“What are you doing here?” he asked in a friendly manner, but with some curiosity, nevertheless.

“I am looking out, in case the husband of the beautiful Jewess should come home unexpectedly.”

“Indeed?  Well, mind and keep a good look out.”

Saying this, the philosopher pretended to go away, but went into the house through the garden entrance at the back.  When he got into the first room, he found a table laid for two, which had evidently only been left a short time previously.  His wife was sitting as usual at her bed room window wrapped in her fur jacket, but her cheeks were suspiciously red, and her dark eyes had not got their usual languishing look, but now rested on her husband with a gaze which expressed at the same time satisfaction and mockery.  At that moment he kicked against an object on the floor, which emitted a strange sound, which he picked up and examined in the light.  It was a pair of spurs.

“Who has been here with you?” the Talmudist said.

The Jewish Venus shrugged her shoulders contemptuously, but did not reply.

“Shall I tell you?  The Captain of Hussars has been with you.”

“And why should he not have been here with me?” she said, smoothing the fur on her jacket with her white hand.

“Woman! are you out of your mind?”

“I am in full possession of my senses,” she replied, and a knowing smile hovered round her red voluptuous lips.  “But must I not also do my part, in order that Messias may come and redeem us poor Jews?”

LA MORILLONNE

They called her La Morillonne[12] because of her black hair and of her complexion, which resembled autumnal leaves, and because of her mouth with thick purple lips, which were like blackberries, when she curled them.

[Footnote 12:  Black Grapes.]

That she should be born as dark as this in a district where everybody was fair, and engendered by a father and mother with tow-colored hair and a complexion like butter was one of the mysteries of atavism.  One of her female ancestors must have had an intimacy with one of those traveling tinkers who, have gone about the country from time immemorial, with faces the color of bistre and indigo, crowned by a wisp of light hair.

From that ancestor she derived, not only her dark complexion, but also her dark soul, her deceitful eyes, whose depths were at times illuminated by flashes of every vice, her eyes of an obstinate and malicious animal.

Handsome?  Certainly not, nor even pretty.  Ugly, with an absolute ugliness!  Such a false look!  Her nose was flat, and had been smashed by a blow, while her unwholesome looking mouth was always slobbering with greediness, or uttering something vile.  Her hair was thick and untidy, and a regular nest for vermin, to which may be added a thin, feverish body, with a limping walk.  In short, she was a perfect monster, and yet all the young men of the neighborhood had made love to her, and whoever had been so honored, longed for her society again.