At the end of the long room she saw Jacob peering from group to group. He looked white and ill, as he had done when he came again and again to implore her to marry him, and she felt half afraid of him, as she had done when the violent fury of love in him had broken down her resistance and dragged her from her comfortable home to the bare life he had to offer her. He came to her now with the same ungraciousness that had marked his wooing, explained to her that he had just got a job and could not get away to meet her, and turned from her to the children. The boys were grown big and strong, and the eldest girl was a beauty. He was satisfied, stooped and picked up little Mendel in his strong arms. The child woke up, gave a little grunt of pleasure as he recognized the familiar smell of his father, and went to sleep again.
“He’s heavy,” said Mrs. Kühler. “You cannot carry him all the way.”
“His face is like a flower,” said Jacob.
He went first, carrying the boy, and his family followed him into the roaring streets. The lamps were lit and the shops were dazzling. There were barrows of fruit, fish, old iron, books, cheap jewellery, all lit up with naphtha flares. The children were half frightened, half delighted. The smells and the noise of the streets excited them. Every now and then they heard snatches of their own language and were comforted. They came to shops bearing Yiddish characters and London no longer seemed to them forbiddingly foreign, though they began to feel conscious of their clothes, which made them conspicuous. The boys cursed and growled under the bedding and began to complain that they had so far to go. Mr. Kühler found the child too heavy and had to put him down. Mendel took his mother’s hand and trotted along by her side.
They turned into a darkish street which ran for some length between very tall houses. It was obscure enough to allow the clear sky to be seen, patched with cloud and deep blue, starry spaces. At the end of it was a building covered with lights and illuminated signs. They shone golden and splendid. Never had Mendel seen anything so glorious, so rich, so dream-like, so clearly corresponding to that marvellous region where all his thoughts ended, passed out of his reach, and took on a brilliant and mighty life of their own, a glory greater than that of the Emperor at home. But this was England and had only a King.
“Does the King live there?” he asked his mother.
“No; that is a shop.”
“Has father got a shop like that?”
“Not yet.”
“Will he soon have a shop like that?”