THE FAT OF THE LAND1 ANZIA YEZIERSKA Glowing with the passionate idealism of the Russian immigrant who looks to America as the land of promise, and quivering with the bitterness of inevitable disillusion, Anzia Yezierska, (1885- ) until her ninth year a native of Russia, still holds to her faith in the fulfillment of the American ideal. She is poignantly aware of the tragedies that attend those of her race who, coming to our shores with high hearts, must accommodate their vision to the stern economic conditions that await them. In "The Fat of the Land" Anzia Yezierska has convincingly pictured the squalid life of New York's Ghetto, and the tragic dilemma that is precipitated when one of the older generation tries to adjust herself to the "up-town" existence of her children. The accurate transcript of life with its wealth of minor detail, and the rejection of many conventional devices admirably exemplifies the naturalistic method. Originally published in the Century Magazine in 1919, "The Fat of the Land" appeared the next year in a volume of similar stories aptly entitled Hungry Hearts. IN AN air-shaft so narrow that you could touch the next wall with your bare hands, Hanneh Breineh leaned out and knocked on her neighbor's window. "Can you loan me your wash-boiler for the clothes?" she called. Mrs. Pelz threw up the sash. "The boiler? What's the matter with yours again? Didn't you tell me you had it fixed already last week?" "A black year on him, the robber, the way he fixed it! If you have no luck in this world, then it's better not to live. There I spent out fifteen cents to stop up one hole, and it runs out another. How I ate out my gall bargaining with him he should let it down to fifteen cents! He wanted yet a quarter, the swindler. Gottuniu! my bitter heart on him for every penny he took from me for nothing!" "You got to watch all those swindlers, or they'll steal the whites out of your eyes," admonished Mrs. Pelz. "You should have tried out your boiler before you paid him. Wait a minute till I empty out my dirty clothes in a pillowcase; then I'll hand it to you." Mrs. Pelz returned with the boiler and tried to hand it across to Hanneh Breineh, but the soap-box refrigerator on the window-sill was in the way. 1From Hungry Hearts by Anzia Yezierska. Reprinted by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers, and Anzia Yezierska, author. 2"Dear God!" "You got to come in for the boiler yourself," said Mrs. Pelz. "Wait only till I tie my Sammy on to the high-chair he shouldn't fall on me again. He's so wild that ropes won't hold him." Hanneh Breineh tied the child in the chair, stuck a pacifier in his mouth, and went in to her neighbor. As she took the boiler Mrs. Pelz said: "Do you know Mrs. Melker ordered fifty pounds of chicken for her daughter's wedding? And such grand chickens! Shining like gold! My heart melted in me just looking at the flowing fatness of those chickens." Hanneh Breineh smacked her thin, dry lips, a hungry gleam in her sunken eyes. "Fifty pounds!" she gasped. "It ain't possible. How do you know?" "I heard her with my own ears. I saw them with my own eyes. And she said she will chop up the chicken livers with onions and eggs for an appetizer, and then she will buy twenty-five pounds of fish, and cook it sweet and sour with raisins, and she said she will bake all her strudels on pure chicken fat." "Some people work themselves up in the world," sighed Hanneh Breineh. "For them is America flowing with milk. and honey. In Savel Mrs. Melker used to get shriveled up from hunger. She and her children used to live on potato peelings and crusts of dry bread picked out from the barrels; and in America she lives to eat chicken, and apple strudels soaking in fat." "The world is a wheel always turning," philosophized Mrs. Pelz. "Those who were high go down low, and those who've been low go up higher. Who will believe me here in America that in Poland I was a cook in a banker's house? I handled ducks and geese every day. I used to bake coffee-cake with cream so thick you could cut it with a knife." discovered a swelling lump on his forehead. "Have you a quarter in your house?" she asked. "Yes, I got one," replied Hanneh Breineh, climbing on a chair. "I got to keep it on a high shelf where the children can't get it." Mrs. Pelz seized the quarter Hanneh Breineh handed down to her. "Now pull your left eyelid three times while I'm pressing the quarter, and you will see the swelling go down." Hanneh Breineh took the child again in her arms, shaking and cooing over it and caressing it. "And do you think