The Magician of Lublin (Isaac Bashevis Singer: Classic Editions) by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Author:Isaac Bashevis Singer [Bashevis Singer, Isaac]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Goodreads Press
Published: 2021-03-02T06:00:00+00:00

5

They drank tea and ate cookies and butter-cake. Mrs Miltz and Zeftel joined them at the table. Herman drank his tea with jam, ate the butter-cake and from time to time took a puff on a fat cigar which rested in a saucer. He offered Yasha a cigar, too, but Yasha declined.

‘You can’t get a cigar like this in all Warsaw,’ Herman complained. ‘This is genuine Havana. None of your substitutes but the real stuff from Cuba. Somebody brought them from there especially for me. In Berlin you’d have to pay two marks for one. I like everything first-class, but you have to pay for everything, and when you pay, already you pay too much. What’s a Havana cigar? Leaves, not gold. And what’s a good-looking girl? Also flesh and blood. The Spaniard is jealous. You smile at his wife and he goes for his knife, but two blocks away he keeps a mistress and has. children by her. After a while, she becomes a frump, too, and he has to go looking for a fresh piece. I read the Polish papers here and I’ve got to laugh. They write such nonsense! A girl goes out at night to get a jug of milk, along comes a carriage and she’s caught inside. Later they take her to Buenos Aires and sell her like a calf in the market. But I’ve been here weeks and haven’t seen any such carriage. And how can you transport such a girl across the border? What about the ship? Nonsense, foolishness. The truth is, they go of their own free will. You go to that district and you meet women from every part of the world. You want a black one – a black one it is; you want a white one – that’s what you get. If a Lithuanian from Vilno or Ayshyshok is what you’re after, you don’t have to go looking, or if you have an urge for the Warsaw product, you’ll be accommodated. As for myself, I don’t go there. What do I need with it? I’ve got a wife and children. But the newspapers want readers. It’s just as I’ve been saying, it depends on who holds the pen. I’ll tell you one thing: Husbands themselves send their wives into the quarter. And do you know why? Because they’re too lazy to go to work themselves. How about some of your tricks? Here’s a deck of cards.’

‘Once you start with the cards you won’t go anywhere,’ the yellowish woman said.

‘Tomorrow is another day.’

Herman began to shuffle the deck and Yasha saw at once that he was up against a cardsharp. The cards flowed through Herman’s hands as if they had a life of their own. So … that’s the sort of canary you are! Yasha said to himself. Well, we’ll soon show you there are some smarter boys around.

Yasha allowed him to perform several tricks: the trick with the three cards, the one with the four sevens, the changed card.

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