A low wailing rose from the room. "Oh God, Channah," he cried, "Oh, why do they make all this ceremony out of dying! Why can't they let her lie quietly? Did you hear how her breathing went heavier? She wants to die, she's so tired! And they won't let her! Oh, listen to them, send them away! Let's be alone with her!" The shadow in the room when they returned seemed palpable. He could make out no sound, no appearance clearly, save her face, and the laboured breathing. And the clock! always ticking, dispassionately, relentlessly! Always the clock! A rattling in her throat complicated her breathing. "Channah," said the boy, "Channah, look at the clock!" His voice was hard, mechanical. "It's a quarter to nine. At nine o'clock she'll be dead!" "Feivele!" his father whispered. "She's said thy name! Go!" "Mother, lovely, I'm here! What wilt thou? Ah, see, I'm here!" "Thou wilt be, Feivele, say it--thou wilt be always a good boy? And think ... of thy mother? Thou sayest yes?" "Yes, _mutter meine_, yes!" "And love Channah? And all, all? So, I am happy! Remember, thou, Feivele!" The clock stealing, stealing forward! Not the banded powers of Heaven shall hold the clock-finger from moving forward over that space black with doom! Tick-tock! wild eyes of Channah, Dorah wringing her hands! Tick-tock! bearded face of Reb Monash, wrapped like a forest in its griefs! Tick-tock! a wailing in the air like trees when the wind goes about mournfully! Tick-tock! the rattling in her throat! Oh, the falling chin, the glazing eye, Oh, dead, dead...! Tick-tock...! tock....! Waters flowing over his head where he lay prostrate on the beach! Dark green engulfing waters drowning him beyond grief or tears! Tricklings through his nostrils and oozings along the channels of his brain, runlets boring through the drums of his ears, surge after surge gurgling over his lips and into the bursting throat! And how bitter the taste of the foam, encrusting his palate with a scurf of salt, bitter as ashes, as sand! A low desolate bell swinging ceaselessly in this world of sunken waters, as if the doom of oceans and lands had been pronounced, and all souls must bestir themselves, howsoever long ago they were clad in flesh!