"Can you say that it was lawfully born according to your Christian
marriage?"
I felt the colour flushing into my face but I was still silent; and
after a moment in which, as I could see, the stern-natured Jew was
summing me up as a woman of double life and evil character, he said:
"Then it is true? . . . Very well, you will understand that from this
day you cease to be in my service."
All this time my eyes were down, but I was aware that somebody else had
come into the room. It was Miriam, and she was trying to plead for me.
"Father . . ." she began, but, turning hotly upon her, the Jew cried
passionately:
"Go away! A true daughter of Israel should know better than to speak for
such a woman."
I heard the girl going slowly down the stairs, and then the Jew,
stepping up to me and speaking more loudly than before, said:
"Woman, leave my house at once, before you corrupt the conscience of my
child."
Again I became aware that some one had come into the room. It was Mrs.
Abramovitch, and she, too, was pleading for me.
"Israel! Calm thyself! Do not give way to injustice and anger. On
Shobbos morning, too!"
"Hannah," said the Jew, "thou speakest with thy mouth, not thy heart.
The Christian doth not deny that she hath given thee a false name, and
is the adulterous mother of a misbegotten child. If she were a Jewish
woman she would be summoned before the Beth Din, and in better days our
law of Moses would have stoned her. Shall she, because she is a
Christian, dishonour a good Jewish house? No! The hand of the Lord would
go out against me."
"But she is homeless, and she hath been a good servant to thee, Israel.
Give her time to find another shelter."
There was a moment of silence after that, and then the Jew said:
"Very well! It shall not be said that Israel Abramovitch knows not to
temper justice with mercy."
And then, my face being still down, I heard him saying over my head:
"You may stay here another week. After that I wash my hands of thee."
With these hard words he turned away, and I heard him going heavily down
the stairs. His wife stayed a little longer, saying something in a kind
voice, which I did not comprehend, and then she followed him.
I do not think I had spoken a word. I continued to stand where the Jew
had left me. After a while I heard him closing and locking the door of
his own apartment, and knew that he was going off to his synagogue in
Brick Lane in his tall silk hat worn on the back of his head like a
skull-cap, and with his wife and daughter behind him, carrying his
leather-bound prayer-book.
I hardly knew what else was happening. My heart was heaving like a dead
body on a billow. All that the priest had said was gone. In its place
there was a paralysing despair as if the wheels of life were rolling
over me.