He went in, and I remained standing quite upset: Such eyes, such a voice! It is quite another sort another world! The Byàle Rebbe's eyes are so kind, so quiet, they do one's heart good; he gives you a look, and it's like a shower of gold--and his voice--that sweet voice--soft as velvet--Lord of the world! it goes to your heart and soothes it and comforts it--one isn't afraid of _him_, heaven forbid! The soul just melts for love of him, she desires to escape from the body and unite herself to _his_ soul--she is drawn as a butterfly (lehavdîl) to a bright flame! And here--Lord of the world, fear and trembling! A Gaòn, a Gaòn of the old days! And he has gone in to a woman in child-bed! "He will turn her into a heap of bones!" I think in terror. I run to the Byàle Rebbe. And he met me in the door with a smile: "Have you seen," he said to me, "the majesty of the Law? The very majesty of the Law?" I felt relieved. If the Rebbe smiles, I thought, all will be well. * * * * * And all was well. On Shemini Atseres[143] she was over it. And on Simchas Torah the Brisk Rabbi presided at table. I would have liked to be at table somewhere else, but I did not dare go away, particularly as I made up the tenth man needed to recite grace. Well, what am I to tell you? How the Brisk Rabbi expounded the Torah? If the Torah is a sea, he was Leviathan in the sea--with one twist of his tail he swam through ten treatises, with another he mixed together the Talmud and the codes, so that it heaved and splashed and seethed and boiled, just as they say the real sea does--he made my head go round--but "the heart knoweth its own bitterness," and my heart felt no holiday happiness! And then I remembered the Rebbe's dream--and I felt petrified. There was sun in the window and no want of wine at table, I could see the whole company was perspiring. And I? I was cold, cold as ice! Over yonder I knew the Torah was being expounded differently--there it is bright and warm--every word is penetrated and interwoven with love and rapture--one feels that angels are flying through the room, one seems to hear the rustle of the great, white wings--_aï_, Lord of the world! Only, there's no getting away! Suddenly he stops, the Brisk Rabbi, and asks: "What kind of rabbi have you got here?" "A certain Nòach," they reply. Well, it cut me to the heart. "A certain Nòach!" O, the flattery, the flattery of it! "Is he a wonder-worker?" "Not very much of one, one doesn't often hear about him--the women talk of him, but who listens to them?" "Then he just takes money and does nothing wonderful?" They tell him the truth: that he takes little money, and gives away a great deal. The rabbi muses. "And he is a scholar?" "They say, a great one!" "Whence is he, this Nòach?" Nobody knows, and _I_ have to answer. A conversation ensues between me and the Brisk Rabbi: "Was he not once in Brisk, this Nòach?" he asks.