When she
became fatigued with the close air of the dim showrooms,
with their endless aisles piled with every sort of ware, she
would sit on a chair in some obscure corner, watching those
sleek, over-lunched, genial-looking salesmen who were
chewing their cigars somewhat wildly when Mrs. Brandeis
finished with them. Sometimes she did not accompany her
mother, but lay in bed, deliciously, until the middle of the
morning, then dressed, and chatted with the obliging Irish
chamber maid, and read until her mother came for her at
noon.
Everything she did was a delightful adventure; everything
she saw had the tang of novelty. Fanny Brandeis was to see
much that was beautiful and rare in her full lifetime, but
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.
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