The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 5, 1926, Page 10

Mother Mellicher Transthted by Avrom Landy - OUNG. Mother Mellicher stepped out of the house. She had become sallow and thin. Her face sat on her pointed shoulders like an elongated disk. Only her nose stood out angu- lar and sharp! and her eyes glowed in the pal- lor of her chéeks like two great fiery lights. She was:in a hurry. First she sent George into the: house—he was the youngest who was stamping out a puddle with his grey, much- too-large boots—pushed the girl, Martha, who was rubbing against the house-wall and had wrapped her thin, transparent arms in an apron, in behind him, and then went over to her husband. He was even thinner and more pallid than his wife. He was sitting on a small chair and leaned his, back against a plank. He was sup- posed to sun himself. His rough-hewn, shag- sy head and his neck hung forward on a slant. ey had no support. His back had been ken. iby falling coal. Besides, the man could no longer see anything. It had been that way for three years now. The man sensed that his wife,had come. His haggard face became animated and_ fiushed. “Are you going now?” he asked and tried to turn his head towards her. “Yes,” she answered. “Everyone is going.” She remained standing for a moment and looked at him. Her face became more point- ed. She lifted her hand to tOuch his head. But she let it hang midway in the air. Then someone from the house called her name. She turned around. It was the neigh- bor woman. She quickly let her uplifted hand fall on the knee of the invalid, pressed it light- ly, and ran over to the one calling. She was a small stout woman. . But. her cheeks were hollow .too, and her flesh. wabbled from side to side. beneath her patched clothes. Her daughter, a lanky, over-grown girl with large red spots on her cheeks stood beside her. “We can go,’ she said, breathing hard, and off immediately. She made her daugh- ter wilk’dhead. “Young mother Mellicher only” nodded and walked diagonally behind her with her short mincing steps. [THEY walked on silently. Nor did Mother Mellicher have anything to.say. Her head felt so empty to her. So intorporeal. She scarcely felt herself. In fact, she did not even feel that she was walking. And why was she walking anyway? Her narrow forehead contracted and she shut her eyes. Wasn’t it all useless? Wasn’t it all the same whether she went or stayed? Nothing would be changed. There was no relief. She reflected further. Who was there to help her particularly? Who knew anything about her. About her misery. About her want. About her isolation. Who had looked into her. Who had unlocked her soul. So who knew all that oppressed her. “No oge! She was alone. She was lonely. She had always been. Marriage! She walked faster and her cheeks colored slightly. Certainly, it was lovely at first. They had a room. Her husband was kind. When the children came she was compelled to look for work. It was harder. But it was still endurable.. Then they brought her husband. It was the descent. She fell back. Now she was in the depths again. So what was there that could be changed? Her husband would never get well any more. It could only become worse. And she had rec- onciled herself, too. She endured everything. She labored like an animal. She scarcely en- tered her room anymore. Early in. the morn- ing she went to a factory. In the evening she tried to do washing. Only it gradually becom- ing too much. GHE opened her eyes again and looked straight forward. Who was there to help them? They were the poor. They had always been. The grandfather, the father. They had to go hungry. It was their life. Sometimes, to be sure, there was a breathing spell. Things went better. Now things were as bad as they could be. The children would soon give out. The husband could no longer get a full meal. Her own body had shriveled like an empty sack. That would be, the end. Her face was distorted. And that is why she went along. Now she was no longer walking alone with her neighbor. They had turned into a broad | thoroughfare. Footsteps roused her. She} were they doing? . They shouted. They roared against it. Around her it became noisier. of marchers became denser. They all talked looked around. People were coming from every house -here, Women, large bony, with grey shawls, their faces white and glassy, strain- ed upward. Men, too. Half-grown lads. Old men. They walked in twos, in threes. In long lines. .The whole neighboring quarter was in motion. She shrank. What did these people want? Were they hungry to6? She was a lone travel- er. She had been that even as a. child, Nor did she ever go.with such crowds. She even avoided:them. She was afraid of them. What through .the streets. They were rebels... But was there any use of that? Was that. wise? Weren’t they always beaten down again? She bent her head:lower. Why had she gone along, anyway? She had been urged to go. _All are going today,-the neighbor woman: had told her. From the whole city. Behind the city park. There is to be a meeting. What about? Her neighbor had laughed out. About hunger! About hunger? Well, did she think she was the only hungry one? Didn’t she see that it wasn’t only in her own house that bread was lacking. Along the whole street, they were crying out for it. Beyond in the suburb. Everywhere. And today they were to rise up The crowds Many harsh and screaming. Most of them al- so raised their hands. Thin, transparent hands like her own. What did they talk about? She