_Ach!_ Chonoh must be rich, very rich! Everything he has on is whole, and he wears a chain--perhaps it is pinchbeck? No, it is real gold! Chonoh wouldn't wear a pinchbeck chain. Ha, ha, ha! he glances at the stove.[29] Ha, ha, ha! he nearly splits with laughter. Yainkil, Beril, Zecharyah--all three--ha, ha, ha! they were hidden on the stove. The thieves! What a pity Shprintze is not there! What a pity! She would have been so pleased. Meantime Chonoh is ordering two geese. "Chonoh! Chonoh! don't you know me? I am he!" And he fancies they embrace him. "Look you, Chonoh; what a pity your mother cannot see you! Yainkil, Beril, Zecharyah, come down from the stove! I knew you at once! Make haste! I knew you would come! Look, I have brought you some cheese, real sheep's milk cheese. Don't you like soldier's bread? What? Perhaps not? Yes, it is a pity about the mother." And he fancies that all the four children have put their arms round him and hold him and kiss and press him to them. "Gently, children, gently; don't squeeze me too hard! I am no young man--I am eighty years old! Gently, you are suffocating me; gently, children! Old bones! Gently, there is money in the bag. Praise God, they trust me with money! Enough, children, enough!" And it was enough. He sat there suffocated, with his hand pressed to the bag in his bosom. IX WHAT IS THE SOUL? 1 I remember, as in a dream, that there used to be about the house a little, thin Jew, with a pointed beard, who often put his arms round me and kissed me. Then I remember how the same man lay ill in bed; he groaned a great deal, and my mother stood and beat her head with her hands. One night I woke up and saw the room full of people. Outside there was a grievous noise; I was very frightened, and I began to scream. One of the people came up to me, dressed me, and led me away to sleep at a neighbor's. When I saw our room next morning, I did not know it again. Straw lay scattered on the floor, the glass on the wall was covered over, the hanging-lamp wrapped in a table cover, and my mother sat on a low stool in her socks. She began to weep loudly at sight of me and cried: "The orphan! the orphan!" An oil-lamp burned in the window; beside it were a glass of water and a piece of linen. They told me that my father had died, that his soul washed itself in the glass and dried itself with the linen; that when once I began to say the Kaddish it would fly straight up into heaven. And I fancied the soul was a bird. 2 One evening the "helper" was leading me home from Cheder. A few birds flew past me, quite low. "Neshome'lech fliehen, neshome'lech fliehen!"[30] I sang to myself. The "helper" turned round upon me: "You silly!" he said, "those are birds, ordinary birds." Afterwards I asked my mother how one could tell the difference between an ordinary bird and a soul. 3 At fourteen years old, I was studying Gemoreh with the commentaries, and, as luck would have it, under Zerach Kneip.