No, she would never let herself sink back to the kitchen. But where could she run from the terror of starvation?
The bitterest barb of her agony was her inability to surrender. She was crushed, beaten, but she could not give up the battle. The unvoiced dream in her still clamoured and ached and strained to find voice. A resistless something in her that transcended reason rose up in defiance of defeat.
§ 3
“A black year on the landlord!” screamed Hanneh Breineh through the partition. “The rent he raised, so what does he need to worry yet if the gas freezes? Gottuniu! freeze should only the marrow from his bones!”
Sophie turned back to the little stove in an attempt to light the gas under the pan of oatmeal. The feeble flame flickered and with a faint protest went out. Hanneh Breineh poked in her tousled head for sympathy.
“Woe is me! Woe on the poor what ain’t yet sick enough for the hospital!”
As the chill of the gathering dusk intensified, Sophie seemed to see herself carried out on a stretcher to the hospital, numb, frozen.
“God from the world! better a quick death than this slow freezing!” With the perpetual gnawing of hunger sapping her strength, Sophie had not the courage to face another night of torment. Drawing her shabby shawl more tightly around her, she hurried out. “Where now?” she asked as a wave of stinging snow blinded her. Hanneh Breineh’s words came back to her: “the hospital!” Why not? Surely they couldn’t refuse to shelter her just overnight in a storm like this.
But when she reached the Beth Israel her heart sank. She looked in timidly at the warm, beckoning lights.
“Ach! how can I have the gall to ask them to take me in? They’ll think I’m only a beggar from the street.”