Misha

“ Misha! On catching sight of me (I was standing at the drawing-room window, gazing in astonishment at the flying equipage) , he laughed his abrupt laugh, and jauntily flinging back his cloak, he jumped out of the carriage and ran into the house.
‘Misha! Mihail Andreevitch!’ I was beginning, ... ‘Is it you?’
‘Call me Misha,’—he interrupted me. ‘Yes, it’s I, ... I, in my own person.... I have come to Moscow ... to see the world ... and show myself. And here I am, come to see you. What do you say to my horses?... ”

“ Misha had begun to advance in a menacing way towards me,—but on this, suddenly he stopped, his face worked, flushed, he struck himself on the breast, the tears rushed from his eyes, and muttering, 'Uncle! angel! I know I'm a ruined man! thanks! thanks!' he snatched up the note and ran away.
An hour later he was sitting in the cart dressed once more in his Circassian costume, again rosy and cheerful; and when the horses started, he yelled, tore off the peaked cap, and, waving it over his head, made bow after bow. ”

“ Another time, Misha was riding with his comrades along a road at night . . . and they saw close to the roadside a narrow ravine like a deep cleft, dark—so dark you couldn't see the bottom. 'Look,' said one of the officers, 'Misha may be a desperate fellow, but he wouldn't leap into that ravine.' 'Yes, I'd leap in!' 'No, you wouldn't, for I dare say it's seventy feet deep, and you might break your neck.' His friend knew his weak point—vanity. ”

“ Misha glanced menacingly at the money-lender. ‘That surprises you? Aren’t you the cause of it all? ... You? ... You? ... Wasn’t it you, Judas, who robbed me, taking advantage of my childishness? Aren’t you flaying the peasants’ skins off their backs? Haven’t you taken from this poor old man his crust of dry bread? Wasn’t it you? ... O God! everywhere nothing but injustice, and oppression, and evil-doing.... Everything must go to ruin then, and me too! I don’t care for life, I don’t care for life in Russia!’ And the spade moved faster than ever in Misha’s hands. ”

“ Ten roubles.’ ‘Good!’ And the officer had hardly uttered the word, when Misha and his horse were off—into the ravine—and crashing down over the stones. All were simply petrified.... A full minute passed, and they heard Misha’s voice, dimly, as it were rising up out of the bowels of the earth: ‘All right! fell on the sand ... but it was a long flight! Ten roubles you’ve lost!’
‘Climb out!’ shouted his comrades. ‘Climb out, I dare say!’ echoed Misha. ‘A likely story! I should like to see you climb out. You’ll have to go for torches and ropes now. ”

“ SAVVA Yes, Lipa, only a sparrow can fly straight up from the ground. A large bird must descend to adjust and spread its wings for its upward flight.
LIPA Aren't you sorry for the children? Think of the number of children that will have to perish.
SAVVA What children? Oh yes, Misha. (Tenderly) Misha is a fine boy, that's true. When he grows up, he will show you no mercy. Yes, the children—You are beginning to be afraid of them, and you have good reason for it. Never mind. It's true that I love children. ”

“ I told the coachman to whip up the horses, and the carriage rolled off.
The suggestion I wanted to make Misha was this: the idea suddenly occurred to me to take him with me to my home in the country, about five-and-twenty miles from that station, to rescue him, or at least to make an effort to rescue him. 'Listen, Misha,' I said; 'will you come along and live with me? . . . You shall have everything provided you; you shall have clothes and linen made you; you shall be properly fitted out, and you shall have money to spend on tobacco, and so on, only on one condition, that you give up drink. ”

“ Misha dug and dug, from time to time observing: 'Life's not worth living, is it, Timofay?'
'It's not indeed, master.'
The hole was already of a good depth. People saw what Misha was about, and ran to tell the new owner about it. The money-lender was at first very angry, wanted to send for the police: 'This is sacrilege,' said he. But afterwards, probably reflecting that it was inconvenient anyway to have to do with such a madman, and that it might lead to a scandal,—he went in his own person to the churchyard, and approaching Misha, still toiling, made him a polite bow. ”

