Artists -- Fiction; English fiction -- 20th century; Jews -- England -- London -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
At the end of the long room she saw Jacob peering from group to group.
He looked white and ill, as he had done when he came again and again
to implore her to marry him, and she felt half afraid of him, as she
had done when the violent fury of love in him had broken down her
resistance and dragged her from her comfortable home to the bare life
he had to offer her. He came to her now with the same ungraciousness
that had marked his wooing, explained to her that he had just got a
job and could not get away to meet her, and turned from her to the
children. The boys were grown big and strong, and the eldest girl was
a beauty. He was satisfied, stooped and picked up little Mendel in his
strong arms. The child woke up, gave a little grunt of pleasure as he
recognized the familiar smell of his father, and went to sleep again.
"He's heavy," said Mrs. Kühler. "You cannot carry him all the way."
"His face is like a flower," said Jacob.
He went first, carrying the boy, and his family followed him into the
roaring streets. The lamps were lit and the shops were dazzling. There
were barrows of fruit, fish, old iron, books, cheap jewellery, all lit
up with naphtha flares. The children were half frightened, half
delighted. The smells and the noise of the streets excited them. Every
now and then they heard snatches of their own language and were
comforted. They came to shops bearing Yiddish characters and London no
longer seemed to them forbiddingly foreign, though they began to feel
conscious of their clothes, which made them conspicuous. The boys
cursed and growled under the bedding and began to complain that they
had so far to go. Mr. Kühler found the child too heavy and had to put
him down. Mendel took his mother's hand and trotted along by her side.
They turned into a darkish street which ran for some length between
very tall houses. It was obscure enough to allow the clear sky to be
seen, patched with cloud and deep blue, starry spaces. At the end of
it was a building covered with lights and illuminated signs. They
shone golden and splendid. Never had Mendel seen anything so glorious,
so rich, so dream-like, so clearly corresponding to that marvellous
region where all his thoughts ended, passed out of his reach, and took
on a brilliant and mighty life of their own, a glory greater than that
of the Emperor at home. But this was England and had only a King.
"Does the King live there?" he asked his mother.
"No; that is a shop."
"Has father got a shop like that?"
"Not yet."
"Will he soon have a shop like that?"
"Very soon."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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