ho were present. The Jews go to the synagogue to pray,
and in this respect I think their conduct worthy of imitation by the
Christians.

On leaving the synagogue I went by myself to the Exchange, thinking over
the happy time which would never return.

It was in Ancona that I had begun to enjoy life; and when I thought it
over, it was quite a shock to find that this was thirty years ago, for
thirty years is a long period in a man's life. And yet I felt quite
happy, in spite of the tenth lustrum so near at hand for me.

What a difference I found between my youth and my middle age! I could
scarcely recognize myself. I was then happy, but now unhappy; then all
the world was before me, and the future seemed a gorgeous dream, and now
I was obliged to confess that my life had been all in vain. I might live
twenty years more, but I felt that the happy time was passed away, and
the future seemed all dreary.

I reckoned up my forty-seven years, and saw fortune fly away. This in
itself was enough to sadden me, for without the favours of the fickle
goddess life was not worth living, for me at all events.

My object, then, was to return to my country; it was as if I struggled to
undo all that I had done. All I could hope for was to soften the
hardships of the slow but certain passage to the grave.

These are the thoughts of declining years and not of youth. The young man
looks only to the present, believes that the sky will always smile upon
him, and laughs at philosophy as it vainly preaches of old age, misery,
repentance, and, worst of all, abhorred death.

Such were my thoughts twenty-six years ago; what must they be now, when I
am all alone, poor, despised, and impotent. They would kill me if I did
not resolutely subdue them, for whether for good or ill my heart is still
young. Of what use are desires when one can no longer satisfy them? I
write to kill ennui, and I take a pleasure in writing. Whether I write
sense or nonsense, what matters? I am amused, and that is enough.

'Malo scriptor delirus, inersque videri,
Dum mea delectent mala me vel denique fallunt,
Quam sapere.'

When I came back I found Mardocheus at supper with his numerous family,
composed of eleven or twelve individuals, and including his mother--an
old woman of ninety, who looked very well. I noticed another Jew of
middle age; he was the husband of his eldest daughter, who did not strike
me as pretty; but the younger daughter, who was destine