'Well, just fancy, Sir! Here it was freezing!'
'Then you have forgotten, is that it? Anyway, with us the fields are sown in April, and all the trees are green.'
'Green?' Joy shone in Srul's eyes. 'Why, yes, yes—green:—and here it was freezing!'
Now at last I knew why he had come to me. Wishing to make certain, however, I was silent: the Jew was evidently getting animated.
'Well, Sir, you might tell me if there is any—with us now ... but you see, I don't know what it's called; I have already forgotten Polish,' he apologized shyly, as if he had ever known it—'it's white like a pea blossom, yet it's not a pea, and in summer it grows in gardens round houses, on those tall stalks?'
'Kidney beans?'
'That's just it! Kidney beans! Kidney beans!' he repeated to himself several times, as if wishing to impress those words on his memory for ever.
'Of course there are plenty of those. But are there none here?'
'Here! I have never seen a single pod all these past three years. Here the peas are what at home we should not expect the ... the....'
'The pigs to eat,' I suggested.