about eight o'clock
It was the shop assistant who had seen to it all . He had gone up to Arad and seen a married sister of his late master 's -- Sara Rosen , whose husband kept a second-hand clothes shop there , and who gave full instructions to an undertaker whilst declaring herself unable -- owing to delicate health -- to attend the funeral herself . The undertaker had provided a cart and a couple of oxen and two men to lift the coffin in and out . They came late on the Thursday evening , at about eight o'clock , and drew up at the back of the late Leopold Hirsch 's shop . No one was about and the night was dark . Slowly the cart , creaking on its wheels and axles , wound its way through some maize stubble , up a soft , sandy road to the enclosed little bit of ground which the local Jews have reserved for themselves . And the mysterious veil which divides the present from the past fell quickly over this act of the village tragedy , as it had done with pomp and circumstance after the banquet which followed the laying to rest of the murdered man .