The grocer’s shop of the street was owned by a Jewess, named Nastasia Leontievna Fuchsman. She looked at me closely when I entered her shop, recognizing that I was a stranger in the street, and asked me:
“Whose are you?”
“I am of the Frolkovs. We have just moved into the basement in the next block.”
“I need a little girl to help me. Would you like to work for me?” she asked. “I’ll give you a rouble a month, and board.”
I was overjoyed and started for home at such speed that by the time I got to my mother I was quite breathless. I told her of the offer from the grocery-woman.
“But,” I added, “she is a Jewess.”
I had heard so many things of Jews that I was rather afraid, on second thoughts, to live under the same roof with a Jewess. My mother calmed my fears on that score and went to the grocer’s shop to have a talk with the proprietress. She came back satisfied, and I entered upon my apprenticeship to Nastasia Leontievna.
It was not an easy life. I learned to wait on customers, to run errands, to do everything in the house, from cooking and sewing to scrubbing floors. All day I slaved without ceasing, and at night I slept on a box in the passage-way between the shop and the house. My monthly earnings went to my mother, but they never sufficed to drive the spectre of starvation away from my home. My father earned little but drank much, and his temper became more and more harsh.
In time my wages were raised to two roubles a month. But as I grew I required more clothes, which my mother had to supply me from my earnings. Nastasia Leontievna was exacting and not infrequently punished me. But she also loved me as though I had been her own daughter, and always tried to make up for harsh treatment. I owe a great deal to her, as she taught me to do almost everything, both in her business and in housework.
I must have been about eleven when, in a fit of temper, I quarrelled with Nastasia Leontievna. Her brother frequented the theatre and constantly talked of it. I never quite understood what a theatre was like, but it attracted me, and I resolved one evening to get acquainted with that place of wonders. I asked Nastasia Leontievna for money to go there. She refused.