9. And a great hurricane arose and shook the foundations of William Landsmann’s house. 10. Behind William Landsmann’s house flowed a small stream, emerging from a sewer pipe, 11. and on the day of the great tempest, the stream flooded, and the floodwaters rose, and the floodgates opened, 12. and the waters filled William Landsmann’s backyard, and burst through his living room window, 13. and a great wave washed up against the wall of his living room, and took with it the boxes containing the seven thousand slides of distant lands.

14. And the boxes did open upon the waves, and the slides did come loose from their carousels, 15. and each slide did separate from its neighbor, and float transparent on the waters, 16. each broken from its sequence, made meaningless and scattered, 17. country mixed with country, and year mixed with year, 18. none more nor less important than the others, 19. glowing dimly in the green storm-sky light, gently resting on the skin of the water, 20. shining through not pictures, but only the murky deep, 21. thus the slides did float, two by two and seven by seven, out of the window and into the storm, carried far away, through the sewers and out, out, out to the expanse of the ocean, 22. where slowly, ever so slowly, as if feeling time dissolving in the thickness of the water, they drifted down, down, down to the bottom of the sea.

23. Now when William Landsmann’s three friends heard of this misfortune that had come upon him, they came every one from his own place: Leora the New Jerseyite, Yehudah the Brooklynite, and Leah the Austro-Hungarianite—24. for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and comfort him. 25. And when they lifted up their eyes and saw him without his slides, and knew him not, they lifted up their voices and wept, and they rent every one his coat, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. 26. And they sat down with him upon the ground for seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. 27. After this, William Landsmann opened his mouth, and cursed the day he was born.

III.

1. And William Landsmann spoke, saying:

2. “Perish the day on which I was born,
Perish the moment my parents met,
Destroy the instant when his eyes met hers!

3. It would have been better that I were never born
Than to live to see my images borne on the waves,

4. My life’s work shattered, my creations uncreated—
An entire world discarded down upon the ocean floor!

5. My roaring pours forth like water,
My anger bursts at the floodgates,

6. And I pour out my wrath into the waters below.

7. Cursed be the God of heaven and earth,
Who builds up only to destroy;

8. Who builds great cities only to flood them,

9. Who reduces man’s empires to dust,
And casts man’s work of life into the heart of the sea!”

IV.