Because the fact is he does nothing, absolutely nothing; not because he won't do anything, or because it doesn't befit him, but because there is nothing to do--and there's an end of it! The whole townlet complains of there being nothing to do! It is just a crowd of Jews driven together. Delightful! They're packed like herrings in a barrel, they squeeze each other close, all for love. "Well-a-day!" thinks Chaikin, "it's something to have children, other people haven't even that. But to depend on one's children is quite another thing and not a happy one!" Not that they grudge him his keep--Heaven forbid! But he cannot take it from them, he really cannot! He knows how hard they work, he knows how the strength is wrung out of them to the last drop, he knows it well! Every morsel of bread is a bit of their health and strength--he drinks his children's blood! No, the thought is too dreadful! "Tatinke, why don't you eat?" ask the children. "To-day is a fast day with me," answers Chayyim Chaikin. "Another fast? How many fasts have you?" "Not so many as there are days in the week." And Chayyim Chaikin speaks the truth when he says that he has many fasts, and yet there are days on which he eats. But he likes the days on which he fasts better. First, they are pleasing to God, and it means a little bit more of the world-to-come, the interest grows, and the capital grows with it. "Secondly" (he thinks), "no money is wasted on me. Of course, I am accountable to no one, and nobody ever questions me as to how I spend it, but what do I want money for, when I can get along without it? "And what is the good of feeling one's self a little higher than a beast? A beast eats every day, but I can go without food for one or two days. A man _should_ be above a beast! "O, if a man could only raise himself to a level where he could live without eating at all! But there are one's confounded insides!" So thinks Chayyim Chaikin, for hunger has made a philosopher of him. "The insides, the necessity of eating, these are the causes of the world's evil! The insides and the necessity of eating have made a pauper of me, and drive my children to toil in the sweat of their brow and risk their lives for a bit of bread! "Suppose a man had no need to eat! Ai--ai--ai! My children would all stay at home! An end to toil, an end to moil, an end to 'shtreikeven,' an end to the risking of life, an end to factory and factory owners, to rich men and paupers, an end to jealousy and hatred and fighting and shedding of blood! All gone and done with! Gone and done with! A paradise! a paradise!" So reasons Chayyim Chaikin, and, lost in speculation, he pities the world, and is grieved to the heart to think that God should have made man so little above the beast. * * * * *