"
"First you swear that you'll never do it again, you heap of dung."
"Strike me blind and dumb and deaf if I ever do it again. There."
"Your oaths are worth no more than the barking of a dog. Can't
you be decent? You ought to be knouted in the market-place. You
are a plague. Black luck upon you. Get away from me."
"But I will be decent. May I break both my legs and both my arms
if I am not. Do swear that you won't tell him."
My mother yielded
She was passionately devout, my mother. Being absolutely
illiterate, she would murmur meaningless words, in the singsong
of a prayer, pretending to herself that she was performing her
devotions. This, however, she would do with absolute earnestness
and fervor, often with tears of ecstasy coming to her eyes. To be
sure, she knew how to bless the Sabbath candles and to recite the
two or three other brief prayers that our religion exacts from
married women. But she was not contented with it, and the sight of
a woman going to synagogue with a huge prayer-book under her
arm was ever a source of envy to her.
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