Bread Givers

Mashah, to everyone’s great amazement, starts to carry about something other than her looks and about someone other than herself—a man! She’s in love with Jacob Novak, a piano-player who comes from a rich family. Jacob’s father—a wealthy department store owner—pays $10 per lesson each week to a university professor to get Jacob ready for a big solo concert, where he’ll finally show off his piano skills to the world. Soon Mashah, who normally can’t be bothered to stay for dinner, starts setting the table with real napkins and making everything perfect for evenings when Jacob joins them. But Jacob practices piano all day, and Mashah grows jealous of his dedication to his music and how it takes away from his time with her.

One day, Jacob’s father, who’s been away in Chicago on business, comes with Jacob to finally meet Mashah and her family. When the man walks through the door, Sara realizes he’s the wealthiest man any of them have ever seen. But when Jacob’s father looks around the apartment, it’s clear exactly what he thinks of the family. Without even sitting down, he orders Jacob to take a walk with him—without inviting Mashah. The two leave and don’t come back.

Jacob’s concert is the next evening. Mashah waits around all day but doesn’t hear from him. Sara wanders over to the hall where the performance is to take place and sees Jacob’s picture on a sign outside, but she doesn’t have any money for a ticket. When music starts to play inside, she runs home. Mashah stays up all night waiting. She starts weeping in the middle of the night, and her sisters and mother weep alongside her. Father blames all this on his letting a man who plays music on the Sabbath into their home.

Days pass, and there’s still no word from Jacob. Mashah, too heartbroken to write herself, dictates a letter to deliver to Jacob in which she tells him she doesn’t want to see him anymore and that he broke her heart. Sara goes to deliver the letter. Jacob intercepts her and bemoans what a “brute”  and “coward” he’s been. He let his father (Jacob’s father) bully him into abandoning Mashah—but no longer. He pleads with Sara to let him see Mashah. Sara agrees. At the Smolinskys’, Jacob apologizes profusely to Mashah and promises himself to her. Mashah lights up, immediately ready to take him back. But Father intervenes, condemning Jacob for his godlessness and ordering him to leave and never come back. He tells Mashah she must choose between the family and Jacob. Mashah gives in to Father—and Jacob never comes by again.

After that, Father begins to berate Mashah in his religious preachings, berating her for her “empty head and pretty face.” From that day forth, Sara starts to see Father as “a tyrant more terrible than the Tsar from Russia.” He drives away anything that makes his daughters happy, “kill[ing] the heart from one of his children” one by one. Sara starts to feel different from her sisters. Although they all hate Father’s preaching, the sisters listen to him grudgingly. Sara, however, resolves to take her life into her own hands. She doesn’t want to peddle herring on the streets forever. And when she finds a lover one day, she won’t let Father chase him away.