rld nor the other. Hanging, he says, stoning,
burning, beheading, strangling, hanging by the tongue, boiling lead
poured into the inside, he says--for making light of the Torah--Hanging,
ha, ha, ha!" (in desperation). "Yes, I'll hang, but _here, here!_ And
soon! What is there to wait for?"

The child begins to cry louder; still she does not hear.

"A rope! a rope!" she screams, and stares wildly into every corner.

"Where is there a rope? I wish he mayn't find a bone of me left! Let me
be rid of _one_ Gehenna at any rate! Let him try it, let him be a mother
for once, see how he likes it! I've had enough of it! Let it be an
atonement! An end, an end! A rope, a rope!!"

Her last exclamation is like a cry for help from out of a
conflagration.

She remembers that they _have_ a rope somewhere. Yes, under the
stove--the stove was to have been tied round against the winter. The
rope must be there still.

She runs and finds the rope, the treasure, looks up at the ceiling--the
hook that held the lamp--she need only climb onto the table.

She climbs--

But she sees from the table that the startled child, weak as it is, has
sat up in the cradle, and is reaching over the side--it is trying to get
out--

"Mame, M-mame," it sobs feebly.

A fresh paroxysm of anger seizes her.

She flings away the rope, jumps off the table, runs to the child, and
forces its head back into the pillow, exclaiming:

"Bother the child! It won't even let me hang myself! I can't even hang
myself in peace! It wants to suck. What is the good? You will suck
nothing but poison, poison, out of me, I tell you!"

"There, then, greedy!" she cries in the same breath, and stuffs her
dried-up breast into his mouth.

"There, then, suck away--bite!"

THE TREASURE

To sleep, in summer time, in a room four yards square, together with a
wife and eight children, is anything but a pleasure, even on a Friday
night--and Shmerel the woodcutter rises from his bed, though only half
through with the night, hot and gasping, hastily pours some water over
his finger-tips, flings on his dressing-gown, and escapes barefoot from
the parched Gehenna of his dwelling. He steps into the street--all
quiet, all the shutters closed, and over the sleeping town is a distant,
serene, and starry sky. He feels as if he were all alone with God,
blessed is He, and he says, looking up at the sky, "Now, Lord of the
Universe, now is the time to hear me and to bless me with a