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was becoming harder and harder to bring her back to his memory. Somehow the feeling grew within him that he had to have a living being close to him to awaken his dead feelings. Like a huge sponge he sought to absorb the emotions of others, to soak himself in their feelings so that he might recapture the sense of the human. It was then that he had turned his eyes to his young sister, a soft, fragile child, with lips parted in sleep, and relaxed, extended limbs. He had taken her in his arms, held her warm, childish body close to his own, and had found peace for his spirit and flesh.

So the years had passed-and the heart rotting within him had spread its corrupting poison through his veins. Gradually the girl who had been his little sister grew up and lost her interest in childish things, in chocolates and dolls. Her flat boyish chest developed into the graceful, delicate breasts of a young maiden. But it was as though Yurek had noticed nothing of this change. For him she remained the childish innocent creature whose tenderness helped him to summon premembrance of the love he had had and lost. Though he could no longer fondle her on his lap, he could at least steal a glance at her uncovered body, or manage to accidentally touch her flesh-and from beneath the ashes of memory there would be a slight stirring; the pale features of the dead girl would remind him that desire was not altogether dead.

Rose became the very air he breathed. It was with a frightful sense of shock that he heard his mother's request that he go to the synagogue to meet the prospective bridegroom whom his father would be bringing home this even ing. "First of all," his mother had said, "it'll make a good impression on the young man; and, besides, Rose will think it's a friend of yours who is coming here to visit. You know that sister of yours." Madame Mintz continued, sitting