sillusioned, he had rebounded to "human study," setting off on a
pilgrimage in the depth of winter to borrow out-of-date books on
optics and physics, and making more enemies by his obtrusive knowledge
of how dew came and how lightning. It was not till--on the strength
of a volume of Anatomical tables and a Medical dictionary--he
undertook cures, that he had discovered the depths of his own
ignorance, achieving only the cure of his own conceit. And it was then
that Germany had begun to loom before his vision--a great, wonderful
country where Truth dwelt, and Judaism was freer, grander. Yes, he
would go to Germany and study medicine and escape this asphyxiating
atmosphere.

His sobs, which had gradually subsided, revived at the thought of that
terrible journey. First, the passage to Koenigsberg, accorded him by a
pious merchant: then the voyage to Stettin, paid for by those young
Jewish students who, beginning by laughing at his ludicrous accent in
reading Herr Mendelssohn's _Phoedon_--the literary sensation of the
hour that had dumfoundered the Voltaireans--had been thunderstruck by
his instantaneous translation of it into elegant Hebrew, and had
unanimously advised him to make his way to Berlin. Ah, but what a
voyage! Contrary winds that protracted the journey to five weeks
instead of two, the only other passenger an old woman who comforted
herself by singing hymns, his own dialect and the Pomeranian German of
the crew mutually unintelligible, his bed some hard stuffed bags,
never anything warm to eat, and sea-sickness most of the time. And
then, when set down safely on shore, without a pfennig or even a sound
pocket to hold one, he had started to walk to Frankfort, oh, the
wretched feeling of hopelessness that had made him cast himself down
under a lime-tree in a passion of tears! Why had he resumed hope, why
had he struggled on his way to Berlin, since this fate awaited him,
this reception was to be meted him? To be refused admission as a rogue
and a vagabond, to be rejected of his fellow-Jews, to be hustled out
of his dream-city by the overseer of the Jewish gate-house!

Woe! Woe! Was this to be the end of his long aspiration? A week ago he
had been so happy. After parting with his last possession, an iron
spoon, for a glass of sour beer, he had come to a town where his
Rabbinical diploma--to achieve that had been child's play to
him--procured him the full honors of the position, despite his rags.
The first seat in