FACING THE NEW WORLD 41 



ten to twelve, was made, for the princely sum of ten 

 dollars a week. 



It seemed wealth to us then. The two thousand 

 rubles that we had brought with us when we came to 

 America were gone. Before the pupil in chemistry 

 appeared the world had looked quite dark for us. We 

 were at rock bottom. Dr. Solotaroff, who had been 

 one of the members of the "Defence League" and of 

 the "Am-Ohlom," and who was very fond of my hus- 

 band, found out at that time that we were in New York. 

 (He had been living with his parents in Cincinnati 

 when we first arrived.) As soon as he could discover 

 our address, he came to see us, unfortunately at a time 

 when there was neither bread nor sugar nor tea nor 

 kerosene in the house. We had no food of any kind 

 left, and we were thinking of pawning some of our 

 jewelry. Although as students in Zurich we had very 

 often pawned our jewelry and silver to help needy 

 friends, this was the first time we had faced doing 

 so for ourselves. Dr. Solotaroff had last seen us at 

 our wedding, in my father's beautiful home in Odessa, 

 where everything spoke not only of comfort, but of 

 luxury. He was of an exceedingly emotional nature. 

 He burst into tears, but, finally controlling himself, he 

 left the house. He soon returned with bread and 

 sugar and tea and cuts of cold meat. We had a feast 

 indeed. This timely help was enough to bridge over 

 the bad days. Within a week my husband began to 

 teach and the wolf was kept from the door. 



