In Youngstown

Everyone understood the Tobiases: Charles Tobias preferred the dog, Essie, to his wife. The Tobiases themselves seemed to understand that they were perceived this way, and even to encourage it. They would draw visitors’ attention to the silhouette, which was hanging in a place of honor, near the fireplace, and before which Essie lolled “like a pasha, just like a pasha,” Charles said, stooping down to tickle her under the neck. How long was he planning to stay like that? His wife smiled at the guests, who busied themselves looking at the image.

It wasn’t very flattering to the wife’s figure, which hadn’t improved since then, either. “A remarkable frame,” the guests often said. Mrs. Tobias sometimes offered the address of the frame-maker; no one was sure whether she did this out of malice.

Some guests ventured, “Who did this?’ Luckily, the artist was now dead and her address could not be fetched. She’d been a distant cousin of Charles’s. Some guests wondered whether she’d had marital designs on Charles; perhaps that was the reason the image of Mrs. Tobias was so unflatteringly true to life?

That the Tobiases might have known what was being said about them did not make evenings at their house any more pleasant, one reason they remained at the periphery (or beneath the table) of polite society in Youngstown—“such as it was,” Mrs. Duffy would usually add. (Mrs. Duffy had been married to a “large landholder” in Surrey, she said, and it was Christian to believe her; she had so many troubles with her swollen left leg.)

The other reason, of course, was that they were Jewish. Not that anyone believed any wild stories; not that anyone disbelieved in some amount of moderate equality. But behind the Tobiases was something vast and dark, “a prairie, seeded with savages,” Orlanda Blaugh, who was imaginative, once said.

It was difficult to remember all that when they were standing before you—these small, plump, dumpling-faced people, looking no different from anyone else. You could remember when writing a guest list, or planning a day’s visits.

People had them to large gatherings, but not small ones. People accepted their invitations, but not several in a row. (Mrs. Tobias worried she’d offended someone, wondered about asking her girl Matty to see what she could find.)

Talking about the Tobiases was another matter—everyone enjoyed that. Their home life was sure to be unhappy. “Did you marry that pup or me?” Mr. Figes play-acted, after tying one of his wife’s old bonnets around his head. Everyone agreed that the Figes, though exotic, were a wonderful addition.