"Is she a Jewess too? And this guard of thy house, who looks at me as a sheep at a crocodile?"
"That is Samuel the son of Esdras; he also is a relative. I took him in place of the black man to whom Thou hast given freedom. But hast Thou not permitted me to choose my servants?"
"That is true. And so also the overseer of the workmen is a Jew, for he has a yellow complexion and looks with a lowliness which no Egyptian could imitate."
"That," answered Sarah, "is Ezechiel, the son of Reuben, a relative of my father. Does he not please thee, my lord? These are all thy very faithful servants."
"Does he please me," said the prince, dissatisfied, drumming with his fingers on the bench. "He is not here to please me, but to guard thy property. For that matter, these people do not concern me. Sing, Sarah."
Sarah knelt on the grass at the prince's feet, and playing a few notes as accompaniment, began,
"Where is he who has no care? Who is he who in lying down to slumber has the right to say: This is a day that I have spent without sorrow? Where is the man who lying down for the grave, can say: My life has passed without pain, without fear, like a calm evening on the Jordan.
"But how many are there who moisten their bread with tears daily, and whose houses are filled with sighing.
"A wail is man's earliest speech on this earth, and a groan his farewell to it. Full of suffering does he come into life, full of sorrow does he go to his resting-place, and no one asks him where he would like to be.
"Where is that offspring of man who has not tasted the bitterness of being? Is it the child which death has snatched from its mother, or is it the babe whose mother's breast was drained by hunger ere the little one could place lips to it?