"Blockheads! murderers! bats!" By degrees he grew calm, sat down again, wiped his spectacles, and drew me to him:
"My child," he said, "never believe such rubbish. You took a good look at the Gentile boys who were skating? What are their names?"
I told him.
"Well," he continued, "had any one of them a different kind of eye from yours; different hands or feet or limbs? Don't they laugh just as you do? And if they cry, do they shed another sort of tears? Why should they not have a real soul as well as we? All men are alike, children of one family, one God is their Father, one earth their home. It is true that at present the nations hate each other, and each one persuades itself that it is the crown of creation, and occupies all God's thoughts; but we hope for a better day, better and brighter, when humanity will acknowledge one God and one law, when the words of our holy prophets will come true, when there shall be an end to all wars and jealousy and hatred; when all will serve one Creator, and it will be as the verse says: 'For out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.'"
I knew that verse from the paragraph, "And it came to pass, when the Ark set forward," in the prayer-book.[33]
The teacher went on talking for some time, but I understood little of what he said; I could not believe that "a Gentile has brains, too," that all men were equal. I knew that the teacher held heretical opinions; he did not even believe in the transmigration of souls, as I saw for myself after the death of Fradel Mifkeres (the heretic), when a black dog appeared on the roof of the house where she had lived.
Then he pared his nails in order, and never cut a "witness"[34] to throw out of the window.
I should very soon have run away from him; I should have told my mother of the way he talked, only—
I am sure you guess what and whom I mean.