him over all boundaries, and held him firm and free in blissful uncertainty.
At first when his father called him on the morrow he remembered with difficulty who and where he was. He returned the manuscript to his father and kissed his hand: he held his son's hand fast in his, and walked with him to the synagogue.
Baruch answered the congratulations of those who waited at the door of the place of worship to honor him on his attainment of the Rabbinical dignity but absently and inappropriately. The people thought him conceited.
This supposition had some truth in it when after early service on the Sunday morning he went, with his richly clasped folio under his arm, along the road to the school called the "Crown of Law." With what joyous haste he had formerly trodden that path—and now he stared confusedly about him, almost stumbling at every step. A feeling of mingled sadness and pride filled his heart: must he still follow this road as before; still study the same books, and what new thing could he find in them? He had attained the rank of Rabbi, the highest attainable in this career, and he must go on studying the same subjects by which men merely sharpened their cleverness into conceit. He was familiar with all that could be learnt there; what was the use of eternal repetition? But more painful still was the thought that he had become a
