Abe’s mother was an old woman, with the powerful and primitive4 features of the aged5 Jewess: she was almost toothless, a solitary6 blackened tooth stood mournfully in the centre of her strong ruined mouth; she had a craggy worn face, seamed and furrowed7 by a countless8 sorrow, a powerful beaked9 nose, and a strong convulsive mouth, a mask which was like a destiny, since it seemed to have been carved and fashioned for the dirge-like wailing11 of eternal grief. The face of the old woman might have served not only as the painting of the whole history of her race, but as the painting of the female everywhere — not the female with her ephemeral youth, her brief snares12 of hair and hide, her succulent burst of rose-lips and flowing curve — but the female timeless, ageless, fixed13 in sorrow and fertility, as savage14, as enduring, and as fecund15 as the earth. The old woman’s face was like a worn rock at which all the waves of life had smashed and beaten: it was unmistakably the face of an old Jewess and yet the powerful and craggy features bore an astonishing resemblance to the face of a pioneer woman or of an old Indian chief.
Her life, moreover, had the agelessness of the earth, the timelessness of her race and destiny: she had not been touched at all by the furious and savage life of the city with its sensational16 brevities, its hard, special, temporal qualities of speech, fashion, and belief, its million ephemeral enthusiasms, briefly17 held and forgotten, the stunned18 oblivion of its memory, which, in the brutal19 stupefaction of a thousand days, can hold to nothing, so that even the memory of love and death cannot endure there and a man may forget his dead brother ere his flesh grow rotten in the grave.
The old woman did not forget: for her, as for the God she worshipped, the passing of seven thousand years was like the passing of a single day; yesterday, tomorrow, and for ever, a moment at the heart of love and memory. Thus, once when Eugene had called Abe upon the telephone, a full year after the death of his oldest brother, Jacob, the old woman had answered: the old voice came feebly, brokenly, indecipherably, and was like a wail10. He asked for Abe, she could not understand, she began to talk in an excited, toothless mumble21 — a torrent22 of Yiddish broken here and there by a few mangled23 words and scraps24 of English — all she knew. At length Eugene made her understand he wanted to speak to Abe: suddenly she recognized his voice and remembered him. Then, instantly, as if it had happened only the day before and as if he had been a friend of her dead son, although he had never known him, the old woman began to wail, faintly and rhythmically25, across the wire: “Jakie! . . . My Jakie! . . . Mein Sohn Jakie! . . . He is dead.”
A few days later Eugene had gone home with Abe for dinner: he lived with his mother, two brothers, and Jimmy, his sister’s illegitimate child, in a flat which occupied the second floor of an old four-storey red-brick house in Twelfth Street, near Second Avenue, on the East Side. The old woman had prepared a good meal for them: a thick rich soup, chopped chicken livers, chicken, cake, and a strong sweet wine: she served them but would not sit and eat with them: she came in briefly and shook hands shyly and awkwardly, mumbling26 incoherently a mangled jargon27 of Yiddish and English. Suddenly, however, as if she had briefly mastered herself by a strong effort, her old and sorrowful face was twisted by a convulsion of powerful and incurable28 grief, and a long, terrible, savagely29 wailing cry was torn from her throat: she turned blindly, and with a movement of natural and primitive sorrow, she suddenly seized the edges of her apron30 in her gnarled and worn hands and flung it up over her head and rushed toward the door at a blind, lunging, reeling step. She was like one demented by sorrow: the old woman began to beat her withered31 breasts and pull at her wispy32 grey hair, meanwhile running and stumbling blindly round her kitchen in a horrible and savage dementia and drunkenness of grief. Abe followed her out, and Eugene could hear his voice, low, urgent, and tender, as he spoke33 to her persuasively34 in Yiddish, and her long wailing cries subsided35 and he returned. His face was sad and weary-looking and in a moment he said: “Mama’s breaking up fast. She’s never been able to get over my brother’s death. She thinks about it all the time: she can’t get it off her mind.”
“How long has he been dead, Abe?”
“He died over a year ago,” Abe said. “But that doesn’t matter: I know her — she’ll never forget it now as long as she lives. She’ll always feel the same about it.”
This terrible and savage picture of grief was carved upon Eugene’s memory unforgettably: it became a tremendous and formidable fact, a fact as ancient, timeless, and savage as the earth, a fact which neither the stupefying oblivion of the city’s life, the furious chaos36 of the streets, nor the savage glare of ten thousand blind and dusty days could touch. The old woman’s grief was taller than their tallest towers, and more enduring than all their steel and stone: it would last for ever when all the city’s bones were dust, and it was like the grief of all the women who had ever beat their breasts and flung their aprons37 across their heads and run, wailing, with a demented and drunken step: it filled him with horror, anger, a sense of cruelty, disgust, and pity.
