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Steinberg, Jehudah

"The Story of an Old Man"


I turned to Marusya:
"Where are my clothes?"
"What do you want them for?"
"There is a paper there."
I insisted, and she brought the paper.
"Read the paper, Marusya," said I. She read the document in which
Serge assigned the house to Marusya. The two women looked at me
with glad surprise.
"How did you ever get it?"
But I had decided to keep the thing a secret from them, and I did.
When I was discharged from the hospital, the war was long over, and
a treaty of peace had been signed. Had they asked me, I should not
have signed it.--



XIII
Here the old man stopped for a while. Apparently he skipped many an
incident, and omitted many a thing that he did not care to mention.
I saw he was touching upon them mentally. Her resumed:--

Just so, just so. . . . Many, many a thing may take place within
us, without our ever knowing it. I never suspected that I had been
longing to see my parents. I never wrote to them, simply because I
had never learned to write my Jewish well enough. Of course, had my
brother Solomon been taken, he would surely have written regularly,
for he was a great penman, may he rest in peace.


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