n once in Hamburg. Ah, Judaism is not a religion, but
a misfortune. And to be born a Jew _and_ a genius! What a double
curse! Believe me, Lucy, a certificate of baptism was a necessary card
of admission to European culture. Neither my mother nor my money-bag
of an uncle sympathized with my shuddering reluctance to wade through
holy water to my doctor's degree. And yet no sooner had I taken the
dip than a great horror came over me. Many a time I got up at night
and looked in the glass, and cursed myself for my want of backbone!
Alas! my curses were more potent than those of the Rabbis against
Spinoza, and this disease was sent me to destroy such backbone as I
had. No wonder the doctors do not understand it. I learnt in the
Ghetto that if I didn't twine the holy phylacteries round my arm,
serpents would be found coiled round the arm of my corpse. Alas!
serpents have never failed to coil themselves round my sins. The
Inquisition could not have tortured me more, had I been a Jew of
Spain. If I had known how much easier moral pain was to bear than
physical, I would have saved my curses for my enemies, and put up with
my conscience--twinges. Ah, truly said your divine Shakespeare that
the wisest philosopher is not proof against a toothache. When was any
spasm of pleasure so sustained as pain? Certain of our bones, I learn
from my anatomy books, only manifest their existence when they are
injured. Happy are the bones that have no history. Ugh! how mine are
coming through the skin, like ugly truth through fair romance. I shall
have to apologize to the worms for offering them nothing but bones.
Alas, how ugly bitter it is to die; how sweet and snugly we can live
in this snug, sweet nest of earth. What nice words; I must start a
poem with them. Yes, sooner than die I would live over again my
miserable boyhood in my uncle Salomon's office, miscalculating in his
ledgers like a Trinitarian, while I scribbled poems for the _Hamburg
Waechter_. Yes, I would even rather learn Latin again at the Franciscan
cloister, and grind law at Goettingen. For, after all, I shouldn't have
to work very hard; a pretty girl passes, and to the deuce with the
Pandects! Ah, those wild University days, when we used to go and sup
at the 'Landwehr,' and the rosy young _Kellnerin_, who brought us our
duck _mit Apfelkompot_, kissed me alone of all the _Herren Studenten_,
because I was a poet, and already as famous as the professors. And
then, after I should be