“I’m yet in debt over my neck. In God’s name, how could you spend out so much money for only a little pleasure,” remonstrated Moisheh.
“Do you think I’m a schnorrer like you? I’m a man, and I have to live,” retorted the doctor.
“But two dollars for one evening in the opera only, when for ten cents you could have seen the grandest show in the movies!”
The doctor’s contemptuous glance softened into a look of condescending pity. “After all, my presser of pants, what a waste the opera would be on you. Your America is the movies.”
“Two dollars!” cried the little old mother, wringing her hands despairingly. “Moisheh didn’t yet pay out for the ship tickets.”
“Ship tickets—bah!—I wish he had never brought us to this golden country—dirt, darkness, houses like stalls for cattle!” And in a fury of disgust, not unmitigated with shame at his loss of temper, he slammed the door behind him.
“Oi weh!” wailed the careworn old mother. “Two dollars for an opera, and in such bad times!”
“Ach! Mammeniu,” Moisheh defended, “maybe Feivel ain’t like us. Remember he’s high-educated. He needs the opera like I need the bite of bread. Maybe even more yet. I can live through without even the bite of bread, but Feivel must have what wills itself in him.”
Hanneh Breineh closed the door and turned to me accusingly. “What’s the use from all your education, if that’s what kind of people it makes?”
“Yes,” I agreed with Hanneh Breineh. “Education without heart is a curse.”