YITZCHOK-YOSSEL BROITGEBER 243
of Death. From some of the neighboring houses came a dreadful crying and screaming of women and children.
Malkeh the orphan heard nothing. She slept sweetly, and snored as loud (I beg to distinguish!) as Caspar, the tall, stout miller, the owner of both mills.
Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber sits on the little barrel, looks at her face, and thinks. Her face is dark, rough- ened, and nearly like that of an old woman. A great, fat fly knocked against the wick, the candle suddenly began to burn brighter, and Yitzchok-Yossel saw her face become prettier, younger, and fresher, and over- spread by a smile. That was all the effect of the supper and the soft bed. Then it was that he had promised himself, that he had sworn, once and for all, to show the Kabtzonivke Jews who he is, and then Malkeh the orphan will have food and a bed every day. He would have done this long ago, had it not been for those trousers. The people are so silly, they don't under- stand ! That is the whole misfortune ! And it's quite the other way about: let someone else try and turn out such an ingenious contrivance ! But because it was he, and not someone else, they laughed and made fun of him. How Reb Yecheskel, his wife and children, did abuse him ! That was his reward for all his trouble. And just because they themselves are cattle, horses, boors, who don't understand the tailor's art! Ha, if only they understood that tailoring is a noble, refined calling, limitless and bottomless as (with due dis- tinction ! ) the holy Torah !
But all is not lost. Who knows? For here comes Binyomin DroibniK, an intelligent man, a man of brains
