Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/492

 488 SCHAPIRO

Destruction of the Temple. And when Meyerl, with the indifferent voice of one hired for the occasion, sang out the "Why is this night different?" his heart shrank together; there was the same hush round about him as there is in Shool when an orphan recites the first "Sanctification" for his dead parents.

His mother's lips moved, but gave forth no sound; from time to time she wetted a finger with her tongue, and turned over leaf after leaf in her service-book, and from time to time a large, bright tear fell over her beautiful but depressed face onto the book, or the white table-cloth, or her dress. His father never looked at her. Did he see she was crying? Meyerl wondered. Then, how strangely he was reciting the Haggadah! He would chant a portion in long-drawn-out fashion, and suddenly his voice would break, sometimes with a gur- gle, as though a hand had seized him by the throat and closed it. Then he would look silently at his book, or his eye would wander round the room with a vacant stare. Then he would start intoning again, and again his voice would break.

They ate next to nothing, said grace to themselves in a whisper, after which the father said :

"Meyer, open the door!"

Not without fear, and the usual uncertainty as to the appearance of the Prophet Elijah, whose goblet stood filled for him on the table, Meyerl opened the door.

"Pour out Thy wrath upon the Gentiles, who do not know Thee !"

A slight shudder ran down between Meyerl's shoul- ders, for a strange, quite unfamiliar voice had sounded