My sojourn in St. Georghen gave me the first proof of how much youth can bear. Hunger, cold, mockery, and insult, I experienced them all in turn; but the greatest misery was not capable of darkening the serene sky of youthful mirth for more than a few minutes, and even my healthy colour returned after a short interval of bodily collapse.
Although I had only just completed my fourteenth year, I had made many plans for the future, and built many castles in the air. While other scholars spent their time in games and in sport, I had always indulged in the delight of reading books about travel, heroic deeds, and simply-written historical works, and a book was to me not only a friend and comforter in trouble, but it even drove away hunger; for the fire of my excited fancy nourished not only my mind but my body too, and occupied my senses to such an extent that I often forgot both hunger and sleep.
Extraordinary was the change that took place in me as far as religion was concerned. There was, of course, not a trace of the excessive ardour of Jewish orthodoxy left. Fringes and phylacteries had long been done away with; the law as to ritual food seemed to me childish and ridiculous, and I had been prevented touching pork only by my aversion to the unaccustomed taste. The glimpse I had already had into the various religions, the acquaintance gradually gained with the causes of certain natural phenomena, which superstition had formerly interpreted quite differently, and, lastly, the vast difference I found between principle and action in my Catholic teachers, had nearly upset all my beliefs; they trembled on their bases.
Of a complete want of religious feeling or of conversion to another faith there could be no question, but in the ladder that was to lead me to heaven many rungs were broken, some even missing entirely, and in the midst of the hard struggle for life I had neither time nor inclination to soar to the higher regions of metaphysical contemplation.
It was chiefly my experiences during the time I spent in service in the monastery of the Piarists in St. Georghen which stimulated my indifference in religious matters. The contrast between the way of speaking and of acting of these ecclesiastics was often very marked. They did not seem so very particular as to religious observances, and when one morning the student who had been ordered to serve at the early Mass did not appear on the scene, I had to put on the cassock and serve as though I had been one of the regular acolytes. I knew the catechism by heart, they said, and was quite like a Catholic: there was no need to make any difficulty about it. I enjoyed the comedy very much, and this and similar experiences were a good preparation for my future rôle of Mohammedan priest. It was towards the end of the second year that the idea of leaving St. Georghen for the larger provincial town of Presburg, in the same neighbourhood, took firmer root in my mind; I hoped to find more opportunities for study there and better means of livelihood. When I thought of the sufferings and deprivations I had gone through in St. Georghen at the beginning of my stay there, it was not hard for me to take up my staff and seek my fortune elsewhere. Only the thought that my father's grave was in the churchyard of St. Georghen made me waver, for many a time had I gone out there in moments of bitterness and wept away my trouble on the grave. And now I was to leave it.
It was during one of these visits that I resolved to do away with the crutch I had till then carried under my left arm, and which not only gave rise to many satirical remarks among my schoolfellows, but also wore out my coat-sleeve. In a fit of vanity I broke the crutch over my father's gravestone, and with a heavy heart and slow, laborious steps I returned to the town, hopping most of the way on one foot. At first it was very hard to walk, but being now in my fifteenth year I was much stronger, and, aided by my vanity, and with the help of a stick, I was soon able to overcome all difficulties.
I limped more than I had done, but at least I was rid of my crutch, and I soon left St. Georghen with my knapsack (no heavy burden) and my certificate containing the classification "Eminent." By my mother's advice I was not to spend the next holidays at home but with her relatives in Moravia, in the town of Lundenburg. The place of my destination seemed further off than did later the most distant parts of inner Asia. I had arrived in Presburg, the famous old coronation town, without a penny in my pocket. After having wandered about helplessly in the streets, and gazed my fill at the high houses all around me, and having had a good meal at the expense of an acquaintance from Szerdahely, whom I met by chance in the town, my attention was attracted by a cart which was just being laden preparatory to starting for Vienna. I was told that the cart belonged to a hackney-coachman of the name of Alexander, a rough but good-natured man, who would perhaps take me with him to Vienna for nothing, if I could manage to gain his heart.
Trembling, I proffered my request, and having inspected me from head to foot, he said there was no more room on the box, but if I could make myself comfortable in the basket of hay strapped on to the back of the conveyance, he had no objection to taking me with him. In a minute I had climbed into the basket, and making myself comfortable in the soft hay, I started for the imperial town of Vienna, undisturbed by the jerks of the rumbling vehicle.
Arrived in Vienna, I had first to look up a relative, from whom I hoped to receive the necessary sum to take me to Lundenburg, for in 1845 there was already a railway between Vienna and that town.
Mr. G., a well-to-do calico manufacturer, received me very kindly, kept me in his house for two days, and gave me money for a third-class ticket, besides a few pence for travelling necessaries. Quite delighted, I started for the Nordbahn. I was to travel by rail for the first time, and intending to provide myself with plenty of food for the journey, I bought a quantity of fruit and various dainties, especially my favourite kind of confectionery, the so-called butter-cake.