“She is a harlot and a daughter of a harlot, and I will not have her in my house.”
“She is a model, and I must have models, as I have tried to explain to you again and again. I am allowed money for models. I must have models, just as you must have skins.”
“Then there are other models. I know this girl, what she is after, and she will ruin you.”
“Neither she nor anyone else in the whole world could ruin me,” said Mendel, “for I am an artist, and while I have my art I ask nothing outside it.”
“Don’t argue with me!” shouted Jacob. “I will not have that drab in my house.”
Mendel had a great respect and regard for his father. He was silent, and Jacob went downstairs, satisfied that he had asserted himself.
He said to Golda:—
“They will blow the boy’s head off his shoulder with the fuss they make of him. I know how to take him down a peg or two.”
“Don’t go too far,” said Golda. “It would be a black day for me if he went away and was ashamed of us.”
“If I saw that he was ashamed of you,” replied Jacob, “I would thrash him within an inch of his life. Ashamed of you, among all the dirt and trumped-up people he goes among!”