Act III
Sarah
Yekel! What's the matter with you, Yekel? (Goes over to the door of Rifkele's room and looks inside.) Why are you sitting there like that? (Turns back and continues to collect the scattered things.) What a misfortune! He wants to bring the whole house to ruin. (Returns to Rifkele's door.) Yekel! Why are you so silent? What's come over you? (Turns back, tearfully.) Did you ever see? A person sits down before the Holy Scroll and thinks and thinks. What is there to think about? A misfortune has befallen us. Go to the police, see the captain. . . Seek out the man by hook or crook. . . There is yet time. (Returns to the door.) Why don't you say something? (She sits down upon a bundle of clothes near the door, buries her face in her hands and begins to weep.) He sits there like a madman, staring at the Holy Scroll and mumbling. He neither sees nor hears. What on earth can have possessed him? (Arises. To Yekel.) It makes no difference to me, — one place or another. If you want me to leave, all right. I'll go. The devil won't take me. . . I'll earn my bread, all right, wherever I may be. (Resumes her packing, silently. Pause.)
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