“Hush, hush! the Dona hears us—­she is my wife, and thou thyself hast given her today proof of thy taste and poetic skill.”

It was not without some trace of his former embarrassment that the Spaniard greeted the beautiful lady, who amiably regretted that she, by expressing herself so plainly, had pained a friend of her husband.

“Ah, Senora,” replied Don Isaac, “he who grasps too clumsily at a rose must not complain if the thorns scratch.  When the star of evening reflects its golden light in the azure flood”—­

“I beg of you!” interrupted the Rabbi, “to cease!  If we wait till the star of evening reflects its golden light in the azure flood, my wife will starve, for she has eaten nothing since yesterday, and suffered much in the mean-while.”

“Well, then, I will take you to the best restaurant of Israel,” said Don Isaac, “to the house of my friend Schnapper-Elle, which is not far away.  I already smell the savory odors from the kitchen!  Oh, didst thou but know, O Abraham, how this odor appeals to me.  This it is which, since I have dwelt in this city, has so often lured me to the tents of Jacob.  Intercourse with God’s people is not a hobby of mine, and truly it is not to pray, but to eat, that I visit the Jews’ Street.”

“Thou hast never loved us, Don Isaac.”

“Well,” continued the Spaniard, “I like your food much better than your creed—­which wants the right sauce.  I never could rightly digest you.  Even in your best days, under the rule of my ancestor David, who was king over Judah and Israel, I never could have held out, and certainly I should some fine morning have run away from Mount Zion and emigrated to Phoenicia or Babylon, where the joys of life foamed in the temple of the gods.”

“Thou blasphemest, Isaac, blasphemest the one God,” murmured the Rabbi grimly.  “Thou art much worse than a Christian—­thou art a heathen, a servant of idols.”

“Yes, I am a heathen, and the melancholy, self-tormenting Nazarenes are quite as little to my taste as the dry and joyless Hebrews.  May our dear Lady of Sidon, holy Astarte, forgive me, that I kneel before the many sorrowed Mother of the Crucified and pray.  Only my knee and my tongue worship death—­my heart remains true to life.  But do not look so sourly,” continued the Spaniard, as he saw what little gratification his words seemed to give the Rabbi.  “Do not look at me with disdain.  My nose is not a renegade.  When once by chance I came into this street at dinner time, and the well-known savory odors of the Jewish kitchen rose to my nose, I was seized with the same yearning which our fathers felt for the fleshpots of Egypt—­pleasant tasting memories of youth came back to me.  In imagination I saw again the carp with brown raisin sauce which my aunt prepared so sustainingly for Friday eve; I saw once more the steamed mutton with garlic and horseradish, which might have raised the dead, and the soup with dreamily swimming dumplings in it—­and my soul melted like the notes of an enamored nightingale—­and since then I have been eating in the restaurant of my friend Dona Schnapper-Elle.”