The Hired Girl(98)

I stood by the doorway and stared after him. At first I was glad to be alone, because I wanted to think about the opera, but then I began to worry. I knew I was going to get home late, and I didn’t know where David had gone. More people left the theater, and I began to wonder what would happen if I was the last one there. Outside the traffic was dreadful; carriages and umbrellas and a broken-down auto whose driver kept honking the horn.

Then I noticed a red umbrella, bobbing and thrusting its way through a sea of black ones. It was a lady’s umbrella, but the lady must have been the forceful kind, because she was cutting through traffic like a hot knife through butter. When the red umbrella came closer, I saw that David was underneath it. He was soaking wet, and there were raindrops in his hair, but he looked quite happy.

I stepped outside, under the overhang. He gave the umbrella to me, and put out his hand for the sketchpad. From under his coat he took a piece of dry canvas and wrapped it around his sketches. “You waited! Good girl! I dashed over to the store and bought you an umbrella.”

“It’s too much,” I protested. “First the opera, and now —”

“I can’t keep it,” said David. “Get a look at that tassel! I felt like Lord Fauntleroy, carrying it through town. Besides, I have an umbrella at home, and I bet you don’t.”

He was right about that, so I gave in. At first we meant to take the streetcar, but the ones that passed were all full, because of the rain. David and I walked home together, sharing the red umbrella. David asked what I thought about the opera and I told him I had never, never seen anything so fine. He said he was proud — stuck on himself was the way he put it — because he’d known it was just what I would like. He says I have an instinct for art. What a beautiful thing for him to say! I asked him about the operas he’s seen, and he told me about Caruso and Nellie Melba. And then — I felt shy, but it was easier with the umbrella over us both — I asked him about his painting.

He has very noble aspirations. He feels that every artist has a gift to give to the ordinary laboring man. The ordinary laboring man — or woman — needs to be inspired and uplifted, the way I was this afternoon. David likes painting portraits. He says that some artists look down on portrait painting because portraits make money, and landscapes are more distinguished. But David says a portrait painter can tell the truth about the human soul just as Rembrandt did. He said he wouldn’t mind being a great portrait painter, even a society painter like John Singer Sargent.

It’s terribly important that he should get this commission from Madame Marechaux (who is forty-six!) because she has a vast amount of influence. If she hires him to paint Joan of Arc, he’s going to tell his father that he means to be a great artist, instead of the owner of a department store. When he spoke of breaking the news to his father, he looked wretched, because he knows Mr. Rosenbach will be disappointed. He (David) had thought his brother would carry on the family business, but Mr. Solomon is going to move to New York so he can attend a Jewish school called yeshiva. That means Mr. Rosenbach is counting on David. But David has no head for business, and Mr. Rosenbach must see that it would be cruel to force an artist into a life of sordid commerce.

I told David that Mimi could manage the store, and he said, “But she’s a girl!” Then I flared up and said a girl could do anything a man could do. David said I was a regular fire-eater but maybe I was right.

I wanted our walk to last forever. My boots aren’t watertight, so my feet got wet and cold, but I would have followed David to the ends of the earth. That’s how fascinating our conversation was.

At last we got home, and I had to face Malka. When I came through the back door, she flew at me and shook me with all her might, which isn’t saying much, as she isn’t strong. But her nails are sharp and they dug into my arms like an owl’s talons. She said I was a bad, disrespectful girl, and she had imagined me murdered somewhere and my body thrown into a back alley. When she stopped railing, she told me that she’d had to make the whole dinner herself. But she didn’t get me in trouble. She never told Mrs. Rosenbach that I hadn’t come home.

I thanked her profusely. Her eyes narrowed and she asked me where I got that fancy new umbrella. I said hastily that I’d bought it at Rosenbach’s, and the price was reduced because one of the ribs was a little bit bent. Oh, what a liar I am! I’m sure I ought to be ashamed.

Then Malka demanded to know where else I’d been. She told me not to say I’d been having religious instruction, because no girl ever looked so happy after an afternoon of religious instruction.