Morning and Evening, Pt. IV
Previously published: Morning and Evening, Parts I, II, and III
Chapter 2
Yossel and Pawel parted at the church steps in the village square. It was later than he had thought, Yossel realized suddenly; the shadows of the squat wood stores canted eastward. He cocked his head as Pawel ascended the stair, his gait returning to its customary clumsiness. Gone was the grace that had lent itself to those thin limbs, freed of the heavy brown broadcloth that encased them now, and the brilliant quickness of his movements, which, it had seemed then to Yossel, could have colored even the empty air with light, reverted to a kind of crouched and shameful homeliness, a careful humility of posture. And then the arched doors of the church opened and closed again. In the sleepy Sabbath afternoon, when the dust was still under his feet, when the procession of men returning from synagogue had passed and their wives and daughters coming forth to greet them had passed, Yossel was alone.