Explore "The Yiddish 'Hamlet'" by Israel Zangwill on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Sucking voluptuously at Radsikoff's cigar, Pinchas plunged from the / steam-heated, cheerful cafe into the raw, unlovely street, still / hummocked with an ancient, uncleared snowfall. He did not take the / horse-car which runs in this quarter; he was reserving the five cents / for a spirituous nightcap. His journey was slow, for a side street / that he had to pass through was, like nearly all the side streets of / the great city, an abomination of desolation, a tempestuous sea of / frozen, dirty snow, impassable by all save pedestrians, and scarcely / by them. Pinchas was glad of his cane; an alpenstock would not have / been superfluous. But the theatre with its brilliantly-lighted lobby / and flamboyant posters restored his spirits; the curtain was already / up, and a packed mass filled the house from roof to floor. Rebuffed by / the janitors, Pinchas haughtily asked for Goldwater. Goldwater was on / the stage, and could not see him. But nothing could down the poet, / whose head seemed to swell till it touched the gallery. This great / theatre was his, this mighty audience his to melt and fire.
'I will await him in a box,' he said.