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Notwithstanding my grief I could not help laughing when I thought that Jahel, being locked and bolted in by Mosaide, could not rejoin him. So I went to my tutor's room, to write my letters, where I disturbed five or six rats, who had begun to make a meal off his Boethius, which had remained on the night table.
Know, my son, that at its origin it was a temple filled with celestial radiance. "I have been fortunate enough to re-establish it in its primal splendour. Truth obliges me to acknowledge that Mosaide has very much assisted me with his deep comprehension of the language and the alphabet of the Hebrews. But let us not lose sight of our principal subject.
Religious scruples have prevented Mosaide taking his place at my table, which he supposes to be a Christian's, by which he does me too much honour. You cannot conceive the violence of hate, of this sage, of everything Christian. I had the greatest difficulty to make him dwell in the pavilion, where he lives alone with his niece, Jahel.
The early German Maskilim, in trying to escape the Scylla of Rabbinism, fell victims to the Charybdis of Germanism. They possessed originality neither of style nor of sentiment, neither of rhyme nor of reason. Hebrew poetry was an adaptation of current German poetry. The very best the period produced, the Mosaïde of Wessely, was influenced by and largely an imitation of Klopstock and others.
Then I began to think of the oddness of my destiny, while at my side some musketeers were drinking Spanish wine with girls of the town. I was not quite sure that Croix-des-Sablons, M. d'Asterac, Mosaide, the papyrus of Zosimus and my fine clothes were not dreams, out of which I should wake to find myself clad in the dimity vest, back again turning the spit at the Queen Pedauque.
'Oh, monsieur, I will not consent to anything if he does not consent to have lessons given me by M. Couperin; I want to study music. "We had just reached this item of our negotiations when, unhappily, Mosaide surprised us, and without having overheard our conversation got the scent of its meaning. "He called me at once a suborner, and heaped outrageous insults on me.
"Oh, sir!" I exclaimed, "this M. d'Anquetil is very insolent. What do you think will be Jahel's reply to his propositions when she knows of them?" "My boy, she knows by now, and I think she will accept them." "If such is the case," I said, "then Mosaide must be warned." "That he is already," replied my tutor. "You have just assisted at the outbreak of his rage."
My dear tutor took his snuff-box in hand, presented it civilly to us, took a pinch himself and said: "Do you not believe, M. d'Asterac, that this sort of knowledge is the very kind to bring one to the devil at the end of this transient life? "After all, this sire Mosaide plainly errs in his interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.
I observed that the subtle particles of fire escaping from the pan had power enough to inflate and lift up the folds of his gown, wherefrom I inferred, that had the fire been hotter, it would have raised Mosaide himself into the air, of which he is certainly worthy, and that, if it should be possible to close into some kind of a vessel a very large quantity of such fire particles, it would be possible to sail on the clouds as easily as we sail on the sea, and to visit the Salamanders in their aerial abodes, a problem I shall keep in mind.
Tell me all, Jahel-all!" "Oh! you can tell it better than I, Jacques." "I remain stupid. At his age, is it possible?" "My dear friend, your skin is white, and your soul also. Everything astonishes you. That candour is your most striking charm. You're deceived by anyone who wants to deceive you. They make you believe that Mosaide is a hundred and thirty years old; but he is hardly older than sixty.
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