at I hadn't a scrap of Jewishness
in me.

Now that he heard I was buying Palestinian earth, he began by refusing
to believe it, and declared it was a take-in and the trick of an
apostate, for how could a person who laughed at socks on the Ninth of Ab
really want to buy earth of Palestine? But when he saw the green shawls
and the little bags of earth, he went over--a way he has--to the
opposite, the exact opposite. He began to worship me, couldn't praise me
enough, and talked of me in the back streets, so that the women blessed
me aloud. Yuedel was now much given to my company, and often came in to
see me, and was most intimate, although there was no special piousness
about me. I was just the same as before, but Yuedel took this for the
best of signs, and thought it proved me to be of extravagant hidden
piety.

"There's a Jew for you!" he would cry aloud in the street. "Earth of
Palestine! There's a Jew!"

In short, he filled the place with my Jewishness and my hidden
orthodoxy. I looked on with indifference, but after a while the affair
began to cost me both time and money.

The Palestinian beggars and, above all, Yuedel and the townsfolk obtained
for me the reputation of piety, and there came to me orthodox Jews,
treasurers, cabalists, beggar students, and especially the Rebbe's
followers; they came about me like bees. They were never in the habit
of avoiding me, but this was another thing all the same. Before this,
when one of the Rebbe's disciples came, he would enter with a respectful
demeanor, take off his hat, and, sitting in his cap, would fix his gaze
on my mouth with a sweet smile; we both felt that the one and only link
between us lay in the money that I gave and he took. He would take it
gracefully, put it into his purse, as it might be for someone else, and
thank me as though he appreciated my kindness. When _I_ went to see
_him_, he would place a chair for me, and give me preserve. But now he
came to me with a free and easy manner, asked for a sip of brandy with a
snack to eat, sat in my room as if it were his own, and looked at me as
if I were an underling, and he had authority over me; I am the penitent
sinner, it is said, and that signifies for him the key to the door of
repentance; I have entered into his domain, and he is my lord and
master; he drinks my health as heartily as though it were his own, and
when I press a coin into his hand, he looks at it well, to make sure it
is worth his while acce