She shook her head and smiled. She was holding Urim against her breast.
It happened ten years ago, and it seems but yesterday. The day was warm and sultry—almost as close as this crowded hall. The streets of the Ghetto were filled with the market throng, and the air hummed with the music of life. The whole picture rises clearly, now—as clearly as the platform from which the enthusiastic speaker’s voice resounds through the hall.
A white hearse stands before the house. The driver, unaided, bears a tiny coffin out of the gloomy hallway into the bright sunshine. The group of idlers make way for him, and look on with curiosity, as he deposits his burden within the hearse.
There are no carriages. There are no flowers. Koppel walks slowly out of the house, his eyes fastened upon the sidewalk, his lips moving as if he were muttering to himself. In his hand he carries two broken dolls. Without looking to right or left, he climbs beside the driver, and the hearse rattles down the street.
I mounted the stairs to his home, and found everything as it had been when I was there last—everything save Koppel and Rebecca, and Urim and Thummim, and these I never saw again.
A YIDDISH IDYLL
Die Liebe ist eine alte Geschichte.
In German they call it “Die Liebe.” The French, as every school-girl knows, call it “L’Amour.” It is known to the Spanish and the Italians, and, unless I am greatly mistaken, it was known even in Ur of the Chaldeans, the city that was lost before the dawn of ancient Greece.
The sky has sung of it, the bright stars have sung of it, the birds and the flowers and the green meadows have sung of it. And far from the brightness and the sunshine of the world I can lead you to a dark room where, night and day, the air is filled with the whirring and buzzing and droning and humming of sewing machines, and if you listen intently you can hear the song they sing: “Love! Love! Love!”