“Is ten thousand dollars nothing?” demanded the outraged Hanneh Breineh. “Are a million people crazy? All America sings his songs, and you turn up your nose on them. What do you know from life? You sweat from morning till night pressing out your heart’s blood on your ironing board, and what do you get from it? A crooked back—a dried out herring face!”
“‘The prosperity of fools slayeth them,’” quoted Moisheh in Hebrew.
Berel turned swiftly on his brother.
“It’s the poets who are slain and the fools who are exalted. Before I used to spend three months polishing one little cry from the heart. Sometimes I sold it for five dollars, but most of the time I didn’t. Now I shoot out a song in a day, and it nets me a fortune!”
“But I would better give you the blood from under my nails than you should sell yourself for dollars,” replied Moisheh.
“Would you want me to come back to this hell of dirt and beg from you again for every galling bite of bread?” cried Berel, flaring into rage. “Your gall should burst, you dirt-eating muzhik!” he shouted with unreasoning fury, and fled headlong from the room.
This unaccountable anger from the new millionaire left all but Hanneh Breineh in a stupor of bewilderment.
“Muzhik! Are we all muzhiks, then?” she cried. A biting doubt of the generosity of her diamond prince rushed through her. “Twenty dollars only from so many thousands? What if he did dress out his stingy present in a satin box?”
She passed the gold piece around disdainfully.
“After all, I can’t live on the shine from it. What’ll it buy me—only twenty dollars? I done enough for him when he was a starving beggar that he shouldn’t be such a piker to me!”