aid, and he awaited Jesus' answer eagerly, but Esora, fearing
their project would be lost sight of in argument, broke in, saying:
neither teaching nor learning avails, but thy health, Jesus, and
to-morrow a caravan starts for Egypt, and we would know if thou'lt join
it, for one whom thou knowest goes with it, a friend, one Nicodemus, a
disciple, whose love for thee is equal to my master's.

Jesus' face darkened, but he said nothing, and Esora asked him if he did
not care to travel with Nicodemus, and he answered that if he went to
Egypt he would like to go with Joseph. But my master has business here,
and may not leave it easily. Is this so, Joseph? Jesus asked, and Joseph
answered: it is true that I have business here, but there are other
reasons, and weightier ones than the one Esora has put before thee, why
I may not leave Jerusalem and go to live in Egypt. But wouldst thou have
me go to Egypt with Nicodemus, Joseph? Jesus asked, and Joseph could not
do else than say that the companion he would choose would not be one
whose tongue was always at babble. But wilt thou go to Egypt, he asked,
if I tell thee that it is for thy safety and for ours that we propose
this voyage to thee? And Jesus answered: be it so.

Then, Jesus, we'll make plans together, Esora and myself, for thy
departure; and having thanked him, Jesus returned to Matred in the
kitchen, and they could hear him talking with her while they debated,
and as soon as the kitchen door closed Joseph told Esora that he could
not break the promise he gave to his father, and it was this very
promise that she strove to persuade him to forgo. For it is the only
way, she said, and he, agreeing with her, said: though I have promised
my father not to keep the company of Jesus, it seems to me that I should
be negligent in my duty towards Jesus if I did not go with him to Egypt;
and Esora said: that is well said, Master, and now we will go to our
beds. God often counsels us in sleep and warns us against hasty
promises.

And it was as he expected it would be: he was that night disturbed by a
dream in which his father appeared to him wearing a distressful face,
saying: I have a blessing that I would give to thee. There were more
words than this, but Joseph could not remember them; but the words he
did remember seemed to him a warning that he must not leave Judea; and
Jesus was of one mind with him when he heard them related on the
terrace. A son, he said, must be always obe