ld God in a
large sheepskin cloak. Everyone goes up to him, and He asks them
questions, which they have to answer, and He shakes His head to and fro
inside the sheepskin collar. And what is he, a wild, ignorant little
boy, to answer this great, old God?

Feivke had committed a great many transgressions concerning which his
mother was constantly admonishing him, but now he was thinking only of
two great transgressions committed recently, of which his mother knew
nothing. One with regard to Anishka the beggar. Anishka was known to the
village, as far back as it could remember, as an old, blind beggar, who
went the round of the villages, feeling his way with a long stick. And
one day Feivke and another boy played him a trick: they placed a ladder
in his way, and Anishka stumbled and fell, hurting his nose. Some
peasants had come up and caught Feivke. Anishka sat in the middle of the
road with blood on his face, wept bitterly, and declared that God would
not forget his blood that had been spilt. The peasants had given the
little Zhydek a sound thrashing, but Feivke felt now as if that would
not count: God would certainly remember the spilling of Anishka's blood.

Feivke's second hidden transgression had been committed outside the
village, among the graves of the peasants. A whole troop of boys, Feivke
in their midst, had gone pigeon hunting, aiming at the pigeons with
stones, and a stone of Feivke's had hit the naked figure on the cross
that stood among the graves. The Gentile boys had started and taken
fright, and those among them who were Feivke's good friends told him he
had actually hit the son of God, and that the thing would have
consequences; it was one for which people had their heads cut off.

These two great transgressions now stood before him, and his heart
warned him that the hour had come when he would be called to account for
what he had done to Anishka and to God's son. Only he did not know what
answer he could make.

By the time they came near the windmill belonging to the large strange
village, the sun had begun to set. The village river with the trees
beside it were visible a long way off, and, crossing the river, a long
high bridge.

"The Minyan is there," and Mattes pointed his finger at the thatched
roofs shining in the sunset.

Feivke looked down from the bridge into the deep, black water that lay
smooth and still in the shadow of the trees. The bridge was high and the
water deep! Feivke felt si