Mikail's eyes flashed. He was about to reply to Loris' sneer, but, by a severe effort, he checked his rising anger, and without another word turned on his heel and walked away.
"Ill-natured cur!" muttered Loris. "They are all alike—hypocritical fools! With all their pretended virtue, I would not like to expose the best of them to even a moderate temptation."
Mikail walked through a maze of lanes until he came to the street which had formed one of the boundaries of the "Jews' town." He now observed, for the first time, groups of Jewish men, women and children, dressed in their holiday attire, pass him and enter a large building not far away.
"It is their Sabbath, and they are going to their barbarous worship," thought the priest, as he crossed himself.
He went further into the quarter, carefully avoiding the groups that he encountered, and finally entered the dwelling of a Christian woman, who sublet rooms to Jewish tenants. The information which awaited him here must have been important, for it was quite a while before he emerged into the street and retraced his steps towards the city. His path led directly past Mendel's synagogue. Through the window he heard the chant of the hazan, and he paused, reflectively.
"After all," he murmured, "what harm can it do if I go in. I am in search of facts and where shall I be better able to find them than in the Jews' stronghold, their synagogue?"
Crossing himself devoutly, he opened the door and entered.
The shamas (sexton), surprised to see a gallach (priest) in the synagogue, stood for some moments in doubt, but finally shuffled up to the stranger and showed him a seat in the last row of benches.
Mikail sat down passively. For a moment he seemed dazed and stupefied. Perhaps it was only the heat and the glare of the burning candles; but gradually a strange spell came over him, which he tried in vain to shake off.
He could not remember ever having been in a synagogue, and yet the praying-desks, the pulpit and the ark for the holy scrolls seemed singularly familiar. He looked up. Yes, there was the latticed gallery filled with women, just as he had expected to find it!