The prince, thinking that she was wounded, drew the bandage from her head; but when he saw the bruise, he cried,
"That is only a blue spot! How that blue spot changes the face!"
At these words Sarah forgot pain and fear. New alarm seized her: so she had changed to such a degree that it astonished the prince, but he was only astonished.
The blue spot disappeared in a couple of days, but feelings unknown up to that time remained in Sarah's soul and increased there. She began to be jealous of the prince, and to fear that he would reject her.
And still another anxiety tortured the Jewess. She felt herself a servant, a slave in respect to Ramses. She was and wished to be his faithful servant, his devoted slave, as inseparable as his shadow, but at the same time she desired that he, at least when he fondled her, should not treat her as though he were lord and master.
She was his indeed, but he was hers also. Why does he not show, then, that he belonged to her, even in some degree? But with every word and motion he makes her understand that a certain gulf is between them. What kind of gulf? Has she not held him in her embraces? Has he not kissed her lips and bosom?
A certain day the prince came to her with a dog. He stayed only a couple of hours; but during that entire interval the dog lay at his feet in Sarah's place, and when she wished to sit there the dog growled. And the prince laughed and thrust his fingers into the hair of that unclean creature, as he had into her hair. And the dog looked into the prince's eyes just as she had, with this difference, perhaps, that he looked with more confidence.
She could not pacify herself, and she hated the clever beast which was taking a part of the tenderness due to her, paying no attention whatever to her, and bearing itself with an intimacy towards its lord that she did not dare to claim. She would have been unable to have such an indifferent mien, or to look in another direction if the prince's hand had rested on her head.
Not long before this incident the prince mentioned dancers a second time. Then Sarah burst out angrily,
"How did he permit himself to be familiar with those naked, shameless women? And Jehovah looking down from high heaven did not hurl His thunders at those monstrous creatures!"