All this seemed to merge with the frosty sunshine that peered in through the double-glazed windows, and all of it ceased to exist the very moment the door of the surgery closed behind her. Afterward something happened to Mirel outside. She was feeling as though her legs might give way beneath her and she might collapse at any moment, and her head was spinning when she recognized the Gentile city messenger in the distance. But now everything was over. Outside, night had fallen, and she lay in her own bed, suffering a little pain but remembering only one thing:

—The danger of pregnancy had passed, but now a new danger lay before her. It was possible … highly possible that she would never get down off this bed …

Three days later, when Shmulik returned from the distillery in the morning, her face was aflame with fever for the second day in succession. Although her lips were dry, not a single bottle of medication was to be found in the whole room.

Mirel clutched his hand and begged that everything be kept secret:

—I had to do it, Shmulik. We’d both have been unhappy for ever otherwise.

Standing at her bedside with downcast head and an expression of utter desolation, he nevertheless nodded:

—Good … No one will know of this.

Of late, Shmulik had changed completely. That afternoon, when his mother called him aside in a private room and started saying something about Mirel, he was greatly offended and even responded in some anger:

—What did everyone want of Mirel? Everyone had some or other complaint against Mirel.

Subsequently he spent hours pacing over his house, thinking over the new plan he intended to propose to Mirel and about the possibility of traveling somewhere with her for a few days and starting a rumor that he’d divorced her.

—Come what may, he’d never marry again. He had no use for his life and for the huge sums of money he was earning—at least he’d know one thing: Mirel was settled somewhere and he was able to send her the means on which to live … He was also prepared to send her the bill of divorcement at a moment’s notice, whenever she might need it.

Meanwhile at the elder Zaydenovski’s house a great many telegramaddressed to Mirel kept arriving from somewhere. Each time Shmulik was summoned to the big house and secret conferences about these cables were held with him. Shmulik was scared, read every newly arrived telegram with a pounding heart, and finally rushed off in great haste on the express train. He returned a few days later with an ashen face and very red eyes. He’d apparently spent hours weeping somewhere. Mirel, her face haggard but no longer feverish, was sitting up in bed by then. Lost in thought, she stared through the window and asked him nothing. And fearful of something, he stood opposite her in a state of utter dejection with a carefully prepared lie ready to hand:

—I’ve been visiting Aunt Pearl, that’s where I’ve been. Sadly, she’s just lost a son.

That evening the tall young doctor with the light brown hair called at the house. He was anxious to keep a very low profile, this doctor, which was why he called at night, looked carefully around him like a thief as he went in at the front door, and stayed in Mirel’s room no longer than few minutes.

—Everything is as it should be—he said.—Mirel could get up the next day.

He made haste to leave and was soon gone. Taking a lamp from his study, Shmulik saw him out as though he were a wonder-working rabbi, but the doctor, appraising him with a shrewd glance, bade him put the lamp down:

—She’s got a proper blockhead for a husband—he thought, in regard to Mirel.—Evidently he’s got very few brains.

Shmulik, however, was in a state of confusion and held ready a full twenty-five rubles so, snatching the banknotes with one hand the doctor placed his other hand on Shmulik’s shoulder:

—You’ve a fine young wife—he flattered Shmulik hastily.—She’s very strong … May the same be said of all Jews.

Only one small matter remained:

Shmulik had to be approached in his study, interrupted for a moment in going through his accounts, and abruptly told what had to be done:

—Shmulik, tomorrow we’re going to the town downriver.

But Mirel herself was still very weak from her ordeal and Shmulik unexpectedly set off for Warsaw before dawn, leaving with the maid a letter for her in which he outlined his new plan. He’d stayed up all night preparing this letter, had rewritten and re-read it many times. Eventually he was satisfied with it, though as a result he’d been unable to fall asleep before he left. But Mirel had glanced through no more than the first few lines before she asked the maid in astonishment.

—What?

Then she replaced the letter in its envelope and returned it to the maid, all of which she did very slowly. On the whole she felt very composed, and after her illness she was more patient than usual. Steadily her strength returned, and she waited calmly for the second week when she’d feel completely well and Shmulik would return from Warsaw.

Every afternoon she put on her jacket and her black scarf. Since she was still too weak to go into town, she stood outside next to the steps leading up to her front door, unhurriedly pacing to and fro and awakening wishful thoughts in the well-to-do young businessmen passing by in their own or in hired droshkies on the road outside. All turned their heads toward her, unable to tear their eyes away, and at the same time all of them felt very odd, as though none of them had ever sinned before and she had for many years been the unknown bride of their dreams.

In her father-in-law’s house, what she’d done during the past two weeks was already known. Her mother-in-law was often to be found closeted with her husband at all times of the working day, sitting opposite him, her face red with anger and her nostrils tightly pinched, beside herself with vexation and powerlessness:

—I’m telling you: such a despicable person is rarely to be found even among Gentiles.

And Mirel pottered about in her room, thought back to the pregnancy she’d escaped, and continued to have little faith in the new life that lay before her. With nothing else to do, she once more started going into town and disappearing there for whole evenings at a time. At first no one knew where she went and with whom she passed the time, but in due course she met one of her husband’s relatives in the street on which Nosn Heler had his lodgings and in her mother-in-law’s house this was discussed fully and frankly:

—What possible question could there be? That woman was despicable … She’d been in love with that young man before she was married, and now she spent evening after evening in his company.

During this period Shmulik returned from Warsaw, gave orders for his bed to be carried into the study, stopped going across to his father’s house, and generally started living like a recluse.