"We were not much disturbed by my professional duties. The town was too poor and an apothecary shop where there is no doctor isn't worth much. There was little doing, but we lived in a paradise, and we were always on the veranda—it was summer-time—side by side, hand in hand.
"And what should have claimed our interest? We had enough to live on, and as for going out, where were we to go? The veranda overlooked nearly the whole town—the low, sagging houses, broad, black, wooden booths that leaned, as though in pity, over the roll and apple sellers at their wretched stalls before the house-doors, as though they wanted to protect the old, withered, wrinkled faces from the sun.
"The town had once been rich, the booths full of all kinds of produce and fruits, the market full of carts, peasants, and brokers; sometimes even a great nobleman would be seen among the white peasant coats and the gray kaftans (at least so they assured me in the town), but the chaussée and the railroad had thrown everything out. The streets were empty, the booths filled with decayed onions and pieces of cheese—all that was left of the good times.
"Poor as poor can be. Ten traders threw themselves on every cart-load of corn brought in by the peasants, raised the price, then came to an agreement, promised cession money, and bought it in common; but not one of the ten could find in his pockets the wherewith to pay, and they borrowed money on interest. There were one hundred tailors to a pair of trousers; fifty cobblers to put in one patch. In all my born days I never saw such poverty.
"We kept away from the town as much as possible—the happy are selfish.
"But somehow we could not help noticing a young housewife opposite, not more than eighteen or twenty at most, and we could neither of us take our eyes off her, and she, apparently, couldn't take hers off us. It was an unusual sight. Imagine a beauty, a perfect picture, set in a frame as dirty as only a Jewish window in a small town can be, beneath a dreadfully bent roof. Imagine a pair of sad, soft, dreamy eyes in an alabaster white face and under a hair-band.
"She made a terribly sad impression on us.
"For hours together she would stand leaning in the window, her fingers twisted together, staring at us, or else at the stars, and swallowing her tears. We saw that she was always alone (your men never have any time to spare), always unhappy and wistful. Her face spoke for her. She is a stranger here, we decided; she has come from a larger house, less shut in, and she longs to be far away; her heart yearns after a freer life. She also wanted to live, to live and to be loved. No, you may say what you like, but you do sometimes sell your daughters. It is true that after a while they forget. They are pious and good and patient, but who shall count the tears that fall over their saddened faces till the store is exhausted? Or note what the heart suffers till it resigns itself to its living death? And why should it be so? Just because they are good and pious? You should have seen the husband—yellow, shrunk together. I saw him twice a day—go out in the morning and come home at night.
You will believe that I had no answer ready.