The parade
Misha “felt a noise” before he heard it. It was “deep and grumbling” and “seemed to come from beneath the streets.” There was “another sound.” It reminded him of “the beat of a great drum, or a thousand drums,” and the more the boy ran, “the louder it became.” The people were “mobbed, piled like bombed bricks, the space between them gone.” Misha “darted through them” and “burst out of the mob,” so he was “in nothing.” He was cheering when something hit him “on the ear” so hard that he fell on the ground and the drumbeat was “rolling over him.” Then he saw “the tallest, blackest, shiniest boots” he had ever seen. They looked like “endless columns.” This imagery evokes a feeling of fascination.
A miracle
They were in a room “with a large table” on which was “food.” There were “glass bowls of cookies and candies,” but Misha couldn’t take his eyes off “the cake in the middle.” He had “never” seen “such a beautiful cake.” It was “a rectangle in shape,” and it was “a garden of frosting.” There were “frosting flowers, of blue and yellow and green,” and there was “a little red frosting house with blue frosting smoke coming out of the chimney.” This imagery evokes a feeling of admiration. Misha is just a little boy who loves cakes and toys but has nothing but his freedom.
The ghetto
Misha had never seen “so many people walking.” They were “Jews,” he could tell “by the armbands they wore.” “A white armband with a blue star” was “a big help in telling who was a Jew, as they no longer wore beards.” “Until that moment,” the boy had seen only “a few Jews here, a few Jews there,” he hadn’t know there were “so many.” They came “from many places, many streets,” but they were “all going in the same direction.” Children pulled “wagons heaped high with toys and pots and books” when “grown-ups” pulled “wobbling carts of furniture and clothes and pictures and rugs.” This imagery evokes a feeling of agitation.