She was the fertile and enduring earth from which they sprang, and all of them, transformed so sharply and so curiously38 by the city’s tone and life, drew in to her with devotion and respect: Abe, with his dreary39 grey face of the man-swarm cipher20; Sylvia, with her feverish40, electric night-time glitter; all of the brothers and sisters, with all that was new, sharp, alien, flashy, trivial, or material in speech, dress, manner, and belief — all of them returned to her with love, loyalty41, and reverence42 as to some great brood-hen of the earth. The old woman’s life was rooted in the soil of two devotions: the synagogue and the home, and all that happened beyond the limits of this devotion was phantom43 and remote: this soil was ageless, placeless, everlasting44.
Abe loved his mother dearly: whenever he spoke of her, even casually45, his voice was touched with a hush46 of respect and affection. But he disliked his father: the few times Eugene heard him mention him he spoke of him in a hard and bitter voice, referring to him as “that guy” or “that fellow,” as if he were a stranger. Eugene never saw the father: the children all felt bitterly towards him and had sent him away to live alone. Abe told Eugene that the man was a shoemaker, and apparently47 improvident48 and thriftless. He had never been able to earn enough to support his family, and in addition, Abe said, he was a petty family tyrant49. Abe’s childhood had been scarred by memories of privation, tyranny and poverty — the mother and the children had had a bitter struggle for existence, and Abe had worked since his eighth year at a variety of hard, grey, shabby and joyless employments: he had been a newsboy, a grocer’s delivery boy, an office boy in a broker’s office, a typist in a collection agency endlessly writing out form letters, the office man and secretary for the head-professor of the architectural school, and one of these pallid50, swarthy, greasily51 sweating youths of the fur and garment house districts who ceaselessly propel through swarming52 and kaleidoscopic53 streets of trade small wheel-trucks piled high with dresses, garments, furs, and clothes or with the thousand travelling varieties of all that horrible nondescript junk known under the indecisive name of “novelties.” Once, also, he had spent part of a summer in New Jersey54 unloading freight cars filled with Georgia water-melons, and for a considerable time he had driven a truck for his two oldest brothers, who had a zinc55 business in the “gas-house district” of the East Side, between Avenue A and the river and North of Fourteenth Street.
Here, once, Eugene had accompanied him at noon of a flashing day in spring, a glitter of light and flashing waters, a sparkle of gold and blue: in a large bare space near factories they had seen a ring of young thugs throwing dice56, and near the river were the immense and ugly turrets57 of the gas tanks, and then the wharves58, the great odorous piers60, and the flashing waters — the vast exultant61 play and traffic of the river life, the powerful little tugs62, the ships, and the barges63 laden64 with their strings65 of rusty66 freight cars.
As they walked away through the powerful ugliness and devastation67 of that district, with its wasteland rusts68 and rubbish, its slum-like streets of rickety tenement69 and shabby brick, its vast raw thrust of tank, glazed70 glass and factory building, and at length its clean, cold, flashing strength and joy of waters — a district scarred by that horror of unutterable desolation and ugliness and at the same time lifted by a powerful rude exultancy71 of light and sky and sweep and water, such as is found only in America, and for which there is yet no language — as they walked away along a street, the blue wicked shells of empty bottles began to explode on the pavements all round them: when they looked round to see from what quarter this attack was coming, the street was empty save for a young thug who leaned against the rotting edge of a closed door, hands thrust in pockets, and a look of pustulate and evil innocence72 upon his thin tough Irish face. The street was evil and silent and empty, but when they turned and went on again, the exploding bottles began to drop around them on the pavement in splinters of sinister73 blue.
Abe grinned toughly: he did not seem at all surprised or perturbed74 by the murderous stealth and secrecy75 of the attack, its obscene and cowardly uselessness. He explained that the district had been one of the worst in the city and the headquarters for one of the most criminal gangs: time and again the gangsters76 had broken into his brother’s zinc shop and robbed it, and Abe and all his brothers, being Jews, had had to fight it out since childhood, foot and fist and tooth and nail, and club and stone, with the young Irish toughs and gangsters who infested77 the district. Such had been his childhood: he told Eugene many stories of bloody78 fights waged back and forth79 across these pavements, of young boys maimed, crippled, or blinded in these savage fights, of one boy who had his eye torn out of his head by his enemy’s gouging80 thumb in a fight to a finish on one of the piers, and of another whose brains had been smashed out on the pavement below the elevated structure by a rock hurled81 by an enemy’s hand in a fight of the neighbourhood gangs. Thus, in pier59 and alley82, on street and roof, children had learned the arts of murder, the smell of blood, the odour of brains upon the pavement. Abe told how one of his older brothers, Barney — a thickly set, powerful-looking man with short thick hands and a tough meaty-looking fighter’s face, grey, square, and good-humoured — had to fight it out step by step with the gangsters, who had come to his shop, again and again, with demands for money — money which the merchants of the district paid them meekly83 and regularly for “protection”— a euphemism84 for graft85 and menace, a bribe86 for being left alone and for the assurance that one’s shop would not be entered and one’s stock smashed or stolen in the night. Barney had met all these menaces with a hard cold eye and two rock-like fists with which time and again he had beaten into a pulp87 the thugs who came to threaten him: he was a good man and a savage fighter and he had learned the arts of combat in the sternest and most brutal arena88 on earth — the city streets.
