How It All Goes Down
The Beginning of the World Often Comes
- Hop in the Wayback machine, Shmoopers: we're heading back to March 18, 1791 just as a wagon belonging to someone named Trachim B sinks in the Brod river.
- Everyone around the river seems to have witnessed a different series of events.
- The "disgraced usurer" (2.2) Yankel D tries to pull wailing girls Hannah and Chana away from the river.
- The "mad squire" (2.7) Sofiowka N says the wagon flipped itself… or maybe the wind did it… or an angel came down… okay, this dude is mad.
- The wailing girls allegedly saw nothing.
- "The humble antiques salesman" Shloim W dives into the water but cannot find a body (2.15).
- While they're all arguing about whether or not to make a "shtetl proclamation," something bobs to the surface of the river: a baby.