“I shall tell you,” said the Dark One, and the Rebbe turned back. “I have met every man, every woman, every child whose time has ever come to pass. Sometimes the suffering are gladdened by my approach, but when the moment finally comes to look me in the face, no one, not one of them, has ever greeted me as a friend.”

Now the Rebbe chuckled, and he shook his head softly. “You, my friend, are a fool.”

And again, a sound from over his shoulder: a bloodcurdling screech. The Rebbe turned swiftly. There was danger in the darkness, and someone had called for his help.

“Then teach me, Rebbe,” said the Dark One. “Teach me to be a fool no longer. I cannot bear this sorrow.”

“Time is short,” said the Rebbe with a shake of his head. “I cannot teach you. Only consider this: Two are required to meet in friendship. And to decline to shake the outstretched hand because someday it will no longer be there is as foolish as to decline to eat dinner because someday the plate shall be empty. Nothing at all is permanent. Not even you.”

“Then what ought I to do?”

The Rebbe had just opened his mouth to answer when again, from over his shoulder, Yehuda Leib’s voice came cutting through the night:

“Rebbe!”

It was certain. There was a flickering light in the darkness. The Rebbe was needed.

But the Dark One needed him too.

As the Rebbe turned to go, Death reached out with his bare bony hand.

And no man—no matter how holy—may feel the hand of Death and live.

—

The moment the bony hands ceased their clapping to reach out for the Rebbe, the dance was at its end. As if waking from a dark dream, the five Hasidim blinked their woozy eyes in the snowy gloom.

And what they saw was terrible.

Death stood in their midst, ancient and ragged, reaching out with twiggy thin fingers, grasping desperately for their holy Rebbe.

The Rebbe was turning, turning away, his face drawn with concern, turning away to help.

As one, the bewildered Hasidim called out in terror and in warning.

But it was too late.

The long fingers of Death caught on the hem of the Rebbe’s prayer shawl, and he fell.

Until this moment, the wind, as a mark of respect, had observed the custom of parting on either side of the holy Rebbe, but now, as if crying out in grief, the full force of its strength went tearing indiscriminately through Zubinsk, and as the five young Hasidim dashed forward, forward to catch their Rebbe, the gale tore screaming past them on every side.

When the swift storm passed, there was stillness in the road. The clouds above had been washed away, taking the falling snow with them. Only the stars were left to twinkle coldly, high above.