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attention to what he said, she continued to stare straight ahead into the partially blurred distance, musingly developing her own thoughts:
    —Could he imagine how alien and insignificant everything seemed to her now?
    And a short while later, more of the same:
    —If the whole of this frozen world, with herself in the middle of it, were now to be overturned, she wouldn’t even utter a cry of fright.
    But at other times she was possessed of a strange joy linked to a wild longing for life; on these occasions nothing could persuade her to return home and she went on at length about her father’s creditors both local and distant who called on them daily, created an uproar, and banged on the table:
    —These people were so disgusting … Her father was certainly to blame for having squandered their money, but this didn’t automatically give them the right to barge through their home at will, shouting for help and accusing him of robbery so loudly that they could be heard ten streets away.
    Once, on an ordinary misty day, a religiously observant, scholarly, and extremely naïve young man, an unadventurous stay-at-home with a little black beard and a pale, sickly, jaundiced complexion, came to their house from some neighboring shtetl. For a long time he sat silently in their dining room, waiting in a state of shock. Several times their relative, the worldly and devoted bookkeeper, loudly repeated the same thing to him, as though speaking to the deaf:
    —Reb Gedalye was currently abroad, visiting his sister who owned her own village there; that’s where he was now.
    And the young man with the jaundiced complexion, still in a state of shock, went on asking in his soft, hoarse, feeble voice:
    —Does this mean that the money Reb Gedalye owes me is lost? … Truly lost?
    He appeared utterly devastated, this young man with the jaundiced complexion, and apparently regarded it as impossible to return home and go on living:
    On that occasion Mirel ate no midday meal but spent an entire winter’s day dragging herself about outdoors with Lipkis.
    —He could well imagine how hungry she was—she repeatedly remarked to Lipkis—but that stunned young man was still sitting in their house. He looked so unhappy that she couldn’t bear to look at him.
    She kept sending Lipkis in to check whether the young man had left, impatiently waited for his return not far from the house, and then called out to him from a distance:
    —Well? What? Is he still sitting there?
    Night fell, and lamps were lighted in the town’s houses. Lamps were also lighted in their house and at length, with her face red and frozen, she came indoors and without taking off her winter outdoor garments began comforting the young man with the jaundiced complexion:
    —He could be certain: she’d do everything in her power to ensure that his two thousand rubles were returned to him.
    Afterward she even accompanied him outside to his sleigh, expressed concern that his legs would be cold, and with her own hands helped him wrap them in sacking.
    —He should tie this end of the sacking under himself … And he shouldn’t hesitate to pull up his fur collar … like that.
    For a long time afterward she followed his sleigh with her eyes, completely forgetting about herself and her hunger:
    —Did he have any conception of how unhappy this man was?—she inquired pensively of Lipkis.
    Lipkis was deeply troubled by the fact that he hadn’t attended a single one of his lectures all that day, and felt decidedly odd, as though he were strictly observant and had suddenly recalled as night fell that he hadn’t donned prayer shawl and phylacteries * earlier. More than usual he was infuriated and resentful, totally out of patience, and very nearly lost his temper over the thought:
    —Would she ever go indoors or not?
    But she continued to gaze pensively in the direction in which the sleigh carrying the young man was disappearing into the farthest end of the town, and was unable to