Next morning there was something of a commotion in the town; people had forgotten Leeb the reader, hadn't paid him properly, and he, poor man, went from house to house collecting money—with a little girl, you remember, whose name was Genendil. She accompanied her father's singing with her childish voice. When they came to our house, you were very sorry for her, took her into your lap, kissed her on the head, and gave her something, I forget what. And you cried for compassion over the motherless child. Perhaps you wonder at my remembering all this?
You see, Hannah'li Krön, I remember all the kind things you said and all your actions, for they were full of charm. You are continually before me. I fancied sometimes, crossing the sea, that you stood beside me, and that the child had hold of your apron, and I heard your voices, and they sounded in my ears with a sweetness beyond all description.
And I have come across Leeb the reader, by the way.
Heaven forgive me, but Leeb the reader has sunk very low.
He paid no attention on board ship as to whether the food were kosher or not, and he drinks as is not the way with Jews. I never once saw him in prayer-scarf and phylacteries the whole time, or saying grace after meat. He goes about all day without a hat—and not content with this, he leads his daughter into the same paths. The Genendil of those days is now about seventeen. You should see her—a picture! And he made her sing and dance before the passengers on board ship—and she sings in different languages. The people listened and clapped their hands with delight and cried out goodness knows what. And it was all so boisterous that really—....
At first—why deny it?—I was very pleased to see them. It's always somebody from home, I thought. I won't have to hang about so lonely and wretched. But afterward I felt greatly distressed. I couldn't bear to watch his goings-on with his daughter. And now and again it cut me to the heart to hear a Jew, who used to stand at the reading-desk, a messenger of Israel to the Almighty, talk such disgusting nonsense. And his voice is burned with brandy.
And they must take me in hand and try to make me presentable. They made fun of me on board. It was always: "Idler!" "Fool!" He tweaked my ear-locks; she pulled the fringe off my "little prayer-scarf," and the whole ship took it up.
And what ailed them at me? That I avoided forbidden food and preferred to fast rather than touch it.
You know, I dislike quarrelling, so I edged away, hid in a corner, and wept my heart out in secret.
But they discovered me and made a laughing-stock of me, and I thought it would be my death.