Simon reached out again for the book, took a slip of paper out, set his horn-rimmed spectacles on his nose, and read: "'Weep not, my father! Is not all weeping a lament? And all lamenting an accusation? Accuse not my mother in her grave--accuse not me. Your soul will be healed; for yours is not a petty grief.' "That was the last I heard from him. Not a tear was shed at Madame Eichelkatz's grave. Then I settled down here with Feiwel Silbermann. I had enough to live on, more than enough, and I began to ponder over mankind and things in general. I've grown old, and I am a stranger to people. Rabbi Dr. Merzbach has been dead a long time, and Cantor Elias, and Meyer Nathanson the Shammes, and Saul Feuerstein, the professional bankrupt, and Dr. Krakauer, saving your reverence, and all the others. The new generation scarcely knows me." The last words were uttered brokenly, his head sank softly forward. He had dropped off to sleep from sheer exhaustion. After a few minutes he came to himself, and Feiwel Silbermann carried him to bed while I stood there. We administered some bouillon and Tokay wine; but he remained apathetic, and only murmured, almost unintelligibly: "Yes--times change--the Khille is no longer _fromm_." Then he fell asleep again. I was greatly disturbed on leaving him, and returned the next morning at the very earliest hour possible. He was asleep. Two days later he had passed into the eternal sleep of death. NOVEMBER 23. To-day we carried Simon Eichelkatz to his last resting-place. Only a few people accompanied him. But at his grave stood a solitary man. "Myself I sacrifice to my love, and my neighbor I sacrifice as myself, thus runs the speech of all creators." The Nietzsche phrase flitted through my mind, a phrase that I had heard explained by the son, the heir of that unlearned, wise old man whom we had just consigned to the earth. "But all creators are hard--thus spoke Zarathustra." And there-- In a soft though intelligible voice the solitary man repeated the Hebrew words, as he shovelled the earth onto the coffin: "Dust thou art, to dust returnest; but the spirit returns to God who gave it." Then he raised himself up, his eye fastened on the growing mound. Friedrich Eichner! THE PATRIARCH Joshua Benas, Geheimrat, arose from his seat at his desk. His smug countenance wore a smile of satisfaction, as he gazed thoughtfully into vacancy, and stroked the close-trimmed beard, already touched with grey. "Very good," he muttered, with a complacent smile, "first-rate. Elkish has put the matter well. _A la bonheur!_ We will declare fourteen per cent dividend; if we strain a point, perhaps fourteen and a half--and enough for a surplus. Great! Splendid!... What a figure we shall cut! No small affair! The gentlemen will be astonished. But after all that is what they're used to; Joshua Benas doesn't fall short of what people expect of him." He pressed the electric button.