Ghetto Tragedies Part 4

"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."

"Let be! Let be! Let me rest!"

"And on the way back he will be able to see! He will show me everything, and Mr. Raphael's pictures. 'G.o.d's healing,'" she murmured to herself.

"But you'd be away for Pa.s.sover! Enough!"

"No, we shall be easily back by Pa.s.sover."

"O these women! The Almighty could not have rested on the seventh day if he had not left woman still uncreated."

"You don't care whether Brum lives or dies!" Zillah burst into sobs.

"It is just because I do that I ask how are you going to live on the journey? And there are no _kosher_ hotels in Italy."

"We shall manage on eggs and fish. G.o.d will forgive us if the hotel plates are unclean."

"But you won't be properly nourished without meat."

"Nonsense; when we were poor we _had_ to do without it." To herself she thought, "If he only knew I did without food altogether on Mondays and Thursdays!"

XI

And so Brum pa.s.sed at last over the shining, wonderful sea, feeling only the wind on his forehead and the salt in his nostrils. It was a beautiful day at the dawn of spring; the far-stretching sea sparkled with molten diamonds, and Zillah felt that the highest G.o.d's blessing rested like a blue sky over this strange pilgrimage. She was dressed with great taste, and few would have divined the ignorance under her silks.

"Mother, can you see France yet?" Brum asked very soon.

"No, my lamb."

"Mother, can you see France yet?" he persisted later.

"I see white cliffs," she said at last.

"Ah! that's only the white cliffs of Old England. Look the other way."

"I _am_ looking the other way. I see white cliffs coming to meet us."

"Has France got white cliffs, too?" cried Brum, disappointed.

On the journey to Paris he wearied her to describe France. In vain she tried: her untrained vision and poor vocabulary could give him no new elements to weave into a mental picture. There were trees and sometimes houses and churches. And again trees. What kind of trees?

Green! Brum was in despair. France was, then, only like England; white cliffs without, trees and houses within. He demanded the Seine at least.

"Yes, I see a great water," his mother admitted at last.

"That's it! It rises in the Cote d'Or, flows N.N.W. then W., and N.W.

into the English Channel. It is more than twice as long as the Thames.

Perhaps you'll see the tributaries flowing into it--the little rivers, the Oise, the Marne, the Yonne."

"No wonder the angels envy me him!" thought Zillah proudly.

They halted at Paris, putting up for the night, by the advice of a friendly fellow-traveller, at a hotel by the Gare de Lyon, where, to Zillah's joy and amazement, everybody spoke English to her and accepted her English gold--a pleasant experience which was destined to be renewed at each stage, and which increased her hope of a happy issue.

"How loud Paris sounds!" said Brum, as they drove across it. He had to construct it from its noises, for in answer to his feverish interrogations his mother could only explain that some streets were lined with trees and some foolish unrespectable people sat out in the cold air, drinking at little tables.

"Oh, how jolly!" said Brum. "But can't you see Notre Dame?"

"What's that?"

"A splendid cathedral, mother--very old. Do look for two towers. We must go there the first thing to-morrow."

"The first thing to-morrow we take the train. The quicker we get to the doctor, the better."

"Oh, but we can't leave Paris without seeing Notre Dame, and the gargoyles, and perhaps Quasimodo, and all that Victor Hugo describes.

I wonder if we shall see a devil-fish in Italy," he added irrelevantly.

"You'll see the devil if you go to such places," said Zillah, who, besides shirking the labor of description, was anxious not to provoke unnecessarily the G.o.d of Israel.

"But I've often been to St. Paul's with the boys," said Brum.

"Have you?" She was vaguely alarmed.

"Yes, it's lovely--the stained windows and the organ. Yes, and the Abbey's glorious, too; it almost makes me cry. I always liked to hear the music with my eyes shut," he added, with forced cheeriness, "and now that'll be all right."

"But your father wouldn't like it," said Zillah feebly.

"Father wouldn't like me to read the _Pilgrim's Progress_," retorted Brum. "He doesn't understand these things. There's no harm in our going to Notre Dame."

"No, no; it'll be much better to save all these places for the way back, when you'll be able to see for yourself."

Too late it struck her she had missed an opportunity of breaking to Brum the real object of the expedition.

"But the Seine, anyhow!" he persisted. "We can go there to-night."

"But what can you see at night?" cried Zillah, unthinkingly.

"Oh, mother! how beautiful it used to be to look over London Bridge at night when we came back from the Crystal Palace!"

In the end Zillah accepted the compromise, and after their dinner of fish and vegetables--for which Brum had scant appet.i.te--they were confided by the hotel porter to a bulbous-nosed cabman, who had instructions to restore them to the hotel. Zillah thought wistfully of her warm parlour in Dalston, with the firelight reflected in the gla.s.s cases of the wax flowers.

The cab stopped on a quay.