Hungry Hearts

by Anzia Yezierska

  Yetta’s broad, generous face smiled anxiously at me. “Lucky yet the car that run you over didn’t break your hands or your feet. So long you got yet good hands you’ll soon be back by the machine.”

  “Machine?” I shuddered. “I can’t go back to the shop again. I got so used to sunlight and quiet in the hospital I’ll not be able to stand the hell again.”

  “Shah!—Shah!” soothed Yetta. “Why don’t you learn yourself to take life like it is? What’s got to be, got to be. In Russia, you could hope to run away from your troubles to America. But from America where can you go?”

  “Yes,” I sighed. “In the blackest days of Russia, there was always the hope from America. In Russia we had only a mud hut; not enough to eat and always the fear from the Cossack, but still we managed to look up to the sky, to dream, to think of the new world where we’ll have a chance to be people, not slaves.”

  “What’s the use to think so much? It only eats up the flesh from your bones. Better rest …”

  “How can I rest when my choked-in thoughts tear me to pieces? I need school more than a starving man needs bread.”

  Yetta’s eyes brooded over me. Suddenly a light broke. “I got an idea. There’s a new school for greenhorns where they learn them anything they want …”

  “What—where?” I raised myself quickly, hot with eagerness. “How do you know from it—tell me only—quick—since when—”

  “The girl next door by my house—she used to work by cigars—and now she learns there.”

  “What does she learn?”

  “Don’t get yourself so excited. Your eyes are jumping out from your head.”

  I fell back weakly: “Oi weh! Tell me!” I begged.

  “All I know is that she likes what she learns better than rolling cigars. And it’s called ‘School for Immigrant Girls.’”

  “Your time is up. Another visitor is waiting to come in,” said the nurse.

  As Yetta walked out, my mother, with the shawl over her head, rushed in and fell on my bed kissing me.

  “Oi weh! Oi weh! Half my life is out from me from fright. How did all happen?”

  “Don’t worry yourself so. I’m nearly well already and will go back to work soon.”

  “Talk not work. Get only a little flesh on your bones. They say they send from the hospital people to the country. Maybe they’ll send you.”

  “But how will you live without my wages?”

  “Davy is already peddling with papers and Bessie is selling lolly-pops after school in the park. Yesterday she brought home already twenty-eight cents.”

  For all her efforts to be cheerful, I looked at her pinched face and wondered if she had eaten that day.

  Released from the hospital, I started home. As I neared Allen Street, the terror of the dark rooms swept over me. “No—no—I can’t yet go back to the darkness and the stinking smells,” I said to myself. “So long they’re getting along without my wages, let them think I went to the country and let me try out that school for immigrants that Yetta told me about.”

  So I went to the Immigrant School.

  A tall, gracious woman received me, not an employee, but a benefactress.

  The love that had rushed from my heart toward the Statue in the Bay, rushed out to Mrs. Olney. She seemed to me the living spirit of America. All that I had ever dreamed America to be shone to me out of the kindness of her brown eyes. She would save me from the sordidness that was crushing me I felt the moment I looked at her. Sympathy and understanding seemed to breathe from her serene presence.

  I longed to open my heart to her, but I was so excited I didn’t know where to begin.

  “I’m crazy to learn!” I gasped breathlessly, and then the very pressure of the things I had to say choked me.

  An encouraging smile warmed the fine features.

  “What trade would you like to learn—sewing-machine operating?”

  “Sewing-machine operating?” I cried. “Oi weh!” I shuddered. “Only the thought ‘machine’ kills me. Even when I only look on clothes, it weeps in me when I think how the seams from everything people wear is sweated in the shop.”

  “Well, then”—putting a kind hand on my shoulder—“how would you like to learn to cook? There’s a great need for trained servants and you’d get good wages and a pleasant home.”

  “Me—a servant?” I flung back her hand. “Did I come to America to make from myself a cook?”

