As the weeks went by, my satisfaction with the progress I was making was largely tempered by the knowledge that after the completion of my picture my model would be thrown again on the pavement, and several times I fancied I detected him gazing at it sadly as if watching its advancing stages with a sort of hopeless fear. My anxiety about him and his family grew from day to day, but I could not see any possible way of helping him. He was touchingly faithful, anxious to please, and uncomplaining either of cold or hunger. Once I gave him a few shillings to purchase a second-hand pair of top-boots, which were necessary for the picture, and these he was able to procure in the Ghetto Sunday market for a minute sum, and he conscientiously returned me the balance--about two-thirds.
I happened to have sold an English landscape to Sir Asher Aaronsberg, the famous philanthropist and picture-buyer of Middleton, then up in town in connection with his Parliamentary duties, and knowing how indefatigably he was in touch with the London Jewish charities, I inquired whether some committee could not do anything to assist Quarriar. Sir Asher was not very encouraging. The man knew no trade. However, if he would make application on the form enclosed and answer the questions, he would see what could be done. I saw that the details were duly filled in--the ages and sex of his five children, etc.
But the committee came to the conclusion that the only thing they could do was to repatriate the man. 'Return to Russia!' cried Israel in horror.
Occasionally I inquired if any plan for the future had occurred to him. But he never raised the subject of his difficulties of his own accord, and his very silence, born, as it seemed to me, of the majestic dignity of the man, was infinitely pathetic. Now and again came a fitful gleam of light. His second daughter would be given a week's work for a few shillings by his landlord, a working master-tailor in a small way, from whom he now rented two tiny rooms on the top floor. But that was only when there was an extra spasm of activity. His half-blind daughter would do a little washing, and the landlord would allow her the use of the backyard.
At last one day I found he had an idea, and an idea, moreover, that was carefully worked out in all its details. The scheme was certainly a novel and surprising one to me, but it showed how the art of forcing a livelihood amid impossible circumstances had been cultivated among these people, forced for centuries to exist under impossible conditions.