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married a madman. But after that episode she never again tried to oppose his faith, although in other matters she learned that his love frequently changed his mind in favor of her own wishes.
    Having children had been a special ordeal for her. There had been two miscarriages before Anna was born in 1885. Anna, colicky and red-haired like David, was a disappointment to her. During Anna’s first year, she had suffered convulsions so strong that the muscles on the left side of her face, still immature, had slackened. Mathilde, so beautiful, so fastidious, had wondered with horror what would become of this ugly daughter of hers. Who would ever marry her?
    Worse, little Anna had early displayed the most remarkable temper, rolling herself on the floor and howling her fury. To Mathilde, who shuddered when a carriage drove too noisily in front of the house, her child could have committed no worse offense. Yet this spindly, unruly little individual was still her daughter. She did love her, though with misgivings and doubts—and with guilt at not surrendering herself to maternal love more wholeheartedly. It was David who rescued her from her bouts with guilt, for he, who loved all the unfortunate of the world, immediately formed a bond with his small daughter.
    When Ossip arrived two years later, Mathilde felt as though finally her life had been justified. The baby was calm, with her own eyes and hair and an alabaster complexion. She took care not to favor the new child over her daughter, masking her genuine appreciation of the boy in quiet reserve. And then one day, when Ossip was three years old, David had entered the nursery and found his son doubled over.
    â€œCome now, Ossip, straighten up like a little man,” his father had said, teasing. The child had raised his limpid eyes, full of tears, and had frozen the smile on David’s face with his own expression of pain. “I can’t, Papa,” he murmured. The specialist the Gunzburgs called in declared that Mathilde’s sweet Ossip had Pott’s disease. A special crib was fashioned for him, and for three years he was not allowed to rise from it. Then, slowly, he was permitted to stand, but not to sit, and finally to sit for short periods of time. He had been late starting his lessons, but had quickly caught up with Anna, who was too occupied with pranks to apply herself.
    Mathilde had left St. Petersburg with her children when Ossip had fallen ill, and she had been too shocked, heartsick, and weary to pay much attention at first to the second daughter who had been born only three months before. But then, traveling through Europe, resting at the homes of her mother, her cousins, and her friends, she had become numbed to the pain and the worry, and had awakened to the fact that her third child, Sofia Sara, was much worth considering. Sonia, as she was called, was tiny, well-formed, and gay. Not boisterous and spirited like Anna, but then again, not placid like Ossip. This baby gurgled and smiled and held out her rosy hands, and she seemed in perfect health. As she grew, people said that she was like a miniature of Mathilde, but her cheeks were pinker and her eyes a grayer shade. She followed Mathilde like a faithful puppy, and her mother would find her busily gathering breadcrumbs to the side of her plate, the way she herself did, unconsciously. Ossip was truly similar to Mathilde in his passive cynicism, but Sonia was serious-minded, with a studied calm. She enjoyed life, but thoughtfully, and tried to be brilliant like her father and feminine like her mother. Mathilde liked the presence of this child around her, and felt relief. Sonia, at least, would make the great marriage that Anna might never attain.
    That summer, as Mathilde awaited the birth of her fourth child, she watched her children and was glad, for Ossip seemed healthier and Anna, for all her rebelliousness, was obviously a favorite among the inhabitants of Mohilna. Sonia scampered about,