432 RAISIN
the trees, to the hut in which he has spent so many quiet, peaceful moments. He conveys the apples to a shed belonging to the farm, which he has hired, ever since he had the orchard, for ten gulden a month, and goes back to the Gass.
In the Gass, at that time, there is mud and rain. Town Jews drag themselves along sick and disheartened. They cough and groan. Avrohom stares round him, and fails to recognize the world.
"Bad!" he mutters. "Fe!" and he spits. "Where is one to get to?"
And Avrohom recalls the beautiful legends in the Tales of Jerusalem, he recalls the land of Israel.
There he knows it is always summer, always warm and fine. And every autumn the vision draws him.
But there is no possibility of his being able to go there he must sell the apples which he has brought from the orchard, and feed the wife and the children he has "outside the land." And all through the autumn and part of the winter, Avrohom drags himself about with a basket of apples on his arm and a yearning in his heart. He waits for the dear summer, when he will be able to go back and hide himself in the orchard, in the hut, and be alone, where the town mud and the town Jews with dulled senses shall be out of sight, and the week-day noise, out of hearing.
