Sachel.
Who asked your sympathy? Hold your tongue!
I honoured you because you asked the sympathy of no man. I honoured you. Shall I ever forget that Friday, when I stood alone in the gloom of this warehouse, watching you, sorrowing over your blindness, with tears in my eyes! You stood by the scales. They were weighing out your merchandise; the man who had bought it stooped and shifted the weights; and your creature Jacob read the figures out and you wrote them down in great coarse scrawls—your grey head bare, your face turned up to heaven. How I loved you—how I pitied you! You bore yourself with such calm—such fortitude—as if, when God had touched your eyes, He had whispered into your ears some portion of the everlasting truth. No one saw me—I was back in the shadow. And I started forward; I wanted to say, "Father—go in; father, never labour again! Sit in your chair—rest always—while I do your bidding—while I do everything!" But I did not say it. No! I stopped; I slunk back into the deepest shadow like a criminal. I had uttered a cry, but you and Jacob did not hear me. On the platform of the scales, when your client stooped to balance them, I had seen a foot go out—go out while your white face was turned in holy calm to heaven—go out and press down—so that the scales read false—so that the man who bought our goods was tricked and robbed—robbed of the money we had not earned from him. And again I saw it, and again, and again, father! And the man whose foot went out and did this crime, the man who was stealing and stealing, time after time, stealing his money, stealing my respect, my honour, my youth, before my eyes—was it Jacob? No, it was you—you, my father—my father, whom I loved and pitied, and they had trusted—because you were blind!
Esther.
Shame! That's a lie! Shame!
Rafael.
[Turning to his father.] Is it a lie?
Sachel.
[Hoarsely.] Let him go on. Let him go on.