When a Jew
shoots himself in the City and there is an inquest, the newspapers
usually report that the deceased was 'well-nourished'. I remember
thinking that they would not call me well-nourished if I broke my
neck in a bog-hole. I lay and tortured myself--for the ginger
biscuits merely emphasized the aching void--with the memory of
all the good food I had thought so little of in London. There were
Paddock's crisp sausages and fragrant shavings of bacon, and
shapely poached eggs--how often I had turned up my nose at
them! There were the cutlets they did at the club, and a particular
ham that stood on the cold table, for which my soul lusted. My
thoughts hovered over all varieties of mortal edible, and finally
settled on a porterhouse steak and a quart of bitter with a welsh
rabbit to follow. In longing hopelessly for these dainties I
fell asleep.
I woke very cold and stiff about an hour after dawn. It took me
a little while to remember where I was, for I had been very weary
and had slept heavily. I saw first the pale blue sky through a net of
heather, then a big shoulder of hill, and then my own boots placed
neatly in a blaeberry bush. I raised myself on my arms and looked
down into the valley, and that one look set me lacing up my boots
in mad haste.
For there were men below, not more than a quarter of a mile off,
spaced out on the hillside like a fan, and beating the heather.
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