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But I stood firm, and I came away in a state of the blackest wretchedness and self-disgust I could never again bring myself to show my face at her house A little music-store was now my chief resort. It was kept by a man whom I had met at the synagogue of the Sons of Antomir, a former cantor who now supplemented his income from the store by doing occasional service as a wedding bard.
The immense restaurant, with its high, frescoed ceiling, the dazzling whiteness of its rows and rows of table-cloths, the crowd of well-dressed customers, the glint and rattle of knives and forks, the subdued tones of the orchestra, and the imposing black-and-white figures of the waiters struck terror into my Antomir heart.
I was born in Antomir, in the Northwestern Region, Russia, in 1865. All I remember of my father is his tawny beard, a huge yellow apple he once gave me at the gate of an orchard where he was employed as watchman, and the candle which burned at his head his body lay under a white shroud on the floor.
The immigrants from the various Russian, Galician, or Roumanian towns usually have their respective synagogues in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago. So I sought out the house of worship of the Sons of Antomir
He had discovered a "treasure" a pious, rich, elderly woman whose latest hobby was to care for at least eighteen poor Talmudists eighteen being the numerical value of the letters composing the Hebrew word for "life." Her name was Shiphrah Minsker. She belonged to one of the oldest families in Antomir, and her husband was equally well-born.
A short time after this conversation I had trouble with the Cloak-makers' Union, of which Gussie was one of the oldest and most loyal members The cause of the conflict was an operator named Blitt, a native of Antomir, who had been working in my shop for some months.
And all the while I was thus absorbed, seemingly oblivious to everything else, I was alive to the fact that it was Passover and the eve of the anniversary of my mother's death; that three or four hours later I should be solemnizing her memorial day at the new Synagogue of the Sons of Antomir; that while there I should sit next to Mr.
We mostly spoke in Yiddish, and our Antomir enunciation was like a bond of kinship between us, and yet I felt that she spoke to me in the patronizing, didactical way which one adopts with a foreigner, as though the world to which she belonged was one whose interests were beyond my comprehension She inquired about my early struggles and subsequent successes.
Then I reflected that it was my story of her death that had led Even to spend so much money on me. It seemed as if she were taking care of me from her grave. It seemed, too, as though she had died so that I might arouse sympathy and make a good start in America. I thought of her and of all Antomir, and my pangs of yearning for her were tinged with pangs of my unrequited love for Matilda.
She was born in New York and had graduated at a public grammar-school and English was the only language which she spoke like one born to speak it, and yet her Yiddish greeting was precisely what it would have been had she been born and bred in Antomir Her "Good holiday, dad. Good holiday, Dave!" went straight to my heart
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