she never again, perhaps, got quite the thrill that those
ugly, dim, red-carpeted, gas-lighted hotel corridors gave
her, or the grim bedroom, with its walnut furniture and its
Nottingham curtains. As for the Chicago streets themselves,
with their perilous corners (there were no czars in blue to
regulate traffic in those days), older and more
sophisticated pedestrians experienced various emotions while
negotiating the corner of State and Madison.

That buying trip lasted ten days. It was a racking
business, physically and mentally. There were the hours of
tramping up one aisle and down the other in the big
wholesale lofts. But that brought bodily fatigue only. It
was the mental strain that left Mrs. Brandeis spent and limp
at the end of the day. Was she buying wisely? Was she
over-buying? What did she know about buying, anyway? She
would come back to her hotel at six, sometimes so exhausted
that the dining-room and dinner were unthinkable. At such
times they would have dinner in their room another delicious
adventure for Fanny. She would try to tempt the fagged
woman on the bed with bits of this or that from one of the
many dishes that dotted the dinner tray. But Molly
Brandeis, harrowed in spirit and numbed in body, was too
spent to eat.

But that was not always the case. There was that
unforgettable night when they went to see Bernhardt the
divine. Fanny spent the entire morning following standing
before the bedroom mirror, with her hair pulled out in a
wild fluff in front, her mother's old marten-fur scarf high