“Manny! Oh, my good God, honest? Honest, Manny? My Manny, my good son, what’s going to be a doctor, what’s going to be so good to his family!” She kissed him. She pawed over his face, his hair. He suffered that. Writing? Well.... Where was the street? Well.... He’d be a doctor.... Etta, his father, his mother, Reba.... “Sure, Ma.” IV Emmanuel watched the patient go out of his office. He hadn’t been able to do anything for the girl. He hadn’t dared to do anything for her. In fact, he had shaken his head even before hearing her request. Her eyes had told him. Sorry for the girl? Yes. Of course he was sorry for her. But it wasn’t ethical.... He had to laugh at the word. Ethics--smug euphemism. Simply afraid, that was the truth. Couldn’t risk it. He, the well-known physician, member of medical associations, “a respected member of the community.” Seven years ago, perhaps, when money had been needed. When impatient eyes were watching him. Four pairs of eyes--no, six, because there had been Etta’s family, too. Now there was enough money. Now there was his office. The mahogany desk with its impressive medical volumes, the white enamel instrument cabinet. An X-ray apparatus. The elaborate washstand with its gleaming appointments. The blue-lettered sign on the window: E. Manfred Woll, M.D. “That’s not I, of course,” he told himself. E. Manfred Woll.... Etta’s doing. “You can’t have a kike name in a swell neighbourhood like this,” she had told him. All right, the physician, _medicinæ doctor_, that was E. Manfred Woll. But then where was Emmanuel Wolkowitz? He didn’t know. There used to be a street. That wasn’t any more. Upstairs there was only his apartment, with every piece of correct furniture just so, with every proper picture just so, every cushion rigid, every piece of china, every vase as the interior decorator had planned it. He was living in an interior decorator’s apartment! Etta’s doing. Etta herself, his wife, composed of a pretty face, a carefully, painfully, pretty face, of just so much obedient, matter-of-fact sex, so much wifely devotion, solicitude: “Dearie, you’re so tired!” Every day.... “Here, let me get the girl to make you a nice hot cup of tea.” There used to be a melody.... In the beginning he had attempted to get Etta to sing. She had replied: “Oh, I don’t know! Too much trouble. Lessons and everything. Of course, if I was a single girl it would be nice to learn and get a job in a show or in vaudeville. But ain’t I got the best husband in the world to take care of me now?” Well, she didn’t understand! Emmanuel watched the things in the office, he watched himself seated at the desk of E. Manfred Woll, M.D. Funny, that was! Etta came in. As usual: “Am I disturbing you, dear?” He didn’t reply. She would come in, anyway. She seated herself on the edge of his desk, her pretty legs two silken flashes as they rocked. She toyed with his paper knife, the self-consciously ornamental onyx knife, her gift.