It is said that in Warsaw they have started tea-houses for the poor, and cheap kitchens; they are giving away coal, clothes, and food for nothing--all "_their_" precautions, all to imitate the nations of the world, and perhaps to please the chief of police. Here other means are employed--"Meïr Baal-Ness,"[40] wonder-workers, and famous charms. Saturday evening, as soon as it is dark, "candles of blessing" are stuck in the windows; outside the town, Vassil has a mill--the stakes shall be conveyed away by night and buried in holy ground; an orphan boy shall be married to an orphan girl--and every possible thing of the kind; only--only, these charms have been from everlasting, and yet, when there was the plague of 1829, the entire market-place was grass-grown with only a pathway or two in the middle, trodden by those who carried the dead. Besides, and worse even than the plague itself, there is disinfection, isolation, and, heaven have mercy on us, post-mortems. No man can live forever, nor can he die more than once; but death and life are in the hands of the All-Merciful. Weeping, prayer, and confession, these help; almsgiving is a remedy; but the other things mean falling into the hands of men. They suck the marrow out of your bones, it costs you a fortune, treasure and blood--and they make post-mortems! They cut up a corpse, heaven defend us, into little pieces, and bury it without a winding-sheet, in pitch. In the hospital there is poisoning; they burn innocent bedding, or they make a ring of Cossacks, and people may starve to death or devour each other as they choose. Ha! one must be up and doing and not let the enemy into the town. "Candles of blessing" are already in the windows, side-glances are being cast at Vassil's mill, and a marriage between two orphans is under discussion. And the terror increases day by day. One had hoped that the calamity would pass away with the summer, with the great heat.... These are all over, the Solemn Days, too. Now, thank God, it is after Tabernacles. One feels the cold in one's bones; it snows a little, not unfrequently, and the pestilence creeps on and on. May God watch over us and protect us. 2 TWO ARE NOT AFRAID And yet there are two persons in the place who are not afraid; and not only that, but they are hoping for the plague. The two persons are the young doctor, Savitzki, a Christian, and, lehavdîl, Yössil, the beggar-student.