The young house-master has long ceased to pay me any attention. His ear is turned to the door; he is intent on listening for the arrival of a guest. But the old house-master fixes me with his eye, and, when I have a second time used the word "oppressed," he can no longer contain himself: "A man should be explicit! 'Oppressed'--what does that convey to me? They forced us to break the Sabbath; they forbade us to keep our festivals, to study the Law, even to practice circumcision." "You play 'Preference'?" inquires the younger gentleman, suddenly, "or perhaps even poker?" Once more there is silence, and I continue: "The misfortune was aggravated by the fact that the nobility and the wealthy began to feel ashamed of their own people, and to adopt Greek ways of living. They used to frequent the gymnasiums." She and the old gentleman look at me in astonishment.[134] "In the gymnasiums of those days," I hasten to add, "there was no studying--they used to practice gymnastics, naked, men and women together--" The two pairs of eyes lower their gaze, but the young house-master raises his with a flash. "_What_ did you say?" I make no reply, but go on to speak of the theatres where men fought wild beasts and oxen, and of other Greek manners and customs which must have been contrary to Jewish tradition. "The Greeks thought nothing of all this; they were bent on effacing every trace of independent national existence. They set up an altar in the street with an 'Avodeh zoroh,'[135] and commanded us to sacrifice to it." "What is that?" she asks in Polish. I explain; and the old man adds excitedly: "And a swine, too! We were to sacrifice a swine to it!" "And there was found a Jew to approach the altar with an offering. "But that same day, the old Maccabeus, with his five sons, had come down from the hills, and before the Greek soldiers could intervene, the miserable apostate was lying in his blood, and the altar was torn down. In one second the rebellion was ablaze. The Maccabees, with a handful of men, drove out the far more numerous Greek garrisons. The people were set free! "It is that victory we celebrate with our poor, little illumination, with our Chanukah lights." "What?" and the old man, trembling with rage, springs out of his chair. "_That_ is the Chanukah light? Come here, wretched boy!" he screams to his grandson, who, instead of obeying, shrinks from him in terror. The old man brings his fist down on the table, so that the glasses ring again. "It means--when we had driven out the unclean sons of Javan, there was only one little cruse of holy olive-oil left...." But a fit of coughing stops his breath, and his son hastens up, and assists him into the next room. I wish to leave, but she detains me. "You are against assimilation, then?" she asks. "To assimilate," I reply, "is to consume, to eat, to digest. We assimilate beef and bread, and others wish to assimilate _us_--to eat us up like bread and meat."