“You don’t need to light up the gas, so it shines!”
“I wish I could only have it so grand!”
“You ain’t got worries on your head, so it lays in your mind to make it so fancy.”
Mr. Sopkin stood with mouth open, stunned with wonder at the transformation.
Hanneh Hayyeh shook him by the sleeve exultantly. “Nu? Why ain’t you saying something?”
“Grand ain’t the word for it! What a whiteness! And what a cleanliness! It tears out the eyes from the head! Such a tenant the landlord ought to give out a medal or let down the rent free. I saw the rooms before and I see them now. What a difference from one house to another.”
“Ain’t you coming in?” Hanneh Hayyeh besought her neighbors.
“God from the world! To step with our feet on this new painted floor?”
“Shah!” said the butcher, taking off his apron and spreading it on the floor. “You can all give a step on my apron. It’s dirty, anyhow.”
They crowded in on the outspread apron and vied with one another in their words of praise.