“Is it nothing by you how I painted up your house with my own blood-money?”
“You didn’t do it for me. You done it for yourself,” he sneered. “It’s nothing to me how the house looks, so long as I get my rent in time. You wanted to have a swell house, so you painted it. That’s all.”
With a wave of his hand he dismissed her.
“I beg by your conscience! Think on God!” Hanneh Hayyeh wrung her hands. “Ain’t your house worth more to you to have a tenant clean it out and paint it out so beautiful like I done?”
“Certainly,” snarled the landlord. “Because the flat is painted new, I can get more money for it. I got no more time for you.”
He turned to his stenographer and resumed the dictation of his letters.
Dazedly Hanneh Hayyeh left the office. A choking dryness contracted her throat as she staggered blindly, gesticulating and talking to herself.
“Oi weh! The sweat, the money I laid into my flat and it should all go to the devil. And I should be turned out and leave all my beautifulness. And from where will I get the money for moving? When I begin to break myself up to move, I got to pay out money for the moving man, money for putting up new lines, money for new shelves and new hooks besides money for the rent. I got to remain where I am. But from where can I get together the five dollars for the robber? Should I go to Moisheh Itzek, the pawnbroker, or should I maybe ask Mrs. Preston? No—She shouldn’t think I got her for a friend only to help me. Oi weh! Where should I turn with my bitter heart?”
Mechanically she halted at the butcher-shop. Throwing herself on the vacant bench, she buried her face in her shawl and burst out in a loud, heart-piercing wail: “Woe is me! Bitter is me!”
“Hanneh Hayyeh! What to you happened?” cried Mr. Sopkin in alarm.