LITMIR.BIZ

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of speech and was, therefore, the least suitable of all names for the double-tongued woman who bore it. She was the real head of the household, ruling her husband as rigidly as she did the two slaves. She never failed to be in the shop when a customer called, and it required an iron will to get away from her without making a purchase. All money went immediately into her hands, and it was one of the jokes in the Ward of the Trades that Sosthene never had as much as a half shekel or even a mite in his possession from one year’s end to another.

      There were two meals in this household of extreme frugality, the first at ten in the morning, the second at five in the evening. Eulalia would carry a battered tray up to Basil to save the time he would waste in walking up and down the stairs that were on the outside of the house. She would stand by and watch while he finished his meal, her eyes following each morsel of food from the dish to his mouth as though begrudging it. The fare was always of the plainest kind. Meat was provided twice a week only, and the usual dishes were vegetables, cheese, fruit, and coarse black bread. The wine was thin and sour, and of this he was allowed no more in a week than three and a half pints.

      “The reward of diligence,” she would invariably say as she picked up the tray. “Such bounteous meals will be forthcoming only if you stay close to your work.”

      On the day after the receipt of the warning he stopped her with a question before she reached the door with the empty tray.

      “Do you sell all the things I make?”

      Eulalia had stretched out an arm, so thin and withered that it resembled the stalk of a sunflower when the frosts are ready to cut it down, to open the door. She drew back at once.

      “Is it concern of yours?” she demanded harshly.

      Basil nodded. He had never been afraid of her and had won on that account a grudging measure of respect. “It is concern of mine. Would you like to make much more money out of the work I do?” He waited a moment before adding, “There is a way.”

      She placed the tray on the floor with a jolt that spilled what was left of the goat’s milk, and walked back to confront him, hands on hips, her black eyes fixed as implacably on his as those of a hawk that sights below the slow beating of a victim’s wings.

      “What do you mean by that?” she demanded. “You are a slave. Everything you do belongs to us—to me, because I am the holder of the purse. Have you not been doing your best work? Is that what you are telling me?”

      Basil shook his head. “No. I do the best I can. Always.” He held out his hands, palms turned upward. They had changed from the soft white of the easy days when slaves had tended him, laving them with great care and rubbing them with costly unguents. They were now soiled with acids and callused from continuous work. He was finding it impossible to remove the grime with the niggardly fragment of soap allowed him. “There is so much these hands must learn. If I had the means of instruction, I am sure I could produce work such as has never before been seen in Antioch. Do you believe me? If not, ask the rich men to whom you are selling what I make now. They will open your eyes.” He let his hands drop to his lap. “I can learn no more here. If I stay, I shall not be capable of doing much better than I do now.”

      “Your master shows you everything——” she began.

      Basil brushed aside the suggestion of learning more from Sosthene of Tarsus. “He cannot show me the things I must know. I have already passed beyond him. He knows it, and so do you, as well as I do. Send me to one of the great silversmiths in Athens or Rome. Make an agreement with me that within a certain period I am to be a free man but that for as long as I live I am to pay you a share, a large share, of everything I earn. This I promise you: I will make you rich beyond any dream of wealth you may have in your head at this moment.”

      It was clear from the expression on the passionately acquisitive face of the woman that she grasped the possibilities in his proposal. She breathed heavily as she thought it over. But in the end she shook her head, bitterly reluctant to give up such a prospect, but too convinced of the drawbacks to consent.

      “Such a risk!” she cried. “If we let you go, we might never see you again. No, no, no! How can I tell what schemes you are hatching in that mind of yours? You are a clever one. You are as sly as a fox. You are trying to get away, that is all. I can read things in your face. No, no, no! I must not listen to your schemes.” It was clear she was working herself up into one of her rages over her inability to accept an idea that promised such rich rewards. “We are not getting good prices for what we sell. You may think so, but it is not true.” She shook her head at him, fiercely, angrily. “I shall see to it, slave, that we do better out of you from now on. It is clear to me you have not been doing your best. There will be no shirking. You must get these notions out of your head or I will have my husband beat them out of you.” She laughed shrilly. “You want to go to Rome, do you? Let me tell you, they know how to treat presumptuous slaves in Rome. They crucify them. They nail them to the cross upside down.”

      She whisked up the tray with an angry motion, spilling the milk on the floor, and stamped out.

      Never in the two years that he had existed in the house of Sosthene had the bitter shrew who ruled it been unable to carry his meals to him. Yet it came about that the very day after this talk she was visited by a malady which chained her to her bed. The tray in the evening had to be taken up by Agnes. The latter came in proudly, carrying it above her head. She began to talk in cautious tones as soon as the food had been deposited on the workbench beside him.

      “I think the mistress is possessed of a new devil, a ruah ra’ah,” she said. “She tosses about and moans and I think her voice is different. Perhaps it is the ruah ra’ah which talks. Of course she has always had a devil in her. It may be the same one and that it is getting worse.” She was silent for a moment and watched him as he munched on a piece of goat’s-milk cheese. “Do you want to know what I think about this devil? I think she walked into the shadow of the moon under an acacia tree. That is where the ruah ra’ah always stays. As soon as she came there, the devil jumped right down her throat. If it stays inside her, she will be more cruel to us than ever.”

      Basil was more interested in her talk, he found, than in the food. He pushed the tray, which still contained most of his supper, to one side.

      “Oh, Basil, aren’t you hungry at all?” cried Agnes. She was on the point of tears because of his lack of appetite. “You must eat more. You will become ill, like me, if you don’t. And you know what you leave tonight will be sent up to you tomorrow, and it will be stale then and tasteless. I took such pains with your supper tonight!”

      He had been watching her with pity, noticing the hollows under her cheekbones and her unhealthy flush. She coughed continuously. To please her, he began to eat again.

      “Basil,” said the girl, hovering over him with a solicitude which was doubly unselfish in one so clearly in need of help herself, “you are very unhappy. I cry whenever I think of you. My poor Basil! I want to help you. And I can, if you will listen to me.” She shook her head with emphasis and then asked a question. “Do you know anything about angels?”

      “No,” he answered. “It is a new word. What does it mean?”

      “I didn’t think you knew. You are not a Jew. You are a Greek, and the Greeks know nothing of the truth.” She said this as a matter of course and with no intent to show superiority. “My father and mother were so poor they had to sell me as a slave. They were unhappy about it and my mother wept all the time before I left; but there would have been no food for the little brothers if they had not sold me. My mother told me many things I must always remember. She said I must never forget I am of the Jewish race and that the children of Israel are the chosen people of the great Jehovah. And she told me all about the angels.” She paused to press a stalk of onion into his hand. It was crisp and young and undoubtedly she had experienced some difficulty in keeping it for him. “My mother told me that angels are wonderful beings who sit beside the great Jehovah and do His bidding. She said she had seen them herself. They have beautiful faces and they have wings to carry them back and forth between heaven and earth. When I was leaving, she began to weep harder than

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