As a matter of fact, Fanny’s embarrassment was much greater than Jake’s. The stupefying news was broken to her on the very day of Gitl’s arrival. After passing a sleepless night she felt that she could not bring herself to face Jake in the presence of her other shopmates, to whom her feelings for him were an open secret. As luck would have it, it was Sunday, the beginning of a new working week in the metropolitan Ghetto, and she went to look for a job in another place.
Jake at once congratulated himself upon her absence and missed her. But then he equally missed the company of Mamie and of all the other dancing-school girls, whose society and attentions now more than ever seemed to him necessities of his life. They haunted his mind day and night; he almost never beheld them in his imagination except as clustering together with his fellow-cavaliers and making merry over him and his wife; and the vision pierced his heart with shame and jealousy. All his achievements seemed wiped out by a sudden stroke of ill fate. He thought himself a martyr, an innocent exile from a world to which he belonged by right; and he frequently felt the sobs of self-pity mounting to his throat. For several minutes at a time, while kicking at his treadle, he would see, reddening before him, Gitl’s bandana kerchief and her prominent gums, or hear an un-American piece of Yiddish pronounced with Gitl’s peculiar lisp—that very lisp, which three years ago he used to mimic fondly, but which now grated on his nerves and was apt to make his face twitch with sheer disgust, insomuch that he often found a vicious relief in mocking that lisp of hers audibly over his work. But can it be that he is doomed for life? No! no! he would revolt, conscious at the same time that there was really no escape. “Ah, may she be killed, the horrid greenhorn!” he would gasp to himself in a paroxysm of despair. And then he would bewail his lost youth, and curse all Russia for his premature marriage. Presently, however, he would recall the plump, spunky face of his son who bore such close resemblance to himself, to whom he was growing more strongly attached every day, and who was getting to prefer his company to his mother’s; and thereupon his heart would soften toward Gitl, and he would gradually feel the qualms of pity and remorse, and make a vow to treat her kindly. “Never min’,” he would at such instances say in his heart, “she will oyshgreen[12] ] herself and I shall get used to her. She is a —— shight better than all the dancing-school girls.” And he would inspire himself with respect for her spotless purity, and take comfort in the fact of her being a model housewife, undiverted from her duties by any thoughts of balls or picnics. And despite a deeper consciousness which exposed his readiness to sacrifice it all at any time, he would work himself into a dignified feeling as the head of a household and the father of a promising son, and soothe himself with the additional consolation that sooner or later the other fellows of Joe’s academy would also be married.
On the Wednesday in question Jake and his shopmates had warded off a reduction of wages by threatening a strike, and were accordingly in high feather. And so Jake and Bernstein came home in unusually good spirits. Little Joey—for such was Yosselé’s name now—with whom his father’s plays were for the most part of an athletic character, welcomed Jake by a challenge for a pugilistic encounter, and the way he said “Coom a fight!” and held out his little fists so delighted Mr. Podkovnik, Sr., that upon ordering Gitl to serve supper he vouchsafed a fillip on the tip of her nose.
While she was hurriedly setting the table, Jake took to describing to Charley his employer’s defeat. “You should have seen how he looked, the cockroach!” he said. “He became as pale as the wall and his teeth were chattering as if he had been shaken up with fever, ’pon my void. And how quiet he became all of a sudden, as if he could not count two! One might apply him to an ulcer, so soft was he—ha-ha-ha!” he laughed, looking to Bernstein, who smiled assent.
At last supper was announced. Bernstein donned his hat, and did not sit down to the repast before he had performed his ablutions and whispered a short prayer. As he did so Jake and Charley interchanged a wink. As to themselves, they dispensed with all devotional preliminaries, and took their seats with uncovered heads. Gitl also washed her fingers and said the prayer, and as she handed Yosselé his first slice of bread she did not release it before he had recited the benediction.
Bernstein, who, as a rule, looked daggers at his meal, this time received his plate of borshtch[13]—his favourite dish—with a radiant face; and as he ate he pronounced it a masterpiece, and lavished compliments on the artist.
“It’s a long time since I tasted such a borshtch! Simply a vivifier! It melts in every limb!” he kept rhapsodizing, between mouthfuls. “It ought to be sent to the Chicago Exposition. The missess would get a medal.”
“A regely European borshtch!” Charley chimed in. “It is worth ten cents a spoonful, ’pon mine vort!”
“Go away! You are only making fun of me,” Gitl declared, beaming with pride. “What is there to be laughing at? I make it as well as I can,” she added demurely.
“Let him who is laughing laugh with teeth,” jested Charlie. “I tell you it is a——” The remainder of the sentence was submerged in a mouthful of the vivifying semi-liquid.