“It’s me,” I added. “I’d like to see you.”
Berel came out, hair dishevelled, with dreamy, absent look, holding pencil and paper in his hand. “I was just finishing a poem,” he said in greeting to me.
“I have been looking for your name in the magazines. Have you published anything yet?”
“I—publish in the American magazines?” he flung, hurt beyond words. “I wouldn’t mix my art with their empty drivel.”
“But, surely, there are some better magazines,” I protested.
“Pshah! Their best magazines—the pink-and-white jingles that they call poetry are not worth the paper they’re printed on. America don’t want poets. She wants plumbers.”
“But what will you do with the poetry you write?”
“I’ll publish it myself. Art should be free, like sunlight and beauty. The only compensation for the artist is the chance to feed hungry hearts. If only Moisheh could give me the hundred dollars I’d have my volume printed at once.”
“But how can I raise all that money when I’m not yet paid out with Feivel’s doctor’s office?” remonstrated Moisheh. “Don’t you think if—maybe you’d get a little job?”
An expression of abstraction came over Betel’s face, and he snapped, impatiently: “Yes—yes—I told you that I would look for a job. But I must write this while I have the inspiration.”