Bernard Malamud
THE FIRST SEVEN YEARS
Feld, the shoemaker, felt annoyed that his assistant, Sobel,
was so insensitive to his reverie that he would not for a minute cease
his fanatic pounding at the other bench. He gave him a look but
Sobel's bald head was bent over the last as he worked and he didn't
notice. The shoemaker shrugged and continued to peer through the
partly frosted window at the near-sighted haze of falling February
snow. Neither the shifting white blur outside, nor the sudden
deep remembrance of the snowy Polish village where he had
wasted his youth could turn his thoughts from Max the college boy
(a constant visitor to the mind since early that morning when Feld
saw him trudging through snowdrifts on his way to school) whom
he so much respected because of the sacrifices he had made through–
out all these years-in winter or direst heat-to further his education.
An old wish returned to haunt the shoemaker: that he had had a
son instead of a daughter, but this blew away in the snow for Feld, if
anything, was a realist. Yet he could not help but contrast the dili–
gence of the boy, who was a peddler's son, with Miriam's uncon–
cern for an education. True, she was always with a book in her hand,
yet when the opportunity arose for a college education, she had said
no she would rather find a job. He had begged her to go, pointing out
how many fathers could not afford to send their children to college,
but she said she preferred to be independent. As for education, what
was it, she asked, but books, which Sobel, who diligently read the
classics, would as usual advise her on. Her answer greatly grieved her
father.
A figure emerged from the snow and the door opened. At the
counter the man withdrew from a wet paper bag a pair of old shoes
