In 1907, Ḥaim Naḥman Bialik paid a visit to Sholem Aleichem, then living in Geneva, and on his departure forgot to take his slippers. His host wrote him a characteristically playful letter:
You should know I have some greetings to pass on to you, can you guess from whom? From your shoes; yes, from your slippers. The morning after your departure from Switzerland, I got up, as usual, quite early and, as usual, I bent down looking for my shoes under my bed. I have a look—and find a pair of shoes! Completely unfamiliar shoes, checkered slippers with leather tips. I examine the shoes—quite good shoes, brand new! Whose shoes are they? Long story short: they are Bialik’s shoes! How did Bialik’s shoes get here? He probably forgot them? Or perhaps he left them here for me as a gift?
Anyway they caused quite a commotion in the house: Shoes this! Shoes that! First along comes [my daughter] Tissy, who made the claim that the shoes should belong to her; her Berkovitsh got on really well with Bialik, so she should get the shoes. The second to come along was my Lyala, the one who is studying medicine: it’s only fair, she said, that she should get the shoes. Why? It goes like this: she has no slippers. She said she’d really wanted to buy new shoes for some time now. Emma, the third, said that the shoes may as well go to her, because of course she has no shoes! The smallest, Marusi, joins in claiming that her heart is not made of stone and that she too has a right to shoes. Numtshik, hearing that we are talking about shoes and without even waiting to find out what shoes we are talking about, cries out: “Mama, I want shoes!”
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