"Rabbi, take me away hence! I do not wish to stay alone with you! I wish to be with All-Israel!"
And hardly had he said it when the Brisk Rabbi disappeared, and he was left alone in the palace.
He knew of no way, no in and no out; a cold terror struck him from the walls; and the longing for a Jew, to see a Jew, if only a cobbler or a tailor, waxed stronger and stronger. He began to weep.
"Lord of the world," he begged, "take me away from here. Better in Gehenna with All-Israel than here one by himself!"
And immediately there appeared before him a common Jew with the red sash of a driver round him, and a long whip in his hand. The Jew took him silently by the sleeve, led him out of the palace—and vanished. Such was the dream that was sent him.
When he woke, before daylight, when it had scarcely begun to dawn, he understood that this had been no ordinary dream. He dressed quickly, and hastened toward the house-of-study to get his dream interpreted by the learned ones who pass the night there. On his way through the market, however, he saw a covered wagon standing, and beside it—the driver with a red sash round the waist, a long whip in his hand, and altogether just such a Jew as the one who had led him out of the palace in his dream.
Nòach (it struck him there was something behind the coincidence) went up to him and asked:
"Whither drives a Jew?"
"Not your way," answered the driver, very roughly.
"Well, tell me anyway," he continued. "Perhaps I will go with you!"