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Driven frantic by a fate crueller than barrenness, the Belcovitches consulted an old Polish Rabbi, who told them they displayed too much fond solicitude for their children, provoking Heaven thereby; in future, they were to let no one but themselves know their next child's name, and never to whisper it till the child was safely married.
Then the tears welled forth and Debby with an impulsive movement pressed the little sobbing form against her faded bodice bristling with pin-heads. Esther recovered herself in a moment and drank some more tea. "Are the same people living here?" she said. "Not altogether. The Belcovitches have gone up in the world. They live on the first floor now."
Thus did Providence hand over the soup the Belcovitches took from old habit to a more necessitous quarter, and demonstrate in double sense that Charity never faileth. Nor was this the only mulct which Providence exacted from the happy father, for later on a townsman of his appeared on the scene in a long capote, and with a grimy woe-begone expression.
Even Levi Jacob's visits became more frequent, though this could scarcely be ascribed to mercenary motives. The Belcovitches recognized their improved status so far as to send to borrow some salt: for the colony of No. 1 Royal Street carried on an extensive system of mutual accommodation, coals, potatoes, chunks of bread, saucepans, needles, wood-choppers, all passing daily to and fro.
One is a thick one and one is a thin one, and so one goes about." Shosshi expressed his sympathetic admiration and the courtship proceeded apace. Sometimes Fanny and Pesach Weingott would be at home working, and they were very affable to him. He began to lose something of his shyness and his lurching gait, and he quite looked forward to his weekly visit to the Belcovitches.
The capitalists, the Belcovitches, would rejoice if they but knew all that is going on. Have we not enemies enough that we must quarrel and split up into little factions among ourselves? It has come to my ears that there are men who insinuate things even about me and before I go on further to-night I wish to put this question to you." He paused and there was a breathless silence.
The Ansells had numerous housemates, for No. 1 Royal Street was a Jewish colony in itself and the resident population was periodically swollen by the "hands" of the Belcovitches and by the "Sons of the Covenant," who came to worship at their synagogue on the ground floor. What with Sugarman the Shadchan, on the first floor, Mrs.
Pesach had a Dutch uncle, but as he had never talked like him Alte alone knew. Alte wasn't her real name, by the way, and Alte was the last person in the world to know what it was. She was the Belcovitches' first successful child; the others all died before she was born.
The Belcovitches had been saving up their already broken crockery for the occasion. The hope was expressed that Mr. and Mrs. Belcovitch would live to see "rejoicings" on their other daughter, and to see their daughters' daughters under the Chuppah, or wedding-canopy. Becky's hardened cheek blushed under the oppressive jocularity.
"Not much of a rise that," said Esther smiling, for the Belcovitches had always lived on the third floor. "Oh, they could have gone to a better street altogether," explained Debby, "only Mr. Belcovitch didn't like the expense of a van." "Then, Sugarman the Shadchan must have moved, too," said Esther. "He used to have the first floor." "Yes, he's got the third now.
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