The lamp would go out before morning if there was little oil; or else it would burn till Natasha, the Gentile chorewoman, came in the morning to put it out, and remove the candlesticks from the table, and unseal the oven, and do the dozen little tasks which no Jew could perform on the Sabbath.

The simple prohibition to labor on the Sabbath day had been construed by zealous commentators to mean much more.

One must not even touch any instrument of labor or commerce, as an axe or a coin.
It was forbidden to light a fire, or to touch anything that contained a fire, or had contained fire, were it only a cold candlestick or a burned match.

Therefore the lamp at which I was staring must burn till the Gentile woman came to put it out.
The light did not annoy me in the least; I was not thinking about it.
But apparently it troubled somebody else.

I saw my father come from his room, which also adjoined the living-room.