On the morrow of the Feast of the Assumption, Solomon was sitting, as his habit was, on a stone bench in front of his house, his legs crossed and his arms carelessly stretched out.  At the first glance you would have taken him for sixty at the outside, though he was really over eighty.  He had all his teeth, which were as white as pearls, and showed them proudly.  His brow, calm and restful beneath its crown of abundant white hair, was as firm and polished as marble; not a wrinkle ruffled the corner of his eye, and the gem-like lustre of his blue orbs revealed a freshness of soul and an eternal youth such as fable grants to the sea-gods.  He displayed his bare arms and muscular neck with an old man’s vanity.  Never had a gloomy idea, an evil prepossession, or a keen remorse, arisen to disturb his long and peaceful life.  He had never seen a tear flow near him without hurrying to wipe it; poor though he was, he had succeeded in pouring out benefits that all the kings of the earth could not have bought with their gold; ignorant though he was, he had spoken to his fellows the only language that they could understand, the language of the heart.  One single drop of bitterness had mingled with his inexhaustible stream of happiness; one grief only had clouded his sunny life—­the death of his wife—­and moreover he had forgotten that.

All the affections of his soul were turned upon Nisida, whose birth had caused her mother’s death; he loved her with that immoderate love that old people have for the youngest of their children.  At the present moment he was gazing upon her with an air of profound rapture, and watching her come and go, as she now joined the groups of children and scolded them for games too dangerous or too noisy; now seated herself on the grass beside their mothers and took part with grave and thoughtful interest in their talk.  Nisida was more beautiful thus than she had been the day before; with the vaporous cloud of perfume that had folded her round from head to foot had disappeared all that mystic poetry which put a sort of constraint upon her admirers and obliged them to lower their glances.  She had become a daughter of Eve again without losing anything of her charm.  Simply dressed, as she usually was on work-days, she was distinguishable among her companions only by her amazing beauty and by the dazzling whiteness of her skin.  Her beautiful black hair was twisted in plaits around the little dagger of chased silver, that has lately been imported into Paris by that right of conquest which the pretty women of Paris have over the fashions of all countries, like the English over the sea.