"And yet it's true; our rabbi corresponds with all the Geonim[49] in the world. Questions and answers concerning the most important matters come and go--everything is arranged somehow--it just depends. Not long ago, for instance, an elderly grass-widow was released from the marriage-tie. Well, of course, the main thing is not the grass-widow, but the dialectics!"[50] He goes on: "All the Einiklich[51] know of our town. They come, praise God, often--and, praise God, not in vain." "It is the first time I ever heard of a dead town." "That's rather strange! I suppose you keep yourself rather aloof..... And yet it is a truly Jewish town, a real Jewish metropolis. It has everything a town needs, even two or three lunatics! And it has a reputation for commerce, too!" "Is anything taken in or out?" "What? What do you say?" asks the Jew, not quite clear as to my meaning. "Are you speaking of articles of trade?" I nod my head. "Certainly!" he answers. "They take away prayer-scarfs and leather belts, and bring in Corfu Esrogîm and earth of Palestine. But that isn't the chief thing, the chief thing is the business done in the town itself! Drink-shops, lodging homes for travellers, old clothes--according to custom--" "A poor town?" "What do you mean by rich and poor? There is Parnosseh! The very poor go about begging either in the place or in the neighborhood--mostly in the place itself! Whoever holds out a hand is given something! Others try for some easy work, they do broker-business, or pick up things in the streets and earn an honest crust. The Almighty is faithful! The orphans are given free meals by the householders and study in the Talmud Torah. The orphan girls become maid-servants, cooks, or find a living elsewhere. Widows, divorced women, and grass-widows (there have been a lot of grass-widows lately[52]) sit over charcoal braziers, and when the fumes go to their head, they dream that rolls hang on the trees ready baked. Others live _quite_ decently!" "On what?" "On what? What do other people live on? A poor man hopes; a trader swallows air, and the one who digs--graves, I mean--is never out of employment--" Is he joking, the dried-up, little, old Jew, the bag-of-bones with the odd gleam in his deeply sunken eyes? On his bony face, covered with a skin like yellow parchment, not the trace of a smile! Only his voice has something odd about it. "What sort of a town _is_ it, anyway?" I ask again. "What do you mean? It's a town like any other! There's a Shool, and they say that once there were all sorts of animals painted on the walls, beasts and birds--out of Perek Shirah[53]--and on the ceiling all sorts of musical instruments, such as were played upon by King David, on whom be peace. I never saw it so, but the old men tell of it." "And nowadays?"