Israel juggled with his heart no further, but straightway began to take a view of his condition.Then he saw, to his dismay, that little as he had thought he possessed, even less remained to him out of the wreck of his riches.Only one thing he had still, but that was a thing so dear to his heart that he had never looked to part with it.It was the casket of his dead wife's jewels.
Nevertheless, in his extremity he resolved to sell it now, and, taking the key, he went up to the room where he kept it--a closet that was sacred to the relics of her who lay in his heart for ever, but in his house no more.
Naomi went up with him, and when he had broken the seal from the doorpost, and the little door creaked back on its hinge, the ashy odour came out to them of a chamber long shut up.It was just as if the buried air itself had fallen in death to dust, for the dust of the years lay on everything.
But under its dark mantle were soft silks and delicate shawls and gauzy haiks, and veils and embroidered sashes and light red slippers, and many dainty things such as women love.And to him that came again after ten heavy years they were as a dream of her that had worn them when she was young that now was dead when she was beautiful that now was in the grave.
"Ah me, ah me! Ruth! My Ruth!" he murmured."This was her shawl.
I brought it from Wazzan....And these slippers--they came from Rabat.
Poor girl, poor girl!....This sash, too, it used to be yellow and white.How well I remember the first time she wore it!
She had put it over her head for a hood, pretending to be a Moorish woman.
But her brown curls fell out over her face, or she could not imprison them.
And then she laughed.My poor dear girl.How happy we were once in spite of everything! It is all like yesterday.When I think Ah no, I must think no more, I must think no more."Israel had little heart for such visions, so he turned to the casket of the jewels where it stood by the wall.With trembling hands he took it and opened it, and here within were necklaces and bracelets, and rings and earrings, glistening of gold and rubies under their covering of dust.He lifted them one by one over his wrinkled fingers, and looked at them while his eyes grew wet.
"Not for myself," he murmured, "not for myself would I have sold them, not for bread to eat or water to drink; no, not for a wilderness of worlds!"All this time he had given little thought to Naomi, where she stood by his side, but in her darkness and silence she touched the silks and looked serious, and the slippers and looked perplexed, and now at the jingling of the jewels she stretched out her hand and took one of them from her father's fingers, and feeling it, and finding it to be a necklace, she clasped it about her neck and laughed.
At the sound of her laughter Israel shook like a reed.It brought back the memory of the day when she danced to her mother's death, decked in that same necklace and those same ornaments.
More on this head Israel could not think and hold to his purpose, so he took the jewels from Naomi's neck and returned them to the casket, and hastened away with it to a man to whom he designed to sell it.
This was no other than Reuben Maliki, keeper of the poor box of the Jews;for as well as a usurer he was a silversmith, and kept his shop in the Sok el Foki.Israel was moved to go to this person by the remembrance of two things, of which either seemed enough for his preference--first, that he had bought the jewels of Reuben in the beginning, and next, the Reuben had never since ceased to speak of them in Tetuan as priceless beyond the gems of Ethiopia and the gold of Ophir.
But when Israel came to him now with the casket that he might buy, he eyed both with looks of indifference, though it was more dear to his covetous and revengeful heart that Israel should humble himself in his need, and bring these jewels, than almost any other satisfaction that could come to it.
"And what is this that you bring me?" said Reuben languidly.
"A case of jewels," said Israel, with a downward look.
"Jewels? umph! what jewels?"
"My poor wife's.You know them, Reuben See!"Israel opened the casket.
"Ah, your wife's.Umph! yes, I suppose I must have seen them somewhere.""You have seen them here, Reuben."
"Here?--do you say here?"
"Reuben, you sold them to me eighteen years ago.""Sold them to you? Never.I don't remember it.Surely you must be mistaken.I can never have dealt in things like these."Reuben had taken the casket in his hands, and was pursing up his lips in expressions of contempt.
Israel watched him closely."Give them back to me," he said;"I can go elsewhere.I have no time for wrangling."Reuben's lip straightened instantly."Wrangling? Who is wrangling, brother? You are too impatient, Sidi""I am in haste," said Israel.
"Ah!"
There was an ominous silence, and then in a cold voice Reuben said, "The things are well enough in their way.What do you wish me to do with them?""To buy them," said Israel.
"_Buy_ them?"
"Yes."
"But I don't want them."
"Are they worth your money?--you don't want that either.""Umph!"
A gleam of mockery passed over Reuben's face, and he proceeded to examine the casket.One by one he trifled with the gems--the rich onyx, the sapphire, the crystal, the coral, the pearl, the ruby, and the topaz, and first he pushed them from him, and then he drew them back again.
And seeing them thus cheapened in Reuben's hairy fingers, the precious jewels which had clasped his Ruth's soft wrist and her white neck, Israel could scarcely hold back his hand from snatching them away.But how can he that is poor answer him that is rich? So Israel put his twitching hands behind him, remembering Naomi and the poor people of Absalam, and when at length Reuben tendered him for the casket one half what he had paid for it, he took the money in silence and went his way.
"Five hundred dollars--I can give no more," Reuben had said.
"Do you say five hundred--five?"
"Five--take it or leave it."
