"First, Belzer fool, no one has the duty to be original; there is no chronological order in the Law--the new is old, the old is new. Secondly, he showed us why we recite the Haggadah, even the plagues in the Haggadah, to a mournful "Sinni" tune, a tune that is steeped in grief. "Thirdly, he translated the precept: _Al tismàch Yisroel el Gil ko-Ammim_: Materialist, rejoice not in a coarse way--you are no boor! Revenge is not for Jews." XVIII THE PIKE[115] In honor of the feast-day, live fish have been bought. Two large pike are lying in a great, green glass bowl filled with water, and a little further off, in one of blackened earthenware, two or three small carp. These are no sea-folk, but they come out of a fairly wide river, and they are straightened for room in the bowls. The poor little carp, in the one of black glaze, have been aware of its confines for some time past. They have lain for a good hour by the clock, wondering what sort of a prison this may be. And there is plenty of leisure for thinking. It may be long before the cook comes home from market with good things for the feast-day long enough for even a carp to have an idea. But the pike in the glass bowl have not taken in the situation yet. Time after time they swim out strongly and bang their heads against the hard glass. Pike have iron heads but dull wits. The two captive heroes have received each a hundred knocks from every part of the bowl, but they have not yet realized that all is closed to them. They _feel_ the walls, but the weak pike-eyes do not _see_ them. The glass is green--it is just like river water--and yet there is no getting out. "It is witchcraft!" says one pike to the other. The other agrees with him. "To-morrow there is an auction. The other bidders have bewitched us." "Some crayfish or frog has done this." * * * * * It is only a short time since the net drew them out of the water. When they got into the air they had fainted, to recover consciousness inside a barrel of which the lid had been hammered down. "How the days are drawing in!" they had observed both at once. There was very little room in the barrel, scarcely sufficient to turn in, and hardly water enough for anyone to breathe. What with having fainted before, and now this difficulty in breathing, they had fallen into a doze, and had dreamt of all sorts of things, of the fair, and even of the opera and the ballet. But the dream-angel never showed them any kind of barrel. They heard nothing, not even the opening of the barrel and the hubbub of the market. Neither perceived they the trembling of the scales in which they oscillated whilst the cook haggled over them with the fish-wife--or remarked the click-clack of the pointer that spoke their doom.