"The
'Hammerclavier' for instance----"
It was magical.--"Oh, yes, yes--that--that!" Ben's eyes widened, his
face glowed. He hummed a bar or so. "Was there ever anything like it?
My God! was there ever anything like it!"
Jenny, who had the key, squeezed past them at this, and ran through the
kitchen to the scullery, where she filled the kettle and put it upon
the gas-ring to boil; looked round her for a moment, with quick,
darting eyes--like a small wild animal at bay in a strange place--then
drew a bucketful of water, turned up her sleeves, the skirt of her new
black frock, tied on an old hessian apron of Mrs. Cohen's, with a
savage jerk of the strings, and dropping upon her knees, started to
scrub the floor, the rough stone floor.
"Men!--trapsin' in an' out, muckin' up a place!"
She could hear the murmur of men's voices in the kitchen, and through
it that "trapsin'" of other men struggling with a long coffin on the
steep narrow stairs.
On and on it went--the agonised remembrance of all that banging,
trampling; the swish of her own scrubbing-brush; the voices round the
table where old Mrs.
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