He lets his beard grow. To be a Maskil in Tishewitz it is enough only to trim it, but they say "he attends to his hair during the ten Days of Penitence!"
He is not dressed German fashion, and no more is the Feldscher, also a Jew in a long coat and ear-locks.
Our Maskil stops at blacking his boots and wearing a black ribbon round his neck. He has only sorry remnants of ear-locks, but he wears a peaked cap.
People simply say: "Yeshurun waxed fat and kicked."
He does well, runs a thriving trade, has, altogether, three children—what more can he want? Being free of all care, he becomes a Maskil.
On the strength of what he is a Maskil, it is hard to tell—enough that people should consider him one!
The whole place knows it, and he confesses to it himself. He is chiefly celebrated for his "Wörtlech," is prepared to criticise anything in heaven or on earth.
As I heard later, the Maskil took me for another Maskil, and was sure that I should lodge with him, or, at any rate, that he would be my first entry.
"For work of that kind," he said to the others, "you want people with brains. What do you suppose he could do with the like of you?"
And as the mountain did not go to Mohammed, because he had never heard of him, Mohammed went to the mountain.