His work was his pride; reading his delight.  If a single dark spot clouded the surface of this simple honest life, that shadow fell from the portly form of Mrs. Rachel Kalimann, or Rose Hunyadi, as it was that lady’s pleasure now to be called.  It would be unjust, however, to the handsome woman, whose buxom proportions served, as it were, to give weight to the establishment, to say that her faults were of a serious nature; she was, at the most, insensible to her husband’s intellectual aspirations, which she termed, with more vigor than the occasion demanded, “stuff and nonsense.”

Quotations from the Talmud and the Scriptures were equally impotent to quell the torrent of the worthy woman’s eloquence when she felt that the occasion demanded her timely interference; in vain Kalimann supported his side of the question by citing from the book of Job:  “The gold and the crystal cannot equal it, and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold.  No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls; for the price of wisdom is above rubies.” [Footnote:  See Job xxviii. 17, 18.]

Rose would retort curtly:  “What can I buy with your wisdom?  Will it give me wherewith to eat and to drink, and to clothe myself?  No!  Very well then, what is the good of it?”

The learned bookbinder would, as a rule, sigh and silently abandon the argument when it had reached this stage, but at times his composure would break down under the strain imposed on it.  Disputes and quarrels would ensue, but in the end Kalimann would capitulate, his conjugal love overcoming his anger and resentment.

Occasionally, however, he would endeavor to escape his wife’s vigilance, and take refuge in a remote corner with one of his treasured volumes.  On one of these “secret” evenings she surprised him in the poultry house, at his side a small lantern shedding a doubtful light upon a fine edition of “Hamlet” on his lap.  Rose read him a long lecture, and commanded him to retire at once.  The good man obeyed, but carried “Hamlet” to bed with him, turning once more to his Shakespeare for refreshment and sweet content.  He had scarcely read half a page, when his spouse rose in all her majesty and blew out the candle.

Kalimann was desperate, and yet resistance would have been unwise.  Sadly resigned, he turned his head upon the pillow, and soon snored in unison with Hersch.  A half-hour of profound silence, then the culprit rose, and making sure that his wife was sleeping the sleep of the just, he cautiously took his book and spectacles, glided out of doors, and sitting upon the old moss-grown bench in front of the house, continued the tragedy of the Danish prince by the light of the moon.