“Nathan conies from Jmerinka, Millie.”
“What’s the use of talking? He’s a foreigner, he’s ignorant—him and his Jmerinka. Oh, what’s the use, what’s the use of talking? A photographer. Oh, I’m so ashamed, so ashamed! Do you call yourself a man? He stands there and he calls himself a man.”
“So what do you want I should do, what?”
“Photogrephs! A photogreph!”
“Every five minutes she wants to go out to get a photogreph taken. So now all of a sudden by her is a misery miv photogrephs! If she didn’t wanted a photogreph, she should said she didn’t wanted photogrephs. What for does she wait, what for, till anybody’s here to make mein life a misery miv her photogrephs? What does she want from mein life?”
“What’s the use of talking to him if he’s ignorant, ignorant! He wants his son to go to a place where such a class of people go? That’s the way you catch diseases. All right! I’m not used to that sort of thing.”
“Diseases? What diseases? Who is?”
“It’s all right, Srul. It’s all right. As long as I know what you are it’s quite all right. Go to your Society Beauties!”
I. Small howled: “Then if it’s all right it’s all right, so what is there to make an all right about?”
“Another man would have a little pride. Another man would tell a photographer to keep his twopenny-halfpenny photogrephs. … Where is he going?”
“Where’s he going? He’s bleddywell going to tell Nathan to bleddywell keep his bleddy photogreph,” said I. Small, reaching for his hat.
“No, wait,” said Millie, terrified. “I don’t want trouble. Wait. This is better: when Nathan gives us the photogreph I’ll tear it up and throw it in his face.”
And for twenty-seven years she has been boasting that this photograph has come out of the same camera that caught the likenesses of Lords and Ladies and Honourables. The Belgian, De Groot, knew how to take a picture. He was an artist. He listened carefully to Nathan’s directions, expunged them from his consciousness, formed his group, and clicked his camera—itwas all over in two or three minutes. For the look of the thing he exposed several more plates and made the sitting last half an hour, but what his eye caught first, that was the picture. Nathan stood in the background appearing to direct the operation.
There it hangs, expensively framed, the detestable photograph. On one side stands Charles Small’s father dressed in cutaway coat, light waistcoat, and striped trousers. An instant before he pressed the bulb, De Groot cried: “Ha!” —so that I. Small’s eyebrows are aristocratically arched, his eyelids droop, his mouth appears to be about to open to issue a desperate word of command, and his shoulders are tense.
The poor downtrodden imbecile has been photographically trapped in a moment of terror, yet looks remarkably like D’Artagnan. When De Groot cried “Ha!” Millie’s intestines convulsed , and wanted to empty themselves, so that she tightened her abdomen and instinctively turned her face to the doorway behind which, she knew, the toilet was; so that she appears genteelly detached. Between them stands Charles Small. Got up in a winged stiff collar, bow tie, black jacket and waistcoat, striped trousers and patent-leather shoes, and gripping his first bowler hat in his left hand, he resembles the young Napoleon. He didn’t want to have his picture taken, and was on the verge of rebellion, even when his father threatened to break every bone in his bleddy body. His mother pinched him, and De Groot’s camera, neatly picking out the expression that comes into a face between surprise and resentment, made him look imperious. The pain of the pinch made him relax his grip on his hat: you would think that he was about to point towards a new world.
In his way De Groot was a master. His work has survived him: Charles Small cannot bring himself to burn it. Even if he could, it would do him no good; the image is with
“What’s the use of talking? He’s a foreigner, he’s ignorant—him and his Jmerinka. Oh, what’s the use, what’s the use of talking? A photographer. Oh, I’m so ashamed, so ashamed! Do you call yourself a man? He stands there and he calls himself a man.”
“So what do you want I should do, what?”
“Photogrephs! A photogreph!”
“Every five minutes she wants to go out to get a photogreph taken. So now all of a sudden by her is a misery miv photogrephs! If she didn’t wanted a photogreph, she should said she didn’t wanted photogrephs. What for does she wait, what for, till anybody’s here to make mein life a misery miv her photogrephs? What does she want from mein life?”
“What’s the use of talking to him if he’s ignorant, ignorant! He wants his son to go to a place where such a class of people go? That’s the way you catch diseases. All right! I’m not used to that sort of thing.”
“Diseases? What diseases? Who is?”
“It’s all right, Srul. It’s all right. As long as I know what you are it’s quite all right. Go to your Society Beauties!”
I. Small howled: “Then if it’s all right it’s all right, so what is there to make an all right about?”
“Another man would have a little pride. Another man would tell a photographer to keep his twopenny-halfpenny photogrephs. … Where is he going?”
“Where’s he going? He’s bleddywell going to tell Nathan to bleddywell keep his bleddy photogreph,” said I. Small, reaching for his hat.
“No, wait,” said Millie, terrified. “I don’t want trouble. Wait. This is better: when Nathan gives us the photogreph I’ll tear it up and throw it in his face.”
And for twenty-seven years she has been boasting that this photograph has come out of the same camera that caught the likenesses of Lords and Ladies and Honourables. The Belgian, De Groot, knew how to take a picture. He was an artist. He listened carefully to Nathan’s directions, expunged them from his consciousness, formed his group, and clicked his camera—itwas all over in two or three minutes. For the look of the thing he exposed several more plates and made the sitting last half an hour, but what his eye caught first, that was the picture. Nathan stood in the background appearing to direct the operation.
There it hangs, expensively framed, the detestable photograph. On one side stands Charles Small’s father dressed in cutaway coat, light waistcoat, and striped trousers. An instant before he pressed the bulb, De Groot cried: “Ha!” —so that I. Small’s eyebrows are aristocratically arched, his eyelids droop, his mouth appears to be about to open to issue a desperate word of command, and his shoulders are tense.
The poor downtrodden imbecile has been photographically trapped in a moment of terror, yet looks remarkably like D’Artagnan. When De Groot cried “Ha!” Millie’s intestines convulsed , and wanted to empty themselves, so that she tightened her abdomen and instinctively turned her face to the doorway behind which, she knew, the toilet was; so that she appears genteelly detached. Between them stands Charles Small. Got up in a winged stiff collar, bow tie, black jacket and waistcoat, striped trousers and patent-leather shoes, and gripping his first bowler hat in his left hand, he resembles the young Napoleon. He didn’t want to have his picture taken, and was on the verge of rebellion, even when his father threatened to break every bone in his bleddy body. His mother pinched him, and De Groot’s camera, neatly picking out the expression that comes into a face between surprise and resentment, made him look imperious. The pain of the pinch made him relax his grip on his hat: you would think that he was about to point towards a new world.
In his way De Groot was a master. His work has survived him: Charles Small cannot bring himself to burn it. Even if he could, it would do him no good; the image is with
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