It appeared that her husband was away on one of his prolonged business excursions. Otherwise installing in her "modern" home an old-fashioned, ridiculous young creature like a Talmud student would have been out of the question
I followed her with fast-beating heart. I knew that her family was "modern," that her children spoke Russian and "behaved like Gentiles," that there was a grown young woman among them and that her name was Matilda
The case of this young woman had been the talk of the town the year before.
She had been persuaded to marry a man for whom she did not care, and shortly after the wedding and after a sensational passage at arms between his people and hers, she made her father pay him a small fortune for divorcing her
Matilda's family being one of the "upper ten" in our town, its members were frequently the subject of envious gossip, and so I had known a good deal about them even before Shiphrah befriended me. I had heard, for example, that Matilda had received her early education in a boarding-school in Germany (in accordance with a custom that had been in existence among people of her father's class until recently); that she had subsequently studied Russian and other subjects under Russian tutors at home; and that her two brothers, who were younger than she, were at the local Russian gymnasium, or high school. I had heard, also, that Matilda was very pretty. That she was well dressed went without saying
All this both fascinated and cowed me
Suddenly Shiphrah paused, as though bethinking herself of something. "Wait.
Don't stir," she said, rushing back. Ten or fifteen minutes later she returned, saying: "I was not long, was I? I just went to get the beadle's forgiveness. Had insulted him for nothing. But he's a dummy, all the same.
Come on, David."
Arrived at her house, she introduced me to her old servant, in the kitchen