Page:Etta Block - One-act plays from the Yiddish (1923).pdf/20

 day? A truly honest girl, only twenty-six! Skinny—you can count every bone! A wrinkled skin—like parchment! Eyes, with the light gone out of them! Her face—soured—without a smile. Lips, forever bitten together! At times the dulled eyes do flash. At such times hatred burns in them—a hatred as fierce as Gehenna! And do you know for whom? Do you know whom she hates—whose bones she curses, as she goes about moving those silent lips of hers?

Whom?

Me! Me, her own mother!



Did you see?

But why?

Perhaps she herself does not know why. But I know. I stood between her and the world, between her and the sun. I hid the sun from her! I—oh, how shall I say it—I allowed no warmth or light to reach her body! I have lain awake whole nights through figuring it all out before I could understand it all. She hates me! She must hate me! Every cell of her body must hate me!