No answer.
"Are you Mrs. S.?" I repeated again, as I regained my composure.
"Don't take away my children, Mister. Don't take away my children," the poor mother yelled and growing hysterical she repeated this terrible cry in heartrending tones, tearing her hair. "Don't take them away."
The poor tots came out from under the table. Quickly she pushed them back, and continued to cry at the top of her voice the same sentence: "Don't take away my children. They are mine, mine. My God, they are mine."
"I don't want to take your children away, madam," I told her repeatedly. "Calm yourself, I did not come to take them away." But she did not listen to me. She kept on crying and tearing her hair. Neighbours came in from all sides.
"Help, help," Mrs. S. cried. "Help, help, mothers! He wants to take away my children. Help, help!" and she ran to the window.
I gently laid my hands on the hysterical mother's shoulders, and looking straight in her eyes I said slowly and distinctly:
"I—don't—want—to—take—your children. Be quiet," I begged. Among the neighbours was also the grocery woman.
"He wouldn't take away your children. This gentleman comes to speak with you. Calm yourself, Mrs. S., calm yourself," and softly, in Yiddish, she blasphemed Mrs. Goldberg and her husband, father and child.
After a few moments, during which the grocery woman spoke to her in soothing tones, Mrs. S. quieted down a little. A reaction set in. Thick beads of cold sweat appeared on her brows, while her cheeks flushed with a sickly red. She asked for a glass of water and sat down. To express how I felt all this time is more than I can do. I only know that I went through some faint reflection of all the emotions that agitated the poor woman. I sat down opposite to her and tried to soothe her. She could not look me in the face. As I spoke her eyes caressed the two little children, who, during the excitement, had come out from their hiding place. They went to their mother. She placed them one on each side of her and passed her arms around their necks, presenting to me one of the strongest pictures of motherhood that I had ever seen.