e going, his
ruin was only delayed. Little by little his apparatus was sold off,
his benches and polishing-irons vanished from the garret, only one
indispensable set remaining, and master and man must needs quest each
for himself for work elsewhere. The Red Beadle dropped out of the
menage, and was reduced to semi-starvation. Zussmann and Hulda, by the
gradual disposition of their bits of jewellery and their Sabbath
garments, held out a little longer, and Hulda also got some sewing of
children's under-garments. But with the return of winter, Hulda's
illness returned, and then the beloved books began to leave bare the
nakedness of the plastered walls. At first, Hulda, refusing to be
visited by doctors who charged, struggled out bravely through rain and
fog to a free dispensary, where she was jostled by a crowd of
head-shawled Polish crones, and where a harassed Christian physician,
tired of jargon-speaking Jewesses, bawled and bullied. But at last
Hulda grew too ill to stir out, and Zussmann, still out of
employment, was driven to look about him for help. Charities enough
there were in the Ghetto, but to charity, as to work, one requires an
apprenticeship. He knew vaguely that there were persons who had the
luck to be ill and to get broths and jellies. To others, also, a board
of guardian angels doled out payments, though some one had once told
him you had scant chance unless you were a Dutchman. But the
inexperienced in begging are naturally not so successful as those
always at it. 'Twas vain for Zussmann to kick his heels among the
dismal crowd in the corridor, the whisper of his misdeeds had been
before him, borne by some competitor in the fierce struggle for
assistance. What! help a hypocrite to sit on the twin stools of
Christendom and Judaism, fed by the bounty of both! In this dark hour
he was approached by the thin-nosed gentlewomen, who had got wind of
his book and who scented souls. Zussmann wavered. Why, indeed, should
he refuse their assistance? He knew their self-sacrificing days, their
genuine joy in salvation. On their generosities he was far better
posted than on Jewish--the lurid legend of these Mephistophelian
matrons included blankets, clothes, port wine, and all the delicacies
of the season. He admitted that Hulda had indeed been brought low, and
permitted them to call. Then he went home to cut dry bread for the
bedridden, emaciated creature who had once been beautiful, and to
comfort her--for it was