Bread Givers

by Anzia Yezierska

Where had gone the light of her eyes, the life that sang and danced when he was near? It seemed to me that something deep down in her had broken and it would never again be fixed. She was like something still walking and talking, but inside she was frozen into something colder than death.

The jarring clatter tore me by the hair, stretched me out of my skin, and grated under my teeth. I felt like one crucified in a torture pit of noise.

They didn’t hunger and thirst for knowledge, they weren’t excited about anything they were learning, so it jarred on them that I was so excited. To them I was only a selfish grabber of their time because I was so crazy to know too much.

My one hope was to get to the educated world, where only the thoughts you give out count, and not how you look.

My one need of needs, stronger than my life, was my love to be loved.

I felt I must tear myself out of my aloneness. Nothing had ever come to me without my going out after it. I had to fight for my living, fight for every bit of my education. Why should I expect friendship and love to come to me out of the air while I sat there, dreaming about it?

As I watched him disappear down the street, I knew with sudden terrible clearness that he was going out of my life forever.

Where? Where has it gone, that light, that spark, that love that looked into mine? What has it to do with that cold clay? It’s here, here, here in my heart. She’s in me, around me. Not in that clay.

As I talked my whole dark past dropped away from me. Such a sense of release! Now I could go on and on—I could never again be lonely!

Then suddenly the pathos of this lonely old man pierced me. In a world where all is changed, he alone remained unchanged—as tragically isolate as the rocks. All that he had left of life was his fanatical adherence to his traditions.