She knew the racing people, nearly all the most fashionable
Jews, and those very numerous English patricians who like to go where
money is. She also knew the whole of Upper Bohemia, and was a /persona
gratissima/ in that happy land of talent and jealousy. She entertained a
great deal, generally at modish restaurants. Many French and Germans were
to be met with at her parties; and it was impossible to be with either
them or her for many minutes without hearing the most hearty and
whole-souled abuse of English aspirations, art, letters and cooking. The
respectability, the pictures, the books and the boiled cabbage of Britain
all came impartially under the lash.
Mrs. Wolfstein's origin was obscure. That she was a Jewess was known to
everybody, but few could say with certainty whether she was a German, a
Spanish, a Polish or an Eastern Jewess. She had much of the covert
coarseness and open impudence of a Levantine, and occasionally said
things which made people wonder whether, before she became Amalia
Wolfstein, she had not perhaps been--well really--something very strange
somewhere a long way off.
Her husband was shocking to look at: small, mean, bald, Semitic and
nervous, with large ears which curved outwards from his head like leaves,
and cheeks blue from much shaving. He was said to hide behind his anxious
manner an acuteness that was diabolic, and to have earned his ill-health
by sly dissipations for which he had paid enormous sums.
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