Israel Zangwill

“ For at sixty she was already meagre, had already the appearance of the venerable grandmother she was now to become, save that her hair, being only a pious wig, remained rigidly young and black. Life had always gone hard with her. Since her husband's death, when Fanny was a child, she had scraped together a scanty livelihood by selling odds and ends for a little more than she gave for them. At the back doors of villas she haggled with miserly mistresses, gentlewoman and old clo'-woman linked by their common love of a bargain. ”

“ WHEN her Fanny did at last marry, Natalya—as everybody called the old clo'-woman—was not over-pleased at the bargain. Natalya had imagined beforehand that for a matronly daughter of twenty-three, almost past the marrying age, any wedding would be a profitable transaction. But when a husband actually presented himself, all the old dealer's critical maternity was set a-bristle. Henry Elkman, she insisted, had not a true Jewish air. ”

“ The children are their father's."
"Yes, their Father's in heaven," and she raised her hand like an ancient prophetess, while the other supported her bag over her shoulder. "The children are the children of Israel, and they must carry forward the yoke of the Law."
"And what do you propose?" he said, with a scornful sniff.
"Give me the children. I will elevate them in the fear of the Lord. You go your own godless way, free of burdens—you and your Christian poppet. You no longer belong to us. Give me the children and I'll go away." ”

“ A cab would be necessary to carry her goods to her distant garret. what an opportunity for carrying off the children at the same time. The economy of it tickled her, made her overestimate the chances of capture. The house was actually on her homeward route. As she packed the motley, far-spreading heap into the symmetry of her sack, pressing and squeezing the clothes incredibly tighter and tighter till it seemed a magic sack that could swallow up even the Bow Clothing Emporium, Natalya's brain revolved feverish fancy-pictures of the coming adventure. ”

“ The baby opened its eyes and shot a smile at her, a wonderful, trustful smile from great blue eyes. Natalya trembled; those were the blue eyes that had supplanted the memory of Fanny's dark orbs, and the lips now sucking contentedly were the cherry lips of the painted poppet.
"Nebbich; the poor, deserted little orphan," she apologised to herself. "And this is how the new Jewish wife does her duty to her stepchildren. She might as well have been a Christian." Then a remembrance that the Christian woman had seemingly been an unimpeachable stepmother confused her thoughts further. ”

“ Elkman, and then at last came the thunder-clap—Henry had disappeared, without leaving a trace. The wicked wife and the innocent brats had the four-roomed home to themselves. The Bow Clothing Emporium knew him no more. Some whispered suicide, others America. The cutter of the Emporium who favoured the latter hypothesis reported a significant saying. "I have lived with two angels, I can't live with a demon."
"Ah, at last he sees my Fanny was an angel," said Natalya, neglecting to draw the deduction anent America, and passing even the other angel. ”

“ Elkman was a bouncing beauty of a good, orthodox stock, that she brought with her fifty pounds in cash, besides bedding and house-linen accumulated by her parents without prevision that she would marry an old hand, already provided with these household elements.
The old clo'-woman's emotions were more mingled than ever. She felt vaguely that the Jewish minister should not so unquestioningly have accorded the scamp the privileges of the hymeneal canopy. Some lustral rite seemed necessary to purify him of his Christian conjunction. ”

“ It was futile of Fanny to insist that Henry had never gone to the races, that his duties as book-keeper of the Bow Clothing Emporium prevented him from going to the laces, and that the cut of his clothes was intended to give tone to his own establishment.
"Ah, yes, he does not take thee to the races," she insisted in Yiddish. "But all these young men with check suits and flowers in their buttonholes bet and gamble and go to the bad, and their wives and children fall back en their old mothers for support." ”

“ How indeed could a man who had known the blessing of a sober, God-fearing wife endure a drunkard and a child-beater? "No wonder he killed himself!"
The gossips pointed out that the saying implied flight rather than suicide. ”

“ They love their stepmother."
"Love that painted jade? They, with Jewish blood warm in their veins, with the memory of their mother warm in their hearts? Impossible!"
He opened the door gently. "Becky! Joe! No, don't you come, Madge, darling. It's all right. The old lady wants to say 'Good-day' to the children."
The two children tripped into the passage, with napkins tied round their chins, their mouths greasy, but the rest of their persons unfamiliarly speckless and tidy. They stood still at the sight of their grandmother, so stern and frowning. Henry shut the door carefully. ”