Mr. Bernstein had taken from the bookshelf a number of letters, glanced through them rapidly and handed them one by one to the deferential superintendent.
Shmendrik clutched at his heart in an agony of humiliation. Suddenly his bent body straightened. His eyes dilated. “My letters—my life—you dare?”
“Of course we dare!” The superintendent returned Shmendrik’s livid gaze, made bold by the confidence that what he was doing was the only scientific method of administering philanthropy. “These dollars, so generously given, must go to those most worthy…. I find in these letters references to gifts of fruit and other luxuries you did not report at our office.”
“He never kept nothing for himself!” Hanneh Breineh broke in defensively. “He gave it all for the children.”
Ignoring the interruption Mr. Bernstein turned to the “friendly visitor.” “I’m glad you brought my attention to this case. It’s but one of the many impositions on our charity … Come …”
“Kossacks! Pogromschiks!” Sophie’s rage broke at last. “You call yourselves Americans? You dare call yourselves Jews? You bosses of the poor! This man Shmendrik, whose house you broke into, whom you made to shame like a beggar—he is the one Jew from whom the Jews can be proud! He gives all he is—all he has—as God gives. He is charity.
“But you—you are the greed—the shame of the Jews! All-right-niks—fat bellies in fur coats! What do you give from yourselves? You may eat and bust eating! Nothing you give till you’ve stuffed yourselves so full that your hearts are dead!”
The door closed in her face. Her wrath fell on indifferent backs as the visitors mounted the steps to the street.
Shmendrik groped blindly for the Bible. In a low, quavering voice, he began the chant of the oppressed—the wail of the downtrodden. “I am afraid, and a trembling taketh hold of my flesh. Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, mighty in power?”
Hanneh Breineh and the children drew close around the old man. They were weeping—unconscious of their weeping—deep-buried memories roused by the music, the age-old music of the Hebrew race.