"To envy!" throws in the rebbitzin. "I know, I know!" laughs the rabbi's head with the tiny wrinkles, the beard with the soft end quivers, the old eyes grow moister. "I know, it was not the sinful body you were thinking of, but the honor of the Law. Of course, a Shochet sausage and a Dayan--no, that was very wrong! A Dayan is distinctly greater than a Shochet! Well, well, anyhow, here I am quit of all that--where they don't kill for a whole week at a time." He is still better pleased with the fresh country air. In the large towns, the householders must live in large houses. The rich householders live in the middle; below, in the cellars, and above, in the attics, poor people, including paid officials of the community like himself. In summer he had felt suffocated there. It went so far that the rebbitzin stole away his snuff-box, so that he might at any rate not stuff snuff up his nose, but she had to give it him back--without snuff he was nowhere; he cannot even sit and read without it; even when not taking any, he must have the root snuff-box to finger while he studies, and even as now, when talking, he would lose the train of his thought and not find suitable words in which to express himself if he had not got it. What do you think? When he first saw Yartseff with the wide, grass-grown market-place, he would have liked a band to play--and a band _played_! On that day all Kohol was at home, and they came to meet him with chamber-music! And he was charmed by the little, tiny houses, like pieces of root tobacco; there is one walled in, the big one in the centre of the market-place--it is the lord's. And the stairs he got away from when he left the large town! He is naturally weak in the legs, in another year he would have been without feet! Then--the restfulness of it here!... quiet!... not a dog barks, and the children (lehavdîl) don't shout. There are thirty boys and perhaps six teachers, so they're kept well in hand, not as in the large towns. At Purim and Chanukah, then they shout, yes! they make a fearful noise! But otherwise you don't hear a sound.