The Two Worlds
I
She placed her hands on his shoulders and said softly, "Do you really love me, Benjamin?" He lowered his book and drew her close to him, "Dearly!" "And you would do anything I ask of you?" He replied with a tragic gesture, "Through fire and water, Leah!"
She smiled,—“Well, then! Mother wants to cleanse the new Pesach dishes; she will not use them unless they are purified. Will you take them to the river?” He pro-terested, “Send me rather through fire and water, Leah!”
"But it is so simple, a bagatelle; Please! Whom else should she ask to do it; you are the only man in the house. Please," and she pressed her warm lips to his.
He freed himself from her embrace and exclaimed, "This is going too far. I shall not clean those dishes! Why, how will it look—I to wash dishes in the river, in public? It's blamed foolishness!" She entreated, "I'll go with you; where's the harm?" but he reiterated, "I shall not go!"
"Then I shall never, never speak to you again," and she left the room in an angry mood. Benjamin walked about restlessly, muttering, "Blamed foolishness," and returned to his book.
II.
Leah’s mother entered the room and said to him, anxiously, “Benjamin mine, will you purify the new dishes in the river? —it’s but a few steps away.” His reply was a frigid “No!” She insisted, “But it must be done somehow!”
"Then send whomever you please!"
(Reprinted by Request.)
Her voice trembled: "Whom shall I send?—were your father-in-law alive to-day, I would not have asked you," and her eyes filled with tears.
Benjamin suggested, "Why not send Labl the schammos; for ten or fifteen kopecks.' . . . She wiped away a tear as she said, "With a man in the house, to send the schammos; your father-in-law would never have sent me to the schammos."
Benjamin exclaimed impatiently, "This is mere foolishness, this washing dishes in the river. I shall not do it, and tnere's an end of it!" And he walked to the window looking ,out upon the street. "Foolishness," she repeated, with a bitter laugh—"with you everything is foolishness. How can one eat out of a dish that has not been washed in running water, that has not been blessed and purified?" Benjamin did not answer. She followed him with her eyes; perhaps he would relent; but he stood at the window and drummed carelessly on the pane. Her lips moved as if to speak; but she thought better of it and left the room shaking her head sadly.
III.
Her life was not as happy as she had anticipated. Leah had become a teacher against the will of father and mother. She would not listen to reason. The neighbors said, "What?—Kalman the di-yen's daughter to teach in a secular school?" And both father and mother were beside themselves, but it was useless to remonstrate. Leah was good and beautiful and intellectual, but she was an only child, and would not obey. Then she married Benjamin, who was a senior teacher in the Elementary school—again without her parents' consent. The father died