Moisheh, beaming with joy of his loved ones’ nearness, was so busy passing and repassing the various dishes to his folks that he forgot his own meal.
“Nu—ain’t it time for you also to sit yourself down like a person?” urged Hanneh Breineh.
“Tekeh—tekeh!” added his mother. “Take something to your mouth.”
Thereupon Moisheh rolled up his sleeves and with the zest of a hungry caveman attacked the leg of a goose. He no sooner finished than he bent ravenously over the meat platter, his forehead working in rhythm to his jaws.
“Excuse me,” stammered Moisheh, wiping his lips with the end of his shirt-sleeve and sticking the meat on a fork.
“What’s the difference how you eat so long you got what to eat?” broke in Zaretsky, grabbing the breast of the goose and holding it to his thick lips.
His sensibilities recoiling at this cannibalistic devouring of food, Berel rose and walked to the air-shaft window. His arms shot out as though to break down the darkening wall which blotted out the daylight from the little room. “Plenty of food for the body, but no light for the soul,” he murmured, not intending to be heard.
Feivel, the doctor, lit a cigarette and walked up and down the room restlessly. He stopped and faced his younger brother with a cynical smile. “I guess America is like the rest of the world—you get what you take—sunlight as well as other things——”
“How take sunlight? What do you mean?”
“I mean America is like a dish of cheese blintzes at a poor house. The beggars who are the head of the table and get their hands in first, they live and laugh——”