and yearning would seize me as I walked in the street

"O Master of the World! Master of the Universe! I love you so!" I would sigh. "Oh, how I love you!"

I also had talks with the Evil Spirit, or Satan. He, too, was always near me. But he was always trying to get me into trouble

"You won't catch me again, scoundrel you," I would assure him with sneers and leers. Or, "Get away from me, heartless mischief-maker you! You're wasting your time, I can tell you that."

My bursts of piety usually lasted a week or two. Then there was apt to set in a period of apathy, which was sure to be replaced by days of penance and a new access of spiritual fervor.

One day, as Reb Sender and I were reading a page together, a very pretty girl entered the synagogue. She came to have a letter written for her by one of the scholars. I continued to read aloud, but I did so absently now, trailing along after my companion. My mind was upon the girl, and I was casting furtive glances

Reb Sender paused, with evident annoyance. "What are you looking at, David?" he said, with a tug at my arm. "Shame! You are yielding to Satan."

I colored

He was too deeply interested in the Talmudic argument under consideration to say more on the matter at this minute, but he returned to it as soon as we had reached the end of the section. He spoke earnestly, with fatherly concern: "You are growing, David. You are a boy no longer. You are getting to be a man. This is just the time when one should be on his guard against Satan."

I sat, looking down, my brain in a daze of embarrassment

"Remember, David, 'He who looks even at the little finger of a woman is as guilty as though he looked at a woman that is wholly naked.'" He quoted the Talmudic maxim in a tone of passionate sternness, beating the desk with his snuff-box at each word

As to his own conduct, he was one of three or four men at the synagogue of whom it was said that they never looked at women, and, to a very considerable extent, his reputation was not unjustified

"You must never tire fighting Satan, David," he proceeded. "Fight him with might and main."

As I listened I was tingling with a mute vow to be good. Yet, at the same time, the vision of "a woman that is wholly naked" was vividly before me

He caused me to bring a certain ancient work, one not included in the Talmud, in which he made me read the following: "Rabbi Mathia, the son of Chovosh, had never set eyes on a woman.

Therefore when he was at the synagogue studying the Law, his visage would shine as the sun and its features would be the features of an angel. One day, as he thus sat reading, Satan chanced to pass by, and in a fit of jealousy Satan said: "'Can it really be that this man has never sinned?' "'He is a man of spotless purity,' answered God

"'Just grant me the liberty,' Satan urged, 'and I will lead him to sin.' "'You will never succeed.' "'Let me try.' "'Proceed.' "Satan then appeared in the guise of the most beautiful woman in the world, of one the like of whom had not been born since the days of Naomi, the sister of Tuval Cain, the woman who had led angels astray.

When Rabbi Mathia espied her he faced about. So Satan, still in the disguise of a beautiful woman, took up a position on the left side of him; and when he turned away once more he walked over to the right side again. Finally Rabbi Mathia had nails and fire brought him and gouged out his own eyes.

"At this God called for Angel Raphael and bade him cure the righteous man. Presently Raphael came back with the report that Rabbi Mathia would not be cured lest he should again be tempted to look at pretty women.

"'Go tell him in My name that he shall never be tempted again,' said God

"And so the holy man regained his eyesight and was never molested by Satan again."

The painful image of poor Rabbi M athia gouging out his eyes supplanted the nude figure of the previous quotation in my mind

Reb Sender pursued his "exhortative talk." He dwelt on the duties of man to man.

"If a man is tongue-tied, don't laugh at him, but, rather, feel pity for him, as you would for a man with broken legs. Nor should you hate a man who has a weakness for telling falsehoods. This, too, is an affliction, like stuttering or being lame. Say to yourself, 'Poor fellow, he is given to lying.' Above all, you must fight conceit, envy, and every kind of ill-feeling in your heart. Remember, the sum and substance of all learning lies in the words, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' Another thing, remember that it is not enough to abstain from lying by word of mouth; for the worst lies are often conveyed by a false look, smile, or act. Be genuinely truthful, then. And if you feel that you are good, don't be too proud of it.

Be modest, humble, simple. Control your anger."

He worked me up to a veritable frenzy of penitence

"I will, I will," I said, tremulously. "And if I ever catch myself looking at a woman again I will gouge out my eyes like Rabbi Mathia."

"'S-sh! Don't say that, my son." About a quarter of an hour later, as I sat reading by myself, I suddenly sprang to my feet and walked over to Reb Sender

"You are so dear to me," I gasped out. "You are a man of perfect righteousness. I love you so. I should jump into fire or into water for your sake."

"'S-sh!" he said, taking me gently by the hand and pressing me down into a seat by his side. "You are a good boy. As to my being a man of perfect righteousness, alas! I am far from being one. We are all sinful. Come, let us read another page together."

Satan kept me rather busy these days. It was not an easy task to keep one's eyes off the girls who came to the Preacher's Synagogue, and when none was around I would be apt to think of one. I would even picture myself touching a feminine cheek with the tip of my finger. Then my heart would sink in despair and I would hurl curses at Satan

"Eighty black years on you, vile wretch you!" I would whisper, gnashing my teeth, and fall to reading with ferocious zeal

In the relations between men and women it is largely case of forbidden fruit and the mystery of distance. The great barrier that religion, law, and convention have laced between the sexes adds to the joys and poetry of love, but it is responsible also for much of the suffering, degradation, and crime that spring from it. In my case his barrier was of special magnitude.

Dancing with a girl, or even taking one out for a walk, was out of the question. Nor was the injunction confined to men who devoted themselves to the study of holy books. It was the rule of ordinary decency for any Jew except one who lived "like a Gentile," that is, like a person of modern culture. Indeed, there were scores of towns in the vicinity of Antomir where one could not take a walk even with one's own wife without incurring universal condemnation. There was a lancing-school or two in Antomir, but they were attended by young mechanics of the coarser type. To be sure, there were plenty of young Jews in our town who did live "like Gentiles," who called the girls of their acquaintance "young ladies," took off their hats to them, took them out for a walk in the public park, and danced with them, just like the nobles or the army officers of my birthplace. But then these fellows spoke Russian instead of Yiddish and altogether they belonged to a world far removed from mine. Many of these "modern" young Jews went to high school and wore pretty uniforms with silver-plated buttons and silver lace.

To me they were apostates, sinners in Israel. And yet I could not think of them without a lurking feeling of envy. The Gentile books they studied and their social relations with girls who were dressed "like young noblewomen" piqued my keenest curiosity and made me feel small and wretched

The orthodox Jewish faith practically excludes woman from religious life.

Attending divine service is not obligatory for her, and those of the sex who wish to do so are allowed to follow the devotions not in the synagogue proper, but through little windows or peepholes in the wall of an adjoining room. In the eye of the spiritual law that governed my life women were intended for two purposes only: for the continuation of the human species and to serve as an instrument in the hands of Satan for tempting the stronger sex to sin. Marriage was simply a duty imposed by the Bible. Love? So far as it meant attraction between two persons of the opposite sex who were not man and wife, there was no such word in my native tongue. One loved one's wife, mother, daughter, or sister. To be "in love" with a girl who was an utter stranger to you was something unseemly, something which only Gentiles or "modern" Jews might indulge in

But at present all this merely deepened the bewitching mystery of the forbidden sex in my young blood. And Satan, wide awake and sharp-eyed as ever, was not slow to perceive the change that had come over me and made the most of it

There was no such thing as athletics or outdoor sports in my world. The only physical exercise known to us was to be swinging like a pendulum in front of your reading-desk from nine in the morning to bedtime every day, and an all-night vigil every Thursday in addition. Even a most innocent frolic among the boys was