She appears in the street, she stands outside at the window, as if she were afraid, as if she had not the power to enter a Jewish home. She gazes with staring eyes into the room, and sees me there alone. She looks at me with dismay, supplication, and anger. I understand her. "Where are they?" she asks in dismay. "Have pity on me!" she says, imploring. And then, in anger, she lays the whole blame of the disaster on us: * * * * * "What could I know of your bitter feud with _them_? _You_ knew, you learned all about it in school, _my_ books told me nothing, not a word! "Living in the same house with you, I led a separate life. My story-books were like mirrors filled with the bright reflection of other women's lives, and, as I read, my own appeared there in all its dreariness! "I have betrayed something? "I have been false? To what? "I only exchanged saffron cakes for cakes of another sort, the tales in Mother's books of legends for others far more vivid and entrancing--a bit of green in the window for the free, fresh green of the woods and fields--litanies for romances--the narrow, stifling routine of my daily life for sunshine and flowers, for gladness and love! I never betrayed _you_--I never knew you! "I knew nothing of your sorrow, you never spoke to me of yourselves. Why did you not tell me of _your_ love, of the love which is your very being, why did you not tell me of your _beauty_--of the terrible, blood-stained beauty of Israel? "The beautiful, the precious, the exalted in our religion, you hid it in yourselves, you men, you kept it from me, you kept it from us. "Of me, of us, with our flesh and blood, with the strength of our youth struggling and crying out for _life_--of us you asked only butter-cake and Gelle Challeh! "You cast us out!" * * * * * He who is high above all peoples, who alone can see clearly through their tangled web of prejudice and hatred--_He_ shall judge her. XVII A CHAT It is warm, real holiday weather, and Reb Shachneh, a tall, thin Jew, one of the last old Kotzkers,[1] and Reb Zerach, one of the few remaining old Belzers,[111] are taking a stroll outside the town. As young men they had been enemies, hating each other heart and soul. Reb Shachneh led the Kotzkers against the Belzers, and Reb Zerach, the Belzers against the Kotzkers. But now that they are old, and Kotzkers are "not what they were," and Belzers have lost their "go," they have separated themselves from their former associates, and left the meeting-rooms where less pious, but younger and stronger, men have taken the lead. They made peace in the synagogue, in winter time, beside the stove, and now, on this intermediate day of Passover, on the first fine afternoon, they have come out together for a walk.