The Collected Stories

they climbed into their carriages and drove back to the rich neighborhoods where they lived and practiced.
    A few days later Selig the tailor came to us in his shirtsleeves, a needle in his lapel and a thimble over the index finger of his left hand, and said to my father, “Rabbi, my daughter wants you to recite the confession with her.”
    My father gripped his red beard and said, “What’s the hurry? With the Almighty’s help, she’ll live a hundred and twenty years yet.”
    “Not even a hundred and twenty hours,” Selig replied.
    Mother looked at Selig with reproof. Although he was a Jew, he spoke like a Gentile; those who came from Russia lacked the sensitivity of the Polish Jew. She began to wipe away her tears. Father rummaged in his cabinet and took out
The Ford of the Jabbok,
a book that dealt with death and mourning. He turned the pages and shook his head. Then he got up and went with Selig. This was the first time Father had been to Selig’s apartment. He never visited anyone except when called to officiate in a religious service.
    He stayed there a long time, and when he came back he said, “Oh, what kind of people are these? May the Almighty guard and protect us!”
    “Did you recite the confession with her?” Mother asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Did she say anything?”
    “She asked if you could marry right after shivah, the seven days of mourning, or if you had to wait until after sheloshim, the full thirty.”
    Mother made a face as if to spit. “She’s not in her right mind.”
    “No.”
    “You’ll see, she’ll live years yet,” Mother said.
    But this prediction didn’t come true. A few days later a lament was heard in the corridor. Henia Dvosha had just passed away. The front room soon filled with women. Tzeitel had already managed to cover the sewing machines and drape the mirror with a black cloth. The windows had been opened, according to Law. Issur Godel appeared among the throng of women. He was dressed in a vented gaberdine cut to the knee, a paper dickey, a stiff collar, a black tie, and a small cap. He soon was on his way to the community office to arrange for the funeral. Then Dunia walked into the courtyard wearing a straw hat decorated with flowers and a red dress and carrying a bag in ladylike fashion. Dunia and Issur Godel met on the stairs. For a moment they stood there without speaking, then they mumbled something and parted—he going down and she up. Dunia wasn’t crying. Her face was pale, and her eyes expressed something like rage.
    During the period of mourning, men came twice a day to pray at Selig the tailor’s. Selig and Tzeitel sat on little benches in their stocking feet. Selig glanced into the Book of Job printed in Hebrew and Yiddish that he had borrowed from my father. His lapel was torn as a sign of mourning. He chatted with the men about ordinary matters. The cost of everything was rising. Thread, lisle, and lining material were all higher. “Do people work nowadays?” Selig complained. “They play. In my time an apprentice came to work with the break of day. In the winter you started working while it was still dark. Every worker had to furnish a tallow candle at his own expense. Today the machine does everything and the worker knows only one thing—a new raise every other month. How can you have a world of such loafers?”
    “Everyone runs to America!” Shmul the carpenter said.
    “In America there’s a panic. People are dying of hunger.”
    I went to pray each day at Selig the tailor’s, but I never saw Issur Godel or Dunia there. Was Dunia hiding in the alcove or had she gone to work instead of observing shivah? As soon as this period of mourning was over, Issur Godel trimmed his beard, and exchanged his traditional cap for a fedora and the gaberdine for a short jacket. Dunia informed her mother that she wouldn’t wear a wig after she was married.
    The night before the wedding, I awoke just as the clock on the wall struck three. The window of our bedroom was covered with a blanket, but the moonlight shone in from each side. My parents were speaking softly, and their voices issued from one bed. God in Heaven, my father was lying in bed with my mother!
    I held my breath and heard Mother say, “It’s all their fault. They carried on in front of her. They kissed, and who knows what else. Tzeitel told me this herself. Such wickedness can cause a heart to burst.”
    “She should have got a divorce,” Father said.
    “When you love, you can’t