“Where are we going? Are we going out?” Nisel asked his companions.

“It’s life and death,” Hersh Einhorn replied.

They unbolted the door and walked without speaking over the hardened ground. They stopped at the barn, where the gardener boy, the deaf-mute, was waiting in his usual posture: one hand resting on top of his head. The other held a lantern.

Nodding and grinning, digging at Nisel with his elbow, the way a man does who has told a joke, he swung open the large whitewashed door. The orphan quartet stepped inside and squatted, the lantern beside them, on the cold, frosty straw. Einhorn spoke crisply:

“What about the gate? Did you pass the money?”

Julius Szypper, who had grown up to be a triangular-faced fellow, with a flat cap on his head and a narrow, dimpled chin, replied. “No use. They’re not Jewish police. They’re Chaim’s Elite Guards.” He showed the others his handful of banknotes.

“All right,” said Einhorn, putting the zloty roll into his own padded pants. “We shall have to go by them anyhow. There is no other way. Not too fast, Comrades. And not too slowly. Steadily forward. Instruct Muszkat not to stop for anything. Not anything!”

Nisel had broken into a real sweat. “What guards? Who is Muszkat? Do you mean the guards at the mansion gate?” Szypper and Kipnis looked at each other, and then at the surviving Einhorn, who was clearly the person in charge. The latter leaned forward and put his hands upon Nisel’s shoulders.

“Lipiczany! What a moment for you! What a decision! It’s either forward, in step with historical forces! Or else be left behind, in the ash heap of the capitalist system. It’s a choice that’s up to you. You have no time to lose.”

“I’m mixed up, Hersh Einhorn. I don’t understand what you say. How is it you have so much money? What did you say about the Jewish police? Why are you squeezing like that on my shoulders?” At that, the other boy’s grip relaxed a little. He even smiled.

“It’s like this, friend. The fascist beast wants to exploit the Ghetto’s labor. We’ve been turned into wage slaves; only out wages are the scraps they give us to eat. They have worked it out scientifically, to the last calorie even. Those who can’t work will cease to exist. That means old people, sick people anyone too young to run a hundred spindles. We have reports that the breasts of Jewish mothers are unable to produce milk. Already newborn citizens have started to die.”

“That can’t be true!” exclaimed Nisel. “The Elder gives everyone enough to eat. There are soup kitchens. There are ration coupons.”

“Salvation through work. That’s his motto. He is no different from them.” The speaker was Julius Szypper, with the handsome chin.

Nachman Kipnis next: “The Elder of the Jews has been co-opted by the same forces from whom he wished to save his people. It is a common historical event.”