Gittel, very tired with all she had gone through this day, went to lie down for a while to rest her head, which was all in a whirl, but the others remained sitting at the table, and never stopped talking of Moisheh.
"I can imagine the sort of engagement Moisheh has made, begging his pardon," remarked the daughter-in-law, and wiped her pale lips.
"I should think so, a man who's been a bachelor up to thirty! It's easy to fancy the sort of bride, and the sort of family she has, if they accepted Moisheh as a suitor," agreed the daughter.
"God helping, this ought to make a man of him," sighed Moisheh's elder brother, "he's cost us trouble and worry enough."
"It's your fault," Yossel told him. "If I'd been his elder brother, he would have turned out differently! I should have directed him like a father, and taken him well in hand."
"You think so, but when God wishes to punish a man through his own child going astray, nothing is of any use; these are not the old times, when young people feared a Rebbe, and respected their elders. Nowadays the world is topsyturvy, and no sooner has a boy outgrown his childhood than he does what he pleases, and parents are nowhere. What have I left undone to make something out of him, so that he should be a credit to his family? Then, he was left an orphan very early; perhaps he would have obeyed his father (may he enter a lightsome paradise!), but for a brother and his mother, he paid them as much attention as last year's snow, and, if you said anything to him, he answered rudely, and neither coaxing nor scolding was any good. Now, please God, he'll make a fresh start, and give up his antics before it's too late. His poor mother! She's had trouble enough on his account, as we all know."
Beile let fall a tear and said:
"If our father (may he be our kind advocate!) were alive, Moishehle would never have made an engagement like this. Who knows what sort of connections they will be! I can see them, begging his pardon, from here! Is he likely to have asked anyone's advice? He always had a will of his own—did what he wanted to do, never asked his mother, or his sister, or his brother, beforehand. Now he's a bridegroom at thirty if he's a day, and we are all asked to the wedding, are we really? And we shall soon all be running to see the fine sight, such as never was seen before. We are no such fools! He thinks himself the clever one now! So he wants us to be at the wedding? Only says it out of politeness."
"We must go, all the same," said Avremel.
"Go and welcome, if you want to—you won't catch me there," answered his sister.