The Pupil knows more than the Teacher--A theft _à la Rousseau_, which is discovered--"The ungodly provideth, and the righteous putteth it on."
My father's condition had thus externally an improved appearance, but so much the more doubtful did it appear internally on that account. My mother, notwithstanding her unwearied activity, was able to make only a very sorry provision for the family. Accordingly my father was obliged to seek, in addition to his other duties, a position as teacher, in which he carried on my education; and I must confess that in this connection I gave him, on the one hand, much joy, but, on the other hand, not a little vexation. I was then indeed only about nine years old; still, I could not only understand the Talmud and its commentaries correctly, but I even took delight in disputing about it, and in this I felt a childish pleasure in triumphing over my honest father, whom I thereby threw into no small perplexity.
The arendant and my father lived together like neighbours; that is, they envied and hated each other. The former looked on my father as a vagrant, who had forced himself upon him, and disturbed him in his undivided possession of the advantages of the place. My father took the arendant for a wealthy blockhead, who, against the consent which he had granted, which my father might have dispensed with altogether and had sought merely from the love of peace, endeavoured in every way to restrict him and to narrow his rights, notwithstanding the fact that he received actual advantages from his settlement. For from this time Mohilna had acquired a sort of independence, by means of which the arendant was spared many expenses and depreciations. There was also a small synagogue erected, and my father took the position of chief rabbi, preacher, and director of the conscience, as he was the only scholar in the place. He lost, indeed, no opportunity of representing all this to the arendant, and making complaints of his conduct; but unfortunately this was of little use.
I must take this opportunity of mentioning the only theft which I ever perpetrated in my life. I often went to the house of the arendant, and played with his children. Once, when I entered a room and found no one there, it being summer and the people of the house all busy out of doors, I spied in an open closet a neat little medicine-box which appeared to me uncommonly charming. When I opened it, I found, to my very great sorrow, some money in it; for it belonged to one of the children of the house. I could not resist the desire to carry off the little box; but to take the money seemed to me in the highest degree shameful. But when I considered that the theft would be all the more easily discovered if I put the money out, full of fear and shame I took the box as it was and thrust it in my pocket. I went home with it, and buried it very carefully. The night following I could not sleep, and was disquieted in conscience, especially on account of the money. I resolved, therefore, to take it back; but in regard to the little box, I could not conquer myself: it was a work of art, the like of which I had never seen before. The next day I emptied the box of its contents, slunk with them into the room already mentioned, and waited for an opportunity when nobody was there. I was already engaged in smuggling the money into the closet; but I had so little skill in doing this without noise and with the necessary despatch, that I was caught in the act, and forced to a confession of the whole theft. I was obliged to dig up again the valuable work of art,--it must have cost about a quarter of a groschen,--to return it to its owner, little Moses, and to hear myself called _thief_ by the children of the house.