“And — oh-ho-ho-ho!”— softly, painfully, Abe lifted his widely grinning face and laughed, “how that guy loves it! Say! they picked the wrong one when they picked on him! Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho! CAN he fight! DOES he love it! Say! do you know what I saw him do to two of them one time — oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! Gee89! it was rich! They came in there to shake him down and — Oh! Ho-ho! — ho! You shoulda seen it! He picks up a keg of zinc that weighs 200 pounds and he BREAKS it — oh-ho-ho-ho! — over the first guy’s head.”
“And what became of the second guy?”
“Oh-ho-ho-ho! . . . Gee it was rich! You shoulda seen that other guy get out of there! Say! He almost tore the door down in his hurry — oh-ho-ho-ho!”
Such were the various members of this family as Eugene came to know about them: each of them in his own way was marked by a decisive individuality and independence of spirit which told of their lives of combat, toil90 and struggle in the city streets, and yet, although indelibly marked, scarred and hardened by his life, none of them had been brutalized by it. In fact, as Eugene thought of all these people later, an extraordinary quality in them became evident. It was this: here was a family of poor East Side Jews, the children of an immigrant and thriftless shoemaker and an old orthodox Jewish woman. These children had all had to make their own way, to fight and struggle bitterly for a living: now some of them were tough, rugged and unlettered merchants, traders and mechanics, some were successful milliners and designers, and some were talented musicians, students of science, people of extraordinary intelligence and ability. And all of them, even the most unlettered, seemed to have a completely natural unaffected interest and respect for the arts or for scholarly and intellectual attainment91. This circumstance — this remarkable92 fusion93 in one poor Jewish family of elements which would have seemed almost incredible in the families of poor labouring or country people Eugene had known before — this combination of the manual, the commercial, the artistic94 and the scholarly in one poor family — seemed so natural both to him and to them that Eugene never found it strange or wonderful until years later.
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1
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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glutinous
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| adj.粘的，胶状的 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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6
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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7
furrowed
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| v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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9
beaked
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| adj.有喙的，鸟嘴状的 | |
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10
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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11
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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12
snares
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| n.陷阱( snare的名词复数 )；圈套；诱人遭受失败（丢脸、损失等）的东西；诱惑物v.用罗网捕捉，诱陷，陷害( snare的第三人称单数 ) | |
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13
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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14
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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15
fecund
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| adj.多产的，丰饶的，肥沃的 | |
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16
sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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17
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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18
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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19
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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cipher
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| n.零；无影响力的人；密码 | |
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21
mumble
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| n./v.喃喃而语，咕哝 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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23
mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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24
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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rhythmically
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| adv.有节奏地 | |
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mumbling
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 ) | |
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jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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incurable
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| adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人 | |
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savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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31
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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32
wispy
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| adj.模糊的；纤细的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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persuasively
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| adv.口才好地；令人信服地 | |
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35
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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aprons
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| 围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份） | |
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38
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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41
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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42
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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43
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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44
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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45
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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46
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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47
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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48
improvident
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| adj.不顾将来的，不节俭的，无远见的 | |
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49
tyrant
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| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
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50
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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51
greasily
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| adv.多脂，油腻，滑溜地 | |
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52
swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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53
kaleidoscopic
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| adj.千变万化的 | |
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54
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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55
zinc
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| n.锌；vt.在...上镀锌 | |
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56
dice
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| n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险 | |
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57
turrets
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| （六角）转台( turret的名词复数 )； （战舰和坦克等上的）转动炮塔； （摄影机等上的）镜头转台； （旧时攻城用的）塔车 | |
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58
wharves
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| n.码头，停泊处( wharf的名词复数 ) | |
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pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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60
piers
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| n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 )；（常设有娱乐场所的）突堤；柱子；墙墩 | |
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61
exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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62
tugs
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| n.猛拉( tug的名词复数 )；猛拖；拖船v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的第三人称单数 ) | |
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63
barges
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| 驳船( barge的名词复数 ) | |
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64
laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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65
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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66
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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67
devastation
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| n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤 | |
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68
rusts
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| n.铁锈( rust的名词复数 )；（植物的）锈病，锈菌v.（使）生锈( rust的第三人称单数 ) | |
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69
tenement
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| n.公寓；房屋 | |
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70
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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71
exultancy
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| n.大喜，狂喜 | |
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72
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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74
perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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76
gangsters
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| 匪徒，歹徒( gangster的名词复数 ) | |
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77
infested
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| adj.为患的，大批滋生的（常与with搭配）v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的过去式和过去分词 )；遍布于 | |
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78
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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80
gouging
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| n.刨削[槽]v.凿( gouge的现在分词 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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81
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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82
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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83
meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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84
euphemism
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| n.婉言，委婉的说法 | |
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85
graft
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| n.移植，嫁接，艰苦工作，贪污；v.移植，嫁接 | |
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86
bribe
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| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
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87
pulp
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| n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆 | |
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arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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89
gee
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| n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转 | |
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90
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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91
attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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fusion
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| n.溶化；熔解；熔化状态，熔和；熔接 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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