or that evening, at all events, it would not do to
oppose his father. He walked into the kitchen where Viola was preparing
supper, or rather breakfast, for after the fast this was the first meal
of the day.

"Viola," he said, "make haste and fetch some fresh wine."

"For him?" cried Viola, pointing her finger almost threateningly in the
direction of the sitting-room door.

"Don't, don't, Viola!" Ephraim implored.

"And you are fasting!" she said.

"Am I not also fasting for him?" said Ephraim.

With a full bottle in his hand Ephraim once more entered the room. He
placed the wine upon the table, where the glasses from which Ascher had
drunk in the morning were still standing.

"Where is Viola?" asked Ascher, who was again pacing the room with firm
steps.

"She is busy cooking."

"Tell her she shall have a husband, and a dowry that will make half the
girls in Bohemia turn green and yellow with envy."

Then he approached the table, and drank three brimming glasses, one
after the other. "Now then," he said, as with his whole weight he
dropped into the old arm-chair.... "Now I 'll have a good night's rest.
I need strength and sharp eyes, and they are things which only sleep
can give. Ephraim, my son," he continued after a while in thick, halting
accents... "tell the watch--Simon is his name, I think--he can give six
knocks instead of three upon the door, in the morning, he won't disturb
me... and to Viola you can say I 'll find her a husband, handsomer than
her eyes have ever beheld, and tell her on her wedding-day she shall
wear pearls round her neck like those of a queen--no, no, like those of
Gudule, her mother." A few moments later he was sound asleep.

It was the dead of night. All round reigned stillness and peace, the
peace of night! What a gentle sound those words convey, a sound akin
only to the word _home!_ Fraught, like it, with sweetest balm, a
fragrant flower from long-lost paradise. Thou art at rest, Ascher,
and in safe shelter; the breathing of thy children is so restful, so
tranquil....

Desist! desist! 'T is too late. Side by side with the peace of night,
there dwell Spirits of Evil, the never-resting, vagrant, home-destroying
guests, who enter unbidden into the human soul! Hark, the rustling of
their raven-hued plumage! They take wing, they fly aloft; 't is the
shriek of the vulture, swooping down upon the guileless dove.

Is there no eye to watch thee? Doth not thine own kin see thy foul
d