_With a feeling of adoration and slight envy._ How beautiful you are, Rosochka! SARAH. Wait, Rosochka, I will comb your hair myself. Will you allow me? ROSA. You do it very badly, mamma; you kiss it more than you comb it--my hair gets entangled from your kisses. DAVID. Is that how you answer your mother, Rosa? ROSA. _Stopping._ Why do you despise my beauty, father? DAVID. Before, I used to love your beauty, Rosa. SARAH. _With indignation._ What did you say, David? DAVID. Yes, Sarah. I love the pearl when it is on the bottom of the sea; but after it is taken out of the sea, it becomes blood--and then I do not like pearls, Sarah. ROSA. Why do you despise my beauty, father? Do you know what another girl in my place would have done? She would have lost her mind and would have whirled about on earth like a dog that swallowed a pin. But what am I doing? I am studying, father. I am studying by day and night, father. _In great agitation._ I don't know anything. I don't know how to speak, I don't even know how to walk--I stoop, I stoop as I walk. SARAH. That isn't true, Rosa. ROSA. _Agitated._ Here I have forgotten myself for a while, and I am shouting, I am croaking hoarsely, like a crow that has caught cold. I want to be beautiful--that's what I was born for. You laugh? It is in vain. Do you know that your daughter will be a duchess, a princess? I want to add a scepter to my crown! ANATHEMA. Oho! _All three go out. David jumps from his seat angrily and paces the room quickly._ DAVID. What a comedy, Nullius! Yesterday she begged Heaven for a herring, and to-day a crown is not enough for her. To-morrow she will take the throne away from Satan and will sit upon it, Nullius, and she will sit firmly! What a comedy! _Anathema has changed the expression of his face; he is stern and morose._ ANATHEMA. No, David Leizer, it is a tragedy. DAVID. 'Tis a comedy, Nullius, a comedy. Don't you hear the laughter of Satan in all this? _Pointing at the door._ You saw a corpse dancing--I see it every morning. ANATHEMA. Is Naum so dangerously ill? DAVID. Dangerously ill? Three physicians, three serious gentlemen, examined him yesterday and told me quietly that in a month from now Naum will die, that he is already more than half a corpse. And every morning I see in this white marble parlor a corpse jumping to the tune of music--is it not a dream, Nullius? Is it not the laughter of Satan? ANATHEMA. And what did they say about your health, David? DAVID. I did not ask them. I don't want them to tell me. You may also jump to the tune of music, David. How would you like it, Nullius: two corpses dancing in a white marble hall? _He laughs bitterly._ ANATHEMA. You frighten me, my friend. What is going on within your soul? DAVID. Do not touch my soul, Nullius--there is horror in it! _Clasps his head._