and it was a very little sum, indeed ; but I helped my fellow pupils in exchange for their copper fractions, and laboriously became the possessor of another book in German. Again I was found out by the sharp eyes of my bride, and again trouble followed. The storm brewed and at last it broke. I was reading Spinoza, and only then understanding it as so much dialectic. The spleen of the outraged father was terrible, and I saw more plainly than before—the childish picture had been growing upon me—that my life would always be one of secret study with the girl always bearing tales to my father. Such a future was horrible, and weeping, I opened the Talmud to forget myself in text, and I read the chapter on mixtures. The clear law against unrelated things seemed like a message. I had nothing in common with that girl and her narrow parents—as for my parents, appeal would be hopeless—my inquiry after strange things was a disgrace. So I determined to have real life, to study real things, and for that I must get to the Mecca of the Russo-Jewish student, to Berlin. So one frosty night I stole away, and ran for hours in the darkness and slept in the fields. After that I begged my way out of Poland to Germany.”
He stopped. “You’ve heard of my German student days?”
“Yes,” responded Levi.
“Then, that’s all,” said the old teacher wearily.
A wan smile flitted across his face, and he pushed the straggling hairs from his forehead.
“Why, it was she that made me think of the old times. She came into this room to-day. Yes, indeed. It was just after young Jacobson’s lesson—that boy is stupid—a stout woman, well dressed, leading a boy of ten. I looked hard at her. I knew the accent at once, and then the face came back. I could see it beneath the wrinkles and the shitel (wig) and the bonnet ribbons and all the rest of it—the child’s face of Rachelle, my bride-to-be. She knew me, she knew who I was before she came in. She was curious to know whether the old Melammed she wanted to teach her son was her ex-chosan.”
“And what happened,” asked Levi, interested.
“What shall happen? She is a woman. She told me I had nothing to be glad about that I ran away from her. I hadn’t grown rich on it. I replied that therefore she had no reason to be sorry that I quitted home. Then she looked me over so curiously, and asked me whether I ever thought of her and why I hadn’t married. And I told her that when I thought of my parents and the Cheder, I thought of her, and that I really don’t know why I didn’t marry. Then she looked at me again and fixed the terms for her son.”
“Then she questioned me again, and I told her I recalled her mostly on the days when I say prayers for the souls of my parents ; and somehow she did not seem pleased. That’s all.”
Levi gave the dying fire a vigorous kick, and sat musing whilst the old man gently dozed.