He laughed. "I," he said, "what have _I_ to do with love? You know that love is soft and tender, and I--am a hard man." He laughed again, and then added gravely and almost tenderly: "Look here--I will avoid seeing Rachel. The memory of her is the only pleasurable one of my boyhood, and shall I do well to destroy it by going to see her? for doubtless she is now a shy and dirty girl who would address me in Jewish-German." He opened the carriage-window and stared out into the dark night for many minutes. * * * * * We arrived at Barnow at the end of July. "Black Aaron's" coming awakened great excitement, and it was both ludicrous and sad to see the way in which the orthodox Jews received him. He, "black Aaron," Aaron Leiblinger, son of Chane Leiblinger, who used to live in the cottage by the river, actually dared to wear "Christian" clothes, to eat "Christian" food, to smoke on the Sabbath; and had even gone so far as to study! Deadly sins all of these in the eyes of the orthodox,--sins that should meet with condign punishment! No one spoke to him, and any one he addressed turned away from him in scorn. The little boys ran after him in the street, shouting, _Meschumed!_ (apostate). The young man laughed at the children, and repaid the scorn of their elders in the same coin. We did not often put ourselves in the way of these people, however, but used to make long expeditions into the country, and visited the Christian officials of the town. We were heartily welcomed by the latter. Herr Thaddaeus Wiliszewski was kind enough to read his poems to us, and the sallow daughters of the Steueramts-Vorsteher[4] allowed us to flirt with them a little. Adolf was outwardly full of laughter and fun, and I alone guessed how bitterly he felt the reception he had met with from his own people. He kept true to his determination not to see Rachel. [Footnote 4: Head of the office for the assessment of taxes.] One day--it was on a fearfully hot Sunday afternoon in August, the second we had spent in the little town--the tempter came to him at last, or rather, came to me in the first instance. I was alone at home that afternoon, when the door opened, and a little manikin, with a very red nose and very thin legs, trotted into the room. It was Herr Isaak Tuerkischgelb, the "Marschallik" of Barnow, which, being interpreted, means the merrymaker, or marshal of weddings at Barnow. A dignitary of this kind, besides a thousand other duties, is intrusted with that of inviting the guests to a marriage. It was in this capacity that he honored me with a visit. He had been sent by Frau Sprinze Klein to invite Adolf and me to the wedding-party, to be given on the following Tuesday in honor of the marriage of her daughter, Jutta Klein, to Herr Isidor Spitz (_vulgo_, "Red Itzigel"). "Thank you," I said. "But shall we see any pretty girls there? Is Esterka Regina to be one of the guests?"