. . .and stammering thus, he scraped all the scattered earth, little by little, into his bag, gradually got nearer the door, and—was gone!
It was not long before the town was seething and bubbling like a kettle on the boil, everyone was upset as though by some misfortune, angry with me, and still more with himself: "How could we be so mistaken? He doesn't want to buy Palestinian earth at all, he doesn't care what happens to him when he's dead, he laughs—he only wants to buy earth in Palestine, and set up villages there."
"Eh-eh-eh! He remains one of them! He is what he is a—skeptic!" so they said in all the streets, all the householders in the town, the women in the market-place, at the bath, they went about abstracted, and as furious as though I had insulted them, made fools of them, taken them in, and all of a sudden they became cold and distant to me. The pious Jews were seen no more at my house. I received packages from Palestine one after the other. One had a black seal, on which was scratched a black ram's horn, and inside, in large characters, was a ban from the Brisk Rebbetzin, because of my wishing to make all the Jews unhappy. Other packets were from different Palestinian beggars, who tried to compel me, with fair words and foul, to send them money for their travelling expenses and for the samples of earth they enclosed. My fellow-townspeople also got packages from "over there," warning them against me—I was a dangerous man, a missionary, and it was a Mitz- veh to be revenged on me. There was an uproar, and no wonder! A letter from Palestine, written in Rashi,
