Un' dort bei der Thür stēhn itzt äuch nit wēniger Finstere, Ausgetruckente un Schofele, nebech, hören oder hören nit die Sāgerke un' wēinen, wie see zum Harzen is',—es is' Jonkiper.
Nor in rechten mitten Misrach-wand, auf dem ēigenem Ort, wu die frumme Gütele hāt mit dreissig Jāhr zurück gedawent, seht män itzt äuch a choschewe Frau, korew zu fufzig Jāhr, sitzt still un' trauerig, wie a Derhargete, ihre Lippen varschlossen. Die Äugen kucken in offenem Korben-minche, nor see sehn die Wörter nit.
him with all his inhumanity, with all his uncouthness, and even when he beats her, she alone to know it, lest her enemies be not rejoiced, and that she may accept all her troubles in good spirits, just as He who gives each woman her lot, has bidden a Jewish woman to do....
And her tears flow on the same spot where just such tears have flowed thirty years before for another reason and from another source. And they fall on the same words of the Prayer-book, which every Jewish woman interprets in her own way.
Only at the Western wall, not far from the door, the poor women are weeping to-day with the same intonation, with the same burdened heart as thirty years ago.
Poverty, hunger, misery, and want have always the same face, the same appearance, and the same place at the door. Just as oppressive and as bitter as the weeping that issues from the downtrodden has been before, it will eternally be. All desires and longings will change and are actually changing, but the want of the hungry will eternally remain a piece of bread; the longings of the needy will eternally be: To be freed from want and not to know the feeling thereof!...
And there at the door there now stand just such gloomy, emaciated, and dispirited women, who listen or do not listen to the Reader and weep out of the fulness of their hearts,—it is the Atonement day.
In the very centre of the Eastern wall, in the same spot where the pious Gütele had been praying thirty years before, one may even now discern a woman, nigh unto fifty years, sitting quietly and sadly, like one struck dead, with closely pressed lips. Her eyes look into the open Prayer-book, but they do not see the words.
Farwās wēint sie nit?