I was a nobody in Poland?" broke in Hanneh Breineh, tears welling in her eyes as the memories of her past rushed over her. "But what's the use of talking? In America money is "Ah-ah-ah, Sammy! Ah-ah-ah-ah, liteverything. Who cares who my father tle lamb! Ah-ah-ah, little bird! Ahor grandfather was in Poland? With-ah-ah-ah, precious heart! Oh, you saved out money I'm a living dead one. My head dries out worrying how to get for the children the eating a penny cheaper." Mrs. Pelz wagged her head, a gnawing envy contracting her features. "Mrs. Melker had it good from the day she came," she said begrudgingly. "Right away she sent all her children to the factory, and she began to cook meat for dinner every day. She and her children have eggs and buttered rolls for breakfast each morning like millionaires." A sudden fall and a baby's scream and the boiler dropped from Hanneh Breineh's hands as she rushed into her kitchen, Mrs. Pelz after her. They found the highchair turned on top of the baby. My "Gevalt!1 Save me! Run for a doctor!" cried Hanneh Breineh as she dragged the child from under the highchair. "He's killed! He's killed! only child! My precious lamb!" she shrieked as she ran back and forth with the screaming infant. Mrs. Pelz snatched little Sammy from the mother's hands. "Meshugneh! what are you running around like a crazy, frightening the child? Let me see. Let me tend to him. He ain't killed yet." She hastened to the sink to wash the child's face, and 1An exclamation in an emergency. "Crazy!" my life; I thought he was killed," gasped Hanneh Breineh, turning to Mrs. Pelz. "Oi-i!" she sighed, "a mother's heart! Always in fear over her children. The minute anything happens to them all life goes out of me. I lose my head and I don't know where I am any more." "No wonder the child fell," admonished Mrs. Pelz. "You should have a red ribbon or red beads on his neck to keep away the evil eye. Wait. I got something in my machine-drawer." Mrs. Pelz returned, bringing the boiler and a red string, which she tied about the child's neck while the mother proceeded to fill the boiler. A little later Hanneh Breineh again came into Mrs. Pelz's kitchen, holding Sammy in one arm and in the other an apron full of potatoes. Putting the child down on the floor, she seated herself on the unmade kitchen-bed and began to peel the potatoes in her apron. "Woe to me!" sobbed Hanneh Breineh. "To my bitter luck there ain't no end. With all my other troubles, the stove got broke. I lighted the fire to boil the clothes, and it's to get choked with smoke. I paid rent only a week ago, and the agent don't want to fix it. A thunder should strike him! He only comes for the rent, and if anything has to be fixed, then he don't want to hear nothing. "Why comes it to me so hard?" went on Hanneh Breineh, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "I can't stand it no more. I came into you for a minute to run away from my troubles. It's only when I sit myself down to peel potatoes or nurse the baby that I take time to draw a breath, and beg only for death." Mrs. Pelz, accustomed to Hanneh Breineh's bitter outbursts, continued her scrubbing. "Ut!" exclaimed Hanneh Breineh, irritated at her neighbor's silence, "what are you tearing up the world with your cleaning? What's the use to clean up when everything only gets dirty again?" "I got to shine up my house for the holidays." "You've got it so good nothing lays on your mind but to clean your house. Look on this little blood-sucker," said Hanneh Breineh, pointing to the wiz ened child, made prematurely solemn from starvation and neglect. "Could anybody keep that brat clean? I wash him one minute, and he is dirty the minute after." Little Sammy grew frightened and began to cry. "Shut up!" ordered the mother, picking up the child to nurse it again. "Can't you see me take a rest for a minute?" The hungry child began to cry at the top of its weakened lungs. "Na. na, you glutton." Hanneh Breineh took out a dirty pacifier from her pocket and stuffed it into the baby's mouth. The grave, pasty-faced infant shrank into a panic of fear, and chewed the nipple nervously, clinging to it with both his thin little hands. "For what did I need yet the sixth one?" groaned Hanneh Breineh, turning to Mrs. Pelz. "Wasn't it enough five mouths to feed? If I didn't have this child on my neck, I could turn myself around and earn a few cents." She wrung her hands in a passion of despair. "Gottuniu! the earth should only take it before it grows up!" "Pshaw! Pshaw!" reproved Mrs. Pelz. "Pity yourself on the child. Let it grow