For a New York dwelling-house, it was a spacious room, this parlor; say, in width twenty feet, by forty in depth. The chairs and sofas, scrupulously wrapped in linen, were ranged along the walls. Over the carpet, completely covering it, stretched a broad sheet of grayish crash. The piano wore a rubber jacket, and had its legs swathed in newspapers. The books in the bookcases—books of the decorative, rather than of the readable order, for the most part—were locked up behind glass doors. The tall mirror, between the windows, shone through a veil of pink mosquito-netting. Supplies of the same material had been stretched across all the pictures.
In front of one of these pictures—that which hung above the mantel-piece—the rabbi now paused, and, raising his arm, pointed to it, in silence.
It was the portrait of a gentleman, full length, life-size, done in oils. The gentleman rested one hand upon a pile of ponderous, calf-bound volumes—law-books, or medical works, they looked like—that towered aloft from the floor. In his other hand, he held an unrolled scroll of parchment, upon which big black Hebrew characters were inscribed. Of artistic value the picture had little, or none at all; but it had another sort of value: it was a portrait of Elias's father.
The rabbi pointed to it in silence. Elias thought the rabbi's proceeding a little theatrical; but he made no comment.
By and by the rabbi lowered his arm, and faced about. Having done which, he raised his other arm, and this time brought his index finger to bear upon a portrait of Elias's mother.
Theatrical, certainly; disagreeably so, too; Elias thought.
At this point there befell an interruption which had somewhat the effect of an anti-climax. The breakfast-bell rang.
“Well,” said the rabbi, “let's go to breakfast.”
Elias turned off the gas. They left the parlor, and went down stairs to the dining-room.
There, having taken their places at the table, the rabbi extracted a handkerchief from his pocket, and with it covered his head. Elias did likewise. Whereupon the rabbi chanted the usual grace before meat. At its conclusion, both he and Elias replaced their handkerchiefs in their pockets, and the maid-servant brought the coffee.