THE SERMON
173
tapped his fingers on the table top. Yudka felt his smile, but lowered
his eyes, pretending not to see.
"Get back to the subject!" the chairman demanded. "Make
the statement you want to make, without argument."
"I want to state," Yudka spoke with an effort, in low, tense
tones, "that
I
am opposed to Jewish history...."
"What?" The chairman looked about him to each side.
The
haverim
exchanged glances in astonishment, and that one
who had smiled at first could no longer control himself, and a short,
explosive laugh escaped him.
"I
do not respect Jewish history!" Yudka repeated the same re–
frain. " 'Respect' is really not the word, but what
I
said before: I'm
opposed to it...."
Now again that
haver)
a lively fellow by nature, burst into
laughter and all the others joined in.
Yudka turned and looked at him.
"Why you're laughing,"
his
voice was dulled and measured
and serious beyond words, "is because you took my wife from
me...."
At once they all fell silent and shrank, as from some imminent
penalty, and that comrade who had laughed was thrown into con–
fusion, shifting and slouching, and he sat there with a bowed back
and restless eyes.
The chairman struck four or five strokes with all
his
might on
the bell, and then again three more from sheer shock and helplessness,
and not knowing what to say at that time.
"I think that's how it is," Yudka went on, after the ringing had
ceased.
"If
I were in
his
place, I would laugh too every time I saw
him ... not straight in his face, but like that ... it's a different
kind of laugh! I couldn't help laughing, I wouldn't dare . . . I
couldn't manage to do anything else or say anything ... for I would
feel terribly ashamed then . . . terribly ashamed! I couldn't talk
to him freely, for example, let's say about literature. Or perhaps
make my confession and weep . . . I can't explain it very well, but
it's clear! I've thought it all out and made sure that that's how it
is, but it's not important...."
For a while there was quiet, a total, final quiet.
