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Updated: May 12, 2025
I found out later that the valley was their meeting-place. It was a sort of Klaus, "Rabbi Yekil's Klaus" the boys called it. Yekil was a boy of about fifteen, who was well-equipped with knowledge of the Torah when he was taken away from his home. In the long years of our exile we had forgotten the Jewish calendar completely.
"We do not know Lamentations by heart," explained Yekil, with the authority of a rabbi, "but we do know some Psalms, and these we recite on every holiday. For, at bottom, are mere words the main thing? Your real prayer is not what you say with your lips, but what you feel with the whole of your heart.
Jacob looked at me sharply, and said: "Well, I have warned you; keep away from her." His words entered into the depths of my heart. I bowed my head before Yekil, and submitted to his authority. That was the way we all felt: Yekil had only to look at us to subject us to his will. It was hard to resist him. I felt a great change in myself: I had been relieved of the weight of two sins.
They, too, had "gone out for the night," and we had happened to use the same valley. I love to mention their names. The oldest of them was Jacob, whom you remember from the punishment he underwent. The others were Simeon and Reuben. But there in the valley they introduced themselves to me with the names they were called by at home: Yekil, Shimele, and Ruvek.
But Yekil prided himself on being able to distinguish the days "by their color and smell," especially Fridays; and his friends confirmed his statements. He used to boast that he could keep track of every day of the year, and never miss a single day of the Jewish holidays. Every Jewish holiday they met in the valley on Peter's estate.
I felt as if a heavy load had been taken off my shoulders. My eyes began to flow with tears of gladness. Then, having once started my confession, I decided to confess to my second sin also. Meanwhile Simeon had pulled the bread and the meat out of my bag. "Glutton!" exclaimed Yekil, angrily. "Have you forgotten that it is the night of the Fast of the Ninth of Av?"
At that moment it seemed to me that Yekil was the judge, and the boys who had found the pork were the witnesses against me. Yekil listened to my partial confession, and the two "witnesses" hung their heads, and hid their faces in shame, as if they were the accused. But I sobbed and cried bitterly. "Now, listen, little one," Yekil turned to me.
The boy, ashamed, returned the things to the bag, and moved away a few steps. Then I told Yekil all that had passed between me and Marusya, and tried unconsciously to defend her in every way. I think I exaggerated a good deal when I tried to show that Marusya liked the Jews very much, indeed. "And what was the end of it?" asked Yekil, with some fear. "Did she really kiss you?"
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