"Not fit to live in?" "Not fit!" "We must get home, back to the river!" "We--must!" "We have forgotten what it was like in the river." "Forgotten!" "A sin!" "A mortal sin!" "Let us beat our head against the wall and do penance." The carp flatten their bellies against the bowl. The pike run their head against the glass till it rings again. "One should leap away home!" continues the pike. "One should leap!" "Well--leap!" The pike commands, and the carp are out of the bowl and on the floor--lying there more dead than alive. "I never knew," says the second pike, "that you were such an orator--your lips drop honey!" The carp meanwhile are moaning. "Hurry up!" orders the pike. The carp give another little spring. "Oh," they moan, "we do not see any river--and our bones are breaking--and we cannot breathe." "On with you--make an effort! It is not much further--give a jump!" But the carp are past hearing. The carp lie dying on the floor, and the pike are having a dispute. Both opine that any proper leap would carry one into the river, but one says that other fish are wanted, not stupid carp, who can only leap in the water, who cannot exist for an hour without food, and that what are wanted are--electric fish! And the other says: "No, carp--only, lots and lots of carp. If one hundred thousand carp were to leap, _one_ would certainly fall into the river, and if _one_ fell in, why, then--ha, ha!" XIX THE FAST A winter's night; Sarah sits by the oil-lamp, darning an old sock. She works slowly, for her fingers are half-frozen; her lips are blue and brown with cold; every now and then she lays down her work and runs up and down the room to warm her icy feet. In a bed, on a bare straw mattress, sleep four children--two little heads at each end--covered up with some old clothes. Now one child and now another gives a start, a head is raised, and there is a plaintive chirp: "Hungry!" "Patience, dears, patience!" says Sarah, soothingly. "Father will be here presently, and bring you some supper. I will be sure to wake you." "And something hot?" ask the children, whimpering. "We have had nothing hot to-day yet!" "And something hot, too!" But she does not believe what she is saying. She glances round the room--perhaps, after all, there is something left that she can pawn. Nothing! Four bare, damp walls--split stove--everything clammy and cold--two or three broken dishes on the chimney-piece--on the stove, an old, battered Chanukah lamp--over-head, in the beam, a nail--sole relic of a lamp that hung from the ceiling; two empty beds without pillows--and nothing, nothing else! The children are some time getting to sleep. Sarah's heart aches as she looks at them. Suddenly she turns her eyes, red with crying, to the door--she has heard footsteps, heavy footsteps, on the stairs leading down into the basement--a clatter of cans against the wall, now to the right, now to the left. A gleam of hope illumines her sunken features.