For three days before Passover he had not come home to sleep. Who talks of eating, drinking, and sleeping? He and his man toiled day and night, like six horses, like ten oxen. The last day before Passover was the worst of all. His horse suddenly came to the conclusion that sooner than live such a life, it would die. So it died and vanished somewhere in the depths of the Kamenivke clay. And Bertzi the water-carrier and his man had to drag the cart with the great water-barrel themselves, the whole day till long after dark. VI It is already eleven, twelve, half past twelve at night, and Bertzi's chest, throat, and nostrils continue to pipe and to whistle, to sob and to sigh. The room is colder and darker, the small fire in the oven went out long ago, and only little stumps of candles remain. Rochtzi walks and runs about the room, she weeps and wrings her hands. But now she runs up to the couch by the table, and begins to rouse her husband with screams and cries fit to make one's blood run cold and the hair stand up on one's head: "No, no, you're not going to sleep any longer, I tell you! Bertzi, do you hear me? Get up, Bertzi, aren't you a Jew?--a man?--the father of children?--Bertzi, have you God in your heart? Bertzi, have you said your prayers? My husband, what about the Seder? I won't have it!--I feel very ill--I am going to faint!--Help!--Water!" "Have I forgotten somebody's water?--Whose?--Where?..." But Rochtzi is no longer in need of water: she beholds her "king" on his feet, and has revived without it. With her two hands, with all the strength she has, she holds him from falling back onto the couch. "Don't you see, Bertzi? The candles are burning down, the supper is cold and will spoil. I fancy it's already beginning to dawn. The children, long life to them, went to sleep without any food. Come, please, begin to prepare for the Seder, and I will wake the two elder ones." Bertzi stands bent double and treble. His breathing is labored and loud, his face is smeared with mud and swollen from the cold, his beard and earlocks are rough and bristly, his eyes sleepy and red. He looks strangely wild and unkempt. Bertzi looks at Rochtzi, at the table, he looks round the room, and sees nothing. But now he looks at the bed: his little children, washed, and in their holiday dresses, are all lying in a row across the bed, and--he remembers everything, and understands what Rochtzi is saying, and what it is she wants him to do. "Give me some water--I said Minchah and Maariv by the way, while I was at work." "I'm bringing it already! May God grant you a like happiness! Good health to you! Hershele, get up, my Kaddish, father has come home already! Shmuelkil, my little son, go and ask father the Four Questions." Bertzi fills a goblet with wine, takes it up in his left hand, places it upon his right hand, and begins: