His mind moved in a rich, erudite and complex syntax that turned all opposition into admiration.  Even the president, who had been listening to theology all his life and had much business to attend to, must fain neglect some of it for the pleasure of listening to Mathias when he lectured.  Even Saddoc, the most orthodox Jew in the cenoby, Mathias could keep as it were chained to his seat.  He resented and spurned the allegory, but the beautiful voice that brought out sentence after sentence, like silk from off a spool, enticed his thoughts away from it.  The language used in the cenoby was Aramaic, and never did Joseph hear that language spoken so beautifully.  It seemed to him that he was listening to a new language and on leaving the hall he told Mathias that it had seemed to him that he was listening to Aramaic for the first time.  Mathias answered him—­blushing a little, Joseph thought—­that he hoped one of these days, in Egypt perhaps, if Joseph ever went there, to lecture to him in Greek.  He liked Aramaic for other purposes, but for philosophy there was but one language.  But you speak Greek and are now teaching Greek, so let us speak it when we are together, Mathias said, and if I detect any incorrectness I will warn you against it.

That Mathias should choose to speak to him in Greek was flattering indeed, and Joseph, who had not spoken Greek for many months, began to prattle, but he had not said many words before Mathias interrupted him and said:  you must have learnt Greek very young.  This remark turned the talk on to Azariah; and Mathias listened to Joseph’s account of his tutor carelessly, interrupting him when he had heard enough with a remark anent the advancement of the spring, to which Joseph did not know how to reply, so suddenly had his thoughts been jerked away from the subject he was pursuing.  You have the full Jewish mind, Mathias continued; interested in moral ideas rather than beauty:  without eyes for the village.  True that you see it in winter plight, but in the near season all the fields will be verdant and the lintels running over with flowers.  He waited for Joseph to defend himself, but Joseph did not know for certain that Mathias was not right—­perhaps he was more interested in moral ideas than in beauty.  However this might be, he began to experience an aversion, and might have taken leave of Mathias if they had not come upon the president.  He stopped to speak to them; and having congratulated Mathias on having fortuned at last on an efficient teacher of Hebrew and Greek, and addressed a few kindly words directly to Joseph and taken his hand in his, the head of the community bade them both good-bye, saying that important business needed his presence.  He sped away on his business, but he seemed to leave something of himself behind, and even Mathias was perforce distracted from his search of a philosophic point of view and indulged himself in the luxury of a simple remark.  His goodness, he said, is so natural, like the air we breathe and the bread we eat, and that is why we all love him, and why all dissension vanishes at the approach of our president; a remarkable man.