DOCS.
9,
10
MARCH
1903
13
Hear,
hear!
But I'm
not
a great mogul
Don't
understand.[2] Is
this
perhaps an
allusion
to
Heine's
poem?
Oh
Oh.
your
regards
to
me.
That had
an
unpleasant
effect
on me
because it shows
a
lack
of consideration
toward
my
son,
seeing
that
I
am
his mother,
who
sacrifices
herself
for
him,
and
toward
me,
for
whom
he does the
same.
Surely you
know
that
an
open
card
will be
read
by
me as
well. I cannot
help
but
characterize
your
behavior
as coarse.
Some time
ago
I
wrote to
congratulate
you on
your
marriage,
which
I
have
done
merely
because
my
son
should have
done
it,
and
not
in
order
to
ingratiate
myself with
you;
I
don't
force
myself
upon
young
people.
I
am
neither
an
old
chatterbox
nor an
old
Jewess;
once
I too
was young,
inexperienced,
and
harsh
in
my
judgments,
but
never was
I
coarse.
The
words
"an
old Jewess"
are
my
first
deliberate
coarseness,
and
their
only
purpose
is to
save me
from
your
greetings
in the
future.
Respectfully
Mrs.
Ehrat
10.
To
Emma
Ehrat-Ühlinger
[Bern,
last week of March
1903][1]
Dear
Mrs.
Ehrat!
Today I
received the
enclosed
letter
from
a
dear
acquaintance,
who has shown
me
much
kindness
in
the
past,
and who has also
sheltered
me
under her
hospitable
roof;[2]
one
can
discern
a
great
deal of nastiness
in it
without
having
to
read
too
much
between
the lines.
Of
course,
our
kind, or,
more exactly,
"those of
our persuasion,"[3]
do not
get
upset
so
easily.
This
equanimity
dates
from
the
times when the
great
"Rabbi ben
Akiba"
trumpeted
into
the
world his famous
words,
"Whatever
happens,
has
already
happened
before."[4]
But
now
I have lost
faith
in the
good
man;
for
it
probably
has
never
happened before
that
the
mother of
an
academic
did
not
know
that
her
proper
and
official
title
is
"the
man's
old
lady."
Countless letters that
I wrote to
my
mother
carry
the
salutation,
"Dear
Old
Lady."[5]
In
fact,
she
even
complained
once
that
I
addressed her
simply as
"Mother."
I
must
have
been
very
depressed,
she
thought.
Hasn't
Jakob[6]
explained
this
to
you?