The teachers, who were there waiting for him, asked no questions: they had only to look at his ghastly appearance to know what had happened.
Reb Shloimeh sank into his arm-chair.
"Nothing," he said, looking sideways, but meaning it for the teachers.
"Nothing is nothing!" and they betook themselves to consoling him. "We will find something else to do, get hold of some other children, or else wait a little—they'll ask to be taken back presently."
Reb Shloimeh did not hear them. He had let his head sink on to his breast, turned his look sideways, and thoughts he could not piece together, fragments of thoughts, went round and round in the drooping head.
"Why? Why?" He asked himself over and over. "To do such a thing to me! Well, there you are! There you have it!—You've lived your life—like a man!—"
His heart felt heavy and hurt him, and his brain grew warm, warm. In one minute there ran through his head the impression which his so nearly finished life had made on him of late, and immediately after it all the plans he had thought out for setting to right his whole past life by means of the little bit left him. And now it was all over and done! "Why? Why?" he asked himself without ceasing, and could not understand it.
He felt his old heart bursting with love to all men. It beat more and more strongly, and would not cease from loving; and he would fain have seen everyone so happy, so happy! He would have worked with his last bit of strength, he would have drawn his last breath for the cause to which he had devoted himself. He is no longer conscious of the whereabouts of his limbs, he feels his head growing heavier, his feet cold, and it is dark before his eyes.
When he came to himself again, he was in bed; on his head was a bandage with ice; the old wife was lamenting; the teachers stood not far from the bed, and talked among themselves. He wanted to lift his hand and draw it across his forehead, but somehow he does not feel his hand at all. He looks at it—it lies stretched out beside him. And Reb Shloimeh understood what had happened to him.
"A stroke!" he thought, "I am finished, done for!"