'Your grandmother does not understand. She thinks you paint houses—which is not forbidden. But I don't undeceive her—it would pain her too much.' The lover-like sentiment brought back the artist's alarm.
'When will you be ready to start?' he said.
Yossel pondered. 'But to die in Palestine one must live in Palestine,' he said. 'I cannot be certain that God would take my soul the moment I set foot on the holy soil.'
The artist reflected a moment, but scarcely felt rich enough to guarantee that Yossel should live in Palestine, especially if he were an unconscionably long time a-dying. A happy thought came to him. 'But there is the Chalukah,' he reminded Yossel.
'But that is charity.'
'No—it is not charity, it is a sort of university endowment. It is just to support such old students as you that these sums are sent from all the world over. The prayers and studies of our old men in Jerusalem are a redemption to all Israel. And yours would be to me in particular.'
'True, true,' said Yossel eagerly; 'and life is very cheap there, I have always heard.'
'Then it is a bargain,' slipped unwarily from the artist's tongue. But Yossel replied simply:
'May the blessings of the Eternal be upon you for ever and for ever, and by the merit of my prayers in Jerusalem may your sins be forgiven.'
The artist was moved. Surely, he thought, struggling between tears and laughter, no undesirable lover had ever thus been got rid of by the head of the family. Not to speak of an undesirable grandfather.