242 LEENEE
musicians playing and fiddling and singing, and the relations dancing! . . . Good luck! Good luck! The orphan and her breadwinner are being led to the mar- riage canopy in the graveyard !
He will never forget with what gusto, she, his bride, the first night after their wedding, ate, drank, and slept the whole of the wedding-supper that had been given them, bridegroom and bride: a nice roll, a glass of brandy, a tea-glass full of wine, and a heaped-up plate of roast meat was cut up and scraped together and eaten (no evil eye !) by her, by the bride herself. He had taken great pleasure in watching her face. He had known her well from childhood, and had no need to look at her to know what she was like, but he wanted to see what kind of feelings her face would express during this occupation. When they led him into the bridal chamber she was already there the companions of the bridegroom burst into a shout of laughter, for the bride was already snoring. He knew quite well why she had gone to sleep so quickly and comfortably. Was there not sufficient reason ? For the first time in her life she had made a good meal and lain down in a bed with bedclothes !
The six groschen candle burnt, the flies woke and began to buzz, the mills clapt, and swung, and groaned, and he, Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber, the bridegroom, sat beside the bridal bed on a little barrel of pickled gherkins, and looked at Malkeh the orphan, his bride, his wife, listened to her loud thick snores, and thought.
The town dogs howled strangely. Evidently the wed- ding in the cemetery had not yet driven away the Angel
