"Wouldn't any such thing," denied Theodore. "But if I'm
going to play a violin solo during the memorial service I
guess I've got to eat my regular meals."

Theodore sometimes played at temple, on special occasions.
The little congregation, listening to the throbbing rise and
fall of this fifteen-year-old boy's violin playing,
realized, vaguely, that here was something disturbingly,
harrowingly beautiful. They did not know that they were
listening to genius.

Molly Brandeis, in her second best dress, walked to
temple Yom Kippur eve, her son at her right side, her
daughter at her left. She had made up her mind that she
would not let this next day, with its poignantly beautiful
service, move her too deeply. It was the first since her
husband's death, and Rabbi Thalmann rather prided himself on
his rendition of the memorial service that came at three in
the afternoon.

A man of learning, of sweetness, and of gentle wit was Rabbi
Thalmann, and unappreciated by his congregation. He stuck
to the Scriptures for his texts, finding Moses a greater
leader than Roosevelt, and the miracle of the Burning Bush
more wonderful than the marvels of twentieth-century wizardy
in electricity. A little man, Rabbi Thalmann, with hands
and feet as small and delicate as those of a woman. Fanny
found him fascinating to look on, in his rabbinical black
broadcloth and his two pairs of glasses perched, in reading,
upon his small hooked nose. He stood very straight in the