* * * * * * * *
"Once," proceeds the Advocate, after taking a drink of water, "there came a change in his life ... a coach with rubber wheels and frightened horses rushed by ... the driver lay way back on the pavement with his head split open ... foam spurted from the mouths of the frightened horses, and sparks flew from under their feet, as from a locomotive; their eyes sparkled like glowing coals in a dark night,—and in the coach there was sitting, more dead than alive, a man!
"Bontsie stopped the runaway.
"The person thus saved was a Jew, a charitable man, and he did not forget Bontsie's kindness.
"He transferred to him the seat of the killed man; Bontsie became a driver! More than that,—he got him married; still more, he provided him with a child ... and Bontsie kept silent all the time!"
"They mean me, they mean me!" Bontsie strengthens himself in his belief, and he has no courage to raise his eyes on the Supreme Judge.
He listens again to the Advocate.
—Er hāt geschwiegen afile, wenn sein Baltōwe hāt in Kurzen bankrottirt un' ihm sein S-chires äuch.... Er hāt geschwiegen afile, wenn dās Weib is' ihm entloffen un' übergelāst ihm a Kind vun der Brust....
Er hāt geschwiegen afile mit fufzehn Jāhr später, wenn dās Kind is' aufgewachsen un' genug stark gewesen,—Bonzjen arauszuwarfen vun Stub'....
—Mich mēint män, mich! frēut sich Bonzje.