up already so long as it is here. See how frightened it looks on you." Mrs. Pelz took the child in her arms and petted it. "The poor little lamb! What did it done you should hate it so?" Hanneh Breineh pushed Mrs. Pelz away from her. "To whom can I open the wounds of my heart?" she moaned. "Nobody has pity on me. You don't believe me, nobody believes me until I'll fall down like a horse in the middle of the street. Oi weh!' mine life is so black for my eyes. Some mothers got luck. A child gets run over by a car, some fall from a window, some burn themselves up with a match, some get choked with diphtheria: but no death takes mine away." "God from the world! stop cursing!" admonished Mrs. Pelz. "What do you want from the poor children? Is it their fault that their father makes small wages? Why do you let it all out on them?” Mrs. Pelz sat down beside Hanneh Breineh. "Wait only till your children get old enough to go to the shop and earn money," she consoled. "Push only through those few years while they are yet small; your sun will begin to shine, you will live on the fat of the land, when they begin to bring you in the wages each week." Hanneh Breineh refused to be comforted. "Till they are old enough to go to the shop and earn money they'll eat the head off my bones," she wailed. "If you only knew the fights I got by each meal. Maybe I gave Abe a bigger piece of bread than Fanny. Maybe Fanny got a little more soup in her plate than Jake. Eating is dearer than diamonds. Potatoes went up a cent a pound, and milk is only for millionaires. And once a week, when I buy a little meat for the Sabbath, the butcher weighs it for me like gold, with all the bones in it. When I come to lay the meat out on a plate and divide it up. there ain't nothing to it but bones. Before, he used to throw me in a piece of fat extra or a piece of lung, but now you 1"Oh dear!" got to pay for everything, even for a bone o the soup." "Never mind; you'll yet come out from all your troubles. Just as soon as your children get old enough to get their workIng papers the more children you got, the more money you'll have." "Why should I fool myself with the false shine of hope? Don't I know it's Don't I know it's already my black luck not to have it good in this world? Do you think American children will right away give everything they earn to their mother?" "I know what is with you the matter," said Mrs. Pelz. "You didn't eat yet today. When it is empty in the stomach, the whole world looks black. Come, only let me give you something good to taste in the mouth; that will freshen you up." Mrs. Pelz went to the cupboard and brought out the saucepan of gefülte fish' that she had cooked for dinner and placed it on the table in front of Hanneh Breineh. "Give a taste my fish," she taste my fish," she said, taking one slice on a spoon, and handing it to Hanneh Breineh with a piece of bread. "I wouldn't give it to you on a plate because I just cleaned out my house, and I don't want to dirty up my dishes." "What, am I a stranger you should have to serve me on a plate yet!" cried Hanneh Breineh, snatching the fish in her trembling fingers. "Oi weh! how it melts through all the bones!" she exclaimed, brightening as she ate. "May it be for good luck to us all!" she exulted, waving aloft the last precious bite. Mrs. Pelz was so flattered that she even ladled up a spoonful of gravy. "There is a bit of onion and carrot in it," she said as she handed it to her neighbor. Hanneh Breineh sipped the gravy drop by drop, like a connoisseur sipping wine. "Ah-h-h! a taste of that gravy lifts me up to heaven!" As she disposed leisurely of the slice of onion and carrot she relaxed and expanded and even grew 1"Stuffed fish.” jovial. "Let us wish all our troubles on the Russian Czar! Let him bust with our worries for rent! Let him get shriveled with our hunger for bread! Let his eyes dry out of his head looking for work! "Pshaw! I'm forgetting from everything," she exclaimed, jumping up. “It must be eleven or soon twelve, and my children will be right away out of school and fall on me like a pack of wild wolves. I better quick run to the market and see what cheaper I can get for a quarter." Because of the lateness of her coming, the stale bread at the nearest bake-shop was sold out, and Hanneh Breineh had to trudge from shop to shop in search of the usual bargain, and spent nearly an hour to save two cents. In the meantime the children returned from school, and, finding the door locked, climbed through the fire-escape, and entered the house through the window. Seeing nothing on