“Best is from the government also they go have a good time. And from the government of the Arabs also. And same thing from the goyim. All happy all the day. Anyway we all dies.”

Mrs. Scheinmann smiled conspiratorially at Fima, ignoring the dismissed clerk. Obsequiously, as though to apologize for what he was obliged to listen to here, she said:

“Pay no attention, Doctor. His little girl is died, his wife is died, his brothers is also died. And also, he has not got a penny. He speaks not from his brains. This is a man which God is forgotten.”

Fima scrabbled in his pockets but found only loose change, so he asked the proprietress to put it on his account. Next week, when he was paid . . . But she interrupted him blithely:

“Never mind. Don’t worry. Everything is fine.”

And without being asked she brought him a glass of sweet lemon tea and added:

“Anyway, everything come from Heaven.”

He did not agree with her on this point, but the music of her words touched him like a caress, and he suddenly placed his fingers on her veined hand and thanked her. He praised the food and expressed enthusiastic agreement with what she had said earlier: “Pity is pity.”