I
Tatyana Markovna Lurie had just received the July number of "Russian
Thought," and was in a flurry. She felt like devouring all the odd
dozen of articles in the voluminous book at once; and the patience
failing her to cut the leaves, she fell to prying between them on the
rocking-chair which she had drawn up close to one of the two windows
of the best room.
Altogether, the residence of the Luries consisted of three small
uncarpeted and scantily furnished apartments, and occupied a fourth of
the top floor of a veteran tenement house on Madison Street.
Ultimately, Tatyana Markovna settled on an extensive review of a new
translation of Guy de Maupassant's stories. But here again she was
burning to glance over the beginning, the middle, and the end of the
article simultaneously. And so she sat, feverishly skipping and
hopping over the lines, until a thought expressed by the critic, and
which struck her as identical with one she had set forth in a recent
discussion with her husband, finally fixed her attention and
overspread her youthful little face with radiance. She was
forerelishing her triumph when, upon Boris's return from work, she
would show him the passage; for in their debate he had made light of
her contention, and met her irresolute demurrer with the patronizing
and slightly ironical tone which he usually took while discussing book
questions with her.
But at the thought of Boris she suddenly remembered her soup, and
growing pale she put the magazine aside, and darted into the
semi-obscurity of the kitchen.
Tatyana, or Tanya, as her husband would fondly call her, was the
daughter of a merchant and Hebrew writer in Kieff, who usually lost
upon his literary ventures what he would save from his business. It
was not long after she had graduated from one of the female gymnasiums
of her native city that she met Boris Lurie, then a law student at the
University of St. Vladimir.
He was far from being what Russian college girls would call "a dear
little soul;" for he was tall and lank, awkwardly near-sighted, and
rather plain of feature, and the scar over his left eyebrow, too,
added anything but beauty to his looks. But for all that, the married
young women of his circle voted him decidedly interesting.
Tanya was attracted by his authoritative tone and rough sort of
impetuosity upon discussing social or literary topics; by his
reputation of being one of the best-read men at the university, as
well as a leading spirit in student "circles," and by the perfect
Russian way in which his coal-black hair fell over his commanding
forehead. As to him, he was charmed by that in her which had charmed
many a student before him: the delicate freshness of her pink
complexion, which, by the time we first find her in the Madison Street
tenement, had only partially faded; the enthusiastic smile beaming
from her every feature as she spoke; and the way her little nose, the
least bit retroussé, would look upward, and her beautiful hazel eyes
would assume a look of childlike curiosity, while she was listening to
her interlocutor.
They were married immediately after his graduation, with the intention
of settling in Kremenchug, where he had every prospect of a large
practice. But when he presented himself for admission to the bar, as a
"private attorney," he encountered obstacle after obstacle. He tried
another district, but with no better success. By that time it had
become clear that the government was bent upon keeping the Jews out of
the forensic profession, although it had not officially placed it upon
the list of vocations proscribed to their race.
After a year of peregrination and petitioning he came, a bundle of
nerves, to Jitomir to make a last attempt in the province of Volyn.
A high judiciary officer who received him rather politely, made, in
the course of their interview, the semi-jocular remark that the way to
the bar lay through the baptismal font.
"Villain!" Lurie thundered, his fists clenched and his eyes flashing.
Luckily the functionary was a cool-headed old man who knew how to
avoid unsavory publicity. And so, when Lurie defiantly started to
stalk out of the room, he was not stopped.
A month or two later, Boris and Tanya arrived in New York.