Grune, impatiently. "You've made a
fool of yourself long enough! Go and wash your hands and come to
dinner!"

The cantor felt no appetite, but he reflected that one must eat, if only
as a remedy; not to eat would make matters worse, and he washed his
hands.

He chanted the grace loud and cantor-like, glancing occasionally at his
wife, to see if she noticed anything wrong; but this time she said
nothing at all, and he was reassured. "It was my fancy--just my fancy!"
he said to himself. "All nonsense! One doesn't lose one's voice so soon
as all that!"

Then he remembered that he was already forty years old, and it had
happened to the cantor Meyer Lieder, when he was just that age--

That was enough to put him into a fright again. He bent his head, and
thought deeply. Then he raised it, and called out loud:

"Grune!"

"Hush! What is it? What makes you call out in that strange voice?" asked
Grune, crossly, running in.

"Well, well, let me live!" said the cantor. "Why do you say 'in that
strange voice'? Whose voice was it? eh? What is the matter now?"

There was a sound as of tears as he spoke.

"You're cracked to-day! As nonsensical--Well, what do you want?"

"Beat up one or two eggs for me!" begged the cantor, softly.

"Here's a new holiday!" screamed Grune. "On a Wednesday! Have you got to
chant the Sabbath prayers? Eggs are so dear now--five kopeks apiece!"

"Grune," commanded the cantor, "they may be one ruble apiece, two
rubles, five rubles, one hundred rubles. Do you hear? Beat up two eggs
for me, and don't talk!"

"To be sure, you earn so much money!" muttered Grune.

"Then you think it's all over with me?" said the cantor, boldly. "No,
Grune!"

He wanted to tell her that he wasn't sure about it yet, there was still
hope, it might be all a fancy, perhaps it was imagination, but he was
afraid to say all that, and Grune did not understand what he stammered
out. She shrugged her shoulders, and only said, "Upon my word!" and went
to beat up the eggs.

The cantor sat and sang to himself. He listened to every note as though
he were examining some one. Finding himself unable to take the high
octave, he called out despairingly:

"Grune, make haste with the eggs!" His one hope lay in the eggs.

The cantoress brought them with a cross face, and grumbled:

"He wants eggs, and we're pinching and starving--"

The cantor would have liked to open his heart to her, so that she should
not think the eggs wer