THREE WHO ATE 271
The summer broke up, and there came the Solemn Days, and then the most dreadful day of all the Day of Atonement.
I shall remember that day as long as I live.
The Eve of the Day of Atonement the reciting of Kol Nidre!
At the desk before the ark there stands, not as usual the precentor and two householders, but the Rabbi and his two Dayonim.
The candles are burning all round, and there is a whispering of the flames as they grow taller and taller. The people stand at their reading-desks with grave faces, and draw on the robes and prayer-scarfs, the Spanish hoods and silver girdles; and their shadows sway this way and that along the walls, and might be the ghosts of the dead who died to-day and yesterday and the day before yesterday. Evidently they could not rest in their graves, and have also come into the Shool.
Hush ! . . . the Rabbi has begun to say something, and the Dayonim, too, and a groan rises from the con- gregation.
"With the consent of the All-Present and with the consent of this congregation, we give leave to pray with them that have transgressed."
And a great fear fell upon me and upon all the people, young and old. In that same moment I saw the Rabbi mount the platform. Is he going to preach ? Is he going to lecture the people at a time when they are falling dead like flies ? But the Rabbi neither preached nor lectured. He only called to remembrance the souls
