She looked towards Reb Monash. He had contracted his forehead.
"Hush!" she said in a thin, even voice. "Thy father has a head this afternoon. Make not so much noise!"
"Don't you understand? I've won an awfully big prize and I've worked so hard for it!" he said, crestfallen. He had expected she would flush with delight and seize his hands and lift them to her lips, as she did when she was tremendously pleased with him. Instead, here she was showing no sign of pleasure, hardly of interest.
"It is well!" she said. "But thou must be quiet! Thou wilt have a cup of tea, wilt thou?"
"No!" he muttered, suppressing in his throat a lump of acute disappointment. "I've got to go to Dorah's at once! I promised to do something for her!"
His eyes had a suspicion of dampness when he arrived at Longton. He ate a chilled dinner sullenly.
Next day he had not the heart to go and see his mother. He spent the hour in an alcove of the school library ostensibly reading De Quincey, actually playing a game at that time gathering momentum at Doomington School, the game called "push penny," where two pair of nibs stuck in a table served as goal posts, and two rival pocket knives impelling two rival pennies attempted to introduce a further coin into the respective pen-nib goals. But he turned up in Angel Street as usual the following day. He was sulky. "A nice mother you are..." he began. But he had not time to say more. She had seated him beside her on the sofa and was stroking his head. "Feivele, Feivele, didst thou not understand? When he is here, dare I show what I think, how glad I am...?" A fit of coughing interrupted her. The boy looked up anxiously. "Thou knowest," she began again, "thou knowest what he will think, that I encourage thee in they goyishkeit. Ah, would that thou wert a holier Jew, my son! It does not matter how far thou wilt go in the world, once a Jew, remain a Jew! Thou wilt have high friends. They will say to thy face 'How thou art wonderful, Mr. Massel!' Is not that true? And behind thee they will murmur 'Jew! Jew!' Yah, yah, that is a long way ahead! Where I shall be, who knows? And now again, what hast thou won? What? No! Not five pounds! For just sitting down and writing for three hours? No, that cannot be! Mr. Furness likes thee, no? It is Mr. Furness, he knows thou art cleverer than all the other boys...."
"No it wasn't, mother! He hadn't anything to do with it!"
"Tell me not! No sane man will give away five pounds because one sits oneself down at a desk and writes words! Ah well, let it be, if thou wilt have it so! ... But thou must not work so hard, thine eyes ... Oh, this coughing! I went to the market to buy a hen for shabbos. It is cheaper there. And it was raining one of your English rains ... lakes, it rained!"
"You know, mother, it's rotten of you! You shouldn't do it!"