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"Manischevitz was profoundly disappointed at the return of his active pain and suffering. He had hoped for a longer interval of easement, long enough to have a thought other than of him self and his troubles. Day by day, minute after minute, he lived in pain, pain his only memory, questioning the necessity of it, inveighing, though with affection, against God. Why so much, Gottenyu? If He wanted to teach His servant a lesson for some reason, some cause — the nature of His nature — to teach him, say, for reasons of his weakness, his pride, perhaps, during his years of prosperity, his frequent neglect of God — to give him a little lesson, why then any of the tragedies that had happened to him, any one would have sufficed to chasten him. But all together — the loss of both his children, his means of livelihood, Fanny's health and his — that was too much to ask one frail-boned man to endure. Who, after all, was Manischevitz that he had been given so much to suffer?"