So get married like everybody else
and regret it like everybody else." Nodelman now quoted that
rabbi. I had heard the anecdote more than once before, but it
seemed as though its meaning had now revealed itself to me for
the first time.
"According to that rabbi, marriage is not a pleasure, but a
miserable necessity," I urged
"Well, it isn't all misery, either. People are fond of saying that the
best marriage is a curse. But it's the other way around. The worst
marriage has some blessing in it, Levinsky."
"Oh, I don't know."
"Get married and you will. There is plenty of pleasure in the worst
of homes. Take it from me,. Levinsky. When I come home and
feel that I have somebody to live for, that it is not the devil I am
working for, then--take it from me, Levinsky--I should not give
one moment like that for all the other pleasures in the world put
together."
I thought of his wife whom his mother had repeatedly described to
me as a "meat-ball face" and a virago, and of his home which I
had always pictured as hell.
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