MY growing interest in Dora burst into flame all at
once, as it were. It happened at a moment which is distinctly fixed
in my mind. At least I distinctly remember the moment when I
became conscious of it
It was on an afternoon, four days after the Margolises had taken
possession of the new place. The family was fully established in
it, while I had just moved in. I had seen my room, furniture and
all, several times before, but I had never seen it absolutely ready
for my occupancy as I did now. It was by far the brightest, airiest,
best-furnished, and neatest room that I had ever had all to myself.
Everything in it, from the wall-paper to the little wash-stand, was
invitingly new. I can still smell its grateful odor of freshness.
When I was left to myself in it for the first time and I shut its door
the room appealed to me as a compartment in the nest of a family
of which I was a member. My lonely soul had a sense of home and
domestic comfort that all but overpowered me. The sight of the
new quilt and of the fresh white pillow, coupled with the
knowledge that it was Dora whose fingers had prepared it all for
me, sent a glow of delight through my heart
Dora's name was whispering itself in my mind. I paused at the
window, an enchanted man
A few minutes later, when I re-entered the living-room, where she
was counting some freshly ironed napkins, her face seemed to
have acquired a new meaning. I felt that a great change had come
in my attitude toward her
"Well, is everything all right?" she inquired
"First rate," I answered, in a voice that sounded unnatural to myself
Max was fussing with the rug in the parlor. The children were
gamboling from room to room, testing the faucets, the
dumb-waiter
"Get avey from there!" Dora shouted. "You'll hurt yourself. Max,
tell Lucy not to touch the dumb-vaiter, vill you?"
"Children! Children! What's a madder vitch you?" he called out
from the parlor, in English, with a perfunctory snarl. Presently he
came into the living-room. "Well, are you satisfied with your new
palace?" he addressed me in Yiddish. And for the hundredth time
he proceeded to make jokes at the various modern
"improvements," at the abundance of light, and at my new rank of
"real boarder."
It is one of the old and deep-rooted customs of the Ghetto towns of
Europe for a young couple to live with the parents of the bride for
a year or two after the wedding. So Max gaily dubbed me his
"boarding son-in-law
"Try to behave, boarding son-in-law," he bantered me. "If you don't
your mother-in-law will starve you."
The pleasantry grated on me
Dora's ambition to learn to read and spell English was a passion,
and the little girl played a more important part in the efforts she
made in this direction than Dora was willing to admit. Lucy would
tell her the meaning of new words as she had heard it at school,
but it often happened that the official definition she quoted was
incomprehensible to both. This was apt to irritate Dora or even
lead to a disagreeable scene
If I happened to be around I would explain things to her, but she
seemed to accept my explanations with a grain of salt. She bowed
before my intellectual status in a general way, but since she had
good reason to doubt the quality of my English enunciation, she
doubted my Yiddish interpretations as well. Indeed, she doubted
everything that did not bear the indorsement of Lucy's school.
Whatever came from that sacred source was "real Yankee";
everything else was "greenhorn." If she failed to grasp some of the
things that Lucy brought back from school, she would blame it on
the child.
"Oh, you didn't understand what your teacher said," she would
scold her.
"You must have twisted it all up, you stupid."
One afternoon, when business was slow and there did not seem to
be anything to preclude my staying at home and breathing the air
that Dora breathed, I witnessed a painful scene between them. It
was soon after Lucy returned from school. Her mother wanted her
to go over her last reading-lesson with her, and the child would
not do so, pleading a desire to call on Beckie
"Stay where you are and open your reader," Dora commanded
Lucy obeyed, whimperingly. "Read!" "I want to go to Beckie."
"Read, I say." And she slapped her hand
"Don't," I remonstrated. "Let the poor child go enjoy herself." But
it only spoiled matters
"Read!" she went on, with grim composure, hitting her on the
shoulder
"I don't want to! I want to go down-stairs," Lucy sobbed, defiantly
"Read!" And once more she hit her.
My heart went out to the child, but I dared not intercede again
Dora did not relent until Lucy yielded, sobbingly
I left the room in disgust. The scene preyed upon my mind all that
afternoon. I remained in my room until supper-time. Then I found
Dora taciturn and downcast and I noticed that she treated Lucy
with exceptional, though undemonstrative, tenderness
"Must have given her a licking," Max explained to me, with a wink
I kept my counsel
She beat her quite often, sometimes violently, each scene of this
kind being followed by hours of bitter remorse on her part. Her
devotion to her children was above that of the average mother.
