Israel Zangwill

“ Secretly she became more and more convinced that some woman, envious of all this “luck and blessing,” was withering Brum with her Evil Eye. And certainly the poor child was peaking and pining away. “Marasmus,” a physician had once murmured, wondering that so well-dressed a child should appear so ill-nourished. ‘Take him to the sea-side often, and feed him well,” was the universal cry of the doctors; and so Zillah often deserted her husband for a “kosher” boarding-house at Brighton or Ramsgate, where the food was voluminous, and where Brum wrote schoolboy verses to the strange, fascinating sea. ”

“ Brum’s performance was to be so splendid—he was to recite not only his own portion of the Law but the entire Sabbath Sedrah (section) .
“He will never be all right,” said Jossel, who, in the utter breakdown of Zillah, had for the first time made the round of the doctors with Brum. “None of the physicians, not even the most expensive, hold out any hope. And the dearest of all said the case puzzled him. It was like the blindness that often breaks out in Russia after the great fasts, and specially affects delicate children.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Germany! There was a great eye-doctor in Germany, who could do anything and everything. Yes, she would go to Germany.
This resolution, at which Jossel shrugged his shoulders in despairing scepticism, was received with rapture by Brum. How he had longed to see foreign countries, to pass over that shining sea which whispered and beckoned so, at Brighton and Ramsgate! He almost forgot he would not see Germany, unless the eye-doctor were a miracle-monger indeed. ”

“ His wife had kept him in ignorance of the fasts by which she was appealing to Heaven; and when of a Monday or Thursday, on his return from his boot-factory in Bethnal Green, he had sat down to his dinner in Dalston, no suspicion had crossed his mind that it was Zillah’s breakfast. He himself was a prosaic person, incapable of imagining such spontaneities of religion, though he kept every fast which it behoves an orthodox Jew to endure who makes no speciality of sainthood. ”

“ From some pious old crone, after whom (as she could read Hebrew) a cluster of neighbouring dames repeated what they could catch of the New Year prayers in the women’s synagogue, Zillah had learnt that certain holy men were accustomed to afflict their souls on Mondays and Thursdays. From her unsuspecting husband himself she had further elicited that these days were marked out from the ordinary, even for the man of the world, by a special prayer dubbed “the long ‘He being merciful.’” Surely on Mondays and Thursdays, then, He would indeed be merciful. ”

“ He told his mother about Savonarola. “He was burnt!”
“What!” cried Zillah, “Burn a Christian! No wonder, then, they burnt Jews. But why?”
“He wanted the people to be good. All good people suffer.”
“Oh, nonsense, Brum! It is the bad who suffer.”
Then she looked at his wasted, white face, grown thinner with the weariness of the long journey through perpetual night, and wonder at her own words struck her silent.
XV.
They arrived at last in the Eternal City, having taken a final run of many hours without a break. ”

“ Why, that’s at the end of the world—in Italy!”
“I know it’s in Italy!” said Zillah, rejoiced at the information. “But what then? If organ-grinders can travel the distance, why can’t 1?”
“But you can’t speak Italian!”
“And they can’t speak English!”
“Madness! Work but not wisdom! I could not trust you alone in such a strange country, and the season is too busy for me to leave the factory.”
“I don’t need you with me,” she said, vastly relieved. “Brum will be with me.”
He stared at her. “Brum!”
“Brum knows everything. Believe me, Jossel, in two days he will speak Italian.” ”

“ Now that the blind boy was crouching in hopeless misery by the glowing fire, where he had so often recklessly pored over books in the delicious dusk, there was no one handy to write out the countermands. ”

“ The one maid-of-all-work who had supplied all the help and grandeur Zillah needed in her establishment having transferred her services to a husband, Zillah was left searching for an angel at thirteen pounds a year. In the interim the old Irishwoman who made a few pence a week by attending to the Sabbath fires of the poor Jews of the neighbourhood, became necessary on Friday nights and Saturdays, to save the household from cold or sin. ”

“ Paul’s, and Zillah weakly acquiesced in the new deception, especially as the doctor warned her against exciting the boy. But her hopes were brighter than ever; for the old lady had beneficently appeared from behind a pillar in St. Peter’s to offer eau de Cologne for the unconscious Brum, and had then, interesting herself in the couple, promised to procure for her fellow-Catholics admission to the next Papal reception. Being a very rich and fashionable old lady, she kept her word; but unfortunately, when the day came round, Brum was terribly low and forbidden to leave his bed. ”

“ They envied me my beautiful child, my lamb, my only one. And nothing can be done.” She burst into tears.
“Nothin’ is a harrd wurrd! If he was my bhoy, the darlint, I’d cure him, aisy enough, so I wud.”
Zillah’s sobs ceased. “How?” she asked, her eyes gleaming strangely.
“I’d take him to the Pope, av course.”
“The Pope!” repeated Zillah, vaguely.
“Ay, the Holy Father! The ownly man in this wurruld that can take away the Evil Oi.”
Zillah gasped. “Do you mean the Pope of Rome?” ”