ual, serious
gentleness. "Shut your eyes, Sara!" said the Rabbi, and he led his wife
on through the crowd.

What a gay, active throng! Most prominent were the tradesmen, who were
loudly vying one another in offering bargains, or talking together and
summing on their fingers, or, following heavily loaded porters, who at a
dog-trot were leading the way to their lodgings. By the faces of others
one could see that they came from curiosity. The stout councilman was
recognizable by his scarlet cloak and golden chain; a black,
expensive-looking, swelling waistcoat betrayed the honorable and proud
citizen. An iron spike-helmet, a yellow leather jerkin, and rattling
spurs, weighing a pound, indicated the heavy cavalry-man. Under little
black velvet caps, which came together in a point over the brow, there
was many a rosy girl-face, and the young fellows who ran along after
them, like hunting-dogs on the scent, showed that they were finished
dandies by their saucily feathered caps, their squeaking peaked shoes,
and their colored silk garments, some of which were green on one side
and red on the other, or else striped like a rainbow on the right and
checkered with harlequin squares of many colors on the left, so that the
mad youths looked as if they were divided in the middle.

Carried along by the crowd, the Rabbi and his wife arrived at the Roemer.
This is the great market-place of the city, surrounded by houses with
high gables, and takes its name from an immense building, "the Roemer,"
which was bought by the magistracy and dedicated as the town-hall. In it
the German Emperor was elected, and before it tournaments were often
held. King Maximilian, who was passionately fond of this sport, was then
in Frankfort, and in his honor the day before there had been great
tilting in the Roemer. Many idle men still stood on or about the
scaffolding, which was being removed by carpenters, telling how the Duke
of Brunswick and the Margrave of Brandenburg had charged one another
amid the sound of drums and of trumpets, and how Lord Walter the
Vagabond had knocked the Knight of the Bear out of his saddle so
violently that the splinters of the lances flew high into the air, while
the tall, fair-haired King Max, standing among his courtiers upon the
balcony, rubbed his hands for joy. The golden banners were still to be
seen on the balconies and in the Gothic windows of the town-hall. The
other houses of the market-place were still likewise fe