the table, they rushed to the stove. Abe pulled a steaming potato out of the boiling pot, and so scalded his fingers that the potato fell to the floor; whereupon the three others pounced on it. "It was my potato," cried Abe, blowing his burned fingers, while with th other hand and his foot he cuffed and kicked the three who were struggling on the floor. A wild fight ensued, and the potato was smashed under Abe's foot amid shouts and screams. Hanneh Breineh, on the stairs, heard the noise of her famished brood, and topped their cries with curses and invectives. "They are here already, the savages! They are here already to shorten my life! They heard you all over the hall, in all the houses around!" The children, disregarding her words, pounced on her market-basket, shouting ravenously: "Mama, I'm hungry! What more do you got to eat?" They tore the bread and herring out of Hanneh Breineh's basket and devoured it in starved savagery, clamoring for more. "Murderers!" screamed Hanneh Breineh, goaded beyond endurance. "What are you tearing from me my flesh? From where should I steal to give you more? Here I had already a pot of potatoes and a whole loaf of bread and two herrings, and you swallowed it down in the wink of an eye. I have to have Rockefeller's millions to fill your stomachs." All at once Hanneh Breineh became aware that Benny was missing. "Oi weh!" she burst out, wringing her hands. in a new wave of woe, "where is Benny? Didn't he come home yet from school?" She ran out into the hall, opened the grime-coated window, and looked up and down the street; but Benny was nowhere in sight. "Abe, Jake, Fanny, quick, find Benny!" entreated Hanneh Breineh as she rushed back into the kitchen. But the children, anxious to snatch a few minutes' play before the school-call, dodged past her and hurried out. With the baby on her arm, Hanneh Breineh hastened to the kindergarten. "Why are you keeping Benny here so long?" she shouted at the teacher as she flung open the door. "If you had my bitter heart, you would send him home long ago and not wait till I got to come for him." The teacher turned calmly and consulted her record-cards. "Benny Safron? He wasn't present this morning." "Not here?" shrieked Hanneh Breineh. "I pushed him out myself he should go. The children didn't want to take him and I had no time. Woe is me! Where is my child?" She began pulling her hair and beating her breast as she ran into the street. Mrs. Pelz was busy at a push-cart, picking over some spotted apples, when she heard the clamor of an approaching crowd. A block off she recognized Hanneh Breineh, her hair disheveled, her clothes awry, running toward her with her yelling baby in her arms, the crowd following. "Friend mine," cried Hanneh Breineh, falling on Mrs. Pelz's neck, "I lost my Benny, the best child of all my children." Tears streamed down her red, swollen eyes as she sobbed. "Benny! mine heart. mine life! Oi-i!" Mrs. Pelz took the frightened baby out of the mother's arms. "Still yourself a little! See how you're frightening your child." "Woe to me! Where is my Benny? Maybe he's killed already by a car. Maybe he fainted away from hunger. He didn't eat nothing all day long. Gottuniu! pity yourself on me!" She lifted her hands full of tragic entreaty. "People, my child! Get me my child! I'll go crazy out of my head! Get me my child, or I'll take poison before your eyes!" "Still yourself a little!" pleaded Mrs. Pelz. "Talk not to me!" cried Hanneh Breineh, wringing her hands. "You're having all your children. I lost mine. Every good luck comes to other people. But I didn't live yet to see a good day in my life. Mine only joy, mine Benny, is lost away from me." The crowd followed Hanneh Breineh as she wailed through the streets, leaning on Mrs. Pelz. By the time she returned to her house the children were back from school; but seeing that Benny was not there, she chased them out in the street, crying: "Out of here, you robbers, gluttons! Go find Benny!" Hanneh Breineh crumpled into a chair in utter prostration. "Oi, weh! he's lost! Mine life; my little bird; mine only joy! How many nights I spent nursing him when he had the measles! And all that I suffered for weeks and months when he had the whooping-cough! How the eyes went out of my head till I learned him how to walk, till I learned him how to talk! And such a smart child! If I lost all the others, it wouldn't tear me so by the heart." She worked herself up into such a hysteria, crying, and tearing her hair, and hitting her head with her knuckles, that at last she fell into a faint. It took |