"Ah! Ah! Ah! Little knives! Heh-heh-heh!" said my father, and he took
the knife and the sharpening-stone from me. "Such a scamp! Why the devil
can't he take a book into his hand? Tkeh-heh-heh!"

I began to cry. My father improved the situation by a few slaps. My
mother ran in from the kitchen, her sleeves turned up, and she began to
shout:

"Shah! Shah! What's the matter here? Why do you beat him? God be with
you! What have you against the child? Woe is me!"

"Little knives," said my father, ending up with a cough. "A tiny child.
Such a devil. Tkeh-heh-heh! Why the devil can't he take a book into his
hand? He's already a youth of eight years.... I will give you
pocket-knives--you good-for-nothing, you. In the middle of everything,
pocket-knives. Thek-heh-heh!"

But what had he against my little knife? How had it sinned in his eyes?
Why was he so angry?

I remember that my father was nearly always ailing--always pale and
hollow-cheeked, and always angry with the whole world. For the least
thing he flared up and would tear me to pieces. It was fortunate my
mother defended me. She took me out of his hands.

And that pocket-knife of mine was thrown away somewhere. For eight days
on end I looked and looked for it, but could not find it. I mourned
deeply for that curved knife--the good knife. How dark and embittered
was my soul at school when I remembered that I would come home with a
swollen face, with red, torn ears from the hands of Mottel, the "Angel
of Death," because an ox gored a cow, and I would have no one to turn to
for comfort. I was lonely without the curved knife--lonely as an orphan.
No one saw the tears I shed in silence, in my bed, at night, after I had
come back from "_Cheder_." In silence, I cried my eyes out. In the
morning I was again at "_Cheder_," and again I repeated: "If an ox gore
a cow," and again I felt the blows of Mottel, the "Angel of Death";
again my father was angry, coughed, and swore at me. I had not a free
moment. I did not see a smiling face. There was not a single little
smile for me anywhere, not a single one. I had nobody. I was alone--all
alone in the whole world.

* * *

A year went by, and perhaps a year and a half. I was beginning to forget
the curved knife. It seems I was destined to waste all the years of my
childhood because of pocket-knives. A new knife was created--to my
misfortune--a brand new knife, a beauty, a splendid one. As I live, it
was a fine knife. It had