  Mrs. Olney stood abashed a moment. “Well, my dear,” she said deliberately, “what would you like to take up?”

  “I got ideas how to make America better, only I don’t know how to say it out. Ain’t there a place I can learn?”

  A startled woman stared at me. For a moment not a word came. Then she proceeded with the same kind smile. “It’s nice of you to want to help America, but I think the best way would be for you to learn a trade. That’s what this school is for, to help girls find themselves, and the best way to do is to learn something useful.”

  “Ain’t thoughts useful? Does America want only the work from my body, my hands? Ain’t it thoughts that turn over the world?”

  “Ah! But we don’t want to turn over the world.” Her voice cooled.

  “But there’s got to be a change in America!” I cried. “Us immigrants want to be people—not ‘hands’—not slaves of the belly! And it’s the chance to think out thoughts that makes people.”

  “My child, thought requires leisure. The time will come for that. First you must learn to earn a good living.”

  “Did I come to America for a living?”

  “What did you come for?”

  “I came to give out all the fine things that was choked in me in Russia. I came to help America make the new world…. They said, in America I could open up my heart and fly free in the air—to sing—to dance—to live—to love…. Here I got all those grand things in me, and America won’t let me give nothing.”

  “Perhaps you made a mistake in coming to this country. Your own land might appreciate you more.” A quick glance took me in from head to foot. “I’m afraid that you have come to the wrong place. We only teach trades here.”

  She turned to her papers and spoke over her shoulder. “I think you will have to go elsewhere if you want to set the world on fire.”

  Part III

  Blind passion swayed me as I walked out of the Immigrant School, not knowing where I was going, not caring. One moment I was swept with the fury of indignation, the next moment bent under the burden of despair. But out of this surging conflict one thought—one truth gradually grew clearer and clearer to me: Without comprehension, the immigrant would forever remain shut out—a stranger in America. Until America can release the heart as well as train the hand of the immigrant, he would forever remain driven back upon himself, corroded by the very richness of the unused gifts within his soul.

  I longed for a friend—a real American friend—some one different from Mrs. Olney, some one who would understand this vague, blind hunger for release that consumed me. But how, where could I find such a friend?

  As I neared the house we lived in, I paused terror-stricken. On the sidewalk stood a jumbled pile of ragged house-furnishings that looked familiar—chairs, dishes, kitchen pans. Amidst bundles of bedding and broken furniture stood my mother. Oblivious of the curious crowd, she lit the Sabbath candles and prayed over them.

  In a flash I understood it all. Because of the loss of my wages while I was in the hospital, we had been evicted for unpaid rent. It was Sabbath eve. My father was in the synagogue praying and my mother, defiant of disgrace, had gone on with the ceremony of the Sabbath.

  All the romance of our race was in the light of those Sabbath candles. Homeless, abandoned by God and man, yet in the very desolation of the streets my mother’s faith burned—a challenge to all America.

  “Mammeh!” I cried, pushing through the crowd. Bessie and Dave darted forward. In a moment the four of us stood clinging to one another, amid the ruins of our broken home.
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  A neighbor invited us into her house for supper. No sooner had we sat down at the table than there was a knock at the door and a square-figured young woman entered, asking to see my mother.

  “I am from the Social Betterment Society,” she said. “I hear you’ve been dispossessed. What’s the trouble here?”

  “Oi weh! My bitter heart!” I yet see before me the anguish of my mother’s face as she turned her head away from the charity lady.

  My father’s eyes sank to the floor. I could feel him shrink in upon himself like one condemned.

  The bite of food turned to gall in my throat.

  “How long have you been in America? Where were you born?” She questioned by rote, taking out pad and pencil.

  The silence of the room was terrible. The woman who had invited us for supper slunk into the bedroom, unable to bear our shame.

  “How long have you been in America?” repeated the charity lady.

  Choked silence.

  “Is there any one here who can speak?” She translated her question into Yiddish.

