uch as the young man's
elaboration of raiment, his hairdressing above all; he wore curls on
either side that must have taken his barber a long while to prepare, and
he exhaled scents. He wore bracelets, and from his appearance Joseph had
not been able to refrain from imagining lascivious pictures on the walls
of his house and statues in the corners of the rooms--in a word, he
thought he had been persuaded to enter an ultra-Greek house.

In this he was, however, mistaken, and in the hour they spent together
his host's thoughts were much less occupied than Joseph expected them to
be with the jewels on his neck and his wrists, and the rich tassels on
his sash. He talked of many things, but his real thoughts were upon
arms; and he showed Joseph scimitars and daggers. Despite a long
discussion on the steel of Damascus, Joseph could not bring himself to
believe that Nicodemus' interests in heroic warfare were more than
intellectual caprice: and he regarded as entirely superficial Nicodemus'
attacks on the present-day Jews, whose sloth and indolence he reproved,
saying that they had left the heroic spirit brought out of Arabia with
their language, on the banks of the Euphrates. One hero, he admitted,
they had produced in modern times (Judas Maccabeus), and Joseph heard
for the first time that this great man always had addressed his soldiers
in Hebrew. All the same he did not believe that Nicodemus was serious in
his passionate demands for the Hebrew language, which had not been
spoken since the Jews emerged from the pastoral stage. We should do
well, Nicodemus said, to engage others to look to our flocks and herds,
so that we may have leisure to ponder the texts of Talmud, nor do I
hesitate to condemn my own class, the Sadducees, as the least worthy of
all; for we look upon the Temple as a means of wealth, despising the
poor people, who pay their half-shekel and bring their rams and their
goats and bullocks hither.

He could talk for a long time in this way, his eyes abstracted from
Joseph, fixed on the darkness of the room. While listening to him Joseph
had often asked himself if there were a real inspiration behind that
lean face, carven like a marble, with prominent nose and fading chin, or
if he were a mere buffoon.

He succeeded in provoking a casual curiosity in Joseph, but he had not
infected Joseph with any desire of his acquaintance; his visits to the
counting-house had not been returned. Yet this meeting on the hil