It may be believed that I found it very hard to listen to such words as these in silence, but it was of the last importance that I should not make what is called an _éclat_, or bring the name of Oppovich needlessly forward for town talk and discussion; I therefore repressed my indignation and appeared to take little interest in the conversation. “You've seen the Fräulein, of course?” asked one of me. “To be sure he has, and has been permitted to kneel and kiss her hand on her birthday,” broke in another. And while some declared that this was mere exaggeration and gossip, others averred that they had been present and witnessed this act of homage themselves. “What has this young gentleman seen of this hand-kissing?” said a lady of the party, turning to me. “That it was always an honor conferred even more than a homage rendered, Madam,” said I, stepping forward and kissing her hand; and a pleasant laughter greeted this mode of concluding the controversy. “I have got a wager about you,” said a young man to me, “and you alone can decide it. Are you or are you not from Upper Austria?” “And are you a Jew?” cried another. “If you'll promise to ask me no more questions, I'll answer both of these,--I am neither Jew nor Austrian.” It was not, however, so easy to escape my questioners; but as their curiosity seemed curbed by no reserves of delicacy, I was left free to defend myself as best I might, and that I had not totally failed, I gathered from hearing an old fellow whisper to another,-- “You 'll get nothing out of him: if he 's not a Jew by birth, he has lived long enough with them to keep his mind to himself.” Having finished all I had to do at Agram, I started for Ostovitz. I could find no purchaser for our wood; indeed every one had timber to sell, and forests were offered me on all sides. It was just at that period in Austria when the nation was first waking to thoughts of industrial enterprise, and schemes of money-getting were rife everywhere; but such was the ignorance of the people, so little versed were they in affairs, that they imagined wealth was to pour down upon them for the wishing, and that Fortune asked of her votaries neither industry nor thrift. Perhaps I should not have been led into these reflections here if it were not that I had embodied them, or something very like them, in a despatch I sent off to Sara,--a despatch on which I had expended all my care to make it a masterpiece of fine writing and acute observation. I remember how I expatiated on the disabilities of race, and how I dwelt upon the vices of those lethargic temperaments of Eastern origin which seemed so wanting in all that energy and persistence which form the life of commerce.