"Savri Moronon, ve-Rabbonon, ve-Rabbosai--with the permission of the company."--His head goes round.--"Lord of the World!--I am a Jew.--Blessed art Thou. Lord our God, King of the Universe--" It grows dark before his eyes: "The first night of Passover--I ought to make Kiddush--Thou who dost create the fruit of the vine"--his feet fail him, as though they had been cut off--"and I ought to give the Seder--This is the bread of the poor.... Lord of the World, you know how it is: I can't do it!--Have mercy!--Forgive me!" VII A nasty smell of sputtered-out candles fills the room. Rochtzi weeps. Bertzi is back on the couch and snores. Different sounds, like the voices of winds, cattle, and wild beasts, and the whirr of a mill, are heard in his snoring. And her weeping--it seems as if the whole room were sighing and quivering and shaking.... EZRIELK THE SCRIBE Forty days before Ezrielk descended upon this sinful world, his life-partner was proclaimed in Heaven, and the Heavenly Council decided that he was to transcribe the books of the Law, prayers, and Mezuzehs for the Kabtzonivke Jews, and thereby make a living for his wife and children. But the hard word went forth to him that he should not disclose this secret decree to anyone, and should even forget it himself for a goodly number of years. A glance at Ezrielk told one that he had been well lectured with regard to some important matter, and was to tell no tales out of school. Even Minde, the Kabtzonivke Bobbe, testified to this: "Never in all my life, all the time I've been bringing Jewish children into God's world, have I known a child scream so loud at birth as Ezrielk--a sign that he'd had it well rubbed into him!" Either the angel who has been sent to fillip little children above the lips when they are being born, was just then very sleepy (Ezrielk was born late at night), or some one had put him out of temper, but one way or another little Ezrielk, the very first minute of his Jewish existence, caught such a blow that his top lip was all but split in two. After this kindly welcome, when God's angel himself had thus received Ezrielk, slaps, blows, and stripes rained down upon his head, body, and life, all through his days, without pause or ending.