Lucy had been going to school for over two years, yet she missed
her every morning as though she were away to another city; and
when the little girl came back, Dora's face would brighten, as if a
flood of new sunshine had burst into the house.
On one occasion there was a quarrel between mother and daughter
over the result of a spelling-match between them which I had
umpired and which Lucy had won. Dora took her defeat so hard
that she was dejected all that evening
I have said that despite her passionate devotion to Lucy she was
jealous of her. She was jealous not only of the school education
she was receiving, but also of her American birth
She was feverishly ambitious to bring up her children in the "real
American syle," and the realization of her helplessness in this
direction caused her many a pang of despair. She was thirstily
seeking for information on the subject of table manners, and
whatever knowledge she possessed of it she would practise, and
make Lucy practise, with amusing pomp and circumstance.
"Don't reach out for the herring, Lucy!" she would say, sternly.
"How many times must I tell you about it? What do you say?"
"Pass me the herring, mamma, please." "Not 'mamma.'"
"Pass me the herring, mother, please."
The herring is passed with what Dora regards as a lady-like gesture
"Thank you, ma'am," says Lucy
"There is another way," Dora might add in a case of this kind.
"Instead of saying, 'Pass me the herring or the butter,' you can
say--What is it, Lucy?"
"May I trouble you for the herring, mother?"
I asked her to keep track of my table etiquette, too, and she did.
Whenever I made a break she would correct my error solemnly, or
with a burst of merriment, or with a scandalized air, as if she had
caught me in the act of committing a felony. This was her revenge
for my general intellectual superiority, which she could not help
admitting and envying
"You just let her teach you and she will make a man of you," Max
would say to me.
Sometimes, when I mispronounced an English word with which
she happened to be familiar, or uttered an English phrase in my
Talmudic singsong, she would mock me gloatingly. On one such
occasion I felt the sting of her triumph so keenly that I hastened to
lower her crest by pointing out that she had said "nice" where
"nicely" was in order
"What do you mean?" she asked, perplexedly
My reply was an ostentatious discourse on adjectives and
adverbs, something which I knew to be utterly beyond her depth.
It had the intended effect. She listened to my explanation stupidly,
and when I had finished she said, with resignation: "I don't
understand what you say. I wish I had time to go to evening school,
at least, as you did. I haven't any idea of these things. Lucy will be
educated for both of us, for herself and for her poor mamma. If my
mother had understood as much as I do it would have been
different." She uttered a sigh, fell silent, and then resumed: "But I
can't complain of my mother, either. She was a diamond of a
woman, and she was wise as daylight. But Russia is not America.
No, I can't complain of my parents. My father was a poor man, but
ask Max or some of our fellow-townspeople and they will tell you
what a fine name he had."
She was talkative and somewhat boastful like the average woman
of her class, but there was about her an elusive effect of reserve
and earnestness that kept me at a distance from her. Moreover, the
tireless assiduity and precision which she brought to her
housework and, above all, the grim passion of her intellectual
struggles created an atmosphere of physical and spiritual tidiness
about her that inspired me with something like reverence.
Living in that atmosphere seemed to be making a better man of me
Attempting a lark with her, as I had done with Mrs. Dienstog and
Mrs.
Levinsky, my first two landladies in New York, was out of the
question.
Needless to explain that this respectful distance did not prevent my
eyes and ears from feasting upon her luxurious complexion, her
clear, honest voice, and all else that made me feel both happy
and forlorn in her company. Nor would she, aware as she
undoubtedly was of the meaning of my look or smile, hesitate to
respond to them by some legitimate bit of coquetry. In short, we
often held converse in that language of smiles, glances, blushes,
pauses, gestures, which is the gesture language of sex across the
barrier of decorum.
These speechless flirtations cost me many an hour which I should
have otherwise spent at my shop or soliciting trade. When away
from the magnetic force of her presence I would attend to
business with unabated intensity.
Her image visited my brain often, but it did not disturb me. Rather,
it was the image of some customer or creditor or of some new
style of jacket or cloak that would interfere with my peace of
mind. My brain was full of prices, bills, notes, checks, fabrics,
color effects, "lines." Not infrequently, while walking in the street
or sitting in a street-car, I would catch myself describing some of
those garment lines in the air.
And yet, through all these preoccupations I seemed to be
constantly aware that something unusual had happened to me,
giving a novel tinge to my being; that I was a changed man