girl grow old over a book! To the canopy with her, while she could
fetch the highest price in the marriage market!

My mother was very unwilling to think of marriage at this time. She
had nothing to gain by marriage, for already she had everything that
she desired, especially since she was permitted to study. While her
father was rather stern, her mother spoiled and petted her; and she
was the idol of her aunt Hode, the fiddler's wife.

Hode had bought a fine estate in Polotzk, after my grandfather settled
there, and made it her home whenever she became tired of travelling.
She lived in state, with many servants and dependents, wearing silk
dresses on week days, and setting silver plate before the meanest
guest. The women of Polotzk were breathless over her wardrobe,
counting up how many pairs of embroidered boots she had, at fifteen
rubles a pair. And Hode's manners were as much a subject of gossip as
her clothes, for she had picked up strange ways in her travels
Although she was so pious that she was never tempted to eat trefah, no
matter if she had to go hungry, her conduct in other respects was not
strictly orthodox. For one thing, she was in the habit of shaking
hands with men, looking them straight in the face. She spoke Russian
like a Gentile, she kept a poodle, and she had no children.

Nobody meant to blame the rich woman for being childless, because it
was well known in Polotzk that Hode the Russian, as she was called,
would have given all her wealth for one scrawny baby. But she was to
blame for voluntarily exiling herself from Jewish society for years at
a time, to live among pork-eaters, and copy the bold ways of Gentile
women. And so while they pitied her childlessness, the women of
Polotzk regarded her misfortune as perhaps no more than a due
punishment.

Hode, poor woman, felt a hungry heart beneath her satin robes. She
wanted to adopt one of my grandmother's children, but my grandmother
would not hear of it. Hode was particularly taken with my mother, and
my grandmother, in compassion, loaned her the child for days at a
time; and those were happy days for both aunt and niece. Hode would
treat my mother to every delicacy in her sumptuous pantry, tell her
wonderful tales of life in distant parts, show her all her beautiful
dresses and jewels, and load her with presents.

As my mother developed into girlhood, her aunt grew more and more
covetous of her. Following a secret plan, she adopted a boy from