"Why, you mustn't do that, Davie!" she said, aghast. "Don't you ever go near that street again! Do you hear?"
"Why?"
"Because it is a bad street."
"Why is it bad?"
"Keep still and don't ask foolish questions."
I obeyed, with the result that the foolish questions kept rankling in my brain
On a subsequent occasion, when she was combing my dark hair fondly, I ventured once more: "Mamma, why mustn't I come near that street?"
"Because it is a sin to do so, my comfort. Fie upon it!"
This answer settled it. One did not ask why it was a sin to do this or not to do that. "You don't demand explanations of the Master of the World," as people were continually saying around me. My curiosity was silenced. That street became repellent to me, something hideously wicked and sinister
Sometimes some of the excommunicated women would drop in at our yard. As a rule, my mother was bitterly opposed to their visits and she often chased them out with maledictions and expressions of abhorrence; but there was one case in which she showed unusual tolerance and even assumed the part of father confessor to a woman of this kind. She would listen to her tale of woe, homesickness and repentance, including some of the most intimate details of her loathsome life. She would even deliver her donations to the synagogue, thus helping her cheat the Biblical injunction which bars the gifts of fallen women from a house of God