The sun hung on the edge of the sky, like a shiny spot on a pair of trousers. Then it fell below the horizon and the night grew black. The workers shivered, from habit, expecting the air to get colder. But, a blessing, a little southern breeze sprang up, and the temperature held steady, and even rose. Wet, hungry, discouraged, the men built fires, boiled kettles of ersatz coffee, kettles of caraway-flavored soup. No one sang. No one told jokes. Everyone knew that the battle was lost. Meanwhile the temperature, instead of dipping, continued to climb.

Strike Day Two: Night.

Everyone in the headquarters of the Strike Committee was in a fever of excitement. It seemed to them that the eyes of the world were fixed on the struggle in Stefanska Street. What was the outcome of the battle? Had the blockade been broken or not? Old Pipe, in a pullover, had actually broken into a sweat.

“Have I a fever?” he asked.

“No, no,” Sheftelowitz responded. “I’m sweating, too.”

Only then did the members of the Committee realize how warm their little room, an airless cellar, had become. Everyone removed his winter coat, his woolen sweater. But the tension was as great as ever.

“Hello? Hello? Is this Bialystok? Comrades, come in!” Nachman Kipnis had earphones on and was turning the handle of a transmitter. It flashed and sparked.

Said Szypper, “Try Baranovichi! Try Siemiatycze!”

But neither Baranovichi nor Siemiatycze, nor any other town in which the Red Army was quartered, answered the call. There was, however, a loud knock at the door.

The finishers went pale. They trembled. One of the watchmen, a big, broken-nosed presser, put his head in the doorway. “Someone to see you,” he said.

Then Kleiderman entered, and stood in a puddle.

“Woe!” Sheftelowitz sighed, seeing his drenched co-worker. For Kleiderman, with his hair undone, with dripping sleeves, with little spouts coming out of his shoes, was the image of defeat.

“They shot their guns,” he said.

The wife of Edmund Trilling, Madame Trilling, did not succeed in stifling a sob. “We’re going to starve.”

“It’s true,” Mister Marx added. “Our picketers are dropping from line. They can’t hold out one day longer.”

Mister Pipe said, “But what about our smugglers? Can’t they bring in more food?”

“No, no, my dear friend,” Sheftelowitz answered. “The High and Mighty are all around the Ghetto. As soon as a child goes out, they grab him.”

“Can this be?” asked a number of people.

The presser, who had been listening in, burst out like this: “Do you know what I ate yesterday? The top half of a shoe! Ha! Ha!”

It was the same as with the change in the weather: in all the excitement the band of Jews had not noticed how hungry they actually were. Now they groaned from the pangs.

Kleiderman wrung out his hat. He produced a toothpick that all this time had been in his mouth. “Brothers, this is what I saw after the battle. On my way to this cellar. It’s why I’m so late. On Jelsky Street a group of Jewish policemen had placed a rope around a woman’s neck and were pulling her down the steps of Number 29. They would not touch her. They used the rope instead. What was the matter? Did she have some kind of catching disease? I came close to see. The woman’s hair was not combed. Her face was dirty. Above her people were leaning out of the windows. She’s a cannibal! That’s what they shouted. Oh, Jews! She had eaten the buttocks from her own dead son!”