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Already a year has passed. Golden summer days, which removed a deep sadness in his heart, were muddied and tarnished by the gloomy autumn rain. And then there was snow. While, like a corpse, the sky spread out. The earth was wrapped in shrouds. The trees were bound in ice. They squirmed with frost, and fear of death made them tremble. Later everything came to life. A new heaven and a new earth. The sun burned with the joy of spring. Song blossomed. People put on a new skin, and in their eyes danced a desire for life.

And there, under the shtetl, the Kingdom of Death called out, the cemetery: row of white, gray, and black tombstones extended, bearing witness to many extinguished lives. The little mound that marked the grave of his young father was covered with greens and flowers, but even the grass expressed sorrow and mourned silently over the life that had been cut off so easily. The gray tombstone cut through the air. He leaned his hot forehead against it and read without ceasing the inscription of the beloved name. He thought, “The cold stone hides its pain. If people hacked at it–tears–springs would flow from its dead insides.” The stone was like a brother to him in his sorrow. His eyes were wet, his mouth sealed shut, and his heart was like stone. But stronger pain came from those wet eyes, the silenced mouth emitted a painful scream, and in the depths of his frozen heart gushed springs of sorrow…

He was still quite young. The dream of the springtime world first opened up for him. His blood stirred up, and hot longings possessed him. In his fantasies, the world was destroyed and new worlds were built, the sun was extinguished and new suns ignited. In the garden of his hopes, the black flames of sadness and disappointment had not yet appeared. But a dark mood would come over him and cast into his dreams nests of crows, of hatred and scorn. There were so many evils in the world. So much need and misery. And then, in moments of despair, he leaned against a

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wall–his father, from whose good, shining eyes shown the rainbow that drove away the dark clouds of despair. Nu, if his father was there, everything was not so bad, not everything.

And suddenly a stormy day arrived.

His father lay on the ground, covered in black, and candles burned at his head. His mother tore at her hair, beating her head with her fists and fainting. A group of women lamented with her and sang praises for the pure soul. Hoarse and depressed, he stood to the side. A thousand hammers beat at his temples, and a fog clouded his eyes. The women's laments grated in his ears. What will be? There is his father, his.

Along with his father, he also buried the world of his youthful dreams. Silenced were his palaces of joys, extinguished were the suns of his hopes, and into his young soul began to steal that serpent from Ecclesiastes, “All is emptiness.” Empty days came, devoid of happiness and desires. Frightful nights became darker. During the day, despair consumed him, sadness devoured him. At night, writhing sleeplessly, burying his head in his pillow, with suffocating tears he mourned the early death of his father.

Late spring. A wonderful dusk. Outside life was thriving and there was laughter. The winds of spring filled the air with their best perfume, and he–sat alone in his room, rolled himself up in the early evening shadows, and the spider of despair nested in his soul.

His door opened and in ran his friend Shloyme, spring-like, singing. He said, “Hey, boychik, let's go for a walk. All our friends are waiting for us outside. It's a pleasure out there.”

He won't go–that was his curt answer.

His good friend did not spend time arguing with him. He wanted to go, and seeing that his efforts were wasted, he left angrily, crying out, “Do you think you're going to bring your father back? Give up on that idea!”

His head drooped. Through the open window he heard his friends' departing footsteps. Their laughter cut him like knives. Tears blocked his throat, tickled him, but he did not cry.

The rock of loneliness became ever heavier.

For a whole day, his neighbor's cow had struggled with death. Her death pains were overwhelming. Her little calf jumped around in the barn and mooed sadly. He was drawn to the calf. He wanted to caress and console it. Soon the calf would be an orphan like him.

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In the evening, he heard his neighbor's voice: “We'll have to leave the corpse. Tomorrow we'll sell the hide in the market…”

Man and beast. One and the same end…

Later, when it was good and dark I snuck out of my house and crept into my neighbor's barn. The calf ran here and there, mooed in fright and licked at its dead mother. I could feel its fright with my hand, and it shone in its eyes. He embraced the calf, pressed his disheveled hair into its neck, felt its moist back and the trembling of its nostrils, and quietly whimpered, “My friend, my–my only friend!”

14 Elul 5696 [1936]

Original footnote:

1. First published in “Das neue vort,” Warsaw, 9/11/36 Return

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