Not looking at Shmulik as he came in, his father seemed afraid to meet his eyes, lowered his head, and lit a fresh cigarette. Miriam moved something along the desk top with a finger. Only his mother half-turned toward him, blinked her eyes a few times, and beckoned him closer to the table:

—Come over here, Shmulik …

One of Shmulik’s temples started throbbing and he grimaced slightly, so unpleasant and difficult did he find the conversation that his mother initiated:

In bewilderment he heard her mention his name and Mirel’s name. She was saying something about how she, his mother, had gone into Mirel’s room and had started speaking to her, and how Mirel had immediately interrupted her and answered like a person who was certainly no longer in her right mind:

—I don’t wish to speak—she’d said to her—I wish to remain silent.

And soon he heard the word “divorce” frequently repeated on his mother’s lips.

Greatly troubled by the fact that his mother kept on repeating the word “divorce” so often, he even grew angry and mimicked her briefly:

—That’s a fine thing: divorce, divorce … a very fine thing.

Recalling Mirel, who was now lying on her bed in her room, he muttered this angrily. He wanted to get home as quickly as possible and knock on her door. But his father suddenly raised his head and began saying the same things as his mother:

—What else but a divorce? Have you another alternative?

And Miriam Lyubashits rose from her place and supported his father:

—One can’t live like that forever.

Also rising from her place, his mother added:

—There’s never been anything like this since the world began. It’s unheard of.

After a silence of some minutes, all three of them left him alone in the study. They had nothing more to say to him.

His mother went over to the younger Lyubashits, the student, in the dining room and whispered to him:

—Go into the study and tell him … He respects you, after all.

So the younger Lyubashits went into the study, spent a while scratching at the blue cloth over the desk, and finally said:

—The fact is, Mirel dislikes you … She disliked you even before the wedding. You see yourself that she doesn’t want to live with you. How can you force her?

Shmulik stood with his back toward him and heard:

—The fact was, Mirel disliked him …

He had no idea where these words originated: whether they came directly from Mirel’s own mouth, or were simply Lyubashits’s conjecture. Nevertheless, if all of them, all the members of his family, understood this, and if Shoylik said that she disliked him, then this was certainly no fanciful notion … Shoylik wouldn’t say something like that without good reason. And if Mirel truly did dislike him, he certainly couldn’t force her to live with him.

Barely aware of what he was doing, he left Shoylik in the study and, hunched over, went into the dark nursery nearby. The window had been covered from inside with some kind of black cloth. All around, the youngest children were already fast asleep in their little beds against the walls, breathing steadily. He leaned his hunched back against the clothcovered window and lost himself in thought:

—Then of course he’d divorce Mirel. And afterward she’d live somewhere with her father in the shtetl … And he, Shmulik … he’d be back here … all alone, he’d be here.

He’d certainly never marry again … Who could think of getting married now? … And now his life was truly hopeless … for good and all …

And, quite unexpectedly, here in this room, his heart contracted tightly with infinite pity for himself, and over there, in the dining room, all fell silent and heard him weeping aloud.

—Who’s that?—his mother demanded in fright, listening intently and with a sinking heart to the sounds from the nursery.

Quiet prevailed, and someone’s heart could be heard pounding. Suddenly someone else said loudly:

—It doesn’t matter. Let him have a good cry.

Everyone looked round, astounded to discover that this remark had come from Shmulik’s sister, Rikl.

She knew about everything that had taken place between Mirel and Nosn Heler. A male student of her acquaintance had told her.

Out of a great sense of propriety she’d kept this to herself the whole time, but now … now she felt able to relate that one evening she’d been walking along Nosn Heler’s street in company with this student acquaintance of hers and had seen Mirel arriving from the suburb on her own, turning in the appropriate direction, and entering Nosn Heler’s lodgings.

3.10

Shmulik locked himself up in a room alone and refused to come out.

Miriam Lyubashits pottered about in the dining room. For the past few days she’d stayed over with her child, continually wearing the grave expression of an experienced midwife whose expectant mother was going into labor in the adjoining room. About Shmulik she’d remarked:

—If he’s truly made up his mind to divorce, why should we let him go back to Mirel?

And her comment carried so much weight that they did as she said and no longer allowed Shmulik to return home.

The whole of this huge house came to seem as agitated and preoccupied as though someone inside were desperately ill. The salon was disarranged, dirty, and filled with cigarette smoke since for nights on end people conferred there and ate at odd hours. From two o’clock in the afternoon until nightfall the table was laid in the dining room, and the youngest children went round with their stomachs as hollow as on fast days. The night was well advanced before anyone hastily sat these little ones down at the table and gave them something to eat, while the adults stayed closeted in the salon, in secretive whispered discussion with the family’s good friend, the urbane Jew whom they’d once sent to call on Reb Gedalye Hurvits and bidden him say:

—They ask no money of you, the Zaydenovskis, not even a promise of money …

One night they’d summoned this family friend by telegram, and now they all sat round him, investing him with full authority:

—If Mirel wouldn’t agree to a divorce, he was to tell her explicitly that provision could be made for her. They could pay her up to six thousand rubles for a divorce.

Shmulik was completely bewildered and took no part in this discussion. The whole of his past life seemed shrouded in a fog, like a dream, and he drifted ceaselessly about the salon hearing nothing that was said and thinking of his future life without Mirel: how every Sabbath he’d attend services in the synagogue where they wished to elect him to a trusteeship, how someone would point him out at the eastern wall:

—Sadly, that young man’s a divorcé; his first wife didn’t want him.

When at length everyone had risen from their seats and Shmulik was no longer present, Miriam Lyubashits went up very close to the urbane family friend and rapped him on the forehead with a knuckle:

—What poor understanding you have, Uncle!—she remarked, alluding to Mirel and Shmulik.—We’ve only got you to thank for making this match.

The urbane family friend felt so uncomfortable that he hunched his shoulders, pondered a moment, and began expostulating with his hands:

—How could this be? How could one know? She seemed a good child, Mirel … A very good child.

And when everyone had left the salon and only he remained behind, he wandered about alone and deep in thought, muttering to himself several times:

—How could this be? How could one know?

Around noon, the courteous family friend knocked on Mirel’s door.

He felt very uncomfortable. In the dining room the barefooted servant girl had followed him all over and given him no peace:

—Listen, Uncle, take my advice and give up wanting to knock on her door—you’ll get it in the neck if you do!

Entering Mirel’s room, he stopped and made a dignified bow, took a few more steps forward, stopped and bowed again. Since he was dressed in a black frock coat, he had nowhere to put his hands, and his good-natured face wore a sheepish smile:

—I’ve come—he said, forcing a laugh at himself—I’ve come to talk matters over with you.

In her dressing gown and slippers Mirel lay on the bed. Annoyed that this little man had obliged her to open the door for him, she was unwilling to look at him. During the two weeks that she’d locked herself up in her room her face had grown haggard, and for the entire period, to spite both herself and someone else, she’d stopped speaking completely.

She strongly resented the fact that she was still being pestered and that emissaries were now being sent to her, so she raised herself a little and said to him:

—Please be so kind as to inform my mother-in-law that as soon as I have anything new to communicate, I’ll lose no time in letting her know.

She thought the little man would leave at once, but instead he again began smiling sheepishly:

—Please understand, the heart of the matter is as follows …

Having broken into a sweat, he produced a handkerchief from somewhere, sat down on a nearby chair, and began wiping his brow back and forth:

—Yes, the whole affair is, as I’m sure you’ll understand, not pleasant for me, not pleasant at all … But please understand: the family regards me as a good friend and holds me somewhat responsible … Well … So I must.

—That means … that’s to say … .