the walls of Zion? Do you feel inclined
to make the monks' acquaintance once more?"

"Fie, fie, Rahel, listening again? Go into the kitchen!"

"Directly! Directly! But I will speak first. You pretend, that you are
only staying here to please your wife, but it's no such thing. It's
yonder writing that keeps you. I know life, but you and your wife are
just like two children. Evil is forgotten in the twinkling of an eye, and
blessing is to come straight from Heaven, like quails and manna. What
sort of a creature have your books made you, since you came with the
doctor's hat from Coimbra? Then everybody said: 'Lopez, Senor Lopez.
Heavenly Father, what a shining light he'll be!' And now! The Lord have
mercy on us! You work, work, and what does it bring you? Not an egg; not
a rush! Go to your uncle in the Netherlands. He'll forget the curse, if
you submit! How many of the zechins, your father saved, are still left?"

Here the doctor interrupted the old woman's torrent of speech with a
stern "enough!" but she would not allow herself to be checked, and
continued with increasing volubility.

"Enough, you say? I fret over perversity enough in silence. May my tongue
wither, if I remain mute to-day. Good God! child, are you out of your
senses? Everything has been crammed into your poor head, but to be sure
it isn't written in the books, that when people find out what happened in
Porto, and that you married a baptized child, a Gentile, a Christian
girl. . . ."

At these words the doctor rose, laid his hands on the servant's shoulder,
and said with grave, quiet earnestness.

"Whoever speaks of that, may betray it; may betray it. Do you understand
me, Rahel? I know your good intentions, and therefore tell you: my wife
is content here, and danger is still far away. We shall stay. And
besides: since Elizabeth became mine, the Jews avoid me as an accursed,
the Christians as a condemned man. The former close the doors, the latter
would fain open them; the gates of a prison, I mean. No Portuguese will
come here, but in the Netherlands there is more than one monk and one Jew
from Porto, and if any of them recognize me and find Elizabeth with me,
it will involve no less trifle than her life and mine. I shall stay here;
you now know why, and can go to your kitchen."

Old Rahel reluctantly obeyed, yet the doctor did not resume his seat at
the writing-table, but for a long time paced up and down among his books
more rapidly than usual.