When the little angels had met Bontzye in mid-air and played him a tune; when Abraham, our father, had shaken him by the hand like an old comrade; when he heard that a chair stood waiting for him in Paradise, that a crown lay ready for his head; and that not a word would be lost over his case before the Heavenly Court--Bontzye, just as in the other world, was too frightened to speak. His heart sank with terror. He is sure it is all a dream, or else simply a mistake. He is used to both. He often dreamt, in the other world, that he was picking up money off the floor--there were whole heaps of it--and then he woke to find himself as poor as ever; and more than once people had smiled at him and given him a friendly word and then turned away and spit out. "It is my luck," he used to think. And now he dared not raise his eyes, lest the dream should vanish, lest he should wake up in some cave full of snakes and lizards. He was afraid to speak, afraid to move, lest he should be recognized and flung into the pit. He trembles and does not hear the angels' compliments, does not see how they dance round him, makes no answer to the greeting of Abraham, our father, and--when he is led into the presence of the Heavenly Court, he does not even wish it "good morning!" He is beside himself with terror, and his fright increases when he happens to notice the floor of the Heavenly Courthouse; it is all alabaster set with diamonds. "And my feet standing on it!" He is paralyzed. "Who knows what rich man, what rabbi, what saint they take me for--he will come--and that will be the end of me!" His terror is such, he never even hears the president call out: "The case of Bontzye Shweig!" adding, as he hands the deeds to the advocate, "Read, but make haste!" The whole hall goes round and round in Bontzye's eyes, there is a rushing in his ears. And through the rushing he hears more and more clearly the voice of the advocate, speaking sweetly as a violin. "His name," he hears, "fitted him like the dress made for a slender figure by the hand of an artist-tailor." "What is he talking about?" wondered Bontzye, and he heard an impatient voice break in with: "No similes, please!" "He never," continued the advocate, "was heard to complain of either God or man; there was never a flash of hatred in his eye; he never lifted it with a claim on heaven." Still Bontzye does not understand, and once again the hard voice interrupts: "No rhetoric, please!" "Job gave way--this one was more unfortunate--" "Facts, dry facts!" "When he was a week old, he was circumcised...." "We want no realism!" "The Mohel who circumcised him did not know his work--" "Come, come!" "And he kept silent," the advocate went on, "even when his mother died, and he was given a step-mother at thirteen years old--a serpent, a vixen." "Can they mean me after all?" thought Bontzye. "No insinuations against a third party!" said the president, angrily.