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- The quilt is short, the room is cold, the bed is cramped, - you have to shrink, - shrink your body at night, as in the day soul, -the soul of a Jewish child... A few sleep in hats; I take off their hats, and write down their names. From the moment the first couples form in the backyard, everything records: --who has clean ears, who has vermin on his head, who was late to the office and to the station, came to the station himself, did not get caramels or gingerbread for the journey from his mother, in a gaiter or a sweatshirt, who leaves for the first or second time, who despite the ban leans out of the window of the train car, complains, runs out of steam. - This gives me the opportunity to make a diagnosis of the environment, the family, and finally, the child himself, with a certain probability, - this gives me the opportunity to look around at the material during the first two days, with the necessary order, - one would wish for something - something small, elusive, like one of those faint stars, dots that look at the room through the open windows, - leave something bright, golden, which will not go out, at least one spider thread of the ray into the gray, dark life. And with relentless ruthlessness, the fact is verified: the most neglected are the poorest. Those who want to sleep in hats, don't wash with soap on Saturday, and want to burn cut-off nails on five pieces of wood, And lie curled up in their beds, - these are the ones whose mother didn't give gingerbread for the road, whose ears were the dirtiest and most damaged. Silence. Warmed by the daytime warmth of the pine trees, the smell of resin wafted through the open windows and halls. Stars twinkle in the sky. - Sometimes one of the children will sigh louder, move or mutter something in his sleep. - And then the complete - pure - unbroken silence of nature gently sleeping.
