"No; that's their synagogue."
"Oh, they just pray there!"
"Pray? They get as drunk as Lot."
II
I returned to my window and gazed curiously at the Klaus, and now that my eye was upon it I saw it was astir with restless life. Men came and went continually. I looked toward the synagogue, and the more pretentious building seemed dead. Then I remembered what Yarchi had told me, that the Chassidim had revolted against set prayer-times. ("They pray and drink at all hours," was his way of putting it.) Something must always be forward in the Klaus, I thought, as I took my hat and stick, on exploring bent. Instinctively I put my pistol in my hip pocket, then bethought myself with a laugh that I was not likely to be molested by the "pious ones." But as it was unloaded, I let it remain in the pocket.
I slipped into the building and on to a bench near the door. But for the veiled Ark at the end, I should not have known the place for a house of worship. True, some men were sitting or standing about, shouting and singing, with odd spasmodic gestures, but the bulk were lounging, smoking clay pipes, drinking coffee, and chattering, while a few, looking like tramps, lay snoring on the hard benches, deaf to all the din. My eye sought at once for the Wonder Rabbi himself, but amid the many quaint physiognomies there was none with any apparent seal of supremacy. The note of all the faces was easy-going good-will, and even the passionate contortions of melody and body which the worshippers produced, the tragic clutchings at space, the clinching of fists, and the beating of breasts had an air of cheery impromptu. They seemed to enjoy their very tears. And every now and then the inspiration would catch one of the gossipers and contort him likewise, while a worshipper would as suddenly fall to gossiping.
Very soon a frost-bitten old man I remembered coming across in the cemetery on the mountain-slope, where he was sweeping the fallen leaves from a tomb, and singing like the grave-digger in Hamlet, sidled up to me and asked me if I needed vodka. I thought it advisable to need some, and was quickly supplied from a box the old fellow seemed to keep under the Ark. The price was so moderate that I tipped him with as much again, doubtless to the enhancement of the "rich stranger's" reputation. Sipping it, I was able to follow with more show of ease the bursts of rambling conversation. Sometimes they talked about the floods, anon about politics, then about sacred texts and the illuminations of the Zohar. But there was one topic which ran like a winding pattern through all the talk, bursting in at the most unexpected places, and this was the wonders wrought by their rabbi.
As they dilated "with enkindlement" upon miracle after miracle, some wrought on earth and some in the higher spheres to which his soul ascended, my curiosity mounted, and calling for more vodka, "Where is the rabbi?" I asked the sexton.
"He may perhaps come down to lunch," said he, in reverent accents, as if to imply that the rabbi was now in the upper spheres. I waited till tables were spread with plain fare in the Klaus itself. At the savour the fountain of worship was sealed; the snorers woke up. I was invited to partake of the meal, which, I was astonished to find, was free to all, provided by the rabbi.
"Truly royal hospitality," I thought. But our royal host himself did not "come down."