1
I remember, as in a dream, that there used to be about the house a little, thin Jew, with a pointed beard, who often put his arms round me and kissed me.
Then I remember how the same man lay ill in bed; he groaned a great deal, and my mother stood and beat her head with her hands.
One night I woke up and saw the room full of people. Outside there was a grievous noise; I was very frightened, and I began to scream.
One of the people came up to me, dressed me, and led me away to sleep at a neighbor's.
When I saw our room next morning, I did not know it again. Straw lay scattered on the floor, the glass on the wall was covered over, the hanging-lamp wrapped in a table cover, and my mother sat on a low stool in her socks.
She began to weep loudly at sight of me and cried: "The orphan! the orphan!"
An oil-lamp burned in the window; beside it were a glass of water and a piece of linen.
They told me that my father had died, that his soul washed itself in the glass and dried itself with the linen; that when once I began to say the Kaddish it would fly straight up into heaven.