Family -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Social conditions -- Fiction
"You see?" he said gaily. "This is my club. Here we are like a family." He
ordered tea of a waiter who seemed more like a bosom friend. And leaning
eagerly forward, he began to speak in glowing terms of the men and girls
from sweatshops who spent their nights in these feasts of the soul,
talking, listening, grappling, "for the power to think with minds as clear
as the sun when it rises," he ardently cried. "There is not a night in this
city, not one, when hundreds do not talk like this until the breaking of
the day! And then they sleep! A little joke! For at six o'clock they must
rise to their work! And that is a force," he added, "not only for those
people but a force for you and me. Do you see? When you feel tired, when
all your hopes are sinking low, you think of those people and you say, 'I
will go to their places.' And you go. You listen and you watch their faces,
and such fire makes you burn! You go home, you are happy, you have a new
life!
"And perhaps at last you will have a religion," he continued, in fervent
tones. "You see, with us Jews--and with Christians, too--the old religion,
it is gone. And in its place there is nothing strong. And so the young
people go all to pieces. They dance and they drink. If you go to those
dance halls you say, 'They are crazy!' For dancing alone is not enough. And
you say, 'These people must have a religion.' You ask, 'Where can I find a
new God?' And you reply, 'There is no God.' And then you must be very sad.
You know how it is? You feel too free. And you feel scared and lonely. You
look up at the stars. There are millions. You are only a speck of dust--on
one.
"But then you come to my library. And you see those hungry people--more
hungry than men have ever been. And you see those books upon the shelves.
And you know when they come together at last, when that power to think as
clear as the sun comes into the souls of those people so hungry, then we
shall have a new god for the world. For there is no end to what they shall
do," Isadore ended huskily.
Roger felt a lump in his throat. He glanced into his daughter's eyes and
saw a suspicious brightness there. Isadore looked at her happily.
"You see?" he said to Roger. "When she came here to-night she was tired,
half sick. But now she is all filled with life!"
* * * * *
Later, on the street outside when Isadore had left them, Deborah turned to
her father:
"Before we go home, there's one place more."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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