"With these words they left the rabbi, laughing, and Haberstroh was not shot to death. After a few days it turned out that he had been arrested on the spiteful charge of a business rival. Dr. Merzbach had gathered the proofs and handed them over to the Rittmeister. He himself had gone to Oswiecin for this purpose. That's the way he always threw himself into affairs, and helped with all his energy." I was just about to put a question to Simon Eichelkatz about the spy, when he suddenly said: "Do you believe, Herr Kreisphysikus, that to be good and noble and help your fellow-beings is happiness?" "Have you ever read anything by Goethe or heard of him?" I returned, evading the question. "No, Herr Doktor, I never read anything by him, but I've heard of him." "Goethe says: 'Let man be noble, helpful, and good.' Do you suppose by these words he wanted to show men the road to happiness, Herr Eichelkatz?" "Who can tell?" NOVEMBER 11. A clear winter has at last come after the foggy days of autumn. It has been snowing for several days, and in the morning Jack Frost draws crystal flowers on the window panes. This morning I received a remarkable epistle from my mother. Its tone is very different from what I am accustomed to in her. As a rule she avoids all interference with my private affairs; and now, all at once, she writes, she doesn't think it proper that I cut myself off, as I do, from all intercourse, and open up no relations whatsoever with the prominent members of the community. She goes on to say that she has learned from trustworthy sources that very fine and cultivated families live in Reissnitz, who would esteem it a pleasure to see me in their homes, and who are probably hurt even now that I do not introduce myself to them. She remarks that I am not intimate even with my colleagues, who would be justified in making a claim upon me. In the house of Sanitaetsrat Ehrlich I would surely find the stimulus and the diversion I undoubtedly need after a severe day's work in the practice of my difficult profession. It is always a dubious matter for a bachelor to isolate himself; he develops peculiar ideas and habits, and acquires the manners of a social hermit. Who, she'd like to know, is a certain Simon Eichelkatz, to whom I devote all my spare time? Besides, it is necessary for a physician to marry--in order to inspire confidence, for the sake of appearances. I had hesitated too long; as Kreisphysikus I should have had a wife long ago; why, the very fact of being Kreisphysikus presupposes an age not exactly youthful.