For weeks she had been living in momentary dread of this catastrophe. Now, when the burly moving men actually broke into her home, she surrendered herself to the anguish of utter defeat. She watched them disconnect the rusty stove and carry it into the street. They took the bed, the Passover dishes prayerfully wrapped to avoid the soil of leavened bread. They took the brass samovar and the Sabbath candlesticks. And she stood mutely by—defenceless—impotent!
“What did I sin?” The cry broke from her. “God! God! Is there a God over us and sees all this?”
The men and the things they touched were to Reb Ravinsky’s far-seeing eyes as shadows of the substanceless dream of life in the flesh. With vision focused on the next world, he saw in dim blurs the drama enacted in this world.
Smash to the floor went the sacred Sabbath wineglass! Reb Ravinsky turned sharply, in time to see a man tumble ruthlessly the sacred Hebrew books to the floor.
A flame of holy wrath leaped from the old man’s eyes. His breath came in convulsive gasps as he clutched with emaciated fingers at his heart. The sacrilege of the ruffians! He rushed to pick up the books, kissing each volume with pious reverence. As he gathered them in his trembling arms, he looked about confusedly for a safe hiding-place. In his anxiety for the safety of his holy treasure, he forgot the existence of his wife and ran with his books to the synagogue as one runs from a house on fire. So overwrought was he that he nearly fell over his little daughter running up the stairs.
“Murderer!” screamed Mrs. Ravinsky, after him. “Run, run to the synagogue! Holy Jew! See where your religion has brought us. Run—ask God to pay your rent!”
She turned to her little Rachel who burst into the room terrified.
“See, my heart! See what they’ve done to us! And your father ran to hide himself in the synagogue. You got no father—nobody to give you bread. A lost orphan you are.”
“Will the charity lady have to bring us eating again?” asked Rachel, her eyes dilated with dread. “Wait only till I get old enough to go to the shop and earn money.” And she reached up little helpless arms protectingly.
The child’s sympathy was as salt on the mother’s wounds.