a medley of feelings. What! such happiness in
store for us--for us, who were now buffeted about by drunken Cossacks!
But then--the poor Princess! How she would soil her splendid dress,
lighting our fire! My eyes filled with tears at the sight of her
beautiful face, that seemed so unconscious of the shame waiting for
it. I felt I would get up early, and do her task for her secretly.
Now I have learnt from my Master the mysteries of the World-To-Come,
and I thank the Name that there is a sphere in heaven for princesses
who do no wrong.

My brother and I did not get nearer heaven by our transference to
school, for the Cheder was a hut little larger than and certainly as
smoky as our own, where a crowd of youngsters of all ages sat on hard
benches or on the bare earth, according to the state of the upper
atmosphere. The master, attired in a dirty blouse, sat unflinchingly
on the table, so as to dominate the whole school-room, and between his
knees he held a bowl, in which, with a gigantic pestle, he brayed
tobacco into snuff. The only work he did many a day was to beat some
child black and blue, and sometimes in a savage fit of rage he would
half wring off a boy's ear, or almost gouge out an eye. The rest of
the teaching was done by the ushers--each in his corner--who were no
less vindictive, and would often confiscate to their own consumption
the breakfasts and lunches we brought with us. What wonder if our only
heaven was when the long day finished, or when Sabbath brought us a
whole holiday, and new moon a half.

Of the teaching I acquired here, and later in the Beth-Hamidrash--for
I was destined by my grandfather for a Rabbi--my heart is too heavy to
speak. Who does not know the arid wilderness of ceremonial law, the
barren hyper-subtleties of Talmudic debate, which in my country had
then reached the extreme of human sharpness in dividing hairs; the
dead sea fruit of learning, unquickened by living waters? And who will
wonder if my soul turned in silent longing in search of green
pastures, and panted for the water-brooks, and if my childish spirit
found solace in the tales my grandfather told me in secret of Sabbatai
Zevi, the Son of God? For my grandfather was at heart a _Shab_
(Sabbatian). Though Sabbatai Zevi had turned Turk, the honest veteran
was one of those invincibles who refused to abandon their belief in
this once celebrated Messiah, and who afterwards transferred their
allegiance to the successive Messiahs