“What are you doing here?” he asked in
a friendly manner, but with some curiosity, nevertheless.
“I am looking out, in case the husband of the
beautiful Jewess should come home unexpectedly.”
“Indeed? Well, mind and keep a good look
out.”
Saying this, the philosopher pretended to go away,
but went into the house through the garden entrance
at the back. When he got into the first room,
he found a table laid for two, which had evidently
only been left a short time previously. His wife
was sitting as usual at her bed room window wrapped
in her fur jacket, but her cheeks were suspiciously
red, and her dark eyes had not got their usual languishing
look, but now rested on her husband with a gaze which
expressed at the same time satisfaction and mockery.
At that moment he kicked against an object on the
floor, which emitted a strange sound, which he picked
up and examined in the light. It was a pair of
spurs.
“Who has been here with you?” the Talmudist
said.
The Jewish Venus shrugged her shoulders contemptuously,
but did not reply.
“Shall I tell you? The Captain of Hussars
has been with you.”
“And why should he not have been here with me?”
she said, smoothing the fur on her jacket with her
white hand.
“Woman! are you out of your mind?”
“I am in full possession of my senses,”
she replied, and a knowing smile hovered round her
red voluptuous lips. “But must I not also
do my part, in order that Messias may come and redeem
us poor Jews?”
They called her La Morillonne[12] because of
her black hair and of her complexion, which resembled
autumnal leaves, and because of her mouth with thick
purple lips, which were like blackberries, when she
curled them.
[Footnote 12: Black Grapes.]
That she should be born as dark as this in a district
where everybody was fair, and engendered by a father
and mother with tow-colored hair and a complexion
like butter was one of the mysteries of atavism.
One of her female ancestors must have had an intimacy
with one of those traveling tinkers who, have gone
about the country from time immemorial, with faces
the color of bistre and indigo, crowned by a wisp of
light hair.
From that ancestor she derived, not only her dark
complexion, but also her dark soul, her deceitful
eyes, whose depths were at times illuminated by flashes
of every vice, her eyes of an obstinate and malicious
animal.
Handsome? Certainly not, nor even pretty.
Ugly, with an absolute ugliness! Such a false
look! Her nose was flat, and had been smashed
by a blow, while her unwholesome looking mouth was
always slobbering with greediness, or uttering something
vile. Her hair was thick and untidy, and a regular
nest for vermin, to which may be added a thin, feverish
body, with a limping walk. In short, she was a
perfect monster, and yet all the young men of the
neighborhood had made love to her, and whoever had
been so honored, longed for her society again.
