eave the room. We shall be
more comfortable when the curtains are drawn. The lamp, I see, is
beginning to burn up.... Nicodemus sat grave and hieratic, thin and
tall, in the high chair, and the gloom on his face was so immovable that
Joseph wasted no words. What has fallen out? he said, and Nicodemus
asked him if he knew Phinehas, the great money-changer in the Temple.
Joseph nodded, and, holding his hands before the fire, Nicodemus told
his story very slowly, exasperating Joseph by his slowness; but he did
not dare to bid him to hasten, and, holding himself in patience, he
listened to him while he told that Phinehas was perhaps the worst of the
extorters, the most noisy and arrogant, a vicious and quarrelsome man,
who, yester-morning, was engaged with a rich Alexandrian Jew, Shamhuth,
who had lately arrived from Alexandria and was buying oxen, rams and
ewes in great numbers for sacrifice. We wondered at his munificence,
Nicodemus said, not being able to explain it to ourselves, for the Feast
of the Tabernacles is over; and our curiosity was still more roused when
it became known that he was distributing largess. The man's appearance
aroused suspicion, for it is indeed a fearful one. From his single eye
to his chin a fearful avariciousness fills his face, and the empty,
withered socket speaks of a close, sordid, secret passion, and so
clearly that Jesus said: that man has not come to glorify God nor to
repent of his sins. He is guilty of a great crime, and he would have it
forgiven him. But the crime? Of what crime is he guilty? we asked. Jesus
did not answer us, for at that moment some young man had come to listen
to him, and the man's crime appeared to him as of little importance
compared to his own teaching. Has he come, we asked, to pray that his
sight may be restored to him? Jesus motioned to us that that was so; and
he also bade us be silent, for stories of miracles have a great hold
upon the human mind, and Jesus wished to teach some young men who had
come to ask him how they were to live during these last days. But
myself, consumed with desire to hear the man's story, mingled with the
herdsmen who had brought in the cattle, and inquired how Shamhuth had
lost his eye. None could tell me, and I failed to get tidings of him
till I came upon an Alexandrian Jew who told me a strange story.
Shamhuth's money came from his friend's wife, whom he married after
causing him to be killed by hirelings; and when his senses tire