“I will murder him! I will murder him! Jagica is mine and nobody else’s,” he shrieked, running through forest and field, then breaking into sobs—or trilling shrilly one of his old songs.
On the evening before St. Catherine’s Day—which was the wedding day, he disappeared. People said he had gone into the city. There was a sigh of relief, because they feared trouble on the wedding day.
The next morning the wedding procession started from Jagica’s house. The bride was pale and her eyes showed she had been weeping. With difficulty she held erect upon her head the crown, trimmed with gold-paper flowers. She wrapped her wedding mantle about her as if she shivered. When the procession reached the highway, the musicians blew a ringing blast. Suddenly Janko leaped upon them. He was ragged, barefooted, without coat or hat. In his hand he carried a club. He swung it toward Tono. But in the same moment he let it fall, burst into wild laughter and turned and ran away. Far, far-echoing among the hills they heard his laughter.
JOACHIM FRIEDENTHAL
A POGROM IN POLAND[10]
HIGH and clear rang the cantor’s voice. It was as if with musical fervor it tried to reach heaven itself, to plead that a door be opened and mercy granted, to plead that an ear be made sympathetic, to plead that the suffering in the heart of Jehova make it tremble with pity.
Never so splendidly before sang Reb Chajim’s voice, sang the ancient melodies of the Day of Atonement. The voices of the men joined with it. With heaven-storming power they rose to heights of melody and then sank to depths again, as the pain of despair increased within them and opened up their measureless grief.