Israel Zangwill

“ Mad Mo had strolled vacuously into the ladies’ ward, and, indifferent to the pretty, white-aproned Christian nurses, was loitering by the side of a weird, hatchet-faced cripple, with a stiletto-shaped nose supporting big spectacles. Like most of the patients, she was up and dressed. Only a few of the white pallets ranged along the walls were occupied.
“Leah says she’d be quite happy if she could walk like you,” said Mad Mo, in complimentary tones. “She always says Milly walks so beautiful. She says you can walk the whole length of the garden,”” Milly, huddled in her chair, smiled miserably. ”

“ Her face shone ecstatic.
“Hush!” whispered the dwarf, with a warning nudge and a slight nod in the direction of a neighboring waterbed, on which a pale, rigid, middle-aged woman lay with shut, sleepless eyes.
“Se cannot understand Englis,” said the Russian girl, proudly.
“Don’t be so sure. Look how the nurses here have picked up Yiddish!”
Rachel shook her head incredulously. “Sarah is a Polis’ woman,” she said. “For years dey are in England and dey learn noding.”
“Ich bin krank! Krank! Krank!” suddenly moaned a shrivelled Polish grandmother, as if to corroborate the girl’s contention. ”

“ His readiness to accept the sacrifice was salt upon her wounds.
“Thou deservest I should let thee burn in the lowest Gehenna,” she cried.
“The Almighty is more merciful than thou,” he answered. “It is He that hath ordained it is not good for man to live alone; and yet men shun me—people talk—and she—she may leave me to my loneliness again.” His voice faltered with self-pity. “Here thou hast friends, nurses, visitors, I—I have nothing. ‘True, thou didst bear me children, but they withered as by the evil eye. My only son is across the ocean; he hath no love for me or you.” ”

“ When you lie on your back all day and all night, you have time to think, especially if you do not sleep. A situation presents itself in many lights from dawn to dusk, and from dusk to dawn. One such light flashed on the paradise and showed it to her as but the portico of purgatory. ”

“ Sister Margaret ventured to say in her best Yiddish. “Or he is busy working. Work is not so slack any more.” Alone in the institution she shared Sarah’s ignorance of the Kretznow scandal. Talk of it died before her youth and sweetness. ”

“ There was a buzz of talk in the room—the hydrocephalous girl was the gay centre of a group; the Polish grandmother who cursed her grandchildren when they didn’t come, and when they did, was denouncing their neglect of her to their faces; everybody had somebody to kiss or quarrel with. ”

“ There was even a miniature synagogue for their spiritual needs, with the women’s compartment religiously railed off from the men’s, as if these grotesque ruins of sex might still distract each other’s devotions. ”

“ Her husband would know where to look for her.
“Woe is me!” wailed her octogenarian countrywoman, rocking to and fro. “What sin have I committed to get such grandchildren? You only come to see if the old grandmother isn’t dead yet. So sick! So sick! So sick!”
Twilight filled the wards. The white beds looked ghostly in the darkness. The, last visitor departed. Sarah’s husband had not yet come. ”