I waited in the little garden, watching a patriarchal tortoise. Presently the carpenter reappeared on the doorstep, a new man in festal garment and mien, his head anointed with oil.
“Baruch Habaa!” he cried cordially. “Since I cannot go up to Yerushalaim, Yerushalaim comes up to me.”
I followed him into the house, duly kissing the mezuzah as I went through the door. The room was small and dark, with bare walls built of little liver-coloured blocks of cemented stone, and the matted floor seemed to hold less furniture than that which littered the garden. The carpenter’s bench had been covered with cushions, and I could see that the divan was used for a bed. Very humble was the house-gear, these earthenware dishes and metal drinking-cups and brass candlesticks on the Passover table, and I saw no ornaments save a few terra-cotta vases, a Hebrew scroll or two, and a rudely painted coffer. The housewife, busy at the hearth with the roasted egg and bone of the ritual, greeted me with wistful eyes and lips that vainly tried to murmur or smile a welcome, and I watched her deft mechanic movements as I sat lightly gossiping with the males over the exegesis of the seventh chapter of Yeshaiah. I told them that the Septuagint translator had darkened the fourteenth verse by loosely rendering עלמה as παρθένος, or “virgin,” instead of “maiden,” but this did not interest them, as they knew no Greek. The room took a more cheerful air when the mother lit the Sabbath candles with a blessing almost as inaudible as her welcome to me, and soon my host began the Haggadah service by holding his hands over the wine-goblet. But Yehudah asked the ritual question, “Why does this night differ from all other nights?” with a touch of sarcasm, and interrupted himself to cry passionately: “How can we celebrate our deliverance from Egypt when the Roman Eagle hangs at the very door of our Temple?” At this the little mother turned yet paler, and every eye glanced uneasily towards the stranger.
“Nay, I am no friend of the Romans,” I said reassuringly.
Yehudah continued the formula sullenly. It was as I had always heard it, save for the question, “Why is the meat all roasted and none sodden or boiled?” But the father had scarcely begun his ritual reply when we heard a loud knocking on the door, the latch was lifted, and in another instant we saw a burly man panting on the threshold, and behind him, more vaguely in the dusk, an agitated woman under a head-shawl.
“O Reb Yussef!” breathed the newcomer.
“Halphaï!” cried the carpenter in amaze. “Art not in Yerushalaim?”
The little mother had sprung to her feet.
“They have killed my Yeshua!” she shrieked.
“Sit down, woman!” said the carpenter sternly.