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beside her son on the couch. "A bundle of obstinacy. Just let her imagine for a moment that we're trying to get her married off! She'd probably not come home at all, and make a laughing stock of us. Do what I ask, my son," she went on, affectionately putting her hand on his knee. "Wash and dress and go to the synagogue."

Yurek let the newspaper fall from his hands. His eyes became flecked with red. His mouth dropped open, and the tight skin over his forehead twitched.

"Ma!" he said, "that's impossible," and turned his back on her. He couldn't utter another word.

"What's the matter? Do you feel sick?" Madame Mintz jumped up, alarmed by the twitching of his features. "My son!" Her voice quivered with tenderness. But Yurek didn't hear. The thought that they might marry off his sister threw him into a paralytic spasm. Nervously he pushed his mother's hand away and went to the window. He pressed his head against the cold window-pane and stood there, his body bowed, as though an enormous mountain were weighing down his shoulders.

Madame Mintz gaped at her son, hardly knowing what to think. Could this be her child, her only son, the bookkeeper of whom she was so proud? Now he looked like an aged, careworn man.

"Dear God," she exclaimed, and hurried over to feel his forehead. "Have you a fever? What's the matter? Tell me! Don't keep it from me. What has happened? I'm your mother-" She began to sob and covered her eyes with her apron.

Yurek turned his head away from her. His mother's tears brought a grimace of pain to his features. Then he swung around and buried his head in her bosom, trying to hold back the tears that were scorching his lids.