Page:Etta Block - One-act plays from the Yiddish (1923).pdf/20

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Champagne



day? A truly honest girl, only twenty-six! Skinny—you can count every bone! A wrinkled skin—like parchment! Eyes, with the light gone out of them! Her face—soured—without a smile. Lips, forever bitten together! At times the dulled eyes do flash. At such times hatred burns in them—a hatred as fierce as Gehenna! And do you know for whom? Do you know whom she hates—whose bones she curses, as she goes about moving those silent lips of hers?

Dvorah
Whom?

Gruna
Me! Me, her own mother!

(Miriam crosses the room. As she does so, she looks with revulsion at her mother and goes out. Both the women look after her.)

Gruna
Did you see?

Dvorah
But why?

Gruna
Perhaps she herself does not know why. But I know. I stood between her and the world, between her and the sun. I hid the sun from her! I—oh, how shall I say it—I allowed no warmth or light to reach her body! I have lain awake whole nights through figuring it all out before I could understand it all. She hates me! She must hate me! Every cell of her body must hate me!

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