"Moché was a strict teacher, and insisted on the observance of all religious rules and traditions. He was a travelling encyclopedia which moved mechanically. I doubt if there ever was a more severe teacher. He fulfilled his functions without pity, almost with cruelty.
"Deprived so suddenly of my liberty, I was forced to embrace so many studies that I thought I should lose my reason and become a fool. But, at any cost, I must learn to be a Jew, or perish. Mechanically my head was filled with words, with long tirades which I had to repeat without stopping, each intonation of which, required by the sense of the phrase, had to be learned with care. In spite of the brutality of this method, it was a spur to my intelligence, which gradually opened and put itself in motion.
"I commenced to study with some understanding. It is difficult to determine what influence on the mind of a child the study of past generations has. It is certain that, on commencing the study of the Bible and the history of my people, I believed myself awakened from a dream after a long slumber. Once the first difficulties vanished, I applied myself so ardently to study that Moché was astonished. It was not his custom to encourage children by pleasant words, but he showed himself less severe toward me, without, at any time, becoming affectionate. The only thing that annoyed him was when I asked explanations of the passages which we studied. Then he was cross, and rapped my fingers with a little rod which served him for pointing out the letters. He wished to chase from my brain that which he considered premature pride. Moché often repeated to me, to pique me into emulation, that, following the rabbins, the world rests on the breath of children who learn the law of God, and not on the intelligence of savants.
"Laugh, if you will, but these remembrances have a great charm for me."
"That does not prevent me from laughing at your club-footed Moché," said Ivas.
"I do not dream of poetizing him. I even say that his severity rendered him almost a savage. Although he was always polite to my mother, he did not hesitate to reproach her for not keeping up our customs more rigidly. Then he would threaten to go away.
"For us Moché was a sort of bugbear. Yet when he was roused he became almost grand. Then the brightness of his soul became so apparent that you did not think of his body. When he recited to us the sufferings of Israel the tears rolled down his cheeks, he was excited almost to frenzy. His voice was broken with sobs, and he often sang the verses in an inspired voice. In these moments his hair was pushed back from his forehead, and his body shook with a nervous tremor, produced by extreme susceptibility and appreciation of the subject; his memory was prodigious.
"Such is a brief sketch of my master, not flattering, but very like him.
"It was he who made me read the first books of the Bible, or rather who made me weep over them. He was so conscientious that, having recognized in me a certain ability, he advised my mother to send me to a neighbouring town to finish my education.
"Thanks to him, at thirteen, following our custom, I read publicly in the Synagogue passages from the Holy Scriptures, and I was made one of the ten officiants of the temple, the number necessary for the assembly to be considered complete.