Their riches and possessions were kept distinct. They had an agreement. Shemariah made wonderful things out of tin cans, match-boxes, old pots, pieces of horn, and willow twigs. Jonas could have destroyed them with one blast from his strong lungs. But he admired his brother’s delicate cleverness. His little black eyes, inquisitive and gay, blinked like sparks above his cheeks.

One day shortly after her return Deborah decided that the time had come to take down Menuchim’s basket from the ceiling. Not without solemnity she turned the little one over to the older children. ‘You must take him walking!’ said Deborah. ‘When he gets tired you must carry him. In God’s name, don’t let him fall! The holy man has said that he will get strong. Do him no harm!’ From now on the children’s troubles began.

They dragged Menuchim like a misfortune through the town. They let him lie, they let him fall. They ill endured the scorn of their comrades who tagged after them when they took Menuchim walking. The little one had to be carried between his two brothers. He could not put one foot before the other like a human being. His legs shook like two broken hoops, he stopped in his tracks, he collapsed. Finally Jonas and Shemariah let him lie. They stuck him in a corner, half-covered by a sack. There he played with pebbles and with the dung of dogs and horses. He ate everything. He scratched the lime from the walls and stuffed his mouth full of it, then coughed until he was blue in the face. He lay in the corner like a scrap of rubbish.

Sometimes he would start to cry. Then the boys would send Miriam to him to comfort him. Dainty, coquettish, with thin hopping legs, ugly hate and disgust in her heart, she would approach her ridiculous brother. The delicacy with which she stroked his distorted ash-grey countenance had something murderous in it. She would look about carefully, right and left, and then pinch her brother in the thigh. He would yell and neighbours would look out of the windows.