rt: to-day is Yom Kippur."

But the chicken-faced boy was not pacified.

"Did you ever see such a lip? And then he comes to our house and wants
to fight us!"

The whole lot of boys now encircled Feivke with teasing and laughter,
and he stood barefooted in their midst, looking at none of them, and
reminding one of a little wild animal caught and tormented.

It grew dark, and quantities of soul-lights were set burning down the
long tables of the inn. The large building was packed with red-faced,
perspiring Jews, in flowing white robes and Tallesim. The Confession was
already in course of fervent recital, there was a great rocking and
swaying over the prayer-books and a loud noise in the ears, everyone
present trying to make himself heard above the rest. Village Jews are
simple and ignorant, they know nothing of "silent prayer" and whispering
with the lips. They are deprived of prayer in common a year at a time,
and are distant from the Lord of All, and when the Awful Day comes, they
want to take Him by storm, by violence. The noisiest of all was the
prayer-leader himself, the young man with the white collar and no tie.
He was from town, and wished to convince the country folk that he was an
adept at his profession and to be relied on. Feivke stood in the
stifling room utterly confounded. The prayers and the wailful chanting
passed over his head like waves, his heart was straitened, red sparks
whirled before his eyes. He was in a state of continual apprehension. He
saw a snow-white old Jew come out of a corner with a scroll of the Torah
wrapped in a white velvet, gold-embroidered cover. How the gold sparkled
and twinkled and reflected itself in the illuminated beard of the old
man! Feivke thought the moment had come, but he saw it all as through a
mist, a long way off, to the sound of the wailful chanting, and as in a
mist the scroll and the old man vanished together. Feivke's face and
body were flushed with heat, his knees shook, and at the same time his
hands and feet were cold as ice.

Once, while Feivke was standing by the table facing the bright flames of
the soul-lights, a dizziness came over him, and he closed his eyes.
Thousands of little bells seemed to ring in his ears. Then some one gave
a loud thump on the table, and there was silence all around. Feivke
started and opened his eyes. The sudden stillness frightened him, and he
wanted to move away from the table, but he was walled in by men in white
robes, wh