SOMETIMES we would go to the Jewish theater
together, Max, Dora, and I, the children being left at Sadie's
house. Once, when Max's lodge had a benefit performance and he
had had some tickets for sale, we made up a party of five: the two
couples and myself. On that occasion I met Jake Mindels at the
playhouse. He was now studying medicine at the University
Medical College, and it was a considerable time since I had last
seen him. To tell the truth, I had avoided meeting him. I hated to
stand confessed before him as a traitor to my dreams of a college
education, and I begrudged him his medical books.
I took Max and Dora to see an American play. He did not
understand much of what he saw and was bored to death. As for
her, she took in scarcely more than did her husband, though she
understood many of the words she heard, but then she reverently
followed the good manners of the "real Americans" on the stage,
and the sound of their "educated" English seemed to inspire her
with mixed awe and envy
Once, on a Monday evening, when I called on the Margolises, I
found Max out.
Dora seemed to be ill at ease in my company, and I did not stay
long. It seemed natural to fear that Max, who gave so much
attention to the relations between the sexes, should view visits of
this kind with misgivings. His playful warnings that we should
beware of falling in love with each other seemed to be always in
the air, and on that evening when he was away and we found
ourselves alone I seemed to hear their echo more distinctly than
ever.
It had a disquieting effect on me, that echo, and I decided never to
call unless Max was sure to be at home. I enjoyed their hospitality
too much to hazard it rashly. Moreover, Max and Dora lived in
peace and I was the last man in the world to wish to disturb it
To my surprise, however, he did not seem to be jealous of me in
the least.
Quite the contrary. He encouraged my familiarities with her, so
much so that I soon drifted into the habit of addressing her as
Dora
The better I knew her the greater was the respect with which she
inspired me. I thought her an unusual woman, and I looked up to
her
It became a most natural thing that I should propose myself as a
boarder.
Thousands of families like the Margolises kept boarders to lighten
the burden of rent-day
The project had been trailing in my mind for some time and, I
must confess, the fact that Max stayed out till the small hours four
or five nights a week had something to do with it
"You would be alone with her," Satan often whispered. Still, there
was nothing definitely reprehensible in this reflection. It was the
prospect of often being decorously alone with a woman who
inspired me with respect and interested me more and more keenly
that tempted me. Vaguely, however, I had a feeling that I was on
the road to falling in love with her
One evening, as I complained of my restaurant meals and of
certain inconveniences of my lodgings, Max said: "Nothing like
being married, Levinsky. Take my advice and get you a nice little
wifey. One like mine, for instance."
"Like yours! The trouble is that there is only one such, and you
have captured her." "Don't worry," Dora broke in. "There are
plenty of others, and better ones, too."
"I have a scheme," I said, seriously. "Why shouldn't you people let
me board with you?"
Natural as the suggestion was, it took them by surprise. For a
second or two Max gazed at his wife with a perplexed air. Then
he said: "That would not he a bad idea. Would it, Dora?"
"I don't know, I am sure," she answered, with a shrug and an
embarrassed smile. "We have never kept boarders."
"You will try to keep one now, then," I urged
"If there were room in the house, I should be glad. Upon my health
and strength I should." "Oh, you can make room," I said.
"Of course you can," Max put in, warming to the plan somewhat.
"He could have the children's bedroom, and they could sleep in
this room."
She held to her veto
"Oh, you don't know what an obstinate thing she is," Max said.
"Let her say that white is black, and black it must be, even if the
world turned upside down."
"What do you want of me?" she protested. "Levinsky may think I
really don't care to have him. Let us move to a larger apartment
and I'll be but too glad to give him a room."
The upshot was a compromise. For the present I was to content
myself with having my luncheons and dinners or suppers at their
house, Dora charging me cost price
"Get him to move to one of those new houses with modern
improvements," she said to me, earnestly; "to an apartment of five
light rooms, and I shall give you a room at once. The rent would
come cheaper than it is now. But Max would rather pay more and
have the children grow in these damp rooms than budge."
"Don't bother me. By and by we shall move out of here. All in due
time.
Don't bother. Meanwhile see that your dinners and suppers are all
right.
Levinsky thinks you a good cook. Don't disappoint him, then. Don't
run away with the idea it's on your own account he wants to board
with us. It is on account of your cooking. That's all. Isn't it,
Levinsky?"
"It's a good thing to know that I am not a bad cook, at least," she
returned
"But how about the profits you are going to make on him? I'll
deduct them from your weekly allowance, you know," he chaffed
her
"Oh no. I am just going to save them and buy a house on Fifth
Avenue."
"You ought to allow me ten per cent. for cash," I said. "She does
not want cash," Max replied. "Your note is good enough."
I had been taking my meals with them a little over a month when
they moved into a new apartment, with me as their roomer and
boarder. The apartment was on the third floor of a corner house
on Clinton Street, one of a row of what was then a new type of
tenement buildings. It consisted of five rooms and bath, all
perfectly light, and it had a tiny private corridor or vestibule, a
dumb-waiter, an enameled bath-tub, electric and gas light, and an
electric door-bell. There was a rush for these apartments and Dora
paid a deposit on the first month's rent before the builder was
quite through with his work.
My room opened into the vestibule, its window looking out upon a
side-street. The rent for the whole apartment was thirty-two
dollars, my board being five and a half dollars a week, which was
supposed to include a monthly rental of six dollars for my room.
The Shorniks moved into the same house.