Friday night, when always he broke away in order to pray in the _Schul_, and when she sat in the shop and had to speak with the customers who came, these praying hours of Friday night. _Shabbas_ morning at least he did not go also.--My heart tells me it is wrong. Lord, forgive me for Esther and for my little girl. Lord, you know it is for them I do not go to _Schul_ on _Shabbas_ morning.--But by God, you will keep the store those two hours Friday! Do you hear? By God, what else have I ever asked you for? Don't you sit around, do nothing all the day, and aren't Flora's clothes a filth? and hardly if you'll cook our meals. But this you will do: this you will do! Friday nights. Lord, why is there no light in Esther? What have I done, Lord? what have I not done? She sat in a chair, always, near the side wall: her eyes lay burning against the cold glare of the gas. Above her shoulder on the wall was a large sheet of fashions: women with wasp waists, smirking, rolling: stiff men, all clothes, with little heads. Under the table--where Meyer sits with his big feet so much to look at--Flora played, a soiled bundle, with a ball of yarn and a huge gleaming scizzors.--No one perhaps comes, and then I do not mind sitting and keeping the store. I saw a dead horse in the street.--A dead horse, two days dead, rotting and stiff. Against the grey of the living street, a livid dead horse: a hot stink was his cold death against the street's clean-ness. There are two little boys, wrapped in blue coat, blue muffler, leather caps. They stand above the gaunt head of the horse and sneer at him. His flank rises red and huge. His legs are four strokes away from life. He is dead. The naughty boys pick up bricks. They stand, very close, above the head of the horse. They hurl down a brick. It strikes the horse's skull, falls sharp away. They hurl down a brick. It cuts the swollen nostril, falls soft away. The horse does not mind, the horse does not hurt. He is dead. --Go away, you two! Throwing stones at a dead horse! Go away, I say! How would you like--When one is dead, stones strike one's skull and fall sharp away, one is moveless. When one is dead, stones strike the soft of one's throat and fall soft away, one is hurtless. When one is dead one does not hurt.