In his rage, Bar Noemi stretched out his hand for the second time, and the words of the curse had scarce quitted his lips when, with a thunderous sound, the sluices of heaven were opened; the great blue tent of the firmament was wrapped in black; the dazzling lightning descended upon the earth, and ravaging hail, with devastating fury, shot down from the wrathful heaven and annihilated in a moment the insolent pride of the people.
This second plague made the inhabitants of the Fortunate Islands tremble, and they hastened to bring the most tender of their sacrificial offerings to the five righteous men, who would take nothing of their bounty save unground grains of wheat, for they were forbidden to taste anything prepared in the vessels, seethed in the pots, or baked in the ovens of the sinful people.
The prayers of the five men appeased the wrath of heaven, and no sooner had the Lord withdrawn His chastening hand, than the impious pride of the people returned to their hearts. The women painted their cheeks anew, gilded their eyelids, put on again their glass-spun mantles, walked defiantly through the streets, and mocked the youth who, despite their ensnaring cajoleries, would not come forth from their tent.
In the midst of the square in which their tent was pitched, stood a huge spring with a broad marble basin; there, every morning and evening, these seductive fairy shapes used to gambol and lave their snow-white bodies in the sun-warmed waters.
Bar Noemi hid his face in his mantle, and stretched out his right hand towards them with a gesture of loathing, and this gesture was a curse.
In one night the order of the seasons was changed. In the midst of the most sultry summer, there arose an ice-cold wind, which raged through the land and disturbed the equilibrium of Nature. In a land where ice had never been seen before, the streams were covered with an icy coat of mail, and the terrified people saw unknown white flakes fall from heaven, which covered woods, fields, streets, and pinnacles with a white winding-sheet.
Ha! how the sounds of revelry suddenly died away. On the first day of this wonderful visitation men did not know what to think; they marvelled at the ice, the snow, the wonderful frost. But the very next day they had recovered themselves, and were scouring through the hard, frozen streets on sledges, hung with bells, to the sound of music and singing. They protected themselves against the cold with fur pelisses; they built them transparent palaces of ice, made monuments of the snow, and laughed at the wrath of heaven.
At a sign from Bar Noemi the third plague also came to an end. The sun again appeared in his strength; ice and snow melted away; the earth grew green once more.
And even this third plague did not make the people amend. They laughed already at the five youths, and Bar Noemi was challenged to do fresh wonders in order to break the dull monotony, the sluggish slowness of existence.
Woe to the people whose children complain that life is dull and slow.