Askerah[131] has taken it under her wing.
And since you have such a wonderful memory, and remember everything I said and everything I did, I will tell you a story which you may recollect. It is a story about a shawl I did not know what to do with. Should I put it on and run for the doctor for the child, or stop up the broken pane with it to keep the snow from blowing in, or wrap it round the child, because the poor thing was suffocating with its throat? And it was cold, bitterly cold. I ran to and fro several times, from the window to the cradle, to the door, and back from the door to the window—I tell you, I ran! I think, my dear husband, you will not forget that moment, because, as you say, we are bound one to the other, you to me and both of us to the child, and now the child is not there, we two may as well go, too. Well, what will Genendil say? To tell the truth, I have decided to let my hair grow and dress as they dress in America, and do you know that, beside this, I have a sweet voice and can chant all the prayers, and now, since I have been at my brother Menachem Mendil's, I have heard drunken peasants sing all sorts of songs—and I have learned them and I sing every whit as well as Genendil, if not better; and at night, when I slept under the open sky, the Queen of Sheba came and taught me to dance—and a whole night long I danced with the Queen of Sheba in the eye of the moon.
And you, my dear Shmùel Mösheh, have made a bad bargain, for I am better than Genendil. Because I remember quite well that she had two moles, one on the left ear and one on the right cheek—and rather a crooked nose. And I, you know, have a perfectly clear skin, without a mole anywhere. You thought that only Genendil could sing and dance every Friday night, and let her hair grow, that other people were not up to that! But I am not angry with you, heaven forbid! Hold to her! It is enough for me to have the child's grave. I shall go and build myself a little house there, and sit in it through the night till the cock crows. I shall talk to the child, very low and softly, about his father Shmùel Mösheh, and that will delight him! And if you come yourself, or send anyone, to fetch the child, I shall scratch out his eyes with my nails, because the child is mine, not Genendil's—may her name and her remembrance perish, and may you and she.....
———
The letter is unfinished; it was found together with the other letters in the pocket of the mad Hannah.
XXI
IN THE POND
Once upon a time there was a pond. It had a corner to itself, and lay quite apart from the rest of the field where beasts were wont to graze and herd-boys to fling stones.