Is she so happy that even on the day of Atonement she cannot prevail over her heart to consider that no good is eternal, and mortal man does not know what to-morrow may be?
Or is she not a Jewish woman, a woman having husband and children? and where is there a Jewish woman that has not some one or more reasons for weeping on the Atonement day, and shedding hot tears?
Is she, perhaps, so hard of heart and so bad, so haughty and conceited, that she does not think it proper to weep, lest people should see her tears and deem her equal with the others?
No! Chanele,—they call her the good, the wise Chanele,—her very dry eyes are witness that she has wept much, very much in her time; she is not proud and is not ashamed to weep, especially on the Atonement day, when tears come of their own accord!
Why, then, does she not weep?
Many eyes are looking at her and wondering why she is so different from other years, why she looks stolidly, like one turned to stone, into the Prayer-book, why she is neither weeping nor praying. A few times she pushed aside the curtain, looked down into the men's division, seated herself again in her place and looked each time sadder and more oppressed than before.
When the Precentor began to read the Mussaf-prayer, she once more peeped through the window, her eyes ran restlessly over the whole synagogue, and she went back to her seat.
"He has not come yet!" her heart spoke to her inwardly. "Even to the Mussaf he could not come?
Och, un' dās is' mein Kind, mein Bchor! Vun ihm hāb' ich dās asō viel Jessurim un' Schmerzen arübergetrāgen, bis ich hāb' ihm auf die Füss' gestellt!
"Jā, mein Kind, mein Wund'! Ein ander Mutter wollt' ihm sein Gebēin varscholten, sie wollt' gesāgt: Nit du bist mein Suhn, nit ich bin dein Mutter,—ich känn es āber nit,—sei mir mōchel, Gott in Himmel, wās ich ruf' ihm noch "mein Kind, mein Suhn!"... O, ich känn bei Dir auf sich betten a Tōdt, āber nit auf mein Kind!—Strāf' mich, Ribōne-schel-ōlem, mich, sein sündige Mutter, efscher bin ich schuldig in dem, wās er is' vun rechten Weg arāb un' hāt Dich, lebediger Gott, vargessen un' hāt dein Tōre varlāsen un' thut dein Gebot nit? Jā, ich bin schuldig, ich hāb' ihm zu viel lieb geha't; wās er hāt gebeten, hāb' ich gethun; ich hāb' sich mit sein frummen Vāter ständig arumgekriegt, as er flegt ihm bestrāfen wöllen. Ich hāb' ihm ausgehodewet, wie er is', un' mich strāf' far ihm!"...