I read it
again and again, and when I came to the words "modest," "pious," I
mumbled something to myself, something angry and envious. Then I
thought I felt the tombstone move, the ground shake under me, as if
a shiver were passing through the air. . .
"Forgive me, forgive me!"
It was not my ears that caught those words; it was my heart. I
understood that it was the soul of my brother apologizing to me for
the action of my parents. Tears began to flow from my eyes. I did
not care to read any further, from fear of finding something I did
not wish to find. I was thinking of my parents.
And when I entered the house of my parents, I could hardly recognize
them. Wrinkled, bent, with sunken cheeks, they had changed entirely
in appearance.
Father looked at my buttons, removed his cap, and stood bent before
me. Mother was busying herself at the oven, and began to speak to
father in a mixture of Hebrew and Yiddish: "Sure enough, some sort
of taxes again. . . . Much do we need it now. . . ." Then, in a
fit of spitefulness, I made believe I was a stranger.
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