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GYMNASIYE

A man's worst enemy, I tell you, will never do him the harm he does himself, especially when a woman interferes, that is, a wife. Whom do you think I have in mind when I say that? My own self! Look at me and think. What would you take me for? Just an ordinary Jew. It doesn't say on my nose whether I have money, or not, or whether I am very low indeed, does it?

It may be that I once had money, and not only that— money in itself is nothing—but I can tell you, I earned a living, and that respectably and quietly, without worry and flurry, not like some people who like to live in a whirl.

No, my motto is, "More haste, less speed."

I traded quietly, went bankrupt a time or two quietly, and quietly went to work again. But there is a God in the world, and He blessed me with a wife—as she isn't here, we can speak openly—a wife like any other, that is, at first glance she isn't so bad—not at all! In person, (no evil eye!) twice my height; not an ugly woman, quite a beauty, you may say; an intelligent woman, quite a man—and that's the whole trouble! i, it isn't good when the wife is a man! The Almighty knew what He was about when, at the creation, he formed Adam first and then Eve. But what's the use of telling her that, when she says, "If the Almighty created Adam first and then Eve, that's His affair, but if he put more