"What I saw was no man," returned Rebecca, looking at him sternly. "No earthly being could have stopped my heart with his glances. It was the _Satan Mekatrig_ himself, who goeth to and fro on the earth, and walketh up and down in it. I must have been having wicked thoughts indeed this Sabbath, thinking of my new dress, for my Sabbath Angel to have deserted me, and to let the Disturber and the Tempter assail me unchecked." The poor, conscience-stricken woman burst into tears. "My Rivkoly have wicked thoughts!" said Moshé incredulously, as he smoothed her cheek. "If my Rivkoly puts on a new dress in honour of the Sabbath, is not the dear God pleased? Why, where _is_ thy new dress?" "I have changed it for an old one," she sobbed. "I do not want to see the demon again." "The _Satan Mekatrig_ has no real existence, I tell thee," said Moshé, irritated. "He only means our own inward thoughts, that distract us in the performance of the precepts; our own inward temptations to go astray after our eyes and after our hearts." "Moshé!" Rebecca exclaimed in a shocked tone, "have I married an Epikouros after all? My father, the Rav, peace be unto him, always said thou hadst the makings of one--that thou didst ask too many questions." "Well, whether there is a _Satan_ or not," retorted her husband, "thou couldst not have seen him; for the person thou describest is the man I tell thee of." "And thou keepest company with such a man," she answered; "a man who scoffs at _Yiddishkeit_! May the Holy One, blessed be He, forgive thee! Now I know why we have no children, no son to say _Kaddish_ after us." And Rebecca wept bitterly--for the children she did not possess. Their common cause of grief coming thus unexpectedly into their consciousness softened them toward one another and dispelled the gathering irritation. Both had a melancholy vision of themselves stretched out stiff and stark in their shrouds, with no filial _Kaddish_ breaking in upon and gladdening their ears. O if their souls should be doomed to Purgatory, with no son's prayers to release them! Very soon they were sitting hand in hand, reading together the interrupted Psalms. And a deep peace fell upon Moshé Grinwitz. So the immortal allegorist, John Bunyan, must have felt when the mad longing to utter blasphemies and obscenities from the pulpit was stifled; and when he felt his soul once more in harmony with the Spirit of Good. So feel all men who have wrestled with a Being in the darkness and prevailed.