"I cannot tell thee now," replied the spirit. "It will disgrace my children who are in the room. If they depart, I will tell thee."
Thereupon all the people departed in haste and spread the news that Israel could cast out devils. The respect for him grew, but Rabbi Gershon was incredulous, saying such things could only be done by a scholar; and, becoming again out of patience with this ignorant incubus upon his honorable house, he bought his sister a small inn in a village far away on the border of a forest. While his wife managed the inn, the Baal Shem built himself a hut in the forest and retired there to study the Law day and night; only on the Sabbath did he go out, dressed in white, and many ablutions did he make, as becomes the pure and the holy.
It was here that he reached his thirty-sixth year, but still he did not reveal himself, for he had not meditated sufficiently nor found out his first apostles. But in his forty-second year he began freely to speak and to gather disciples, wandering about Podolia and Wallachia, and teaching by discourse and parable, crossing streams by spreading his mantle upon the waters, and saving his disciples from freezing in the wintry frosts by touching the trees with his finger-tips, so that they burnt without being consumed.
And now he was become the chief of a mighty sect, that ramified everywhere, and the head of a school of prophets and wonder-workers to whom he had unveiled the secret of the Name.
IV
So strange and marvellous a story, so full of minute detail, and for the possible truth of which my Cabalistic studies had prepared me, roused in me again the ever-smouldering hope of becoming expert in these traditional practices of our nation. Why should not I, like other Rabbis, have the key of the worlds? Why should not I, too, fashion a fine fat calf on the Friday and eat it for my Sabbath meal? or create a soulless monster to wait upon me hand and foot? The Talmudical subtleties had kept me long enough wandering in a blind maze. I would go forth in search of light. I would gird up my loins and take my staff in my hand and seek the fountain-head of wisdom, the great Master of the Name himself; I would fall at his feet and beseech him to receive me among his pupils.
Travelling was easy enough:—in every town a Beth-Hamidrash into which the wanderer would first make his way; in every town hospitable entertainers who would board and lodge a man of learning like myself, rejoicing at the honor. Even in the poorest villages I might count upon black bread and sheep's cheese and a bed of fir branches. But when I came to make inquiries I found that the village in Volhynia, which Rabbi Baer had made his centre, was far nearer than the forest where the Master, remote and inaccessible, retired to meditate after his missionary wanderings; nay, that my footsteps must needs pass through this Mizricz, the political stronghold of Chassidism. This discovery did not displease me, for I felt that thus I should reach the Master better prepared. In my impatience I could scarcely wait for the roads to become passable, and it was still the skirt of winter when, with a light heart and a wild hope, I set my face for the wild ravines of Severia and the dreary steppes of the Ukraine. Very soon I came into parts where the question of the Chassidim was alive and burning, and indeed into towns where it had a greater living interest than the quarrel of the amulets. And in these regions the rumor of the Baal Shem began to thicken. There was not a village of log-houses but buzzed with its own miracle. Everywhere did I hear of healings of the sick and driving out of demons and summoning of spirits, and the face of the Master shining.
Of these strange stories I will set down but two. The Master and his retinue were riding on a journey, and came to a strange road. His disciples did not know the way, and the party went astray and wandered about till Wednesday night, when they put up at an inn. In the morning the host asked who they were.
"I am a wandering preacher," replied the Baal Shem. "And I wish to get to the capital before the Sabbath, for I have heard that the richest man in the town is marrying there on the Friday, and perchance I may preach at the wedding."
"That thou wilt never do," said the innkeeper, "for the capital is a week's journey."