Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/155

 AN EASY FAST l5l

A bright sunbeam has darted in through the dull, dusty window-pane, a beam of the sun which is setting yonder behind the town. And though he shuts them again, he still sees the beam, and not only the beam, but the whole sun, the bright, beautiful sun, and no one can see it but him ! Chayyim 'Chaikiu looks at the sun and sees it and that's all ! How is it ? It must be because he has done with the world and its necessities he feels happy he feels light he can bear anything he will have an easy fast do you know, he will have an easy fast, an easy fast !

Chayyim Chaikin shuts his eyes, and sees a strange world, a new world, such as he never saw before. Angels seem to hover before his eyes, and he looks at them, and recognizes his children in them, all his children, big and little, and he wants to say something to them, and cannot speak he wants to explain to them, that he cannot help it it is not his fault! How should it, no evil eye ! be his fault, that so many Jews are gathered together in one place and squeeze each other, all for love, squeeze each other to death for love? How can he help it, if people desire other people's sweat, other people's blood? if people have not learned to see that one should not drive a man as a horse is driven to work ? that a horse is also to be pitied, one of God's creatures, a living thing?

And Chayyim Chaikin keeps his eyes shut, and sees, sees everything. And everything is bright and light, and curls like smoke, and he feels something is going out of him, from inside, from his heart, and is drawn upward and loses itself from the body, and he feels