"Do you know if Eli Witebski is home?" asked Saul.
"Yes, he returned home yesterday," answered his son.
"Someone must go there at once and tell him that I wish to see him, and talk with him about an important matter."
"I will go myself," said Raphael; "I know about what you are going to talk with Witebski. You have an excellent idea, and it must be executed immediately. Meir may go astray if he is not married soon."
Saul's eyes searched his son's face inquiringly. "Raphael, do you think he will change when he is married?"
Raphael nodded his head affirmatively.
"Father," said he, "remember Ber. He was on the same road which Meir is travelling, but then he married Sarah, and you, father, took him into partnership and when the children began to come, one after another, all these stupid ideas left his head."
"Go! Call Witebski to me," concluded Saul.
Raphael left the room, and was soon walking in the direction of the house which stood at the corner of the two largest streets. On the piazza sat a plump woman in a silk gown, and a mantilla buckled with a gold brooch. On her ears were long earrings, and a carefully-combed wig was on her head. She was about forty, and looked fresh and healthy. Her mouth wore a smile of satisfaction and pride, and in her hands she held some fancy embroidery. When Raphael ascended the stairs she rose, and with the most exquisite bow ever made in Szybow, she extended her hand in welcome to the guest. Except Pani (Mrs.) Hannah Witebska, there was not another woman in Szybow who shook hands with a man. The English hand-shake, popular in the whole civilised world, evidently did not meet with the approval of the dignified Raphael, for he touched the plump Pani Hannah's hand a little reluctantly, and after a short greeting he asked for her husband.
"He is home," answered the woman, smiling continually, with chronic satisfaction and equally chronic pride; "he came back yesterday, and is now taking a rest."
"I came to talk with him," said Raphael
"Come in! come in!" exclaimed the woman, opening with hasty amiability the door leading into the house. "My husband will be much pleased to receive such a guest."
Raphael answered Pani Hannah's fashionable civilities by a swift nod of the head, and entered the house. Pani Hannah again sat down on the bench, and half closed her eyes disdainfully, whispering to herself:
"Nu! what people there are in this Szybow! They don't want to talk with women. They are like wild bears."
She sighed, moved her head several times, and added:
"Am I accustomed to such people? In our city of Wilno the people are civil and educated, not savages as here. Pfe!"
She sighed once more, continued her work mechanically, looking on the town and swarming people with the same smile of satisfaction and pride. Soon two men appeared in the door of the house. They were in conversation, and passed swiftly by the piazza and without looking at Pani Hannah they went in the direction of the Ezofowich house. Eli Witebski, walking with Raphael across the square, did not at all resemble his companion. Although a merchant, he represented quite a different type of the Hebrew trader. He was evidently fashionable and a dandy. His coat, although not entirely short, was a great deal shorter than the halat which Raphael wore, and it was cut quite differently. Across his silk waistcoat shone a thick gold chain, and he wore a big diamond ring on his finger. His face was serene, his eyes keen and penetrating. He had a small, yellowish beard to which he often raised his diamond-ornamented hand by a slow and deliberate movement.
He walked beside Raphael rapidly and with evident pleasure. At any rate, there was not a merchant in all Szybow who would not make equal haste if he were called by Saul Ezofowich. For ten years Saul had retired from business, and, except to go to the synagogue, he never left his house. But everyone who wished to draw from the treasures of his great experience and equal keenness in business transactions came to see him. Saul never refused advice, and even help, as far as he was able to give it, without wronging his children And when he wished to speak to some dignitary of the community, he called them to him through his sons or grandsons and they hastened to him willingly.
Therefore, on being called by the old patriarch, Eli Witebski hastened naturally. Smiling and radiant he entered the parlour, and greeted the host:
"Scholem Alejhem!" (Peace to you). He did not greet anyone outside of Szybow in such an old-fashioned way. On the contrary, he could say very correctly, Gut morgen (Good morning), but his unshaken rule was to accommodate himself to those with whom he had to deal.
Raphael wished to leave them, but Saul signed him to remain. They carefully closed all the doors, and spoke together for quite a while.
But no matter how low they spoke, the frolicsome Lija, Raphael's daughter, put her little nose to the closed door, and her dark eye to the keyhole, and often heard repeated the names of Meir and Mera, Witebski's daughter first, and then her own name and that of a certain Leopold, Pani Hannah's cousin. She sprang from the door covered with blushes, half-confused, and half-seized with a secret joy, and then she constantly looked through the window to see as soon as possible when her cousin returned.
