ndel Hyams and Beenah, his
wife, opposed more furrowed foreheads to a world too strong for them. If
Daniel had taken back his words and told them he was happier for the
ruin they had made of his prospects, their gait might not have been so
listless. But he was a silent man.

"You will go to Sugarman's, mother," he said now. "You and father. Don't
mind that I'm not going. I have another appointment for the afternoon."

It was a superfluous lie for so silent a man.

"He doesn't like to be seen with us," Beenah Hyams thought. But she was
silent.

"He has never forgiven my putting him to the fancy goods," thought
Mendel Hyams when told. But he was silent.

It was of no good discussing it with his wife. Those two had rather
halved their joys than their sorrows. They had been married forty years
and had never had an intimate moment. Their marriage had been a matter
of contract. Forty years ago, in Poland, Mendel Hyams had awoke one
morning to find a face he had never seen before on the pillow beside
his. Not even on the wedding-day had he been allowed a glimpse of his
bride's countenance. That was the custom of the country and the time.
Beenah bore her husband four children, of whom the elder two died; but
the marriage did not beget affection, often the inverse offspring of
such unions. Beenah was a dutiful housewife and Mendel Hyams supported
her faithfully so long as his children would let him. Love never flew
out of the window for he was never in the house. They did not talk to
each other much. Beenah did the housework unaided by the sprig of a
servant who was engaged to satisfy the neighbors. In his enforced
idleness Mendel fell back on his religion, almost a profession in
itself. They were a silent couple.

At sixty there is not much chance of a forty year old silence being
broken on this side of the grave. So far as his personal happiness was
concerned, Mendel had only one hope left in the world--to die in
Jerusalem. His feeling for Jerusalem was unique. All the hunted Jew in
him combined with all the battered man to transfigure Zion with the
splendor of sacred dreams and girdle it with the rainbows that are
builded of bitter tears. And with it all a dread that if he were buried
elsewhere, when the last trump sounded he would have to roll under the
earth and under the sea to Jerusalem, the rendezvous of resurrection.

Every year at the Passover table he gave his hope voice: "Next year in
Jerusalem." In her deepe