To call her Jew..."

Yet when she lies in bed
And the soft babble of their talk comes to her
And the silences...
I know she never sleeps
Till the keen draught blowing up the empty hall
Edges through her transom
And she hears his foot on the first stairs.

Sarah and Anna live on the floor above.
Sarah is swarthy and ill-dressed.
Life for her has no ritual.
She would break an ideal like an egg for the winged thing at the core.
Her mind is hard and brilliant and cutting like an acetylene torch.
If any impurities drift there, they must be burnt up as in a clear flame.
It is droll that she should work in a pants factory.
--Yet where else... tousled and collar awry at her olive throat.
Besides her hands are unkempt.
With English... and everything... there is so little time.
She reads without bias--
Doubting clamorously--
Psychology, plays, science, philosophies--
Those giant flowers that have bloomed and withered, scattering their seed...
--And out of this young forcing soil what growth may come--
what amazing blossomings.

Anna is different.
One is always aware of Anna, and the young men turn their heads
to look at her.