"Was not the Rebbe once in Brisk?" I stammered. "I think--yes!" "Ah," says he, "a follower of his!" and it seems to me he looks at me as one looks at a spider. Then he turns to the company: "I once had a pupil," he says, "Nòach--he had a good head, but he was attracted to the other side[144]--I spoke to him once, twice--I would have spoken to him a third time, to warn him, but he disappeared--is it not he? Who knows!" And he began to describe him: thin, small, a little black beard, black, curly ear-locks, a dreamer, a quiet voice, and so on. "It may be," said the company, "that it is he; it sounds very like!" I thanked God when they began to say grace. But after grace something happened that I had never dreamt of. The Brisk Rabbi rises from his seat, calls me aside, and says in a low voice: "Take me to _your_ Rebbe and _my_ pupil! Only, do you hear? no one must know!" Of course, I obeyed, only on the way I asked in terror: "Brisk Rabbi, tell me, with what purpose are you going?" And he answered simply: "It occurred to me at grace, that I had judged by hearsay--I want to see, I want to see for myself, and perhaps," he added, after a while, "God will help me, and I will save a pupil of mine. "Know, rascal," he said to me playfully, "that if your Rebbe is _that_ Nòach who studied with me, he may some day be a great man in Israel, a veritable Brisk Rabbi!" Then I knew that it was he, and my heart began to beat with violence. And the two mountains met--and it is a miracle from heaven that I was not crushed between them. The Byàle Rebbe of blessed memory used to send out his followers, at Simchas Torah, to walk round the town, and he himself sat in the balcony and looked on and had pleasure in what he saw. It was not the Byàle of to-day: it was quite a small place then, with little, low-built houses, except for the Shool and the Rebbe's Kläus. The Rebbe's balcony was on the second floor, and you could see everything from it as if it all lay in the flat of your hand: the hills to the east and the river to the west. And the Rebbe sits and looks out, sees some Chassidîm walking along in silence, and throws down to them from the balcony the fragments of a tune. They catch at it and proceed on their way singing, and batches and batches of them go past and out of the town with songs and real gladness, with real Rejoicing of the Law--and the Rebbe used not to leave the balcony. But on this occasion the Rebbe must have heard other steps, for he rose and came to meet the Rabbi of Brisk. "Peace be with you, Rabbi!" he said meekly, in his sweet voice. "Peace be with you, Nòach!" the Brisk Rabbi answered. "Sit, Rabbi!" The Brisk Rabbi took a seat, and the Byàle Rebbe stood before him. "Tell me, Nòach," said the Brisk Rabbi, with lifted eyebrows, "why did you run away from my academy? What was wanting to you there?" "Breathing-space, Rabbi," answered the other, composedly. "What do you mean? What are you talking about, Nòach?"