Now her work was over. He was there. The store was
a still store, fixed in a dirty house. Its brightness the spurt of two
jets of gas. He was back from _Schul_.--That is all.
A man with blond hair, flat feet that shuffled, small tender hands. A
man with a mouth gentle, slow; with eyes timid to see. "Come dear: that
is no place."--Why she lets the child play with my shears!
Tender hands pull Flora from beneath the table. Flora comes blinking,
unprotesting. Where her father's hands leave off from her, she stays.
She sinks back to the floor. She looks at her little fists from which
the scizzors are gone. She misses hard gleaming steel. She opens and
shuts her fists and looks at them: she cries. But she does not
move.--Her mother does not move.--Her father does not move. He squats on
the table. His head sways with his thoughts. He knows that Flora will
stop--what can he do?--in perhaps half an hour. It is a weak cry. Grows
weaker. He is used to it. There is work.
He sews. 'A woman of valour who can find? For her price is far above
rubies'--She will stay here, stay here silent. Flora should be in bed.
Who to put his child in bed? Hard gas-light on her beloved hair? A
wither, a wilt--'She is like the merchant ships; she bringeth her food
from afar'--He sews and rips.
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