"In our days at last must come the crowning glory of the house of Ben David," the young man went on. "For generations now, since the signs have pointed to the millennium, have the daughters of the house been kept unwedded."
"What!" I cried. "Generations of Bethulahs have been sacrificed to a dream!"
Again the eyes of the first Chassid dilated dangerously. I raised my pistol, but hastened to ask, in a more conciliatory tone, "Then how has the line been carried on?"
"Through the sons, of course," said the young Chassid. "Now for the first time there are no sons, and only one daughter remains, the manifest vessel of salvation."
I tried to call up that image of bustling Broadway that had braced me in colloquy with the old Wonder Rabbi, but it seemed shadowy now, compared with this world of solid spiritualities which begirt me. Could it be the same planet on which such things went on simultaneously? Or perhaps I was dreaming, and these three grotesque creatures were the product of Yarchi's cookery.
But their hanging curls had a daylight definiteness, and down in the sunlit, translucent river I could see every shade of colour, from the green of the sinuous reed-snakes to the brown of the moss patches.
On the bank walked two crows, and I noted for the first time with what comic pomposity they paced, their bodies bent forward like two important old gentlemen with their hands in the pockets of their black coat tails. They brought a smile to my face, but a menacing movement of the Chassidim warned me to be careful.
"And does the girl know all this?" I asked hurriedly.
"She did not yesterday," said the elderly fellow. "Now she has been told."
There was another long pause. I meditated rapidly but disjointedly, having to keep an eye against a sudden rush of my assailants, and mistrusting the goitred saint yet the more because he was so silent.