"Mother, loved one," he replied in her own Yiddish. "Yes, stronger. But I had rather I had been with thee!"
"Speak not thus! I was happy to think of thee among the fields. Didst thou have a special egg a day and milk?"
"I did! But no, mother, thou must not talk more! Thou art not strong now, but wait, wait ... when thou art better...."
"Be thou not a child! Feivele, I am going ... going...."
The words were smothered in a tiny dry coughing. Channah came forward to help her. He turned his head away from the forlorn struggle.
Reb Monash had been to the Polisher Shool for minchak. He returned, and stood at the door, large-eyed, haunted.
"Thou art back, Feivele?" he said. He seemed to be searching for further words, but nothing came. The voice seemed to Philip to strike against his skin, then to fall away dully to the floor.
"Yes, tatte, yes," he said mechanically, and the abstract sphere in which his mother dying and his grief and himself seemed to be encrystalled, closed round him again in separating completeness.
All day greedily he remained with her, knowing with a mournful exultance that when she gathered strength she would say a few words to him; yet when these moments came, saying "Hush, mamma, not now! Sweetest, hush!" bending over her, faintly touching her forehead.
A long time had passed, and he was conscious not merely of hunger, but of a concrete clawed weakness tearing at the pit of his stomach, before he allowed Channah to take him into the kitchen and cut some slices of bread and butter for him and fill a pint mug with tea. Dorah was there putting washed plates on the shelves, and as Channah sat down at the table, she moved away to the parlour to take her place. Channah was sitting opposite to him, herself sipping tea, not with any interest, but because she knew that nothing had crossed her lips since morning.