Carried out according to tradition, the feast had a solemn character. The supper was half prayer, half offering, and bore no resemblance to the fashionable feasts from which God is banished and to which one does not dream of inviting the angels. Jankiel, a scrupulous observer of the law, pronounced a last prayer at the end of the repast. After that they separated. Rachel went to her bedroom, where Jankiel soon joined her.
"I am alarmed," said she to her husband; "you appear ill. You are not in your usual spirits. You have not the tranquillity of the Sabbath. What is the matter with you?"
"Oh, it will pass away! Do not speak of it now. It would sadden this blessed and holy day."
His wife said no more.
It is thus that the Sabbath is kept in houses where the old customs are strictly observed. In most Jewish families the ritual is abridged, and this tends to destroy the ancient and patriarchal character of this consecrated day.
Opposite Jankiel's dwelling was a wooden house; it was comfortable and convenient, and belonged to David Seeback. It was toward the windows of this house that Lia, alone in her chamber, turned her beautiful eyes. She sighed deeply, and seemed lost in thought.
David Seeback, father and son, had for many years followed the profession of money-lenders, a business which was called usury until the moment when political economy decided that to profit by the need of another is legitimate; and that interest, mutually agreed, no matter how high, is a permissible thing. These financiers were neither Jews nor Christians. They kept in appearance the Jewish laws and customs, but they attached to them no real importance. David, the father, gave himself out as a believing Jew to his co-religionists, but ridiculed all their observances when he found himself with the Khutars and the Goïmes.
He ate anywhere that he happened to be, and travelled on the days set aside for prayer and repose. In a word, he had shaken off tradition and found nothing to take its place.
David the younger had received his education in Warsaw and abroad; he bore no trace whatever of his origin. Well educated, but very corrupt at heart, he found in his insatiable cupidity many ways of gaining money. The father was proud of his only scion, and predicted for him a high destiny; and this time the proverb "like father like son" was right.
While the solemn ceremony of the Sabbath was being kept in the house of Jankiel, the two Davids lighted their candles and ate their supper, but forgot the prayers and the offerings of bread and wine. They were alone.