Job by Joseph Roth

won’t matter to me at all. In America I’ll do what I want all the more. Because you married a Mendel Singer, I don’t have to marry one too. Do you have a better man for me, huh? Do you have a dowry for your daughter?”
    Miriam didn’t raise her voice, even her questions didn’t sound like questions, it was as if she were saying unimportant things, as if she were giving information about the prices of greens and eggs. “She is right,” thought Deborah. “Help, dear God, she is right.”
    Deborah called all the good spirits to her aid. For she felt that she had to admit that her daughter was right, she herself spoke out of her daughter. Deborah began to be afraid of herself as much as she had been afraid of Miriam a short while ago. Threatening things were happening. The song of the soldiers wafted incessantly over. A small streak of the red sun still shone above the violet.
    â€œI have to go,” said Miriam, separated from the wall against which she had been leaning, light as a white butterfly she fluttered from the sidewalk, walked with quick coquettish feet along the middle of the road, out toward the barracks, toward the calling song of the Cossacks.
    Fifty paces from the barracks, in the middle of the little path between the great forest and Sameshkin’s grain, she waited for Ivan. “We’re going to America,” said Miriam.
    â€œYou won’t forget me,” Ivan admonished. “At this hour, when the sun goes down, you’ll always think of me and not the others. And perhaps, with God’s help, I’ll follow you, you’ll write to me. Pavel will read me your letters, don’t write too many secret things between the two of us, or else I’ll be ashamed.” He kissed Miriam, strongly and many times, his kisses rattled like shots through the evening. A devilish girl, he thought, now she’s going away, to America, I have to find another. No one else is as beautiful as she, four more years I have to serve. He was tall, strong as a bear and shy. His gigantic hands trembled when he was to touch a girl. And he was not at home in love, Miriam had taught him everything, what ideas had she not already had!
    They embraced, as they had yesterday and the day before, in the middle of the field, embedded among the fruits of the earth, surrounded and overarched by the heavy grain. The stalks lay down willingly when Miriam and Ivan sank to the ground; even before they sank, the stalks seemed to lie down. Today their love was fiercer, briefer and, so to speak, frightened. It was as if Miriam already had to go to America tomorrow. The parting already trembled in their love. As they merged together, they were already far apart, separated from each other by the ocean. How good, thought Miriam, that he’s not the one leaving, that I’m not the one staying behind. They lay for a long time exhausted, helpless,mute, as if they were seriously wounded. A thousand thoughts reeled through their brains. They didn’t notice the rain that had finally come. It had begun gently and sneakily, it was a long time before its drops were heavy enough to break through the dense golden enclosure of stalks. Suddenly they were at the mercy of the pouring water. They awoke, began to run. The rain confused them, transformed the world completely, deprived them of their sense of time. They thought it was already late, they listened for the bells from the tower, but only the rain roared, heavier and heavier, all the other voices of the night were uncannily hushed. They kissed each other on their wet faces, squeezed each other’s hands, water was between them, neither could feel the body of the other. Hastily they said goodbye, their ways parted, already Ivan was enveloped and invisible in the rain. Never again will I see him! thought Miriam, as she ran home. The harvest is coming. Tomorrow the peasants will be frightened, because one rain brings others.
    She arrived