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 IF IT WAS A DREAM 487

he were the only living soul in the whole world, that is, the whole house; and the sudden crow of a cock would be enough on these occasions to send a warm current of relief and security through his heart.

His father's face looked a little more cheerful. In the daytime, while he dusted the cups, his eyes had some- thing pensive in them, but his lips were set so that you thought: There, now, now they are going to smile! The mother danced the Matzeh pancakes up and down in the kitchen, so that they chattered and gurgled in the frying-pan. When a neighbor came in to borrow a cook- ing pot, Meyerl happened to be standing beside his mother. The neighbor got her pot, the women ex- changed a few words about the coming holiday, and then the neighbor said, "So we shall soon be having a rejoi- cing at your house?" and with a wink and a smile she pointed at his mother with her finger, whereupon Meyerl remarked for the first time that her figure had grown round and full. But he had no time just then to think it over, for there came a sound of broken china from the next room, his mother stood like one knocked on the head, and his father appeared in the door, and said :

"Go !"

His voice sent a quiver through the window-panes, as if a heavy wagon were just crossing the bridge outside at a trot, the startled neighbor turned, and whisked out of the house.

Meyerl's parents looked ill at ease in their holiday garb, with the faces of mourners. The whole ceremony of the Passover home service was spoilt by an atmos- phere of the last meal on the Eve of the Fast of the