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“I knew nothing about it. Ruth shouldn’t have—”
    “Please! I know you had nothing to do with it. Shall we take a walk?”
    “All right,” she said.
    He pulled her arm through his. He had clean hands, clean fingernails, a fresh collar. She respected that, at any rate. It is no easy thing to be clean when you are poor, in spite of what people say.
    They began to see each other every Saturday. In the afternoon heat they walked the shady side of the street. They could walk for two or three blocks without speaking. Joseph was a quiet man, Anna saw, except when a mood came on him and then one could hardly stop him. Still, he was interesting, he had a vivid way of describing things.
    “Here’s Ludlow Street, there’s the house where I was born. We lived here while my father had the tailor shop. After his sight failed—he couldn’t even see the needle anymore—we moved where we are now, my mother and I. Or where my mother is now, I should say. Two rooms behind the grocery store. What a life! Open six days a week until midnight. Bread, pickles, crackers and soda. My mother made salad in back of the store. Such a little woman, such a patient smile. When I remember being a child, I remember that smile. And what the hell was there to smile about? It didn’t make any sense.”
    “Perhaps she was happy about her children, in spite of everything else.”
    “Child. Just me. They were both over forty when I was born.”
    “And your father? What was he like?”
    “My father had high blood pressure. Everything upset him. He was probably already worn out by the time they got to America. But why don’t you stop me? Here I am, chewing your ear off!”
    “I like to hear about people. Tell me more.”
    “There isn’t any more to tell. You live here. You know what it’s like to live on these streets, just walking around, because there’s no place to be comfortable inside. We were poor, and that’s the whole story.”
    “Even poorer than we were in Poland, I should think.”
    “Well, I don’t know how poor you were, but I can remember making supper sometimes out of bread and pickles—before we had our own store, that is. Not all the time, of course, but often enough.”
    “Still, I think,” Anna said thoughtfully, “it hasn’t hurt you. I think you’re a very optimistic person after all.”
    “I am. Because I have faith, you see.”
    “Faith in yourself?”
    “Yes, that too. But what I meant was faith in God.”
    “Are you so religious?”
    He nodded seriously. “Yes, yes, I believe. I believe there is a reason for everything that happens, even though we don’t see it. And I believe we must accept everything that happens, whether good or bad, on trust. And that we, we as individuals, must do our best, do what God intended. I don’t give a damn for all the philosophy you hear them spouting in the coffee houses where the loafers sit around and solve the world’s problems. They were all solved years ago on Mt. Sinai. That’s what I believe.”
    “Then why is there still so much trouble in the world?”
    “Very simple. Because people don’t do what’s right. Very simple. You’re not an atheist, Anna, I hope?”
    “Oh, no, of course I’m not! I just don’t know much about religion. I don’t really understand it.”
    “Well, naturally, women don’t have to. But I can tell what you are all the same. Honest and kind and good. And very smart. I admire you for educating yourself with all these books.”
    “You don’t read, ever?”
    “I don’t have time. I’m up before five, and when you’ve been craning your head back on a scaffold with a paintbrush all day you’re too tired at night to improve yourself.Although, to be truthful, I never was a student. Except in arithmetic. I had a good head for figures. At one time I even thought I might become an accountant.”
    “Why didn’t you, then?”
    “I had to go to work,” he said shortly. “Tell you what, there’s a place over on West Broadway