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50 being eaten by worms, and you think that I laugh at it? No, I believe in it! It is quite, quite true that my Palestinian earth will preserve me from worms, only not after death, no, but alive-from such worms as devour and gnaw at and poison the whole of life!"

Yüdel scratched his nose, gave a rub to the cap on his head, and uttered a deep sigh.

"Yes, Yüdel, you sigh! Now do you know what I wanted to say to you?"

"Ett!" and Yüdel made a gesture with his hand. "What you have to say to me?—ett!"

"Oi, that 'ett!' of yours! Yüdel, I know it! When you have nothing to answer, and you ought to think, and think something out, you take refuge in 'ett!' Just consider for once, Yüdel, I have a plan for you, too. Remember what you were, and what has become of you. You have been knocking about, driven hither and thither, since childhood. You haven't a house, not a corner, you have become a beggar, a tramp, a nobody, despised and avoided, with unpleasing habits, and living a dog's life. You have very good qualities, a clear head, and acute intelligence. But to what purpose do you put them? You waste your whole intelligence on getting in at backdoors and coaxing a bit of bread out of the maidservant, and the mistress is not to know. Can you not devise a means, with that clever brain of yours, how to earn it for yourself? See here, I am going to buy a bit of ground in Palestine, come with me, Yüdel, and you shall work, and be a man like other men. You are what they call a living orphan,' because you have many fathers; and don't forget that you I have one Father