. . . . .
It is the summer time. The sun is setting. The air grows somewhat cooler. The grass emits a sweet odour. The frogs croak, and the thick clouds fly by, without rain, across the moon. They wish to swallow her up. The silvery white moon hides herself every minute, and shows herself again. It seemed to me that she was flying and flying, but was still on the same spot. My father sat down on the grass, in a long mantle. He had one hand in the bosom of his coat, and with the other he smoothed down the grass. He looked up at the star-spangled sky, and coughed and coughed. His face was like death, silvery white. He was sitting on the exact spot where the little knife was hidden. He knew nothing of what was in the earth under him. Ah, if he only knew! What, for instance, would he say, and what would happen to me?
"Aha!" thought I within myself, "you threw away my knife with the curved blade, and now I have a nicer and a better one. You are sitting on it, and you know nothing. Oh, father, father!"
"Why do you stare at me like a tom-cat?" asked my father. "Why do you sit with folded arms like a self-satisfied old man? Can you not find something to do? Have you said the night prayer? May the devil not take you, scamp! May an evil end not come upon you! Tkeh-heh-heh!"
When he says may the devil not take you, and may an evil end not come upon you, then he is not angry. On the contrary, it is a sign that he is in a good humour. And, surely, how could one help being in a good humour on such a wonderfully beautiful night, when every one is drawn out of doors into the street, under the soft, fresh, brilliant sky? Every one is now out of doors—my father, my mother, and the younger children who are looking for little stones and playing in the sand. Herr Hertz Hertzenhertz was going about in the yard, without a hat, smoking a cigar, and singing a German song. He looked at me, and laughed. Probably he was laughing because my father was driving me away. But I laughed at them all. Soon they would be going to bed, and I would go out into the yard (I slept in the open, before the door, because of the great heat), and I would rejoice in, and play with my knife.
The house is asleep. It is silent around and about. Cautiously I get up; I am on all fours, like a cat; and I steal out into the yard. The night is silent. The air is fresh and pure. Slowly I creep over to the spot where the little knife lies buried. I take it out carefully, and look at it by the light of the moon. It shines and glitters, like guinea-gold, like a diamond. I lift up my eyes, and I see that the moon is looking straight down on my knife. Why is she looking at it so? I turn round. She looks after me. Maybe she knows whose knife it is, and where I got it? Got it? Stole it!
For the first time since the knife came into my hands has this terrible word entered my thoughts. Stolen? Then I am, in short, a thief, a common thief? In the Holy Law, in the Ten Commandments, are written, in big letters: "Thou shalt not steal."
Thou shalt not steal. And I have stolen. What will they do to me in hell for that? Woe is me! They will cut off my hand—the hand that stole. They will whip me with iron rods. They will roast and burn me in a hot oven. I will glow for ever and ever. The knife must be given back. The knife must be put back in its place. One must not hold a stolen knife. Tomorrow I will put it back.
That was what I decided. And I put the knife into my bosom. I imagined it was burning, scorching me. No, it must be hidden again, buried in the earth till tomorrow. The moon still looked down on me. What was she looking at? The moon saw. She was a witness.
I crept back to the house, to my sleeping-place. I lay down again, but could not sleep. I tossed about from side to side, but could not fall asleep. It was already day when I dozed off. I dreamt of a moon, I dreamt of iron rods, and I dreamt of little knives. I got up very early, said my prayers with pleasure, with delight, ate my breakfast while standing on one foot, and marched off to "Cheder."