Poor Lizschen! A feeling of wild, blind rage overwhelmed Braun for an instant, then passed away, leaving his frame rigid and his teeth tightly clenched. While it lasted he worked like an automaton, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing save a chaotic tumult in his heart and brain that could find no vent in words, no audible expression save in a fierce outcry against fate—resistless, remorseless fate. A few months ago these attacks had come upon him more frequently, and had lasted for hours, leaving him exhausted and ill. But they had become rarer and less violent; there is no misfortune to which the human mind cannot ultimately become reconciled. Lizschen was soon to die. Braun had rebelled; his heart and soul, racked almost beyond endurance, had cried out against the horror, the injustice, the wanton cruelty, of his brown-eyed, pale-cheeked Lizschen wasting away to death before his eyes. But there was no hope, and he had gradually become reconciled. The physician at the public dispensary had told him she might live a month or she might live a year longer, he could not foretell more accurately, but of ultimate recovery there was no hope on earth. And Braun’s rebellious outbursts against cruel fate had become rarer and rarer. Do not imagine that these emotions had ever shaped themselves in so many words, or that he had attempted by any process of reasoning to argue the matter with himself or to see vividly what it all meant, what horrible ordeal he was passing through, or what the future held in store for him. From his tenth year until his twentieth Braun had worked in factories in Russia, often under the lash. He was twenty-six, and his six years in this country had been spent in sweatshops. Such men do not formulate thoughts in words: they feel dumbly, like dogs and horses.
II
The day’s work was done. Braun and Lizschen were walking slowly uptown, hand in hand, attracting many an inquiring, half-pitying glance. She was so white, he so haggard and wild-eyed. It was a delightful spring night, the air was balmy and soothing, and Lizschen coughed less than she had for several days. Braun had spoken of a picture he had once seen in a shop-window in Russia. Lizschen’s eyes had become animated.
“They are so wonderful, those painters,” she said. “With nothing but brushes they put colours together until you can see the trees moving in the breeze, and almost imagine you hear the birds in them.”
“I don’t care much for trees,” said Braun, “or birds either. I like ships and battle pictures where people are doing something great.”
“Maybe that is because you have always lived in cities,” said Lizschen. “When I was a girl I lived in the country, near Odessa, and oh, how beautiful the trees were and how sweet the flowers! And I used to sit under a tree and look at the woods across the valley all day long. Ah, if I could only——!”
She checked herself and hoped that Braun had not heard. But he had heard and his face had clouded. He, too, had wished and wished and wished through many a sleepless night, and now he could easily frame the unfinished thought in Lizschen’s mind. If he could send her to the country, to some place where the air was warm and dry, perhaps her days might be prolonged. But he could not. He had to work and she had to work, and he had to look on and watch her toiling, toiling, day after day, without end, without hope. The alternative was to starve.
They came to the place that Linder had described, and, surely enough, before them rose a huge placard announcing that admission to the exhibition of paintings was free. The pictures were to be sold at public auction at the end of the week, and for several nights they were on inspection. The young couple stood outside the door a while, watching the people who were going in and coming out; then Braun said:
“Come, Lizschen, let us go in. It is free.”
Lizschen drew back timidly. “They will not let people like us go in. It is for nobility.” But Braun drew her forward.