ns playing and
fiddling and singing, and the relations dancing!... Good luck! Good
luck! The orphan and her breadwinner are being led to the marriage
canopy in the graveyard!

He will never forget with what gusto, she, his bride, the first night
after their wedding, ate, drank, and slept--the whole of the
wedding-supper that had been given them, bridegroom and bride: a nice
roll, a glass of brandy, a tea-glass full of wine, and a heaped-up plate
of roast meat was cut up and scraped together and eaten (no evil eye!)
by _her_, by the bride herself. He had taken great pleasure in watching
her face. He had known her well from childhood, and had no need to look
at her to know what she was like, but he wanted to see what kind of
feelings her face would express during this occupation. When they led
him into the bridal chamber--she was already there--the companions of
the bridegroom burst into a shout of laughter, for the bride was already
snoring. He knew quite well why she had gone to sleep so quickly and
comfortably. Was there not sufficient reason? For the first time in her
life she had made a good meal and lain down in a bed with bedclothes!

The six groschen candle burnt, the flies woke and began to buzz, the
mills clapt, and swung, and groaned, and he, Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber,
the bridegroom, sat beside the bridal bed on a little barrel of pickled
gherkins, and looked at Malkeh the orphan, his bride, his wife, listened
to her loud thick snores, and thought.

The town dogs howled strangely. Evidently the wedding in the cemetery
had not yet driven away the Angel of Death. From some of the
neighboring houses came a dreadful crying and screaming of women and
children.

Malkeh the orphan heard nothing. She slept sweetly, and snored as loud
(I beg to distinguish!) as Caspar, the tall, stout miller, the owner of
both mills.

Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber sits on the little barrel, looks at her face,
and thinks. Her face is dark, roughened, and nearly like that of an old
woman. A great, fat fly knocked against the wick, the candle suddenly
began to burn brighter, and Yitzchok-Yossel saw her face become
prettier, younger, and fresher, and overspread by a smile. That was all
the effect of the supper and the soft bed. Then it was that he had
promised himself, that he had sworn, once and for all, to show the
Kabtzonivke Jews who he is, and then Malkeh the orphan will have food
and a bed every day. He would have done this long