"I want the moon to be made bigger again. It is so dreadfully sad about her! She committed a sin, but to suffer so long! It will soon be six thousand years."
Altogether, two requests! one of his earthly father for a second little onion, and one of his Father in Heaven, for the enlargement of the moon.
A wild impulse seized me to say: "Let alone! Your father will soon marry again, you will soon have a step-mother, become a step-child, and have to cry for a bit of bread! Spare the little onion, forget about the moon ..."
It was all I could do to refrain.
We left Tishewitz behind, the spring airs blew toward us from the green fields. He drew me to a tree, we sat down.
He must have sat here, it occurs to me, with his mother. She must have pointed out to him the different things that grew in the narrow plots belonging to the townspeople. He recognizes wheat, rye, potatoes.
And those are briars.
Nobody eats briars, do they?
Donkeys eat briars.
"Why," he asks, "did God make all creatures to eat different things?"