He closed his eyes a little and continued:
"Now she is very old, but she once was young and very beautiful, And where has her beauty disappeared to? It was erased by the years—by months and days passing over her like birds flying one after the other, pick one berry after another, until they have picked them all. It is true, she has now many wrinkles on her face. But whence come these wrinkles? I know; for looking at her I see some picture in each one. When I look at the wrinkles in her eyelids, and around her eyes, I remember that when I was small, and was ill she sat by my cradle and sang to lull me to sleep, and the tears poured from her eyes. And when I look at the wrinkles so numerous on her cheeks, I remember all the sorrows and griefs she has passed through, when she became a widow, refused to marry again, conducting business affairs personally and increasing the wealth of her children. And when I look at the wrinkle which appears in the middle of her forehead, it seems that I live again the moment that my father's soul left its body, and my mother fell to the floor like one dead. She did not cry nor moan, but only sobbed sweetly, 'Hersh! Hersh! My Hersh!' It was the greatest sorrow of her life, and left on her forehead that deep line."
Thus spoke old Saul, with his index finger raised solemnly and a thoughtful smile on his yellow lips. The women listening to him shook their heads, half sadly, half affirmatively, and looking at each other they repeated softly:
"Hohr! Hohr!" (Listen! Listen!)
Pani Hannah was moved to tears. She dried them with a lace handkerchief which she held in her hand, and stretching this hand toward Saul she said:
"Danke! Danke!" with a smile of gratitude on her lips.
"Danke!" (Thanks!) the majority of those present repeated after her. Then Pani Hannah's sister, Witebski, and two or three other people not belonging to the family, said in a hushed voice:
"Ein kluger mensch! Ein ehrlicher mensch!" (A clever man! An honest man!)
The filial love and respect manifested by Saul, and his picturesque narrative, made a pleasant impression on all hearts and minds.
Only young Leopold, who until now sat silent and gloomy, or spoke in French with Mera, rose from his chair and went toward the window where Meir stood. Around the sofa a lively conversation had been recommenced by Pani Hannah, who expressed a regret that it was Sabbath, and that there was no piano, for her daughter was thus prevented from playing such music as melted all hearts, and brought before the mind's eye the botanical garden of Wilno, where the band of music played, and different other things which belonged to her lost paradise of civilisation.