"Sabbath?" repeated Reb Shloimeh in a dissatisfied tone.
"Sabbath, because I can't come at any other time," said the teacher.
"Then let it be Sabbath," said Reb Shloimeh, reflectively.
"But soon after dinner," he called after the teacher, who was already outside the door. "And everything else is as right as your astronomy?" he shouted, when the teacher had already gone a little way.
"You will see!" and the teacher smiled.
Never in his whole life had Reb Shloimeh waited for a Sabbath as he waited for this one, and the two days that came before it seemed very long to him; he never relaxed his frown, or showed a cheerful face the whole time. And he was often seen, during those two days, to lift his hands to his forehead. He went about as though there lay upon him a heavy weight, which he wanted to throw off; or as if he had a very disagreeable bit of business before him, and wished he could get it over.
On Sabbath he could hardly wait for the teacher's appearance. "You wanted a lot of asking," he said to him reproachfully.
The old lady went to take her nap, the grandchildren to their play, and Reb Shloimeh took the snuff-box between his fingers, leant against the back of the "grandfather's chair" in which he was sitting, and listened with close attention to the teacher's words.
The teacher talked a long time, mentioned the names of sciences, and explained their meaning, and Reb Shloimeh repeated each explanation in brief. "Physics, then, is the science of—" "That means, then, that we have here—that physiology explains—"
The teacher would help him, and then immediately begin to talk of another branch of science. By the time the old lady woke up, the teacher had given examples of anatomy, physiology, physics, chemistry, zoology, and sociology.