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The Family of the Agate                   67
when one afternoon, from our perch in a big apple tree, my brother and I saw my uncle come out of the house with heavy step and downcast eyes. He called us from the apple tree and we slid down and followed him in.
Inside sat my aunt and cousins, looking very sad. Some­one pointed to two hassocks on the floor and we sat on them. Then my uncle took his big claspknife from his pocket and cut deep rents in the lapels of our coats and of his own in sign of mourning. His face was ashen grey with sorrow. And I knew that something terrible had happened to my father, though no one had spoken. Then they told me that he was dead, and I did not cry, but the whole world seemed dark and empty and strange, and I was sure that there was nothing further to Uve for, though I soon remembered mother and asked to be sent back.
Uncle said we must keep the prescribed seven days of mourning, during which time neither hair nor fingernails must be trimmed, we must sit on low stools or cushions close to the ground and repeat three times a day the Kadish or prayer for the dead. My uncle's neighbours came, too, from far and near to comfort him and his brother's or­phans, not with mere lip-service, for each brought in his one-horsed cart hampers, jars and pots of good things to eat. It was a practical way of showing friendship, love and sympathy, and a necessary one, for no cooking could be done in the house of the mourner.
After a while we returned to Vienna. It was a lovely day in September and my mother came to the station to meet us. She was not in black, and for a moment my heart stood still, for I thought it had all been a dreadful night-