Then there came a time when I knew that Polotzk and Vitebsk and Vilna and some other places were grouped together as the "Pale of Settlement," and within this area the Czar commanded me to stay, with my father and mother and friends, and all other people like us.

We must not be found outside the Pale, because we were Jews.
So there was a fence around Polotzk, after all.

The world was divided into Jews and Gentiles.

This knowledge came so gradually that it could not shock me.

It trickled into my consciousness drop by drop.