article of it. Here she
was civilisation itself--the whole sum of the civilisation existing
in Szybow.

This love for amazing the people which, after the care of the
children and the household, was the first occupation of Pani Hannah's
mind, and the source of her greatest happiness caused her husband
considerable uneasiness and fear. In the beginning he had heard some
murmurs that he was a misnagdim be learned that the popular
indignation had been aroused against his wife for wearing woven stuff
of mixed flax and wool, and for using a samovar on Sabbath, and for
saying that; "Szybow was not on the earth, but under it." When he
learned of all these things he quaked with fear, and began to war
with his better-half about the stuff of flax and wool, about the use
of the samovar on the Sabbath, and about the situation of Szybow. His
better-half fought for a long time, but the diplomatic husband was
finally victorious regarding the samovar and the stuff. But he could
do nothing regarding the situation of Szybow, because Pani Hannah
could not but respect the place where she herself lived, in spite of
all efforts of her will. Even if she was silent, her disdainfully
half-closed eyes, her proudly smiling mouth, always elaborate dress,
and her manners full of such exquisite courtesy, made it impossible
to find anyone in the whole world more civil than she was, all that
was protesting. In the main, Pani Hannah was perfectly happy with her
meek, though at times decided husband, with pretty, always
beautifully dressed children, and with the sentiment always in her
soul that she was superior to everything surrounding her. She had
only one great sorrow, and that; was the thought that she would never
be able to amaze the inhabitants of Szybow by wearing her own hair;
in the first place, because it was too late to make it grow now, and
then Eli would never permit such a public scandal. Therefore she was
obliged to wear a very pretty wig on her sorrowful head, and she
consoled herself with the thought that the occasion of her daughter
Mera's return from Wilno would be her greatest triumph. Eli was very
uneasy about this, for he feared that he would be accused of being
quite different from all the fathers in Szybow. As for Pani Hannah,
she was beside herself with joy at the thought that she would be
considered a quite different mother from all the other mothers in
Szybow.

Finally it was accomplished. In a month after Eli's conversatio