“You will always be alone now, summer and winter, winter and summer, your pillow the earth, harder and colder than my arms; only the song of birds and the sound of rain in your ears.... And you will never see me again, Jonah, never hold my young white beauty close to your breast, never feel, as other men, love singing in your heart, and peace folding down upon your eyes. You will be all alone, Jonah, with no one to tell the secret things in your heart to at the set of sun, at the rise of moon ... until at last, old and sleepy, you take my single kiss with you into the darkness ... alone in the darkness too, Jonah ... alone in the darkness....” “O God,” cried Jonah, sobbing, “help me, help me.” “God will not help you now,” said the woman. The drowsy fragrance of her body spread through the night. “Come,” she said, holding out her arms to him. “God cannot help you now, my poor Jonah.” Jonah took a step forward, and fell upon his knees. And then, one by one far off and near, the demons of the desert broke into laughter, wild peals of laughter, bitter and full of pain, cruel and without pity. “Ha, ha, ha.” “Alone, alone....” “God cannot help you now.” Under that mocking clamor, Jonah swayed like a reed, beaten to the earth, his face hidden in his hands. And then, at last, when it seemed to him as though he could bear no more, the terrible laughter stopped. There was a cry, and then silence. Jonah got up and looked around him. Nothing was to be seen; the woman had vanished. The little fox had run forward, and seized the demon by the leg. Once again the desert was filled with a holy peace, as though brooding beneath the wings of angels. “One can at least always help oneself,” remarked the fox. He lay down next to Jonah with a contented sigh. And presently the man and the fox fell asleep together. In her kitchen at home, Deborah sat praying for her son. She prayed that God would be kind to him. “He is only a boy,” she said; “do not ask him to behave like a man. Watch over him a little. I do not ask for anything for myself. I am an old woman, and my heart was broken long ago. But he is so young ... leave a little of his heart unbroken.” She lifted up her eyes full of tears. “Leave me my son,” she said. And Judith, at her window in Tyre, knelt with a pale and weary face, peering out across the plains and hills of Phœnicia, across the wide waters of Meram, far off and unseen, toward the desert, where the night had already rolled up its cold blue clouds. And she, too, thought of Jonah; she, too, saw in the moonlight, in the little garden, the thin, worn face with its grave, dark eyes. They seemed to follow her, without reproach, but with infinite tenderness, pitying and forgiving. And suddenly she thought, “Yes, there in the desert there is peace; it is gentle out there, where Jonah is. O my dear, my dear, do you forgive me? Have you forgotten? It would have been different, Jonah, it would have been so different....”