"Neither the mother nor the child belong to you. Have you given them your name? Have you shielded them from shame, misery, and malediction?"
"I intend to divorce my wife and marry Lia. I must speak with her. Why do you hinder me?"
"I consent that she sees you in my presence, if she wish. Otherwise, no."
"She ought to be willing, for I hold her fate in my hands."
He had hardly ceased speaking when Lia opened the door and entered, her features convulsed with aversion and contempt. She was superb in her scorn, and David trembled as he regarded her. She hesitated an instant, then cried;--
"Between you and me there is no longer anything in common. I declare, before this witness, that I will never be your wife, and I forbid you to call yourself my child's father. May my tears, my sobs, my sufferings, my sleepless nights, and the disgrace that I have brought to my family bring down upon your head divine wrath! May you be tortured by demons, and may Dumah invent for you new torments!"
In the midst of these imprecations her eyes became suddenly fixed in her head. Her arm appeared paralyzed and her legs sank under her; a froth came from her mouth, and with a convulsive laugh and piercing cries she fell senseless.
David fled from the house, his face covered with his hands. The maid ran for a physician, who, on his arrival, said that it was not an ordinary fainting, but a dangerous attack of apoplexy. All remedies used in such cases were employed, but the stricken one did not regain consciousness until toward evening, when she heard her child cry. She extended her arms to him, but her strength failed anew. Jacob watched by her bedside until daybreak.