“ Illness was a thing unknown to him, in spite of his excesses; the strength of his constitution never once showed signs of giving way. When any other man would infallibly have been seriously ill, or even have died, he merely shook himself, like a duck in the water, and was more blooming than ever. Once, also in the Caucasus . . . this legend is really incredible, but one may judge from it what Misha was thought to be capable of. . . . Well, once, in the Caucasus, in a state of drunkenness, he fell down with the lower half of his body in a stream of water ”

“ Misha cried, "that one! That animal! He was sent away from the military for gambling in cards and from the seminary for his scandals with women. A learned one, yes! He fell into the seminary from the military, cheated all the monks in the monastery of Chudoff; then came here, bought himself in with seven and a half thousand rubles, donated land and so won great respect. Here, too; they play cards. The Abbot, the steward and the treasurer, they all play with him. There is a girl who visits him—oh, the pigs! He has a separate apartment, and there he lives just as he pleases. ”

“ “Ah, Misha, he has a stormy spirit. His mind is in bondage. [pg 085] He is haunted by a great, unsolved doubt. He is one of those who don't want millions, but an answer to their questions.” ”

“ The money-lender knew the man he had to deal with. At the first start Misha, it is true, exacted a promise from him to 'grant all sorts of immunities' to the peasants; but an hour later, this same Misha, together with Timofay, both drunk, were dancing a galop in the big apartments, which still seemed pervaded by the God-fearing shade of Andrei Nikolaevitch; and an hour later still, Misha in a dead sleep (he had a very weak head for spirits) , laid in a cart with his high cap and dagger, was being driven off to the town, more than twenty miles away, and there was flung under a hedge. ”

“ I shall find food to eat, God will provide! And there are people poorer than I, and much more deserving of help—plenty, plenty!' Misha was particularly successful with women: he knew how to appeal to their sympathy. ”

“ I said. "You have already shown what a friend you are. Why did you drag Maroossia into your business? You probably are well protected against any disagreeable event, but we are not. So next time please, use your other reasons...."
"There was no dragging your wife into my business. The package of laces she took to Madame van der Hüchts is not a crime. Besides everything is over; so, as if nothing had happened."
"Yes, it probably is nothing. Misha would be of a different opinion, I am sure." ”

“ In the churchyard he was joined by an old house-serf, who had once been his nurse. The money-lender had deprived this old man of his monthly allowance, and driven him off the estate; since then his refuge had been a corner in a peasant’s hut. Misha had been too short a time in possession of his estate to have left behind him a particularly favourable memory; still the old servant could not resist running to the churchyard as soon as he heard of his young master’s being there. ”

“ Maroossia and F., myself and Misha. Afterwards we had supper. At the next table to us were the M's., Alexander Ivanitsky and the Baroness B. Since her return she certainly looks much better. At first I did not see her, then before all she reprimanded me in her usual kind manner. She had grown a little thinner and has more jewelry I should say, and is as fascinating as before. When she speaks one can see that she thinks of far distant things. ”

“ But others—no. ‘There’s no making him out,’ his comrades said of him; ‘he’s a flabby creature, a poor stick—and yet such a desperate fellow—a perfect madman!’ I chanced in later days to ask Misha what evil spirit drove him, forced him, to drink to excess, risk his life, and so on. He always had one answer—‘wretchedness.’
‘But why are you wretched?’
‘Why! how can you ask? If one comes, anyway, to one’s self, begins to feel, to think of the poverty, of the injustice, of Russia.... Well, it’s all over with me! ... one’s so wretched at once—one wants to put a bullet through one’s head! ”

“ Luckily Mish-o-sha was sometimes careless. He walked on ahead, and entered his lodge, leaving the others together; whereupon the elder girl, approaching Seegwun, spoke to him quickly: "We are not his daughters," she said. "He brought us here as he brought you. He hates the human race. Every moon he seizes a young man, and pretends he has borne him here as a husband for me. But soon he takes him off in his canoe, and the young man never comes back. We feel sure Mish-o-sha has made away with them all." ”

“ It must be done some other way.
"One more test," he said to Seegwun, "and then you may take Nin-i-mo-sha for your wife. But first you must prove your skill as a hunter. Come!"
They made a lodge in the forest; and Mish-o-sha, by his magic, caused a snow-storm, with a stinging gale from the north, like a flight of icy arrows. Seegwun, that night, before going to sleep, had hung his moccasins and leggings by the fire to dry; and Mish-o-sha, rising first, at daybreak, took one of each and threw them into the flames. Then he rubbed his hands, and laughed like a prairie wolf. ”

