"Well, just who? Nearly everybody here has his own house, and if any one hires a lodging, he doesn't want to have to heat a special room. The custom here is for a tenant to pay a few rubles a year for the heating of a corner. Who wants such large rooms?" "Why did they build such a house?" "_Ba!_--once upon a time! It isn't wanted nowadays." "Poor thing." "Why 'poor thing?' She has a stall with salt, earns a few rubles a week. Out of that she pays twenty-eight rubles a year house-tax and lives on the rest--what should a Jewess need? What can she want more? She has her winding-sheet." I gave another look at the old woman, and really it seemed to me that she was not in need of anything. Her wrinkled skin appeared to smile at me: What should a Jewess need? NO. 42 I went from house to house in their order of number, with a note-book in my hand. But from No. 41 the beadle led me to 43. "And 42?" I ask. "There!" and he points to a ruin in a narrow space between 43 and 41. "Fallen in?" "Pulled down," answers the beadle. "Why?" "On account of a fire-wall." I did not understand what he meant. We were both tired with walking, and we sat down on a seat at the street side. The beadle explained: "You see--according to law, if one house is not built far enough away from another, the roofs must be separated by a fire-wall. What the distance has to be, I don't know; _their_ laws are incomprehensible; I should say, four ells or more. "A fire-wall is with them a charm against fire. Well, this house was built by a very poor man, Yeruchem Ivànovker, a teacher, and he couldn't afford a fire-wall. "Altogether, to tell the truth, he built without a foundation, and out of that, as you will hear presently, there came a lawsuit, at which his wife (peace be upon her) told the whole story, beginning after the custom of women-folk with the sixth day of creation. This is how it happened: "Malkah had not spoken to her husband for about fifteen years. She was naturally a sour-tempered woman,--God forgive me for talking against the dead,--tall and thin, dark, with a pointed nose like a hook. She rarely said a word not relating to Parnosseh--she was a huckstress--and nobody wanted her to do so. Her look was enough to freeze you to the bone. All the other huckstresses trembled before her--there was an expression in her eye. So, you see, Yeruchem was quite content that she should be silent--_he_ never said a word to _her_, either. "For all this silence, however, they were blessed with two boys and three girls. "But the desire to become householders made them conversational. The conversation was on this wise: "'Malke!' (No answer.) "'Malke!' (No answer.) "He Malke's and she doesn't stir. "But Yeruchem stands up and gives a shout: "'Malke, I am going to build a house!' "Malke could resist no longer, she raised an eye, and opened her mouth. "'I thought,' she said afterward, 'that he had gone mad.'