During the moments of rest Ben-Tovit consoled himself with the thought of the little donkey, and he dreamed of him, and when he felt worse he moaned, scolded his wife, and threatened to dash his head against a rock if the pain should not subside.  He kept pacing back and forth on the flat roof of his house from one corner to the other, feeling ashamed to come close to the side facing the street, for his head was tied around with a kerchief like that of a woman.  Several times children came running to him and told him hastily about Jesus of Nazareth.  Ben-Tovit paused, listened to them for a while, his face wrinkled, but then he stamped his foot angrily and chased them away.  He was a kind man and he loved children, but now he was angry at them for bothering him with trifles.

It was disagreeable to him that a large crowd had gathered in the street and on the neighbouring roofs, doing nothing and looking curiously at Ben-Tovit, who had his head tied around with a kerchief like a woman.  He was about to go down, when his wife said to him: 

“Look, they are leading robbers there.  Perhaps that will divert you.”

“Let me alone.  Don’t you see how I am suffering?” Ben-Tovit answered angrily.

But there was a vague promise in his wife’s words that there might be a relief for his toothache, so he walked over to the parapet unwillingly.  Bending his head on one side, closing one eye, and supporting his cheek with his hand, his face assumed a squeamish, weeping expression, and he looked down to the street.

On the narrow street, going uphill, an enormous crowd was moving forward in disorder, covered with dust and shouting uninterruptedly.  In the middle of the crowd walked the criminals, bending down under the weight of their crosses, and over them the scourges of the Roman soldiers were wriggling about like black snakes.  One of the men, he of the long light hair, in a torn blood-stained cloak, stumbled over a stone which was thrown under his feet, and he fell.  The shouting grew louder, and the crowd, like coloured sea water, closed in about the man on the ground.  Ben-Tovit suddenly shuddered for pain; he felt as though some one had pierced a red-hot needle into his tooth and turned it there; he groaned and walked away from the parapet, angry and squeamishly indifferent.

“How they are shouting!” he said enviously, picturing to himself their wide-open mouths with strong, healthy teeth, and how he himself would have shouted if he had been well.  This intensified his toothache, and he shook his muffled head frequently, and roared:  “Moo-Moo....”

“They say that He restored sight to the blind,” said his wife, who remained standing at the parapet, and she threw down a little cobblestone near the place where Jesus, lifted by the whips, was moving slowly.

“Of course, of course!  He should have cured my toothache,” replied Ben-Tovit ironically, and he added bitterly with irritation:  “What dust they have kicked up!  Like a herd of cattle!  They should all be driven away with a stick!  Take me down, Sarah!”