The sun had begun to set when Witebski left the Ezofowich's house, beaming, smiling, and evidently very much pleased with the transaction, or, perhaps, two transactions closed at the same time.
Almost at the same moment Meir returned home. Lija rushed to meet him, and, in the gate of the court-yard, placing her arm about his neck, she whispered in his ear:
"Do you know, Meir, a great thing has happened to-day in our house.
Our zeide and my father spoke a long time with Eli Witebski, and they came to an agreement about us. Witebski has promised his daughter to you, and my father has promised me to Paul Hannah's nephew, who is very well educated."
She whispered all this, blushing, and too confused to dare to raise her eyes to her cousin's face. At once she felt that, by a sudden movement, he slipped from her embrace, and, when she raised her eyes, she saw Meir again leaving the gate of the house.
"Meir!" exclaimed the girl, in surprise, "where are you going? Are you not going to have supper with us?"
The departing young man did not answer the girl's voice calling him to the family table. A deep wrinkle angrily cut his forehead. Now he understood the nothingness of his exclamation in the presence of his grandfather: "I am no one's slave!" They disposed, without the slightest regard for his will, of his future, of his family, and he knew that the commands of the elders must be obeyed.
No! He shuddered to think that it must be so. Why? He did not know the young girl Mera, who, somewhere in the world, was studying the same things which he himself desired so much. But, walking through the town and the empty fields separating it from the Karaim's Hill, walking slowly, with hands behind him, and bent head, he thought obstinately, almost mechanically, and incessantly, "I am no one's slave!" Pride and the desire for freedom boiled in his heart, aroused by some unknown source, probably those secret breaths of nature sown in the fields by noble and strong spirits thirsting for liberty, righteousness, and knowledge.
At the foot of the Karaim's Hill, in the hut which clung closely to its sandy side, there burned a small, yellow light. Over it, through the forked branches of the willow tree, shone many small stars, and further on, over the great fields, lay the gray shadows of the dusk.
In the interior of the hut, against the low wall, was seated an old man, working with the flexible willow branches. His figure was gray in the dusk of the hut, and the features of the bent face could not be seen. The tall, straight figure of a girl, with a thin face, sat in a wooden chair near the flame of the candle. In one dropped hand a spindle was softly twirling, and over her head was a board with a big bunch of wool fastened to it. From the wall, where the old man sat, came a hoarse, trembling voice:
"In the midst of the desert, so large that one could not see its end, rose two mountains so high that their summits were hidden in the clouds. The names of these mountains were Horeb and Sinai."
The voice became silent, and the girl, who listened gravely while she spun, said:
"Zeide, speak further."
But at that moment a manly voice was heard at the open window.
"Golda!"
The spinner was neither frightened nor surprised at this sudden pronunciation of her name by a strange voice. It might almost be said that at any moment she expected to hear that voice, so gravely, and with so little emotion did she rise and go to the window. Only her eyes shone warmly under: the dark lashes, and her voice was inexpressibly sweet when, standing at the lattice, she said softly:
"Meir! I knew that you would keep your promise and come."
"Golda," said the muffled voice from behind the window, "I came to see you because to-day there is a great darkness before my eyes, and I wished to look at you, that the world might become brighter to me."
"And why is it so dark to-day before your eyes?" asked the girl.
"A great sorrow has befallen me. Rabbi Todros has accused me of wrongdoing before my zeide, and my zeide wishes to marry me."
He became silent and dropped his eyes. The girl did not move. Not the slightest movement of her face or figure betrayed emotion--only her swarthy and sun-burned face grew white.
"To whom does your zeide wish to marry you?" she asked, and her voice had a gloomy sound.
"To Mera, the daughter of the merchant Witebski."
She shook her head.
"I don't know her."
Then she asked suddenly:
"Meir, are you going to marry her?"
The young man did not answer. Golda, however, did not ask him again.
Her swarthy forehead was bathed in a blush and an expression of great bliss filled her eyes, for Meir's sweet, deep and at the same time fiery look, rested on her face.
Both were silent, and amidst the tranquillity, interrupted only by the rustling of the branches overhanging the roof, there was heard again the hoarse and trembling voice of the old man sitting by the wall.