else did. He had
received his religious education when he was young, but he afterward
forgot everything amidst entirely secular occupations and cares. He
believed in Jehovah and worshipped him profoundly; he knew the
history of Moses and also something about the Babylonian captivity
and the later history of the Jewish people, but he did not know much
of the deeper meaning of these things. In the main be did not care
what Tanait or some Rabbi said or commanded. But he did not
contradict anything either by word or deed--not even by thought. He
did everything that was commanded, thinking to himself: "There is no
harm in it. Maybe it's only a human invention, but again it may be
God's command--why should I anger Him against me." Thus, acting
diplomatically with the people and with God, he was not afraid of
anything, and he was happy. He would have been completely happy if he
had not brought with him to Szybow that greatest and, for the
inhabitants of Szybow, most astonishing novelty, his wife Hannah. In
the same degree that it was his object while living in the small town
to act as did everyone else there, it was the greatest desire of Pani
Hannah to act differently from everyone else. When they had lived in
a large city there was celestial harmony between them based on mutual
attachment and similarity of taste. Here, however, Pani Hannah became
to her husband the cause of perpetual embarrassment and occasional
fear.

Pani Hannah was in love with civilisation, which for her assumed the
form of beautiful dresses, her own hair on her head, elegantly
furnished rooms, polite relations with her fellow-men, the French
language and music. Music was her craze. When they dwelt in a large
city she went to the public gardens to listen to it, where, walking
with her friends, clad in a rustling silk gown and plumed bat, gazing
at handsome men and chatting with amiable women, she felt perfectly
happy, and still more proud of her social position. Certain products of
civilisation especially caused her rapture. Once, perceiving in a public
garden a fountain, she admired it for a couple of hours with inexpressible
delight, and on returning to her city, which did not possess a fountain,
she talked to her friends during the whole year of that beautiful
phenomenon. She was also very fond of mirrors, and when she found
herself opposite a large mirror she could not tear her eyes away from it,
and especially from the reflected image of herself,