MANUELA.
FOR MY ONLY SON, BARUCH, ALONE.
WHEN these words come into your hands, my mouth will be mute, my soul again with her to whom it ever belonged, and of whom I am now about to tell you. . . . .
My whole youth rises before me, my cheeks burn; from scorn and lies I have won a blessed life.
Give heed.
I was twenty years old the spring when I travelled to Seville to visit my brother Moses, called Geronimo, in his monastery. I say I was twenty years of age; but I knew men, and their dishonest ways. Misfortune and deceit age men before their time and teach them experience. I arrived in Seville. My brother received me with cruel coldness, hardly giving me his hand through the bars of the grating in the monastery parlor. "Son of earth, I have naught in common with thee; what wouldst thou with me?" he exclaimed.
Such a reception did not attract me to him. I had business for some weeks in the town and neighborhood. I remained, therefore, a week in Seville, without seeing my brother again.
In the gay companionship of Lindos and Majos I
