encountered some problems. In Pereiaslav, according to Adler, they played at a fine small theater, but the local police chief tried to treat the actresses as prostitutes. Goldfaden demanded extremely high royalties; at one point Sonya Adler gave him nearly all of her jewelry to placate him. In late 1880, Goldfaden briefly recruited the Adlers away from Rosenberg, but he treated them so badly that they ended up suing him for their wages and rejoining Rosenberg in Nezhin, where his troupe was performing in a tent theater. The period after the February 1881 assassination of Tsar Alexander II was difficult for the Jews. Provocateurs were traveling around the empire, stirring up pogroms, one of which swept over the troupe in Nezhin. The troupe managed to avoid injury partly by convincing the rioters that they were a French theater troupe and partly with the help of the money the Adlers had won in court from Goldfaden. The troupe continued to Łódź, where they were able to pay off some debts with their earnings. Learning that in Odessa Osip Mikhailovich Lerner and Goldfaden were each presenting their own versions of Karl Gutzkow's Uriel Acosta, Rosenberg and company decided to do the same. Rosenberg translated; with Spivakovsky having ducked out only three days before opening, Adler played the title role, Liptzin played Uriel's mother, and Sonya Adler played Judith. The production was a success, but the troupe left Łódź. Spivakovsky returned, and nearly stole the troupe out from under Rosenberg. In the end, reunited, they went on to Zhytomyr with a new director, an apparently rich man named Hartenstein who expressed an interest in investing in them. Adler, in his memoir, indicates that he was unimpressed with Hartenstein, describing him as "a young man from Galicia with long hair and short brains, half educated in Vienna, and half an actor". They thought they had found "a quiet corner" of the Russian Empire in which "to make a bit of a livelihood", but in fact Hartenstein was simply running through his money. In Zhytomyr, they shared a theater with a Russian troupe who were sympathetic to their situation. Two Russian actors agreed to participate in a series of benefits on their behalf; one of them, whom Adler identifies only as "Mademoiselle Kislova", nearly destroyed them by making a speech from the stage excoriating the audience and Russian society in general for their lack of