And now to Mendel she was an object of sheer astonishment. He stood and warmed his legs by the gas stove and gaped at her, sitting on his bed and chattering in her clear, hard voice of her ambitions, her dreams, the drudgery at home, while in everything she said was a flattery which he could not resist. Worst of all, he felt that he was one of a pair with her. His talent, her body, were shining offerings with which they both emerged from the depths of the despised. Entering into her spirit, he too was filled with a desire for revenge. Yet in him this desire was charged with passion, which made their present situation ridiculous. He thought of the poverty and the obscure suffering downstairs, the dragging penury to which, but for his talent, he would have been condemned. Then he imagined her as Issy had described her at Margate, lurking in the kitchen, listening behind the door as Leah spun her yarns. He could sympathize with her, and she seemed to him almost gallant. He got out a piece of mill-board and began to draw her, but to his annoyance could not get interested in what he was doing. He wanted to know more about her, could not rest content that a human being should be so reduced to a cold purpose. Yet, though she talked freely enough, nothing fell from her lips to meet his desire. She had no people, no class, no tradition, but still she was a person. He could not dismiss her as he dismissed so many, as "nonsensical." "I can't make much of you now," he said, almost wailing. "I believe I'm tired." And suddenly he hurled away his drawing and rushed at her and kissed her. She clung to him and he yielded to her will, seeing clearly that this was her purpose, this her desire, this her ambition, her all. He knew that she was using him, was making certain of being able to use him. The newly discovered knave in him insisted on having his existence, and through it he enjoyed a certain defiant happiness. Happiness! To be happy! That had seemed impossible. His first year at the Detmold had been miserable. He had been discouraged and almost listless. Often he would go to his mother and say: "I shall never be an artist." "Not all at once," Golda would say. "Take a boy who is apprenticed to a bootmaker. He cannot all at once make good boots. He must spoil a deal of leather first. Or a tailor-boy: he must spoil cloth. A trade must be learned, and you can learn this, for you work hard enough at it." For a moment or two he would see through her clear eyes and that was enough to set him working again, half believing that he would soon master his craft. But there had been the struggle to master what at the Detmold, with such unquestionable authority, they called "drawing."