  “A black year on Gedalyeh Mindel, the liar!” my mother burst out at last. “Why did we leave our home? We were among our own. We were people there. But what are we here? Nobodies—nobodies! Cats and dogs at home ain’t thrown in the street. Such things could only happen in America—the land without a heart—the land without a God!”

  “For goodness’ sakes! Is there any one here intelligent enough to answer a straight question?” The charity lady turned with disgusted impatience from my mother to me. “Can you tell me how long you have been in this country? Where were you born?”

  “None of your business!” I struck out blindly, not aware of what I was saying.

  “Why so bold? We are only trying to help you and you are so resentful.”

  “To the Devil with your help! I’m sick no longer. I can take care of my mother—without your charity!”

  The next day I went back to the shop—to the same long hours—to the same low wages—to the same pig-eyed, fat-bellied boss. But I was no longer the same. For the first time in my life I bent to the inevitable. I accepted my defeat. But something in me, stronger than I, rose triumphant even in my surrender.

  “Yes, I must submit to the shop,” I thought. “But the shop shall not crush me. Only my body I must sell into slavery—not my heart—not my soul.

  “To any one who sees me from without, I am only a dirt-eating worm, a grub in the ground, but I know that above this dark earth-place in which I am sunk is the green grass—and beyond the green grass, the sun and sky. Alone, unaided, I must dig my way up to the light!”

  Lunch-hour at the factory. My book of Shelley’s poems before me and I was soon millions of miles beyond the raucous voices of the hungry eaters.

  “Did you already hear the last news?” Yetta tore my book from me in her excitement.

  “What news?” I scowled at her for waking me from my dreams.

  “We’re going to have electricity by the machines. And the forelady says that the new boss will give us ten cents more on a dozen waists!”

  “God from the world! How did it happen—electricity—better pay?” I asked in amazement. For that was the first I had heard of improved conditions of work.

  But little by little, step by step, the sanitation improved. Open windows, swept floors, clean wash-rooms, individual drinking-cups introduced a new era of factory hygiene. Our shop was caught up in the general movement for social betterment that stirred the country.

  It was not all done in a day. Weary years of struggle passed before the workers emerged from the each-for-himself existence into an organized togetherness for mutual improvement.

  At last, with the shortened hours of work, I had enough vitality left at the end of the day to join the night-school. Again my dream flamed. Again America beckoned. In the school there would be education—air, life for my cramped-in spirit. I would learn to form the thoughts that surged formless in me. I would find the teacher that would make me articulate.

  Shelley was English literature.

  So I joined the literature class. The course began with the “De Coverley Papers.” Filled with insatiate thirst, I drank in every line with the feeling that any minute I would get to the fountain-heart of revelation.

  Night after night I read with tireless devotion. But of what? The manners and customs of the eighteenth century, of people two hundred years dead.

  One evening after a month’s attendance, when the class had dwindled from fifty to four and the teacher began scolding us who were left for those who were absent, my bitterness broke.

  “Do you know why all the girls are dropping away from the class? It’s because they have too much sense to waste themselves on the ‘De Coverley Papers.’ Us four girls are four fools. We could learn more in the streets. It’s dirty and wrong, but it’s life. What are the ‘De Coverley Papers’? Dry dust fit for the ash can.”

  “Perhaps you had better tell the board of education your ideas of the standard classics,” she scoffed, white with rage.

  “Classics? If all the classics are as dead as the ‘De Coverley Papers,’ I’d rather read the ads in the papers. How can I learn from this old man that’s dead two hundred years how to live my life?”

  That was the first of many schools I had tried. And they were all the same. A dull course of study and the lifeless, tired teachers—no more interested in their pupils than in the wooden benches before them—chilled all my faith in the American schools.

  More and more the all-consuming need for a friend possessed me. In the street, in the cars, in the subways, I was always seeking, ceaselessly seeking, for eyes, a face, the flash of a smile that would be light in my darkness.

