MY shop being practically closed, I was at home
most of the time, not only in the evening, but many a forenoon or
afternoon as well. Dora and I would hold interminable
conversations. Our love was never alluded to. A relationship on
new terms seemed to have been established between us. It was as
if she were saying: "Now, isn't this better? Why can't we go on like
this forever?"
Sometimes I would watch her read with Lucy. Or else I would take
up a newspaper or a book and sit reading it at the same table.
Dora was making rapid headway in her studies. It was July and
Lucy was free from school, so she would let her spend many an
hour in the street, but she caused her to spend a good deal of time
with her, too. If she did not read with her she would talk or listen
to her. I often wondered whether it was for fear of being too much
thrown into my company that she would make the child stay
indoors. At all events, her readings, spelling contests, or talks with
Lucy bore perceptible fruit. Her English seemed to be improving
every day, so much so that we gradually came to use a good deal
of that language even when we were alone in the house; even
when every word we said had an echo of intimacy with which the
tongue we were learning to speak seemed to be out of accord
One evening mother and daughter sat at the open parlor window.
While I was reclining in an easy-chair at the other end of the room
Lucy was narrating something and Dora was listening, apparently
with rapt attention. I watched their profiles. Finally I said: "She
must be telling you something important, considering the interest
you are taking in it."
"Everything she says is important to me," Dora answered
"What has she been telling you?"
"Oh, about her girls, about their brothers and their baseball games,
about lots of things," she said, with a far-away tone in her voice. "I
want to know everything about her. Everything. I wish I could get
right into her. I wish I could be a child like her. Oh, why can't a
person be born over again?"
Her longing ejaculation had perhaps more to do with her feelings
for me than with her feelings for her child. Anyhow, what she said
about her being interested in everything that Lucy had to say was
true. And, whether she listened to the child's prattle or not, it
always seemed to me as though she absorbed every English word
Lucy uttered and every American gesture she made. The
American school-girl radiated a subtle influence, a spiritual
ozone, which her mother breathed in greedily
"My own life is lost, but she shall be educated"-- these words
dropped from her lips quite often. On one occasion they came
from her with a modification that lent them unusual meaning. It
was on a Friday evening. Max was out, as usual, and the children
were asleep. "My own life is lost, but Lucy shall be happy," she
said
"Why?" I said, feelingly. "Why should you think yourself lost? I
can't bear it, Dora."
She made no answer. I attempted to renew the conversation, but
without avail. She answered in melancholy monosyllables and my
voice had a constrained note
At last I burst out, in our native tongue: "Why do you torture me,
Dora? Why don't you let me talk and pour my heart out?"
"'S-sh! You mustn't," she said, peremptorily, also in Yiddish.
"You'll get me in trouble if you do. It'll be the ruin of me and of
the children, too.
You mustn't."
"But you say your life is lost," I retorted, coming up close to the
chair on which she sat. "Do you think it's easy for me to hear it?
Do you think my heart is made of iron?"
"'S-sh! You know everything without my speaking," she said,
slowly rising and drawing back. "You know well enough that I am
not happy. Can't you rest until you have heard me say so again and
again? Must you drink my blood? All right, then. Go ahead. Here.
I am unhappy, I am unhappy, I am unhappy. Max is a good
husband to me. I can't complain. And we get along well, too. And I
shall be true to him. May I choke right here, may darkness come
upon me, if I ever cease to be a faithful wife to him. But you know
that my heart has never been happy. Lucy will be happy and that
will be my happiness, too. She shall go to college and be an
educated American lady, and, if God lets me live, I shall see to it
that she doesn't marry unless she meets the choice of her heart.
She must be happy. She must make up for her mother's lost life,
too. If my mother had understood things as I do, I, too, should have
been happy. But she was an old-fashioned woman and she would
have me marry in the old-fashioned way, as she herself had
married: without laying her eyes on her 'predestined one' until the
morning after the wedding." She laughed bitterly. "Of course I did
see Max before the wedding, but it made no difference. I obeyed
my mother, peace upon her soul. I thought love-marriages were
something which none but educated girls could dream of.
My mother--peace upon her soul--told me to throw all fancies out
of my mind, that I was a simple girl and must get married without
fuss. And I did. In this country people have different notions. But I
am already married and a mother. All I can do now is to see to it
that Lucy shall be both educated and happy, and, well, I beg of
you, I beg of you, I beg of you, Levinsky, never let me talk of
these things again. They must be locked up in my heart and the
key must be thrown into the river, Levinsky. It cannot be
otherwise, Levinsky. Do you hear?"