And they began to murmur the nightly prayer.

At the end of each week the Sabbath dawned thus, with silence, candles, and song. Twenty-four hours later the Sabbath sank into night; the grey procession of weekdays began, a weary cycle.

On a hot midsummer day, Deborah was confined. Her first cries pierced the sing-song of the twelve studying children. They all went home for a week’s vacation Mendel got a new child, a fourth, a boy. Eight days later he was circumcised and named Menuchim.

Menuchim had no cradle. He swung in a basket of braided reeds, secured to a hook in the middle of the ceiling, like a chandelier. From time to time Mendel Singer pushed the hanging basket with a gentle, not unloving finger, and immediately it began to swing back and forth. But sometimes nothing would still the infant’s desire to whimper and cry. His voice croaked over the voices of the twelve studying children, an ugly and profane noise above the Bible’s holy verses. Deborah stood on a footstool and lifted the infant down. White, swollen, and colossal, her breast flowed from her open blouse and drew the glances of the boys irresistibly. All present seemed to suckle at Deborah. Her own three older children stood about her, jealous and greedy; the room became still. One heard the smacking of the infant.

Days drew themselves out into weeks, weeks grew into months, twelve months made a year. Menuchim still drank his mother’s thin clear milk. She could not wean him. In the thirteenth month of his life he began to make faces and to groan like an animal, to breathe hastily and to gasp in an extraordinary fashion. His great skull hung heavy as a pumpkin on his thin neck. His broad brow was criss-crossed with folds and wrinkles like a crumpled parchment. His legs were crooked and lifeless, like two wooden bows. His meagre little arms twitched and fidgeted. His mouth stammered ridiculous noises. When he got an attack he was taken from his cradle and given a good shaking until his face was blue and his breath almost failed. Then he slowly recovered. Little sacks of tea-leaves were laid upon his poor breast and a poultice of herbs was bound about his thin neck. ‘It’s nothing,’ said his father.