Both Zillah and Jossel lived in happy ignorance of most things,
especially of their ignorance. The manufacture of boots and all that
appertained thereto, the synagogue and religion, misunderstood
reminiscences of early days in Russia, the doings and misdoings of a
petty social circle, and such particular narrowness with general
muddle as is produced by stumbling through a Sabbath paper and a
Sunday paper: these were the main items in their intellectual
inventory. Separate Zillah from her husband and she became even
poorer, for she could not read at all.
Yet they prospered. The pavements of the East End resounded with their
hob-nailed boots, and even in many a West End drawing-room their
patent-leather shoes creaked. But they themselves had no wish to stand
in such shoes; the dingy perspectives of Dalston villadom limited
their ambition, already sufficiently gratified by migration from
Whitechapel. The profits went to enlarge their factory and to buy
houses, a favourite form of investment in their set. Zillah could cook
fish to perfection, both fried and stewed, and the latter variety both
sweet and sour. Nothing, in fine, had been wanting to their
happiness--save a son, heir, and mourner.
When he came at last, little that religion or superstition could do
for him was left undone. An amulet on the bedpost scared off Lilith,
Adam's first wife, who, perhaps because she missed being the mother of
the human race, hankers after babes and sucklings. The initiation into
the Abrahamic covenant was graced by a pious godfather with pendent
ear-locks, and in the ceremony of the Redemption of the First-Born the
five silver shekels to the priest were supplemented by golden
sovereigns for the poor. Nor, though Zillah spoke the passable English
of her circle, did she fail to rock her Brum's cradle to the old
"Yiddish" nursery-songs:--
"Sleep, my birdie, shut your eyes,
O sleep, my little one;
Too soon from cradle you'll arise
To work that must be done.
"Almonds and raisins you shall sell,
And holy scrolls shall write;
So sleep, dear child, sleep sound and well,
Your future beckons bright.
"Brum shall learn of ancient days,
And love good folk of this;
So sleep, dear babe, your mother prays,
And God will send you bliss."
Alas, that with all this, Brum should have grown up a weakling, sickly
and anaemic, with a look that in the child of poorer parents would have
said starvation.