Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/221

 BEETZI WASSERFUHRER 217

But now she runs up to the couch by the table, and begins to rouse her husband with screams and cries fit to make one's blood run cold and the hair stand up on one's head:

"No, no, you're not going to sleep any longer, I tell you! Bertzi, do you hear me? Get up, Bertzi, aren't you a Jew ? a man ? the father of children ? Bertzi, have you God in your heart ? Bertzi, have you said your prayers ? My husband, what about the Seder ? I won't have it ! I feel very ill I am going to faint ! Help ! Water !"

"Have I forgotten somebody's water? Whose? Where? . . ."

But Rochtzi is no longer in need of water : she beholds her "king" on his feet, and has revived without it. With her two hands, with all the strength she has, she holds him from falling back onto the couch.

"Don't you see, Bertzi? The candles are burning down, the supper is cold and will spoil. I fancy it's already beginning to dawn. The children, long life to them, went to sleep without any food. Come, please, begin to prepare for the Seder, and I will wake the two elder ones."

Bertzi stands bent double and treble. His breathing is labored and loud, his face is smeared with mud and swollen from the cold, his beard and earlocks are rough and bristly, his eyes sleepy and red. He looks strangely wild and unkempt. Bertzi looks at Rochtzi, at the table, he looks round the room, and sees nothing. But now he looks at the bed : his little children, washed, and in their holiday dresses, are all lying in a row across the bed,