 In a small essay, "Shmendrick, My Mephistopheles", one of the last passages he wrote, Adler describes the last time he saw Shmendrick played, at a memorial for Goldfaden in 1912. Lamenting the choice of play for the memorial — "Goldfaden has written better things" — he nonetheless acknowledges, "that same bitter Shmendrick was our livelihood ... I gritted my teeth. I called on the ghosts of Aristophanes, of Shakespeare, of Lope de Vega. I wept and swallowed my own tears ... And I cursed the fate that bound me to him ... Yet even as I cursed and condemned, the tears rose. For my whole life, my whole past, was before me on that stage ... Poor weak first step of our Yiddish theater ... I thank you for the happiness you gave us ... I thank you Shmendrick — my beloved — my own."
