(--I am at the threshold of long thoughts, like caverns warmed with earth. I shall think now, and be no longer cold nor hear the wind like a steel sea on my shoulder.) --On Broadway there are women with burnt souls, and there are Jews. New York is full of Jews. What does that mean? Spirit of a Jew quenched the white-stockinged girl: bore her to womanhood. Word of a Jew thrust her forth. Hand of a Jew guided me to this Cold seeking warmth ... led me to this City where there are Jews in swarms, in sultry pools, in tumults! She was still. The wind was a steel broom sweeping the ice of the world against her huddling over a lamp and a stove. The frail room held. She heard no wind, she saw no room. She sat swaying within an aureole of smutted heat grey-faced, over the black mass of her dress: and her hair knotted against her throat. “Tell me,” she whispered aloud, “who has understood? Harry was wrong, he did not understand you, Christ. He misused your words. You have forgiven him. But who ... who understands? You were a Jew, and we alone who are not Jews worship and quote you, Jesus. Why is that? You were a Jew? The Jews saw God ... they only during those angry ages before Christ had the Grace to choose God. Why do they leave you, Christ, you and your words in silence? Are they so close to you they do not hear you? Are they so close to you that they are you?” Her hands clasped above her face. “But we are better! sweeter!” --Do we not understand! Are we children, Lord? Are we children playing with the fire of Thy Word? Who is grown among men? She thought of Leon. --Your lips knew not Christ nor Love.... Yet who beside you has known me, who beside you has healed me? “Tell me!” her voice was high in the stark cold room. She rose up on her knees, and her arms and her words were higher than her face. “Tell me, God! How dare you discriminate against us! You have no chosen children. We all are your Chosen ... we who choose you.... Lord, I want to know. Do you hear? I choose to know. Not what my breasts want ... let them starve. You shall not turn from me now. Look at me, Lord.” Her hands drooped. Her face fell like a flower suddenly burned. She lay crumpled upon the floor within the City. “Will you just look at me, Lord? What have I? I shall not die. Yet what life have I? Think of my past ... think of the girl I was ... the girl bright and brave: think of the mother I was! Here I am. My life is sold--for this! I must know. Do you hear me when I cry so within myself? else--what is this? I must know! This horror of hurt ... from Fanny, the Fanny of my friends, of my beloved, my child--now this here, this dirt! And it is true. Dirt is true. What else? Have I sinned? What act of ignorance have I sinned in? What is this sense of holiness that will not leave? Which is it, God? I must know: I have sinned or I am holy?”