  I felt sometimes that I was only burning out my heart for a shadow, an echo, a wild dream. But I couldn’t help it. Nothing was real to me but my hope of finding a friend.

  One day my sister Bessie came home much excited over her new high-school teacher. “Miss Latham makes it so interesting!” she exclaimed. “She stops in the middle of the lesson and tells us things. She ain’t like a teacher. She’s like a real person.”

  At supper next evening, Bessie related more wonder stories of her beloved teacher. “She’s so different! She’s friends with us…. To-day, when she gave us out our composition, Mamie Cohen asked from what book we should read up and she said, ‘Just take it out of your heart and say it.’”

  “Just take it out of your heart and say it.” The simple words lingered in my mind, stirring a whirl of hidden thoughts and feelings. It seemed as if they had been said directly to me.

  A few days later Bessie ran in from school, her cheeks flushed, her eyes dancing with excitement. “Give a look at the new poem teacher gave me to learn!” It was a quotation from Kipling:

  “Then only the Master shall praise us,

  And only the Master shall blame,

  And no one shall work for money,

  And no one shall work for fame;

  But each for the joy of the working,

  And each in his separate Star,

  Shall draw the thing as he sees it

  For the God of things as they are.”

  Only a few brief lines, but in their music the pulses of my being leaped into life. And so it was from day to day. Miss Latham’s sayings kept turning themselves in my mind like a lingering melody that could not be shaken off. Something irresistible seemed to draw me to her. She beckoned to me almost as strongly as America had on the way over in the boat.

  I wondered, “Should I go to see her and talk myself out from my heart to her?

  “Meshugeneh! Where—what? How come you to her? What will you say for your reason?

  “What’s the difference what I’ll say! I only want to give a look on her …”

  And so I kept on restlessly debating. Should I follow my heart and go to her, or should I have a little sense?

  Finally the desire to see her became so strong that I could no longer reason about it. I left the fa
ctory in the middle of the day to seek her out.

  All the way to her school I prayed: “God—God! If I could only find one human soul that cared …”

  I found her bending over her desk. Her hair was gray, but she did not look tired like the other teachers. She was correcting papers and was absorbed in her task. I watched her, not daring to interrupt. Presently she threw back her head and gave a little laugh.

  Then she saw me. “Why, how do you do?” She rose. “Come and sit down.”

  I felt she was as glad to see me as though she had expected me.

  “I feel you can help me,” I groped toward her.

  “I hope I can.” She grasped my outstretched hands and led me to a chair which seemed to be waiting for me.

  A strange gladness filled me.

  “Bessie showed me the poem you told her to learn …” I paused bewildered.

  “Yes?” Her friendly eyes urged me to speak.

  “From what Bessie told me I felt I could talk myself out to you what’s bothering me.” I stopped again.

  She leaned forward with an inviting interest. “Go on! Tell me all.”

  “I’m an immigrant many years already here, but I’m still seeking America. My dream America is more far from me than it was in the old country. Always something comes between the immigrant and the American,” I went on blindly. “They see only his skin, his outside—not what’s in his heart. They don’t care if he has a heart…. I wanted to find some one that would look on me—myself … I thought you’d know yourself on a person first off.”

  Abashed at my boldness I lowered my eyes to the floor.

  “Do go on … I want to hear.”

  With renewed courage I continued my confessional.

  “Life is too big for me. I’m lost in this each-for-himself world. I feel shut out from everything that’s going on…. I’m always fighting—fighting—with myself and everything around me…. I hate when I want to love and I make people hate me when I want to make them love me.”

  She gave me a quick nod. “I know—I know what you mean. Go on.”

  “I don’t know what is with me the matter. I’m so choked…. Sundays and holidays when the other girls go out to enjoy themselves, I walk around by myself—thinking—thinking…. My thoughts tear in me and I can’t tell them to no one! I want to do something with my life and I don’t know what.”