were no more than their due.

"This is my son...."

"That is your son? Here is a 'Peace be unto you!'"

In my father's words, "This is my son," there were many shades of
feeling, many meanings--joy, and happiness, and reproach. One might
interpret the words as one liked. One might argue that he meant to say:

"What do you think? This is really my _son_."

Or one might argue that he meant to say:

"Just imagine it--_this_ is my son!"

I could feel for my father. He was deeply hurt. I had opposed his
wishes. I had not gone his road, but had taken a road of my own. And I
had caused him to grow old before his time. No; he had not forgiven me
yet. He did not tell me this. But his manner saved him the trouble of
explaining himself. I felt that he had not forgiven me yet. His eyes
told me everything. They looked at me reproachfully from over his
silver-rimmed spectacles, right into my heart. His soft sigh told me
that he had not forgiven me yet--the sigh which tore itself, from time
to time, out of his weak old breast....

We walked home from the synagogue together, in silence. We got home
later than any one else. The night had already spread her wings over the
heavens. Her shadow was slowly lowering itself over the earth. A silent,
warm, holy Passover night it was--a night full of secrets and mysteries,
full of wonder and beauty. The holiness of this night could be felt in
the air. It descended slowly from the dark blue sky.... The stars
whispered together in the mysterious voices of the night. And on all
sides of us, from the little Jewish houses came the words of the
"_Haggadah_": "We went forth from Egypt on this night."

With hasty, hasty steps I went towards home, on this night. And my
father barely managed to keep up with me. He followed after me like a
shadow.

"Why are you flying?" he asked of me, scarcely managing to catch his
breath.

Ah, father, father! Do you not know that I have been compared with "a
roe or a young hart upon the mountains of spices"?... The time is long
for me, father, too long. The way is long for me, father, too long. When
Busie is betrothed to some one--to some one else and not to me, the
hours and the roads are too long for me.... I am compared with "a roe
or a young hart upon the mountains of spices."

That is what I wanted to say to my father, in the words of the "Song of
Songs." I did not feel the ground under my feet. I went towards home
with hasty, hasty steps, on this ni