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in the Synagogue. The Jews happened to be just then celebrating their holy Feast of Expia- tion, and stood wrapped up in their white Schau- fdden-Talaren, 1 with strange, mysterious noddinga of their heads, looking like a company of spectres. The poor Jews who stood there fasting and pray- ing since early in the morning had not tasted food nor drink since the yester-evening, and had also first of all begged pardon of all their acquaint- ances for any evil things which they might have said of them during the past year, that God might in like manner forgive them their sins a beautiful custom, which very strangely exists among this race, which has, however, remained afar from the teachings of Christ. But while looking round for old Shylock and passing in careful review all the pale suffering faces of the Jews, I made a discovery which I more is the pity! cannot suppress. I had the same day visited the madhouse of San Carlo, and now it occurred to me in the Synagogue that there glimmered in the glances of the Jews the same dreadful, half staring, half unsteady, half crafty, half stupid expression which I had previ- ously seen in the eyes of the lunatics in San Carlo. This indescribable, perplexing look did not so much indicate absence of mind as rather the supremacy of a fixed idea. Has perhaps the 1 A peculiar head-dress, worn by Jews in the synagogue.