left in there, evidently; further, a table and three chairs (originally
painted red), a cupboard, now somewhat damaged. Add to these a pail of
clean water and one of dirty water, an oven rake with a shovel, and you
will understand that a pin could hardly drop onto the floor.

And yet the room contains _him_ and _her_ beside.

_She_, a middle-aged Jewess, sits on the chest that fills the space
between the bed and the cradle.

To her right is the one grimy little window, to her left, the table. She
is knitting a sock, rocking the cradle with her foot, and listens to
_him_ reading the Talmud at the table, with a tearful, Wallachian,
singing intonation, and swaying to and fro with a series of nervous
jerks. Some of the words he swallows, others he draws out; now he snaps
at a word, and now he skips it; some he accentuates and dwells on
lovingly, others he rattles out with indifference, like dried peas out
of a bag. And never quiet for a moment. First he draws from his pocket a
once red and whole handkerchief, and wipes his nose and brow, then he
lets it fall into his lap, and begins twisting his earlocks or pulling
at his thin, pointed, faintly grizzled beard. Again, he lays a
pulled-out hair from the same between the leaves of his book, and slaps
his knees. His fingers coming into contact with the handkerchief, they
seize it, and throw a corner in between his teeth; he bites it, lays one
foot across the other, and continually shuffles with both feet.

All the while his pale forehead wrinkles, now in a perpendicular, now in
a horizontal, direction, when the long eyebrows are nearly lost below
the folds of skin. At times, apparently, he has a sting in the chest,
for he beats his left side as though he were saying the Al-Chets.
Suddenly he leans his head to the left, presses a finger against his
left nostril, and emits an artificial sneeze, leans his head to the
right, and the proceeding is repeated. In between he takes a pinch of
snuff, pulls himself together, his voice rings louder, the chair creaks,
the table wobbles.

The child does not wake; the sounds are too familiar to disturb it.

And she, the wife, shrivelled and shrunk before her time, sits and
drinks in delight. She never takes her eye off her husband, her ear
lets no inflection of his voice escape. Now and then, it is true, she
sighs. Were he as fit for _this_ world as he is for the _other_ world,
she would have a good time of it here, too--here, too--

"M