priests, so blasphemous did their jests appear to him.  An unusually fat bullock caused them to speak of the fine regalement he would be to Jahveh’s nostrils.  One sacristan, mentioning the sacred name, figured Jahveh as pressing forward with dilated nostrils.  There is no belly in heaven, he said:  its joys are entirely olfactory, and when this beast is smoking, Jahveh will call down the angels Michael and Gabriel.  As if not satisfied with this blasphemy, as if it were not enough, he turned to the sacristans by him, to ask them if they could not hear the angels sniffing as they leaned forward out of their clouds.  My priests are doing splendidly:  the fat of this beast is delicious in our nostrils; were the words he attributed to Jahveh.  Michael and Gabriel, he said, would reply:  it is indeed as thou sayest, Sire!

Joseph marvelled that priests could speak like this, and tried to forget the vile things they said, but they were unforgettable:  he treasured them in his heart, for he could not do else, and when he did speak, it was at first cautiously, though there was little need for caution; for he found to his surprise that everybody knew that the Sadducees did not believe in a future life and very little in the dogma that the Jews were the sect chosen by God, Jahveh.  He was their God and had upheld the Jewish race, but for all practical purposes it was better to put their faith henceforth in the Romans, who would defend Jerusalem against all barbarians.  It was necessary to observe the Sabbath and to preach its observances and to punish those who violated it, for on the Sabbath rested the entire superstructure of the Temple itself, and all belief might topple if the Sabbath was not maintained, and rigorously.  In the houses of the Sadducees Joseph heard these very words, and their crude scepticism revolted his tender soul:  he was drawn back to his own sect, the Pharisees, for however narrow-minded and fanatical they might be he could not deny to them the virtue of sincerity.  It was with a delightful sense of community of spirit that he returned to them, and in the conviction that it would be well to let pass without protest the observances which himself long ago in Galilee began to look upon with amusement.

A sudden recollection of the discussion that had arisen in the yard behind the counting-house, whether an egg could be eaten if it had been laid the day after the Sabbath, brought a smile to his face, but a different smile from of yore, for he understood now better than he had understood then, that this (in itself a ridiculous) question was no more serious than a bramble that might for a moment entangle the garment of a wayfarer:  of little account was the delay, if the feet were on the right road.  Now the scruple of conscience that the question had awakened might be considered as a desire to live according to a law which, observed for generations, had become part of the national sense and spirit.  On this he fell to thinking that