He ate his fish. There was no talk in the room. His father drank the soup with gurgling noises. It was _borscht_ soup. It trickled down over his beard, red soup, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. His mother sighed every time she had to rise to bring something to the table. His family! Suddenly Emmanuel rose. The room was choking him. The walls were coming nearer. The clatter of the dishes was low thunder now. “I’m through.” He knew where he was going. Upstairs, to the third floor, to Etta. Etta! Etta! She was real. She had black hair, and when you touched it you could shut your eyes and think you were touching nice warm water. It seemed to lick your fingers with a warm tongue, her hair. Her eyes, too, like the feel of a child-wind in summer.... “Manny!” She had come to meet him at the door. Their hands touched. He was the first to draw his away. Again he felt warm all over, as he had in the street. When she brushed past him in the dim-lit hall to lead the way to the living room and her body was close to his, Emmanuel was conscious of a feeling of shame, his throat became dry. For no reason at all, as far as he could tell. Their living room was like any other East Side living room. No--better. Here there was a cheap golden-oak piano, too, and an incongruous gilded music stand with stencilled flowers and angels and birds. Otherwise the usual crayon pictures of bearded ancestors of _scheiteled_ ancestors, the seven-branched candlestick on the mantel, the rocking chair, a vase with artificial roses.... “Listen, Manny, you never heard me sing, did you? I’m gonna sing a new piece I just got. Wanna hear it?” She seated herself at the piano. She spread the sheets of music. The song was a ballad, a jumble of molasses-coated words, smirking though they meant to whimper. And her hands struck the wrong notes, they slipped off, she had to shake her head and begin all over again. Her voice uncertain, trembling. Still.... Emmanuel, listening to the girl, knew that this was the street returned. His mouth opened in amazement. His arm shook. Then: “Etta!” he cried, cutting into the cracked notes of the piano. “You can sing!” She didn’t seem to pay any attention to that. Again she started, false, tremulous. Emmanuel grasped her arm. “Ouch, you’re hurting me!” But he would not let her go on. “Listen, Etta! You can sing. Don’t you understand me? You’ve got it in you. You ... well, you can sing, Etta! Not yet. You know what I mean. Not yet. But it’s in you. You can sing.” “Yeah?” She was pleased. She brought her face closer to his as he stood there, bending over her. “You’re going to study....” “How can I? I got to go to work. I ain’t got time. You feel awful tired after taking dictation all day.” He waved that aside. Again his hand was cutting into her arm. “You’ll have to study. You don’t know how good it is. If only I could have studied!” “Well, you’re studying, ain’t you? You’re gonna be a doctor.”