Aye, David was young! His pulses throbbed with the vigour of youth, with the joy of hope, with the deep torrent of a heart’s first love. Glorious youth! Thou art the richest heritage of the children of men! Canst thou not tarry? Down the bright beam of Arcturus there came to David a light that illumined his soul. Sitting at his window with gaze upturned to the starry heavens, there came to him the soft, sweet realisation that the secret of the universe was love, that life’s cup of happiness was at his lips, that Arcturus had been but waiting all these millions upon millions of years to see the veil lifted from his eyes, and the bliss of love revealed. Golden youth! Canst thou not tarry?
They were walking along the street as night was falling. They were laughing and chatting gaily, discussing a droll legend of the Talmud that David had recited to her.
“It reminds me,” said David, “of a story about the Rabbi ben Zaccai, who——”
A sudden moan and faint cry made him pause and quickly turn. A woman whom they had just passed was staggering with her hands pressed to her breast. David sprang toward her, but before he could reach her side she had fallen to the sidewalk, and lay there motionless. In an instant he had raised her to her knees, and was chafing her wrists to restore her to consciousness. She recovered quickly, but as soon as David had helped her to her feet she began to cry weakly, and would have fallen again had he not supported her.
“What is the matter?” he asked. “Are you ill?”
The woman’s sobs increased, and David repeated his question. Then, with the tears streaming down her face, she answered:
“I have eaten nothing for three days. I am starving. I cannot beg. I cannot die. Oh, I am so miserable!”
David assisted her to the steps of the tenement in which she lived, and summoned her neighbours. He gave them what little money he had in his pocket, urged them to make haste and bring the poor woman food and stimulants, and, promising to return the next day, rejoined his companion.
“My God!” he said, “wasn’t that terrible!”