“ The Mishna refers to a case when the Pentecost falls on a Sabbath. And the case of Alexis was when it fell on the first day of the week.
MISHNA: One may wash his hands for common food and for second-tithes and for heave-offerings, but for hallowed things they must be bathed legally. For the sin-offering, if one's hands be defiled, his whole body is defiled.
If he have dipped for common food, he has credit as clean for common food, but is forbidden tithe; if for tithe, he has credit for tithe, but not for heave-offering ”

“ Suddenly he felt a light touch on his shoulder, and looking up he again saw the girl who had shown him to the lodge standing beside him. She laid her fingers on her lips as a sign for silence, and said in a voice as soft as a breath, “Mishosha is asleep. If we whisper he will not awaken, for the leaves whisper about him all night, and he is used to the sound. Down on the beach lies the magic canoe. ”

“ When the canoe reached the shore of the island, Mishosha stepped from it, and motioned to Panigwun to follow him. He led the way back from the water and through bushes and past rocks and stopped at last before a lodge where two young girls were busy preparing a meal. They did not speak, but they cast looks of pity at the companion the magician had brought with him.
Mishosha spoke to the older of the two girls in a harsh voice. “I have brought you a youth who shall be your husband when you are old enough to marry. ”

“ They spread their wings, and immensity sustains them. And on their inflated breasts that split the air is reflected the sparkling azure. The beating of Musya's heart becomes more and more regular, her respiration more and more calm and peaceful. She sleeps; her face is pale; her features are drawn; there are dark rings around her eyes. On her lips a smile. To-morrow, when the sun shall rise, this intelligent and fine face will be deformed by a grimace in which no trace of the human will be left; the brain will be inundated with thick blood; the glassy eyes will protrude from their orbits. ”

“ Alone, I cannot go with you; he will starve if I leave him." Mishosha, (the old man,) [Pg 94] only laughed at him. Then uttering the charm, Chemaun Poll, and giving his canoe a slap, it glided through the water with inconceivable swiftness. In a few moments they reached the habitation of the magician, standing on an island in the centre of the lake. Here he lived with his two daughters, who managed the affairs of his household. Leading the young man up to the lodge, he addressed his eldest daughter. "Here," said he, "my daughter, I have brought a young man to be your husband." ”

“ The Mishna goes on to say that if one has a big field with only a few poor coming to pick up food the sixtieth is based on the size of the field. If though one has a small field and more poor people coming to pick up food, one should base the sixtieth on the number of people coming. ”

“ Each of these is made up of two parts—the Mishna, or repetition,—it being, as it were, a reissue of the Mosaic law,—and the Gemara, or complement, the critical expansion of the Mishna. The Mishna of both Talmuds is the same, the Gemaras different: that of the Babylonian being the larger as well as the more diversified. They are encyclopædias of the Jewish knowledge of their day, and deal with civil and criminal, as well as moral and religious questions, law, science, metaphysics, history, and general literature. ”

“ MISHOSHA, OR THE MAGICIAN OF THE LAKES.
In an early age of the world, when there were fewer inhabitants than there now are, there lived an Indian, in a remote place, who had a wife and two children. They seldom saw any one out of the circle of their own lodge. Animals were abundant in so secluded a situation, and the man found no difficulty in supplying his family with food.
In this way they lived in peace and happiness, which might have continued if the hunter had not found cause to suspect his wife. ”

“ Introduction This mishnah continues from Mishnah Berakhot 2:5, which says that a groom is exempt from reciting Shema on the first night.
Hebrew Text
חָתָן, אִם רָצָה לִקְרוֹת קְרִיאַת שְׁמַע לַיְלָה הָרִאשׁוֹן – קוֹרֵא. רַבָּן שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן גַּמְלִיאֵל אוֹמֵר: לֹא כָּל הָרוֹצֶה לִטֹּל אֶת הַשֵּׁם, יִטֹּל. English Translation
If a groom wants to recite Shema on the first night, he may recite [it] . Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: Not everyone who wants to take on a name may take it on. ”