WOMEN
A Prose Poem
Hedged round with tall, thick woods, as though designedly, so that no one should know what happens there, lies the long-drawn-out old town of Pereyaslav.
To the right, connected with Pereyaslav by a wooden bridge, lies another bit of country, named—Pidvorkes.
The town itself, with its long, narrow, muddy streets, with the crowded houses propped up one against the other like tombstones, with their meagre grey walls all to pieces, with the broken window-panes stuffed with rags—well, the town of Pereyaslav was hardly to be distinguished from any other town inhabited by Jews.
Here, too, people faded before they bloomed. Here, too, men lived on miracles, were fruitful and multiplied out of all season and reason. They talked of a livelihood, of good times, of riches and pleasures, with the same appearance of firm conviction, and, at the same time the utter disbelief, with which one tells a legend read in a book.
And they really supposed these terms to be mere inventions of the writers of books and nothing more! For not only were they incapable of a distinct conception of their real meaning, but some had even given up the very hope of ever being able to earn so much as a living, and preferred not to reach out into the world with their thoughts, straining them for
