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The first time I saw him, I remember the day well, as well as yesterday. There was no apple-blossom then, a November day, cold, bitter cold, the coldest day I remember. It was the anniversary of my poor wife's death. She was my first wife, Rebecca. She made me a good wife, I tell you—we were very happy. (He took out a white silk pocket handkerchief, opened it with something of a flourish, and blew his nose long and loudly. Then he continued.)
I buried her at the cemetery in K—Road. You know it? What? No? You must know it, the big cemetery near the hospital. You know the hospital at any rate? Well, you turn down by it coming from the station, take the first turning to the right and the second to the left, and there you are. It's a big cemetery, very big, almost as big as Golders Green, and they keep the gardens very nicely. Well, my poor wife lies there—my first wife, I've married again, you see, and she's living and well, thank God—and I went on the first anniversary to visit the grave and put flowers on it.
There you are now, there's another curious thing. I often wonder why we do it. It's not as if it did anyone any good. I don't believe in immortality, nor do you, nor do any of us. But I go and put flowers on her grave though it won't do her any good, poor soul. It's sentiment, I suppose. No one can say we Jews haven't got that, and family affection. They're among our very strongest characteristics.
Yes, they don't like us. (He looked round at the quiet tea-drinkers.) We're too clever perhaps, too sharp, too go-ahead. Nous, that's what we've got, Nous, and they don't like it, eh? But they can't deny us our other virtues—sentiment and family affection. Now look at the Titanic disaster: who was it refused to get into the boats, unless her husband went too? Who met death hand in hand with him? Eh? A Jewess! There you are! Her children rise up and call her blessed: her husband also and he praiseth her!
I put that verse from Proverbs on my poor wife's tombstone. I remember standing in front of it, and reading it over and over again that day, the day I'm talking about. My dear Sir, I felt utterly wretched, standing there in that cold wet cemetery, with all those white tombstones round me and a damp yellow November fog. I put some beautiful white flowers on her grave.
The cemetery-keeper had given me some glass gallipots to stand the flowers in, and, as I left, I thought I would give him a shilling. He was standing near the gates. By Jove! You couldn't mistake him for anything but a Jew. His arms hung down from his shoulders in that curious, loose, limp way—you know it?—it makes the clothes look as if they didn't belong to the man who is wearing them. Clever cunning grey eyes, gold pince-nez, and a nose, by Jove, Sir, one of the best, one of those noses, white and shiny, which, when you look at it full face, seems almost flat on the face, but immensely broad, curving down, like a broad highroad from between the bushy eye-brows down over the lips. And side face, it was colossal; it stood out like an elephant's trunk with its florid curves and scrolls.
I was, as I say, utterly wretched. I wanted someone to talk to, and though I didn't expect to get much comfort out of a cemetery-keeper, I said by way of conversation, as I gave him a shilling:
"You keep these gardens very nicely."
He looked at me over the gold rims of his glasses: