“So in happy intercourse with the others I reached my fifteenth year.  In the evening, when the shepherds returned home, I sat with the young people around the fire, and was pleased when the sons of the shepherd princes preferred me to my companions and sought my love; but I refused them all, even the Egyptian captain who commanded the garrison of the storehouse; for I remembered you, the companion of my youth.  My best possession would not have seemed too dear a price to pay for some magic spell that would have brought you to us when, at the festal games, I danced and sang to the tambourine while the loudest shouts of applause greeted me.  Whenever many were listening I thought of you—­then I poured forth like the lark the feelings that filled my heart, then my song was inspired by you and not by the fame of the Most High, to whom it was consecrated.”

Here passion, with renewed power, seized the man, to whom the woman he loved was confessing so many blissful memories.  Suddenly starting up, he extended his arms toward her; but she sternly repulsed him, that she might control the yearning which threatened to overpower her also.

Yet her deep voice had gained a new, strange tone as, at first rapidly and softly, then in louder and firmer accents, she continued: 

“So I attained my eighteenth year and was no longer satisfied to dwell in Succoth.  An indescribable longing, and not for you only, had taken possession of my soul.  What had formerly afforded me pleasure now seemed shallow, and the monotony of life here in the remote frontier city amid shepherds and flocks, appeared dull and pitiful.

“Eleasar, Aaron’s son, had taught me to read and brought me books, full of tales which could never have happened, yet which stirred the heart.  Many also contained hymns and fervent songs such as one lover sings to another.  These made a deep impression on my soul and, whenever I was alone in the evening, or at noon-day when the shepherds and flocks were far away in the fields, I repeated these songs or composed new ones, most of which were hymns in praise of the deity.  Sometimes they extolled Amon with the ram’s head, sometimes cow-headed Isis, and often, too, the great and omnipotent God who revealed Himself to Abraham, and of whom my mother spoke more and more frequently as she advanced in years.  To compose such hymns in quiet hours, wait for visions revealing God’s grandeur and splendor, or beautiful angels and horrible demons, became my favorite occupation.  The merry child had grown a dreamy maiden, who let household affairs go as they would.  And there was no one who could have warned me, for my mother had followed my father to the grave; and I now lived alone with my old aunt Rachel, unhappy myself, and a source of joy to no one.  Aaron, the oldest of our family, had removed to the dwelling of his father-in-law Amminadab:  the house of Amram, his heritage, had become too small and plain for him and he left it to me.  My companions avoided me; for my mirthfulness had departed and I patronized them with wretched arrogance because I could compose songs and beheld more in my visions than all the other maidens.