330 PINSKI
Not one good rich man! Not one genuine pauper! They are all just as hungry and their palms itch there is no easing them. Times get harder, the world gets poorer. Now he understands the reason of it all, now it all lies before him as clear as on a map he would be able to make every one understand. Only now now it was getting late he has no strength left. His spent life grieves him. If he had not been so active, such a "father of the community," it would not have grieved him so much. But he had had a great influence in the town, and this influence had been badly, blindly used ! And Eeb Shloimeh grew sadder day by day.
He began to feel a pain at his heart, a stitch in the side, a burning in his brain, and he was wrapt in his thoughts. Eeb Shloimeh was philosophizing.
To be of use to somebody, he reflected, means to leave an impress of good in their life. One ought to help once for all, so that the other need never come for help again. That can be accomplished by wakening and developing a man's intelligence, so that he may always know for himself wherein his help lies.
And in such work he would have spent his life. If he had only understood long ago, ah, how useful he would have been ! And a shudder runs through him.
Tears of vexation come more than once into his eyes.
It was no secret in the town that old Eeb Shloimeh spent two to three hours daily sitting with the teacher, only what they did together, that nobody knew. They tried to worm something out of the maid, but what was to be got out of a "glomp with two eyes," whose
