d her brother counting
aloud and clicking on the table with some soft, dull-edged tool, a tiny
mallet, perhaps.

The father's curiosity mounted to an unhealthy pitch. He hated to break
into his nightly custom of playing cards at the Inn of The Quarrelling
Yellow Cats, but his duty lay as plain before him as the moles on his
wrist; so he waited until Racah went out, and seizing a stout stick and
clapping his hat on his head, followed his son in lagging and deceitful
pursuit. The boy walked slowly, his head thrown back in reverie. Several
times he halted as if the burden of his thoughts clogged his very
motion. Anxiously eying him, his father sneaked after. The eccentric
movements of his son filled him with a certain anguish. He was a
god-fearing man; erratic behavior meant to him the obsession of the
devil.

His son, his Racah, was tempted by the evil one! What could he do to
save him from the fiery pit? Urged by these burdensome notions, he cried
aloud, "Racah, my son, return to thy home!" But he spoke to space. No
one was within hearing. The street was dark; then the sound of music
fell upon his ears, and again he looked about him. Racah had
disappeared. The only light came from a window hard by. With the music
it oozed out between two half-closed shutters, and toward it the
depressed one went. He peeped in and saw his son playing at a piano, and
by his side sat a queer old man beating time. His name was Spinoza; he
was a Portuguese pianist, and wore a tall, battered silk hat which he
never removed, even in bed--so the town said.

Racah's father played no dominoes that night. When he returned to his
house his wife thought that he was drunk. He told his story in agitated
accents, and went to bed a mystified man. He understood nothing, and
while his wife calmly slept he tortured himself with questions. How came
Racah the priest to be metamorphosed into Racah the pianist? Then the
father plucked at the counterpane like a dying fiddler....

The boy showed no embarrassment when interrogated by his parents the
next day. He said he did not desire to be a priest, that a pianist could
make more money, and though he hated music, there were harder ways of
earning one's bread. The callousness which he displayed in saying all
this deeply pained his pious father. His son's secret nature was an
enigma to him. In vain he endeavored to pierce the meaning of the
youth's eyes, but their gaze was enigmatic and veiled. Racah had ever