Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/222

 218 LEENEE

and he remembers everything, and understands what Eochtzi is saying, and what it is she wants him to do.

"Give me some water I said Minchah and Maariv by the way, while I was at work."

"I'm bringing it already ! May God grant you a like happiness ! Good health to you ! Hershele, get up, my Kaddish, father has come home already ! Shmuelkil, my little son, go and ask father the Four Questions."

Bertzi fills a goblet with wine, takes it up in his left hand, places it upon his right hand, and begins :

"Savri Moronon, ve-Eabbonon, ve-Eabbosai with the permission of the company." His head goes round. "Lord of the "World ! I am a Jew. Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of the Universe " It grows dark before his eyes: "The first night of Passover I ought to make Kiddush Thou who dost create the fruit of the vine" his feet fail him, as though they had been cut off "and I ought to give the Seder This is the bread of the poor. . . . Lord of the World, you know how it is : I can't do it ! Have mercy ! Forgive me !"

VII

A nasty smell of sputtered-out candles fills the room. Eochtzi weeps. Bertzi is back on the couch and snores.

Different sounds, like the voices of winds, cattle, and wild beasts, and the whirr of a mill, are heard in his snoring. And her weeping it seems as if the whole room were sighing and quivering and shaking. . ..