"And now see, Herr Doktor, do you know an unhappy marriage is an eternity of heartache? And whoever has lived through one is so old--so old--Methuselah is a mere boy compared with him. Nowadays you hear of divorces. In my days they were considered a shame. A divorced woman was regarded as something low, an outcast; and people didn't think very highly either of a man who gave a _Get_. A divorce always had a disgusting flavor. And here in the Khille, once you were mated, there was no way out. Always dragging the yoke, always dragging it along! So believe me God, I really don't want to say anything against Madame Eichelkatz--I am sure she suffered as much from it as I did--but there was no getting away from it, we just didn't suit each other. My simple nature, my straightforwardness, and my lack of education were certainly as obnoxious to her as her culture, her fine manners, and her aristocratic desires were to me. She didn't like my having to stand behind a counter, and I didn't like her speaking French with the Herr Oberstleutnant Von Boddin. Now tell me, Herr Kreisphysikus, do you think it is proper for a _bekovet_ Jewish woman to drop curtseys, to laugh loud, and amuse herself with the officers in front of her husband's store when they pass by toward evening? It was 'gnaedige Frau' and 'Madame Eichelkatz' and a chattering and laughing and always that 'Madame Eichelkatz.' She refused to see that they were having fun at her expense and made mock of the name Eichelkatz, my good, honest name, Herr Kreisphysikus." Poor Simon Eichelkatz! So jealousy was his life's woe. As if endowed with clairvoyance and the ability to read my thoughts, he looked at me sharply and said: "You must not think that I was jealous, not what one understands by that word. Upon my honor, I was not. When I married my wife, Friederike, _nee_ Boehm, there was no talk of love between us. We married as all people married then. I had entered Joseph Boehm's business as clerk, and later I married into it, because Boehm could not continue to carry it on alone. He himself came to me and said: 'Simon, if you want to marry my daughter Friederike, we needn't pay a Shadchen, you needn't and I needn't. You know the business. It's gone backward within the last year; but if you look after it, you will advance it again. You know it once was a good business, and I can no longer keep up against the competition of others; but you can.'