he was only too familiar with these half-shy,
half-aggressive young Poles, whose brains were bursting with heretical
ideas and sick fantasies. They brought him into evil odor with his
orthodox brethren, did these "Jerusalem Werthers," but who should deal
with them, if not he that understood them, that could handle them
delicately? What was to Maimon a unique episode was to his host an
everyday experience.

Mendelssohn led Maimon to the embrasure of a window: he brought him
refreshments--which the young man devoured uncouthly--he neglected his
fashionable guests, whose unceasing French babble proclaimed their
ability to get on by themselves, to gain an insight into this gifted
young man's soul. He regarded each new person as a complicated piece
of wheelwork, which it was the wise man's business to understand and
not be angry with. But having captured the secret of the mechanism, it
was one's duty to improve it on its own lines.

"Your dissertation displays extraordinary acumen, Herr Maimon," he
said. "Of course you still suffer from the Talmudic method or rather
want of method. But you have a real insight into metaphysical
problems. And yet you have only read Wolff! You are evidently not a
_Chamor nose Sefarim_ (a donkey bearing books)." He used the Hebrew
proverb to make the young Pole feel at home, and a half smile hovered
around his sensitive lips. Even his German took on a winning touch of
jargon in vocabulary and accentuation, though to kill the jargon was
one of the ideals of his life.

"Nay, Herr Mendelssohn," replied Maimon modestly; "you must not forget
_The Guide of the Perplexed_. It was the inspiration of my youth!"

"Was it?" cried Mendelssohn delightedly. "So it was of mine. In fact I
tell the Berliners Maimonides was responsible for my hump, and some of
them actually believe I got it bending over him."

This charming acceptance of his affliction touched the sensitive
Maimon and put him more at ease than even the praise of his writings
and the fraternal vocabulary. "In my country," he said, "a perfect
body is thought to mark the fool of the family! They believe the
finest souls prefer to inhabit imperfect tenements."

Mendelssohn bowed laughingly. "An excellently turned compliment! At
this rate you will soon shine in our Berlin society. And how long is
it since you left Poland?"

"Alas! I have left Poland more than once. I should have had the honor
and the happiness of making your acquaintance earl