhaps ornaments.
What do you think? they say. She has a lot of money, the whole town is in her pocket. She is a widow with three children. The door is locked all through the week, because she only comes home every Sabbath, excepting Shabbes Chazon.[93] She spends the whole week going round the villages in the neighborhood, begging, with all three children.
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