Hannah listened attentively, so that Clara, elated by the apparent effect of her plea, went on, going over aloud the answer that she gave her own conscience. When she paused, however, Hannah said with a shrug of her shoulders and a mournful nod of her head:
“So you are bound to rot away in prison, aren’t you?”
“Don’t talk like that, mamma, dear, pray.”
“Why shouldn’t I? Has somebody else given birth to you? Has somebody else brought you up?”
“But why should you make yourself uneasy about me? I won’t rot away in prison, and if I do, better people than I have met with a fate of that kind. I wish I were as good as they were and died as they did.”
“A rather peculiar taste,” Hannah said with another shrug which seemed to add: “She has gone clear daft on those Gentile books of hers, as true as I live.”
Clara remained in the White-Russian town two days longer than her parents. At the moment of parting her mother clung to her desperately.
“Will I ever see you again?” Hannah sobbed. “Daughter mine, daughter mine! Will my eyes ever see you again?”
The old Talmudist was weeping into a blue bandanna.