308
PARTISAN REVIEW
lad, and more than once he added something on
his
own. He had
formerly annoyed me a lot, plucking my nose and digging me in
the
ribs, but when he started to be a visitor to my house he became kind
and tolerant. "Hey, you, Gimpel," he said to me, "you have a
very
decent little wife, and two fine kids. You don't deserve them."
"But the things people say about her," I said.
"Well, they have long tongues," he said, "and nothing to do
with them but babble. You can ignore it as you can ignore the cold
of last winter."
One day the rabbi sent for me and said, "Are you certain,
Gimpel, that you were wrong about your wife?"
I said, "I'm certain."
"Why, but look here! You yourself saw
it."
"It must have been a shadow," I said.
"The shadow of what?"
"Just of one of the beams, I think."
"You can go home, then. You owe thanks to the Yanover Rabbi.
He found an obscure reference in Maimonides that favored you."
I seized the rabbi's hand and kissed it.
I wanted to run home immediately. It's no small thing to
be
separated for so long a time from wife and child. Then I reflected,
"I'd better go back to work now, and go home in the evening." I
said nothing to anyone, notwithstanding that as far as my heart was
concerned it was like one of the holy days. The women teased and
twitted me as they did every day, but my thought was, "Go on,
with your loose talk. The truth
is
out, like the oil upon the water.
Maimonides says it's right, and therefore it is right!"
At night, when I had covered the dough to let it rise, I took
my share of bread and a little sack of flour, and started homeward.
The moon was full and the stars were glistening something to terrify
the soul. I hurried onward, and before me darted a long shadow.
It
was winter, and ,a fresh snow had fallen. I had a mind to sing, but
it was growing late and I didn't want to wake the householders.
Then I felt like whistling, but remembered that you don't whistle at
night because it brings the demons out. So I was silent and walked
as fast as I could.
Dogs in the Christian yards barked at me when I passed, but
I thought, "Bark your teeth out! What are you but mere dogs?
