Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/75

and there was a snow-storm. The wind lifted patches of snow, and ground them to needles, rubbed them to dust, and this snow-dust and these snow-needles were whirled through the air, flew into one's face and pricked—you couldn't keep an eye open, you couldn't draw your breath! Suddenly I saw some people walking past me, not far away, and one of them said in Yiddish, "This is the first night of Passover." Whether it was a voice from God, or whether some people really passed me, to this day I don't know, but the words fell upon my heart like lead, and I had hardly reached the tavern and begun to walk up and down, when a longing came over me, a sort of heartache, that is not to be described. I wanted to recite the Haggadah, and not a word of it could I recall! Not even the Four Questions I used to ask my father. I felt it all lay somewhere deep down in my heart. I used to know so much of it, when I was only six years old. I felt, if only I could have recalled one simple word, the rest would have followed and risen out of my memory one after the other, like sleepy birds from beneath the snow. But that one first word is just what I cannot remember! Lord of the Universe, I cried fervently, one word, only one word! As it seems, I made my prayer in a happy hour, for "we were slaves" came into my head just as if it had been thrown down from Heaven. I was overjoyed! I was so full of joy that I felt it brimming over. And then the rest all came back to me, and as I paced up and down on my watch, with my musket on my shoulder, I recited and sang the Haggadah to the snowy world around. I drew it out of me, word after word, like a chain of golden links,