David waved his hand. 'I told my landlord as much. Am I a Talmud-sage that I should thus aspire? Forgive and forget my Chutzpah (impudence)!'
'But the eldest—perhaps—with a smaller dowry——'
'To tell the truth, Panie Tinowitz, it was the landlord who turned my head with false hopes. I came here not to promote marriages, but to prevent funerals!'
The corn-factor gasped, 'Funerals!'
'A pogrom is threatened——'
'Open not your mouth to Satan!' reprimanded Tinowitz, growing livid.
'If you prefer silence and slaughter——' said David, with a shrug.
'It is impossible—here!'
'And why not here, as well as in the six hundred and thirty-eight other towns?'
'In those towns there must have been bad blood; here Jew and Russian live together like brothers.'