The London sky was of lead, and the London pavement of mud, but her heart was aglow with hope. As she reached the familiar street a certain strangeness in its aspect struck her. People stood at the doors gossiping and excited, as though no Sabbath pots were a-cooking; straggling groups possessed the roadway, impeding her advance, and as she got nearer to the school the crowd thickened, the roadway became impassable, a gesticulating mob blocked the iron gate.
Poor Bloomah paused in her breathless career ready to cry at this malicious fate fighting against her, and for the first time allowing herself time to speculate on what was up. All around her she became aware of weeping and wailing and shrieking and wringing of hands.
The throng was chiefly composed of Russian and Roumanian women of the latest immigration, as she could tell by the pious wigs hiding their tresses. Those in the front were pressed against the bars of the locked gate, shrieking through them, shaking them with passion.
Although Bloomah's knowledge of Yiddish was slight—as became a scion of an old English family—she could make out their elemental ejaculations.
'You murderers!'
'Give me my Rachel!'
'They are destroying our daughters as Pharaoh destroyed our sons.'
'Give me back my children, and I'll go back to Russia.'
'They are worse than the Russians, the poisoners!'
'O God of Abraham, how shall I live without my Leah?'