Chapter VIII

A year later, when she was eighteen, Yetta became, suddenly, Yvette. The crowd she was going with thought Yetta an awful name, old-fashioned and foreign. And certainly there was nothing foreign about her. She had seen Yvette in a book—and, with the right initial and all—Yvette Rosen sounded fine. After that she frowned at any one, even old Grandma, if the old name crept in.

The family became more extravagant as the days passed, though not extraordinarily so. But why not? Even Rosen had to admit, grudgingly, that the factory was growing. Little things—Mrs. Rosen had a fine black silk dress, with revers of green satin, lace covered. She bought Grandma a black silk, too, for days when company came in. And Yvette—how that girl did wear out clothes, to parties nearly every night! And Irving wanted “his own money” and was put on an allowance, though he always begged his mother for more before the month was half over. Books cost a lot, it seemed, and you can’t be a tightwad with a bunch of fellows. And Carrie had a notion that the family was very rich—when she got new things she wanted the best. Even Mannie and Dorothy needed new things frequently.

In 1906 Irving was graduated, at 18, from the high school. It was a big event for the family. All of them, even Grandma, who didn’t go out much, attended the graduation exercises. At the hall they chatted about how fine and smart Irving was until Carrie, who could be very petulant at fifteen, “shushed” them all into silence.

On the way home Mrs. Rosen couldn’t help calling her husband’s attention to his family—weren’t they something to be proud of? To think that only a few years before....

It was Irving who first spoke dissatisfaction with the Bronx apartment. Irving was to enter Columbia University in the fall and he wanted to be a little nearer his school.

“You don’t know how it is,” he said, one night at dinner. “Every one laughs at the Bronx. I went to a vaudeville show with Yvette last week, though Heavens knows why she goes to it, and at the mention of the Bronx every one laughed. It isn’t only that. Here we are in a walk-up apartment, when we could have something better. I’m starting—to—to make friends. I’ve got to make a place for myself. I’m eighteen. When we were younger it didn’t make much difference, now we ought to get out of here.”

Carrie agreed with him.

“It certainly is terrible here,” she said. “I don’t like this high school, either. I want to go to a private school. There are several good ones in Harlem and a real fine one on Riverside Drive that I’ve heard about. Irving is right. You’d think we were poor, the way we live here—no servants or anything. When I meet new girls I’m ashamed to bring them home. Ada is going to private school, and Beatrice has moved to Long Island. I don’t know any one around here—but trash and poor people.”

Even Mannie, at thirteen, was tired of the Bronx and Dorothy, at nine, was ready for any change.

The Bronx suited Yvette. She had her crowd here. Still, there was something in what the others were saying. Harlem sounded more stylish certainly. She had friends there, too, and could get acquainted easily enough.

Mrs. Rosen didn’t know. She felt, with Yvette, that things were very nice as they were. The old friendliness of East Seventy-seventh Street would never come back, and she, too, had acquaintances in Harlem. It would cost more to live—but didn’t they have the money? There could be a servant and new furniture—the children had been hard on the things that had been so shining four years ago. After all, they were rich people, and the children had to have advantages.

Gradually Rosen, grumblingly, was won over. Couldn’t he see how terrible it was—all their money, and still living in the Bronx? How could people know he was a success? Their apartment was old-fashioned—that funny tub and only one bathroom for the whole family. And Grandma ought to have a room for herself—with five children there ought to be a servant girl—what was the use of having money if you couldn’t get things with it?

Again there was a series of house-huntings. This time Irving accompanied his mother and Yvette. Irving was very critical. Things others pronounced “grand” he didn’t like at all. At eighteen he considered himself quite a man. As a coming lawyer he felt that his surroundings should reflect his own glory. What did his folks know about things? Didn’t he go to homes they never entered, the Wissels’ and the Durham-Levi’s? Irving wanted a home with style to it. He hadn’t definite ideas about decoration, but it must look fine and big as you came in. He thought they ought to inquire a little about the neighbours—find out if they were just the sort one would want to live near. Their present neighbours certainly were awful.

The new apartment was in West 116th street. The building was large and red, with white stone ornaments. The lower halls were grandly ornamental and a great velvet curtain hung toward the rear. There was an elevator, rather uncertain, with iron grille work in front. That would make it nice for Grandma—she could get out more. The living room had a gas grate and the woodwork was stylishly mission finished.

Followed the usual buying orgy and this, too, Irving consented to attend. The piano came with them, but there was a new parlour set, great heavy pieces of mission, square and dark, with leather cushions. A huge mission davenport was the pièce de résistance. The dining-room had a brand-new “set”—there might be company to dinner—a big table, twelve chairs and a sideboard with a mirrored back. In the bedrooms there were great brass beds, the posts three inches across, and large mahogany dressers with “swell fronts,” curved generously outward.

