y
dismal, none of them having more than two windows. In front of the
houses were evil-smelling sloughs. From the black chimneys of the
tenements arose thin streaks of smoke, indicating by their thinness
the scarcity of fuel, and the food cooked by it. Fences, rotten and
tumble-down, surrounded the small courtyards, which were covered with
sweepings. Here and there could be seen in the rear of the houses,
tiny tracts of land with meagre vegetables growing in them. At the
low doors, miserable looking women with dark sickly faces, wearing
blue caftans and carroty wigs, washed their gray, coarse linen in
buckets. The old and bent women sat on the benches, knitting blue or
black wool stockings, while young sunburned girls, in dirty dresses
and dishevelled hair, milked the goats.

It was the quarter of the town inhabited by the poorest population of
Szybow, the nursery of poverty--even of misery, dirt, and disease.
The houses of the Ezofowichs, Calmans, Witebskis and Kamionkers,
standing at the square, were luxurious palaces when compared with
those human dwellings, the mere exterior aspect of which made one
think of earthly purgatory. And no wonder. There, on the square,
lived merchants and learned men, the aristocracy of every Jewish
community; here lived the population of working men and
tradesmen--the plebeians earning their daily bread with their hands
and not with brains.

In spite of the fact that it was yet early morning, the daily work
had generally begun. From behind the dirty windows could be seen the
rising and falling arms of the tailors and cobblers. Through the thin
walls resounded the tools of tinsmiths and the hammers of
blacksmiths, and from the houses of the manufacturers of tallow
candles rose unbearable, greasy exhalations. Some of the inhabitants,
taking advantage of the sunrise, looked into the street, opened their
windows and a passer-by could see the interior of, the small rooms
with black walls, crowded with occupants which swarmed like ants.
Through the windows came the mixed noise of singing and praying in
male voices, the quarrelling of women and the screaming of children.
All the smaller children rent the sultry air of the black, crowded
rooms with their cries, while the older ones trooped out into the
street in great crowds, chasing each other noisily or rolling on the
ground. Growing boys, dressed not in sleeveless jackets like the
children, but in long, grey halats, stood on the thresholds