stooping figure of the young recluse, with his pointed features and large timid eyes, between which, brooding had dug on his big forehead two deep furrows. His new experiences afforded him material for still longer letters to his brother, and he looked forward ardently to the day of reunion.
II.
Three years had come and gone since the arrival of Nathan Sadofsky in America, when the ghastly news reached him that the nations of Europe were at war. Nathan’s first thought was of his brother. now eligible for military service. T'hen the newspapers brought the report that all recruits due that year and the next two years were being drafted into the service at once. And then came the news that the Germans were invading Poland and were burning their way through the very province where he was born and where his family lived.
A period of dreadful anguish commenced for the young recluse. He wrote letter after letter, and the weeks and the months passed but no answer came. And then, as if to give him more time to nurse his fears, the supply of work in the shop gave out, and Nathan spent his days writing futile letters, and studying the progress of the campaigns, which all seemed to center around his native nrovince. \
Five months passed and then he received a post-card, written in Russian, and bearing the stamp of the censor in which his father informed him that his brother Reuben had been drafted into the army, and that the family found itself destitute. Nathan immediately drew from the Bank all of his savings and sent them to his father.
The next morning he received a card from his employers calling him back to work. A huge order had been received from the Russian government for army-overcoats, and a portion of this order had fallen to the share of his employers. Every other kind of work was crowded out, and extra "hands" were engaged for the special order.
Nathan Sadofsky bent himself to the work with all his might, eager to earn as much as possible in order to send more to his father, and at the same mind to forget the things that were obsessing his mind.
But, gradually, as he turned and twisted the thick dark brown cloth, and saw the thing take shape to suit the human form, his thoughts reverted to the hosts of men, struggling and killing and dying. And his brother was among them, and perhaps he was not any more. Perhaps he was already killed, blasted by a bomb or ripped by a bayonet. He took up his shears, as he worked, to cut away a needless portion of the cloth, and a slight shiver ran down his spine.
He reached his home that evening more fatigued than usual after a hard day's work. He considered that only natural after a period of idleness.
He found it difficult to fall asleep that night. As soon as he managed to doze off, a host of the most entangled and terrifying visions would assail him and he would wake up abruptly. Impossible to unravel or understand them. Waving processions of fire danced before his eyes and something dinned in his ears. Once
he heard the voice of his neighbor in the sweat shop say to another "hand": "Well, and how many shrouds did you finish to-day?"
When towards daybreak he finally did succeed in falling asleep his brother Reuben appeared before him. He was wrapped in a dark-brown overcoat and a red gash ran from his forehead and disappeared in his hair. With his right hand he held out a great pair of shears. He stood before Nathan holding out the shears and uttering not a word.
Suddenly a tremendous roar, as if of a thousand cannon, crashed in upon Nathan's ears. He sat up in bed and could hear his heart pound at his ribs. The alarm clock on his dresser was still ringing.
While dressing, Nathan Sadofsky felt unaccountably weak. His hands were cold and they trembled as he put on his clothes. He felt dizzy, and his furniture seemed to be constantly getting in his way.
As he walked to work, lost in the stream of "hands" all moving in the same direction, he suddenly stopped in amazement. He was sure he heard some one say: "There goes the man who makes shrouds for the dead."
He reached his place in the shop, but somehow, his hands refused to turn the dark-brown cloth as nimbly as they did the day before. They were as cold as steel.
He looked about him at the various objects in the huge shop. In the presser’s corner, near the stands, lay a pile of overceats heaped up pell-mell ready for the irons. His eyes became rivetted on that pile of overcoats, and as he looked. they suddenly became a mass of corpses with limp extending arms. He tore his eyes away and looked where the operators, bent over the machines, their heads buried in their heaving and twitching shoulders, were twisting and pulling and torturing the dark-brown cloth. And in another part of the shop, the “finishers,” mostly women, were swiftly plving their gleaming needles, stitching, stitching, stitching, piercing deep, deep, deep. And in still another corner, the packers were carefully smoothing out and folding the sleeves over, and nailing down long wooden boxes.
Nathan Sadofsky felt seized with a sudden access of dizziness. He rose and went into the dressing room. There he took out his Yiddish paper which he had not had the time to peruse. He opened to an inside page where the casualty list of Jewish soldiers usually appeared, and which he read through carefully every day.
The paper suddenly fell from his hands. Towards the bottom of the list he had read the name Sadofsky, Reuben.
A great flash passed before his eyes and something crashed in his head.
He staggered out of the room, and made his way to the cutter's table.
He seized a huge pair of shears, bent over the pile of overcoats at the pressing-stands, plunged the shears into it. and slashed and slashed and slashed.
They seized and disarmed him, and while they held him, and even while he was being led into the ambulance, he kept repeating frantically, piteously,
"They are dead. Bury them. Bury, them. They are dead."