He felt gloriously confident, and naïvely told his mother how happy he was. Everything had come back. He could draw better than ever. He would be a great artist.
Once more he took to painting in the kitchen. The studio was dedicated to the girl, Sara, who came to him in spite of her disappointment. He had spoiled her for other boys.
He painted all day long in the kitchen, and his life became ordered and regular. He went for a walk in the morning, then worked all day long until the workpeople began to clatter downstairs, when he would pack up his paint-box and run up to the studio to wait for Sara to come tapping softly at his door.
Golda was overjoyed at his new happiness and the budding manhood in him, but she knew that this springtime of his youth could not be without a cause. She knew that he was in love and was fearful of consequences, and dreaded his being fatally entangled. She kept watch and saw Sara stealthily leave the house hours after the other workpeople had gone. She told Jacob, and Sara was dismissed and forbidden ever to come near the house again.
[V
A TURNING-POINT]
AT first Mendel hardly noticed the passing of Sara. He waited anxiously for her to come, but when she never appeared he went on working, only gradually to discover that the first glorious impulse had faded away. However, the habit of regular work was strong with him, and he could go on like a carpenter or a mason or any other good journeyman. But there was no one to buy what he produced, and his father began to talk gloomily and ominously of the workshop.
“Never!” said Mendel. “If I am not a great artist by the time I am twenty-three I will come and work. If I have done nothing by the time I am twenty-three I shall know that I am no good.”
“I can see no reason,” said Jacob, “why you should not work like any other man and paint in your spare time. Issy is a good dancer in his spare time, and Harry is good at the boxing. Why should you not paint in your spare time and work like an honest man?”
Mendel turned on his father and rent him.