After looking attentively at Rodin, Samuel resumed: "I recognize you, sir.Please to follow me." And the old guardian advanced towards the house in the garden, making a sign to the two reverend fathers to follow.
"That confounded old man kept me so long at the door," said Rodin to his socius, "that I think I have caught a cold in consequence.My lips and throat are dried up, like parchment baked at the fire."
"Will you not take something, my dear, good father? Suppose you were to ask this man for a glass of water," cried the little one-eyed priest, with tender solicitude.
"No, no," answered Rodin; "it is nothing.I am devoured by impatience.
That is all."
Pale and desolate, Bathsheba, the wife of Samuel, was standing at the door of the apartment she occupied with her husband, in the building next the street.As the Jew passed before her, he said, in Hebrew: "The curtains of the Hall of Mourning?"
"Are closed."
"And the iron casket?"
"Is prepared," answered Bathsheba, also in Hebrew.
After pronouncing these words, completely unintelligible to Rodin and Caboccini, Samuel and Bathsheba exchanged a bitter smile, notwithstanding the despair impressed on their countenances.
Ascending the steps, followed by the two reverend fathers, Samuel entered the vestibule of the house, in which a lamp was burning.Endowed with an excellent local memory, Rodin was about to take the direction of the Red Saloon, in which had been held the first convocation of the heirs, when Samuel stopped him, and said: "It is not that way."
Then, taking the lamp, he advanced towards a dark staircase, for the windows of the house had not been un-bricked.
"But," said Rodin, "the last time, we met in a saloon on the ground floor."
To-day, we must go higher," answered Samuel, as he began slowly to ascend the stairs.
"Where to? higher!" said Rodin, following him.
"To the Hall of Mourning," replied the Jew, and he continued to ascend.