428 RAISIN
task to a low tune, and his murmured repetition made him think of the ruin in which Rabbi Jose, praying there, heard the Bas-Kol mourn, cooing like a dove, over the exile of Israel. And then he longed to float away to that ruin somewhere in the wilderness, and murmur there like a dove, with no one, no one, to interrupt him, not even the Bas-Kol. But his vision would be destroyed by some hard question which a fellow-student would put before him, describing circles with his thumb and chanting to a shrill Gemoreh-tune.
In the orchard, at the end of the Gass, however, which Avrohom hired of the Gentiles, he had no need to exchange empty words with anyone. Avrohom had no large capital, and could not afford to hire an orchard for more than thirty rubles. The orchard was conse- quently small, and only grew about twenty apple-trees, a few pear-trees, and a cherry-tree. Avrohom used to move to the garden directly after the Feast of "Weeks, although that was still very early, the fruit had not yet set, and there was nothing to steal.
But Avrohom could not endure sitting at home any longer, where the wife screamed, the children cried, and there wag a continual "fair." What should he want there? He only wished to be alone with his thoughts and imaginings, and his quiet "tunes," which were always weaving themselves inside him, and were nearly stifled.
It is early to go to the orchard directly after the Feast of Weeks, but Avrdhom does not mind, he is drawn back to the trees that can think and hear so much, and keep so many things to themselves.
