"Ah! you remember that? Yes. And I lifted him out into the street and left him there in the snow. I was a strong man then. I wanted nothing from them, but if they touch what is mine . . . !" He seized Mendel and lifted him high over his head. He was tremendously excited and could not be got to sit down or to talk of his doings in America or of his voyage. That was his way. He would talk in his own time. His doings would come out piecemeal, over years and years. Now he was entirely absorbed with his fury. He was nearly ill with it and could not eat. Up and down the room he walked, lashing up his rage. Mendel was sent to bed, and until he went to sleep he could hear his father pacing up and down and his mother talking, explaining, entreating. Next morning Mendel had almost forgotten the excitement and went to school as usual. In the middle of an arithmetic lesson in walked Jacob, very white, with his head down. He went quickly up to the teacher and spoke to him quietly. The class was stunned into silence. Jacob raised his fist and the teacher went down. Jacob picked him up, shook him, and threw him into a corner. Then he shouted: "You won't touch my boy again!" shook himself like a dog, and walked out, closing the door very quietly. The teacher hurried out and did not return. The class slowly recovered from its astonishment, shrill voices grew out of the silence like a strong wind, and books and inkpots began to fly. Soon the walls were streaked and spattered with ink and when it became known that it was Kühler's father who had done it, Mendel found himself a hero. But he took no pride in it. He was haunted by the teacher's white, terrified face. He had always thought of the teacher as a nice man. The thrashings inflicted on him had always seemed to him impersonal and outside humanity altogether. Yet because it was his father who had thrashed the teacher he accepted it as right. At home his father, even in his absence, was the law, and could do no wrong. The violent scene seemed to Mendel to have nothing to do with himself, and he resented having become the centre of attention.