[Hamburg1] Sunday
July 23, 1882

“The Jew is called Nathan. (A strange Jew-h'm!) Continue, worthy Nathan…”2 (Or something like that; I can't go to the public library just now to verify the quotation. The man in the Gänsemarkt3 will forgive me.) This was the beginning of our acquaintance. I had suddenly grown very fond of a little girl and suddenly found myself in Hamburg. She had sent me a ring which her mother had once received from her father; I had a smaller copy of this ring made to fit her tiny finger, but it appeared that the true ring4 had stayed with her after all, for everyone who saw and spoke to her loved her, and this is the sign of the true ring. I didn't like this much and I wondered for a long time how I could make