In the foliage of one of the low elder-bushes which, as has already been pointed out, covered the whole of the graveyard, in amongst the flowers themselves, on one of those fantastically gnarled branches which the spring, in its splendour and its glory, had crowned so abundantly with greenery and blossoms, sat the practical joker who had made such a bad job of showing me the way here, smiling roguishly down at her adopted German student.
No sooner had I stretched out my hand to catch this spook than, quick as a flash, it disappeared and I saw the next instant a laughing nut-brown face, framed by jet-black locks, near the grave of the Chief Rabbi as if she wanted to entice me after her again, tempting me this time to chase her over the old burial ground. But this time I did not permit myself to be led astray for I already knew full well that it would do me no good to run after her. She would only have vanished into the ground, down into that black earth, or, what was perhaps even more likely, have disappeared into the elder trees sheltering the graves. I continued to stand there stock-still and took not the least bit of comfort from the fact that it was broad daylight and high noon, for who could say but that this haunted place might be subject to supernatural laws quite different from the natural laws that operated elsewhere.
I stood there and was very careful not to move and when the imp saw that her laughter and come-hither gestures were no longer helping her, this little enchantress of mine changed her tack. Her young face grew serious, and, jumping down gracefully from her branch, she bowed politely to me and then, planting herself squarely in front of me, bowed again, saying: "Forgive me, handsome sir. I shan't do you any more mischief now."
She tolerated my taking her by the hand and did not try to prevent me from pulling her nearer so that I could look her straight in the eye. She even, to my amazement, gave a clear and sensible account of herself when I asked her where she came from and what she was called. Unless she was lying like a leprechaun this neglected and yet utterly charming being did not entirely inhabit the ethereal realm of Make-Believe and was not a daughter of Oberon and Titania but the progeny instead of very down-to-earth parents who were dealers in old clothes and general household requisites in the Josephstown area of Prague. I also learned the number of the house where she lived and her name, Jemimah, like the daughter of Job, that splendid fellow who hailed from the land of Uz, and Jemimah means 'day'.
Even though her father's name was not Job but Baruch Loew, the latter was a passable counterpart to that paragon of patience in his time of trouble. On the subject of Jemimah's mother I would rather not say anything.
Nor will I enlarge upon the squalor I saw in house number 533 in the Jewish quarter when I went there for the first time after making the acquaintance of the daughter of the house. I craftily pawned my watch there even though I had a new, not inconsiderable personal allowance in my pocket. And what I smelt in that house was almost worse than what I saw.
But a spell had been put on me and it was a powerful spell and was destined to become a dark spell. How could it be otherwise when, forty years later, in that elegant, peaceful and spotlessly clean Berlin home all it took was a garland of elderflowers, worn by a young girl at a dance, to bring it all back to me again?
I had come to Prague from the fleshpots of Vienna with the firm intention of gracing the College of Doctors there, to work extremely conscientiously and to make up for lost time with renewed zeal. Nothing came of it. It was not that I reverted to my former wild behaviour, to that life-style which has brought many a young medical student to the point of having to apply the noble art of healing to his own body. On the contrary, neither midnight revelry accompanied by crazy bouts of drinking, neither Melniker wine, Pilsner beer, nor slivovice had retained the attraction they had had for me formerly and yet I was no less intoxicated for all that and used up endless quantities of Hungarian tobacco to allay the confusion of my dreams. That little Jewish witch, Jemimah Loew, followed me everywhere: to my room in Nekazalka Street, to lectures, even as far as the dissecting room table. It was a forlorn hope for me now to study therapeutics and pathology and to slice up human corpses and the vital organs of dogs, cats, rabbits and frogs. And so, in Prague too, I set to one side my resolution to be diligent and put it off until another later time and another university.
In my room in Nekazalka Street I lay down on the hard settee, veiled in thick, blue, aromatic clouds of smoke and pondered the deepest and most sensible propositions ever formulated on the wonders of the human soul. I should, of course, have been quite incapable then of writing a book on how passion comes to fruition and then withers away. When I had smoked and dreamed my fill, I got up to continue my daydreaming standing, drifting away through the streets of a town which itself is like a dream.
In the Grosser Ring I could hear girls chattering away in Czech and German at the fountain and at night I would listen to the pious praying of the congregation in Tyn Church to their statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Hungarian grenadier-guards on sentry duty at the Old Town Hall were relieved by their Italian counterparts. Life's richest tapestries shifted and changed just as in a magic lantern show. Then, once again, I strolled up and down the Vyshehrad Hill where geese cackle and goats graze over the floors of sunken royal palaces and abnormally torn and tattered washing is hung up to dry. Once more I placed myself under the protection of St John Nepomuk on his famous bridge and gazed for hours at the Moldau without any justification for doing so that my rational immortal soul could make sense of. Then I would climb through the steep streets of the Kleinseite, walk up the steps to the Hradcany Castle area and look out over the battlements to see that proud Bohemian city stretched out at my feet. Many a hot summer hour I spent in the cool and shady vestibule of St Vitus's Cathedral but Jemimah Loew followed me even under the purple canopy that overhangs St John Nepomuk's sarcophagus. Here, in the Wenceslas Chapel, is the great door ring which the holy duke and patron saint of Prague held on to in his final agony while he was being murdered by his treacherous brother. If one kisses this ring with all due solemnity it is useful and effectual against many kinds of evil, but oh, against the problems that were pressing down on me such a kiss would not have helped. Moreover a good remedy for headaches is to rub off the dust from an old wooden carving near the main door and to make three signs of the cross on one's forehead with it. I often had headaches, genuine physical ones, not just imaginary, in those strange days and was never once able to cure them by crossing myself. The pain only abated somewhat when I rushed helter-skelter down the steps from St Vitus's Cathedral and the imperial castle and crossed the Charles Bridge, passing the statue of St John Nepomuk and various other statues en route to the Josephstown Jewish quarter. Only in the shadow of the old grim walls and houses of the Jewish ghetto did my head feel better, but I went on feeling feverish for all that.