That is, his heart is very sick, and his hands and feet shake; his body is attracted earthwards, his strength fails, he feels like fainting. But fie, what an idea! To fast a whole week, to arrive at the eve of the Ninth of Ab, and not hold out to the end! Never!
And Chayyim Chaikin takes his portion of bread and potato, calls Fradke and Beilke, and whispers:
"Children, take this and eat it, but don't let Mother see!"
And Fradke and Beilke take their father's share of food, and look wonderingly at his livid face and shaking hands.
Chayyim sees the children snatch at the bread and munch and swallow, and he shuts his eyes, and rises from his place. He cannot wait for the other girls to come home from the factory, but takes his book of Lamentations, puts off his shoes, and drags himself—it is all he can do—to the Shool.
He is nearly the first to arrive. He secures a seat next the reader, on an overturned bench, lying with its feet in the air, and provides himself with a bit of burned-down candle, which he glues with its drippings to the foot of the bench, leans against the corner of the platform, opens his book, "Lament for Zion and all the other towns," and he closes his eyes and sees Zion robed in black, with a black veil over her face, lamenting and weeping and wringing her hands, mourning for her children who fall daily, daily, in foreign lands, for other men's sins.
| "And wilt not thou, O Zion, ask of me |
| Some tidings of the children from thee reft? |
| I bring thee greetings over land and sea, |
| From those remaining—from the remnant left!——" |
And he opens his eyes and sees:
A bright sunbeam has darted in through the dull, dusty window-pane, a beam of the sun which is setting yonder behind the town. And though he shuts them again, he still sees the beam, and not only the beam, but the whole sun, the bright, beautiful sun, and no one can see it but him! Chayyim Chaikin looks at the sun and sees it—and that's all! How is it? It must be because he has done with the world and its necessities—he feels happy—he feels light—he can bear anything—he will have an easy fast—do you know, he will have an easy fast, an easy fast!
Chayyim Chaikin shuts his eyes, and sees a strange world, a new world, such as he never saw before. Angels seem to hover before his eyes, and he looks at them, and recognizes his children in them, all his children, big and little, and he wants to say something to them, and cannot speak—he wants to explain to them, that he cannot help it—it is not his fault! How should it, no evil eye! be his fault, that so many Jews are gathered together in one place and squeeze each other, all for love, squeeze each other to death for love? How can he help it, if people desire other people's sweat, other people's blood? if people have not learned to see that one should not drive a man as a horse is driven to work? that a horse is also to be pitied, one of God's creatures, a living thing?——