tried to catch a few words. BESIDE her walked a cringing, hunchbacked woman. She also dragged one leg. Her face was small and apprehensive. “Since yes- terday we’ve had no bread, no flour, no pota- toes.” She said it slowly, merely thrusting each word out before her. , Another replied:. “We are even worse o off. ay cy mts me a ene, on Re four weeks. I can’t find any work either.” “Oh,” a third raised her voice, “what about me. My baby is dying. First his feet gave way. Now only his breath is still wheezing. And what’s he to live on?” Mother Mellicher looked about her in as- tonishment. Who was talking there? What voices were those? Who was starving there too? Who was complaining? Who was sit- uated in life like her, isolated and outcast? Was not she the only one? Who was sudden- ly pressing right up to her? She shivered and tried to smile. : The first whom she saw more closely was the hunchbacked woman. Her small, anxious face was even more wrinkled than her own and her skin hung on her cheek bones like a rag. Besides her hobbled a taller woman. Out of a neckerchief peered a sallow, shrunken face. The feet beneath it dragged behind as if they were heavy iron clumps. And they all looked the same, those who went with her. They were emaciated and weary. They push- ed themselves forward as though they could no longer endure their lives. And in their faces, misery and hunger were visible as if they had been branded with it. Mother Mellicher’s eyes became moist. So there were hundreds who were cast aside and doomed in the same way as herself. She was really not the only one. All those who were going back and in front of her were just as much so. She felt that as a consolation. Nay, more, as a blessing. At that, something snap- ped somewhere within her. Her loneliness, Her bitterness. Her isolation. All at once she felt unlocked. As if expanded in every direc- tion. All the walls were crumbling. She was merely flowing along. She was melting’ away. She felt, too, as if everything in and about her were becoming lighter. At the same time she sensed it in her steps. In her body. She no longer walked alone. Her body had fallen out of its stride. It tried to walk with the others. It swayed here and there like the rest.. It took over their move- ments. It dragged like them over the pave- ment. It. mingled with their loud, shuffling cadence. And she herself? _She would have liked best now to reach out in all directions. Were they By Kurt Klaeber deeper into these multitudes. that stared large-eyed and enxiously at h not all starving and ostracized? What kept them apart then? Why had she-cut herself off from them up till today? Had she been blind? She raised her hands a little, O, but now she wished to reach out for them. Now'she wished: to lean against them. Now nothing should}: separate her from them any longer. ; people ‘pushed into the street. There: were moré all the time. From every street they came. From every house. They already formed themselvés into small troops. Into col- umns. Their rhythmic tread became more de- cided. The tumult became greater. The whole city seemed to be marching. And .with each person that Mother Mellicher saw, she With cach iad she drew closer to them. So there were so many unfortunates and starving ones. So many. hundreds, yes, so many thousands stood beside her, small and wretched, defra and forsaken, and were being trampled ‘under foot. But these masses did not crush the walking woman. This endlessness of poverty did not make her smaller. Wasn’t life even easier and more agreeable to bear when thousands could help bear it. When it no longer lay solely on the pointed shoulders, but stretched over the whole city. She raised her head as if she sud- denly experienced this lightness. Hating with a hate that Their tragie‘story « Hating the men -aboverth Who keep them bel And what if the workers | Does it free them b Ix years of sufferi And the bitter “bre And wouldn’t it turn YO! The hellish kind of When the mighty men ab The men of Law a Are hanging two lives so That even the guil WEARY workers of tl When will you con When will you take the : Of court and State O gather your forces toge Your children and And crunch the chain th: Give Life to two d _-— And suddenly she felt also that in this tre- mendous march of the hungry there was still strength left. Here were walking not merely people who had been broken or were being broken by life; there was impetus in them, power. It came from the stamping of their feet. From the swaying of the bodies. d it became stronger, the more the stream of marchers swelled. That made her more courageous herself. That made her raise her head even higher. That fired her. That raised her out of and | f above her petty wretchedness. O, she scarce- | 0 ly knew herself anymore. She merely walked. | r She was marching with the others. And she | f SEgmaoaredwaodawton was immersed and dissolved into this stream, | § as if she had already been eternally united and 0 related to it. r Now the people suddenly piled up in a mass. | 0 She had to stop also. She looked about sur- | 4 prised. Why her feet were already stepping on bare ground. Where was she? She tried | | to raise herself higher. To the right ran gar- | } den hedges, To the left stood a few small | 5 houses. In front of her, trees arched. Now | 2 she knew it. She had marched through the | t lower part of the city and through the upper. | t Then they still had to pass a few flat meadows. | ‘ Beyond that was the meeting. . u enema eee