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and red-haired, was less handsome than his brother, that she disliked the color of his hair, that she disliked Biblical names? Yes, she might have preferred Sasha, because he was handsome with glossy black hair, an erect posture, and brilliant blue eyes, whereas David stooped slightly from too much bending over books, and his eyes were paler than his brother’s. But Sasha was arrogant, and arrogant men do not bring peace to their wives.
    Mathilde had never loved a man, nor had she been courted in the usual fashion, for her fate had been sealed long before she attended her first ball. And who would spend time with someone else’s betrothed, even though she was voluptuous and had soft white skin, sapphire eyes, and long, waving ebony hair? Her feelings for her cousin, David, included devotion and friendship, but certainly she did not understand him. Mathilde de Gunzburg was anything but emotional, and could not even comprehend David’s deep love for her. Nor did she share his unquenchable need to learn. She enjoyed a yellow-backed love story far more than a well-formed sonnet. Least of all did she understand David’s religious zeal. If she could have stated her life’s philosophy, it would have been with these words: “Above all, I want peace. I dislike excess of any sort, for it disturbs my equilibrium.”
    David’s religion was excessive. For that matter, Russia itself was excessive. Her mother, her sisters, her friends were all Parisians. But David said, “The Gunzburgs are not French, my sweet, but Russian. You will see, your own origins will come out in you once we are settled.” She had bowed her head and accepted her duty, and then, in agony and fear, had allowed her husband to come to her bed and to enter her soft round body, which had, until now, been hers alone. She had borne this with wretched calm. Yet after their train was within the Russian borders she had finally cried out against him, and it was his religion that had pushed her to this.
    One day as the sun went down and their train pulled into a small station, Mathilde had been wrenched out of her daydreams by the brisk entrance of the conductor, who had ordered some porters to remove the Baron and Baroness’s luggage from their compartment. “David!” she exclaimed. “What is happening here? Where are we?”
    He had placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, and replied, “Nothing is wrong, beloved. But the Sabbath has begun, and we must get off. One does not ride during the Sabbath.”
    â€œAnd you made reservations at a hotel here?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “There are no hotels here. This is a very small village. We shall be forced to sleep on a bench in the waiting room.”
    Mathilde’s emotions, so long kept hidden, had come flooding out of her in a humiliating torrent of tears, and she had cried out, her voice shrill with outrage and loneliness and horror: “No! I shall not get down! You may sleep wherever you wish, in the gutter if it appeals to you, but not I! You say you love me. How can you place a silly rule before me in your heart? I detest you, David, and I detest your religion, and I always shall! It is a religion for fools and fanatics!”
    â€œBut those rules help make our lives more sensible,” he had replied with kindness. Yet inside his heart he was quaking, for never in the eighteen years of her life had he heard Mathilde lose her temper. She had wounded him, and though he pitied her, he also felt as though she had ripped something precious from their union. But he did not yield. In the end, holding up her heavy skirts, she had followed him off the train and had sat down on a hard bench in the station, facing him. All night long he had felt those hard blue eyes boring into him with their hatred, although Mathilde never said another word. Her cheeks glowed white with tension and he had been afraid, yet not certain why.
    And she had thought: I have