THE LAST OF THEM
They had been Rabbonim for generations in the Misnagdic community of Mouravanke, old, poverty- stricken Mouravanke, crowned with hoary honor, hidden away in the thick woods. Generation on generation of them had been renowned far and near, wherever a Jewish word was spoken, wherever the voice of the Torah rang out in the warm old houses-of-study.
People talked of them everywhere, as they talk of miracles when miracles are no more, and of consolation when all hope is long since dead talked of them as great-grandchildren talk of the riches of their great- grandfather, the like of which are now unknown, and of the great seven-branched, old-fashioned lamp, which he left them as an inheritance of times gone by.
For as the lustre of an old, seven-branched lamp shining in the darkness, such was the lustre of the family of the Rabbonim of Mouravanke.
That was long ago, ever so long ago, when Mouravanke lay buried in the dark Lithuanian forests. The old, low, moss-grown houses were still set in wide, green gardens, wherein grew beet-root and onions, while the hop twined itself and clustered thickly along the wooden fencing. Well-to-do Jews still went about in linen pelisses, and smoked pipes filled with dry herbs. People got a living out of the woods, where they burnt pitch the whole week through, and Jewish families ate rye- bread and groats-pottage.
