“Your words about my wife Beruriah have reached me, and your doubts concerning her have come to my ears. When one feels doubt about his companion groundlessly, what is that companion to do? Shall he not come and say, ‘What is the ground for your suspicion, and how have I called forth your misgivings?’ And shall he not say, ‘You are a wicked comrade, else should you have raised no doubts against me, since there is no foundation for them.’ Shall I not tell you all that you are evil minds, unworthy of sitting before me, since your own thoughts are base and you yourselves are a toy in the hands of seduction? Wherefore you doubt, too, the purity of my wife Beruriah? Would I not be right to dismiss you all from me, damming the stream of my learning against you?” A terror descended upon the disciples and they were tossed in deep disquietude. Those among them who, more than the others, had uttered the doubts and spread them, sat rooted, with downcast eyes, abashed and crestfallen. But those who had simply listened to the doubts, without repeating them, looked about in fear and consternation, as if seeking the guilty. And one arose, saying, “Rabbi, surely you will not punish those who listened, even as those who uttered?” Rabbi Mayer replied, “The same penalty for those who listened as for those who spoke. For not alone is the mouse the thief, but the hole also.” Whereupon the disciples began to murmur, softly and sheepishly, “But we doubt no longer.” Rabbi Mayer laughed. “Wise pupils have I in you, and to think that _you_ will spread the Law through Israel! Such as _you_ will prove a reptile pure in only one way: when it will profit you.” The disciples were now dejected more than ever. And Rabbi Mayer spoke again to them, as was his practice, through a parable. “A fox met a hen, and said to her, ‘I have heard that you doubt my being the most virtuous of creatures. For that I will straightway devour you.’ The hen was seized with fear and cried, entreatingly, ‘I do not doubt it, and if I ever did, I will never doubt it again.’ And the fox, who was in a pleasant humour because his stomach was full, spoke again to her: ‘This time I let you free. But remember, should you ever in future express the slightest doubt, you will be as good as dead.’ Whereupon the hen took oath that never should she express the slightest doubt. But when the fox had released her and gone on his way, she snuggled her head in between her wings and furtively thought to herself that there was none so wicked as the fox.”