Fishel understood that he was to lie down, and did not need to be told twice. For now he had seen a whole host of floes coming down upon them, a world of ice, and he shut his eyes, flung himself face downwards in the boat, and lay trembling like a lamb, and recited in a low voice, "Hear, O Israel!" and the Confession, thought on the graves of Israel, and fancied that now, now he lies in the abyss of the waters, now, now comes a fish and swallows him, like Jonah the prophet when he fled to Tarshish, and he remembers Jonah's prayer, and sings softly and with tears:
"Affofùni màyyim ad nòfesh—the waters have reached unto my soul; tehòm yesovèveni—the deep hath covered me!"
Fishel the teacher sang and wept and thought pitifully of his widowed wife and his orphaned children, and Prokop rowed for all he was worth, and sang his little song:
"O thou maiden with the black lashes!"
And Prokop felt the same on the water as on dry land, and Fishel's "Affofùni" and Prokop's "O maiden" blended into one, and a strange song sounded over the Bug, a kind of duet, which had never been heard there before.
"The black year knows why he is so afraid of death, that Jew," so wondered Prokop Baranyùk, "a poor tattered little Jew like him, a creature I would not give this old boat for, and so afraid of death!"
The shore reached, Prokop gave Fishel a shove in the side with his boot, and Fishel started. The Gentile burst out laughing, but Fishel did not hear, Fishel went on reciting the Confession, saying Kaddish for his own soul, and mentally contemplating the graves of Israel!
"Get up, you silly Rebbe! We're there—in Chaschtschevate!"
Slowly, slowly, Fishel raised his head, and gazed around him with red and swollen eyes.
"Chasch-tsche-va-te???"