“Shurr-r up!” Mrs. Kavarsky whispered, stamping her foot. “You want Mr. Bernstein to leave you, too, do you? No more is wanted than that he should get wind of your crying.”
“Nobody will tell him,” one of the neighbours put in, resentfully. “But, anyhull, what is the used crying?”
“Ask her, the piece of hunchback!” said Mrs. Kavarsky. “Another woman would dance for joy, and here she is whining, the cudgel. What is it you are snivelling about? That you have got rid of an unclean bone and a dunce, and that you are going to marry a young man of silk who is fit to be a rabbi, and is as smart and ejecate as a lawyer? You would have got a match like that in Povodye, would you? I dare say a man like Mr. Bernstein would not have spoken to you there. You ought to say Psalms for your coming to America. It is only here that it is possible for a blacksmith’s wife to marry a learned man, who is a blessing both for God and people. And yet you are not saresfied! Cry away! If Bernstein refuses to go under the wedding canopy, Mrs. Kavarsky will no more bodder her head about you, depend upon it. It is not enough for her that I neglect business on her account,” she appealed to the bystanders.
“Really, what are you crying about, Mrs. Podkovnik?” one of the neighbours interposed. “You ought to bless the hour when you became free.”
All of which haranguing only served to stimulate Gitl’s demonstration of grief. Having let down the boy, she went on clapping her hands, swaying in all directions, and wailing.
The truth must be told, however, that she was now continuing her lamentations by the mere force of inertia, and as if enjoying the very process of the thing. For, indeed, at the bottom of her heart she felt herself far from desolate, being conscious of the existence of a man who was to take care of her and her child, and even relishing the prospect of the new life in store for her. Already on her way from the rabbi’s house, while her soul was full of Jake and the Polish girl, there had fluttered through her imagination a picture of the grocery business which she and Bernstein were to start with the money paid to her by Jake.
While Gitl thus sat swaying and wringing her hands, Jake, Mamie, her emissary at the divorce proceeding, and another mutual friend, were passengers on a Third Avenue cable car, all bound for the mayor’s office. While Gitl was indulging herself in an exhibition of grief, her recent husband was flaunting a hilarious mood. He did feel a great burden to have rolled off his heart, and the proximity of Mamie, on the other hand, caressed his soul. He was tempted to catch her in his arms, and cover her glowing cheeks with kisses. But in his inmost heart he was the reverse of eager to reach the City Hall. He was painfully reluctant to part with his long-coveted freedom so soon after it had at last been attained, and before he had had time to relish it. Still worse than this thirst for a taste of liberty was a feeling which was now gaining upon him, that, instead of a conqueror, he had emerged from the rabbi’s house the victim of an ignominious defeat. If he could now have seen Gitl in her paroxysm of anguish, his heart would perhaps have swelled with a sense of his triumph, and Mamie would have appeared to him the embodiment of his future happiness. Instead of this he beheld her, Bernstein, Yoselé, and Mrs. Kavarsky celebrating their victory and bandying jokes at his expense. Their future seemed bright with joy, while his own loomed dark and impenetrable. What if he should now dash into Gitl’s apartments and, declaring his authority as husband, father, and lord of the house, fiercely eject the strangers, take Yoselé in his arms, and sternly command Gitl to mind her household duties?
But the distance between him and the mayor’s office was dwindling fast. Each time the car came to a halt he wished the pause could be prolonged indefinitely; and when it resumed its progress, the violent lurch it gave was accompanied by a corresponding sensation in his heart.
THE END.