In the living room, too, there were fine rugs, “real Orientals” this time, about six small ones, oases of red and blue on the light inlaid floor. The family admired the lighting fixtures—a cluster of fourteen lights in the living-room, to which they added a fancy lamp with a shade composed of bits of coloured glass in a floral pattern; in the dining-room a great dome of multi-coloured glass hung directly over the table.

Then Mrs. Rosen hired their first maid, though the family referred to her as “the girl.” Her name was Marie and she didn’t have a very easy life of it. At first Mrs. Rosen and Grandma helped her, but Mrs. Rosen disliked housework increasingly and she didn’t want Grandma to work if she didn’t. Grandma had always done all the cooking, but as “the girl” learned to prepare the dishes liked by the Rosen family she gradually took over the cooking, too. Then, when “the girl” complained about working too hard a woman was hired for two days each week to do the washing and heavy cleaning.

Grandma wasn’t quite as content as she had been, most likely because she wasn’t so busy. Grandma couldn’t read English at all and Yiddish very little, even if the children would have allowed a Yiddish paper in the house, now, which is doubtful. Grandma had never had the reading habit, nor, for that matter, any habits of leisure. She had thought that life meant service and now there was nothing to do. It was harder for her to go out because she walked very slowly. There were fewer places to go, fewer friends, fewer Yiddish shops. People would stare, embarrassingly, at Grandma’s _sheitel_ and Grandma hadn’t learned to speak English very well. Mrs. Rosen spoke with an accent, but that was different; people could hardly understand Grandma.

There was always lots of company in the house and Grandma liked young people, but there was so little to say to them. Unless she knew them awfully well they couldn’t understand her, or Yvette or Irving would frown at her attempts at conversation. Every one smiled at Grandma and shook hands, but that was all—it was more comfortable to stay in her room, usually. There seemed to be fewer old people than there had been. Fewer seemed to live in Harlem, anyhow. In MacDougal Street and even in East 77th Street and the Bronx, Grandma had met old ladies, occasionally, people from her own village, and had had long talks with them, interrupted with nods and shakes of the head and tongue cluckings. Here it was different. She loved her family, of course, but she didn’t seem to fit in. Darning stockings wasn’t enough. Of course, Grandma was glad the family was doing so nicely—a fine big apartment with an elevator and a servant girl—and she had two new bonnets and her old one not nearly worn out yet—where did she go to wear it?—and her own room and everything she wanted. And Irving bringing her home candy she liked and Yvette singing for her—Grandma knew she ought to be awfully happy. Yet there seemed to be something—missing—

Mrs. Rosen grew to like the new apartment, though at first it had overawed her a little. But before long she belonged to two card clubs—she had known members of both of them when she lived in the Bronx. She even tried to persuade Rosen to learn euchre or bridge so that he could join a club that played in the evening. But Rosen didn’t like “ladies’ games.”

There were some things about the new neighbourhood Mrs. Rosen didn’t like at all. The neighbours seemed so cold and distant. As if she wanted to know them! Wasn’t her husband the owner of a factory—with more money than any of them, more than likely? Yet they minced by her, as if they thought so much of themselves. Well, she could put on airs, too!

That winter Mrs. Rosen went to a beauty parlour for the first time. The women of her set were going, it seemed. It made your hair thicker to have it shampooed and waved, especially when it was starting to get grey. Though it did hurt a little, she grew used to manicures, too, after a while. Mrs. Rosen even considered dieting. But, after a few attempts she gave it up. Just the things she shouldn’t eat were the ones she liked best. After all, she was forty-four, though she knew no one would ever guess it, and if at that age you are a little plump who is there to say anything against it? She bought a fur coat that winter, seal, of course, with a great sweep to it and a hat to match, with a curved feather. Now, let one of her neighbours say something! She knew she looked mighty fine—as good as any one in her crowd. Why shouldn’t she? Wasn’t her husband a well-known manufacturer?

Rosen wasn’t quite as busy as he had been, though the Acme Pants Company was getting along splendidly. But with things in good condition there was time to spare. He could have spent more time with his family had he cared to but it seemed tiresome when he did. Irving annoyed him more than ever with his debates and arguments. In the evening he fell asleep over his paper—he didn’t care for other literature except an occasional trade magazine. He still played cards with a few old friends he had made when he first came to America, and who, like himself, had prospered. He kept his coat on in the evenings now, or wore the smoking jacket Carrie had given him. What if their friends came in—he had to look nice for their sakes, didn’t he? There was a little room, off the living room, which the family spoke of as “Papa’s den.” There was a couch here, brought over from the Bronx, and a desk. Under pretence of being busy, Rosen would read in there, until he fell asleep.