{"product_id":"2940012769909","title":"Yekl","description":"CHAPTER                                    PAGE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   I.--JAKE AND YEKL                          1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  II.--THE NEW YORK GHETTO                   25\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e III.--IN THE GRIP OF HIS PAST               50\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  IV.--THE MEETING                           70\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   V.--A PATERFAMILIAS                       82\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  VI.--CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES            112\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e VII.--MRS. KAVARSKY'S COUP D'ÉTAT          136\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVIII.--A HOUSETOP IDYL                      158\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  IX.--THE PARTING                          175\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   X.--A DEFEATED VICTOR                    185\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYEKL.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAKE AND YEKL.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe operatives of the cloak-shop in which Jake was employed had been\u003cbr\u003eidle all the morning. It was after twelve o'clock and the \"boss\" had\u003cbr\u003enot yet returned from Broadway, whither he had betaken himself two\u003cbr\u003eor three hours before in quest of work. The little sweltering\u003cbr\u003eassemblage--for it was an oppressive day in midsummer--beguiled their\u003cbr\u003esuspense variously. A rabbinical-looking man of thirty, who sat with\u003cbr\u003ethe back of his chair tilted against his sewing machine, was intent\u003cbr\u003eupon an English newspaper. Every little while he would remove it from\u003cbr\u003ehis eyes--showing a dyspeptic face fringed with a thin growth of dark\u003cbr\u003ebeard--to consult the cumbrous dictionary on his knees. Two young lads,\u003cbr\u003eone seated on the frame of the next machine and the other standing,\u003cbr\u003ewere boasting to one another of their respective intimacies with the\u003cbr\u003eleading actors of the Jewish stage. The board of a third machine, in a\u003cbr\u003ecorner of the same wall, supported an open copy of a socialist magazine\u003cbr\u003ein Yiddish, over which a cadaverous young man absorbedly swayed to and\u003cbr\u003efro droning in the Talmudical intonation. A middle-aged operative, with\u003cbr\u003ehuge red side whiskers, who was perched on the presser's table in the\u003cbr\u003ecorner opposite, was mending his own coat. While the thick-set presser\u003cbr\u003eand all the three women of the shop, occupying the three machines\u003cbr\u003eranged against an adjoining wall, formed an attentive audience to an\u003cbr\u003eimpromptu lecture upon the comparative merits of Boston and New York by\u003cbr\u003eJake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had been speaking for some time. He stood in the middle of the\u003cbr\u003eovercrowded stuffy room with his long but well-shaped legs wide apart,\u003cbr\u003ehis bulky round head aslant, and one of his bared mighty arms akimbo.\u003cbr\u003eHe spoke in Boston Yiddish, that is to say, in Yiddish more copiously\u003cbr\u003espiced with mutilated English than is the language of the metropolitan\u003cbr\u003eGhetto in which our story lies. He had a deep and rather harsh voice,\u003cbr\u003eand his r's could do credit to the thickest Irish brogue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"When I was in Boston,\" he went on, with a contemptuous mien intended\u003cbr\u003efor the American metropolis, \"I knew a _feller_,[1] so he was a\u003cbr\u003e_preticly_ friend of John Shullivan's. He is a Christian, that feller\u003cbr\u003eis, and yet the two of us lived like brothers. May I be unable to move\u003cbr\u003efrom this spot if we did not. How, then, would you have it? Like here,\u003cbr\u003ein New York, where the Jews are a _lot_ of _greenhornsh_ and can not\u003cbr\u003espeak a word of English? Over there every Jew speaks English like a\u003cbr\u003estream.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e        [1] English words incorporated in the Yiddish of the characters\u003cbr\u003e        of this narrative are given in Italics.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"_Say_, Dzake,\" the presser broke in, \"John Sullivan is _tzampion_ no\u003cbr\u003elonger, is he?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh, no! Not always is it holiday!\" Jake responded, with what he\u003cbr\u003econsidered a Yankee jerk of his head. \"Why, don't you know? Jimmie\u003cbr\u003eCorbett _leaked_ him, and Jimmie _leaked_ Cholly Meetchel, too. _You\u003cbr\u003ecan betch you' bootsh!_ Johnnie could not leak Chollie, _becaush_ he is\u003cbr\u003ea big _bluffer_, Chollie is,\" he pursued, his clean-shaven florid face\u003cbr\u003ebeaming with enthusiasm for his subject, and with pride in the\u003cbr\u003ediminutive proper nouns he flaunted. \"But Jimmie _pundished_ him. _Oh,\u003cbr\u003edidn't he knock him out off shight!_ He came near making a meat ball of\u003cbr\u003ehim\"--with a chuckle. \"He _tzettled_ him in three _roynds_. I knew a\u003cbr\u003efeller who had seen the fight.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What is a _rawnd_, Dzake?\" the presser inquired.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJake's answer to the question carried him into a minute exposition of\u003cbr\u003e\"right-handers,\" \"left-handers,\" \"sending to sleep,\" \"first blood,\" and\u003cbr\u003eother commodities of the fistic business. He must have treated the\u003cbr\u003esubject rather too scientifically, however, for his female listeners\u003cbr\u003eobviously paid more attention to what he did in the course of the\u003cbr\u003eboxing match, which he had now and then, by way of illustration, with\u003cbr\u003ethe thick air of the room, than to the verbal part of his lecture. Nay,\u003cbr\u003eeven the performances of his brawny arms and magnificent form did not\u003cbr\u003echarm them as much as he thought they did.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47120998760688,"sku":"2940012769909","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012769909_p0.jpg?v=1763572495","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012769909","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}