He was assisted with the deepest compassion, and conveyed to an asylum for lunatics.
XXII
THE CHANUKAH LIGHT
My top-coat was already in my hand, and yet I could not decide: to go, or not to go—to give my lesson! O, it is so unpleasant outside, such horrible weather!—a mile's trudge—and then what?
"Once more: pakád, pakádti"[132]—once more: the old house-master, who has got through his sixty and odd years of life without knowing any grammar; who has been ten times to Leipzig, two or three times to Dantzig; who once all but landed in Constantinople—and who cannot understand such waste of money: Grammar, indeed? A fine bargain!
Then the young house-master, who allows that it is far more practical to wear ear-locks, a fur-cap, and a braided kaftan, to consult with a "good Jew," and not to know any grammar ... not that he is otherwise than orthodox himself ... but he is obliged, as a merchant, to mix with men, to wear a hat and a stiff shirt; to permit his wife to visit the theatre; his daughter, to read books; and to engage a tutor for his son....
"My father, of course, knows best! But one must move with the times!" He cannot make up his mind to be left in the lurch by the times! "I only beg of you," he said to me, "don't make an unbeliever of the boy! I will give you," he said, "as much as would pay for a whole lot of grammar, if you will not teach him that the earth goes round the sun!"
And I promised that he should never hear it from, me, because—because this was my only lesson, and I had a sick mother at home!