“And you are fasting!” she said. “Am I not also fasting for him?” said Ephraim. With a full bottle in his hand Ephraim once more entered the room. He placed the wine upon the table, where the glasses from which Ascher had drunk in the morning were still standing. “Where is Viola?” asked Ascher, who was again pacing the room with firm steps. “She is busy cooking.” “Tell her she shall have a husband, and a dowry that will make half the girls in Bohemia turn green and yellow with envy.” Then he approached the table, and drank three brimming glasses, one after the other. “Now then,” he said, as with his whole weight he dropped into the old arm-chair… “Now I’ll have a good night’s rest. I need strength and sharp eyes, and they are things which only sleep can give. Ephraim, my son,” he continued after awhile in thick, halting accents… “tell the watch—Simon is his name, I think—he can give six knocks instead of three upon the door, in the morning, he won’t disturb me…and to Viola you can say I’ll find her a husband, handsomer than her eyes have ever beheld, and tell her on her wedding-day she shall wear pearls round her neck like those of a queen—no, no, like those of Gudule, her mother.” A few moments later he was sound asleep. It was the dead of night. All round reigned stillness and peace, the peace of night! What a gentle sound those words convey, a sound akin only to the word HOME! Fraught, like it, with sweetest balm, a fragrant flower from long-lost paradise. Thou art at rest, Ascher, and in safe shelter; the breathing of thy children is so restful, so tranquil… Desist! desist! ’Tis too late. Side by side with the peace of night, there dwell Spirits of Evil, the never-resting, vagrant, home-destroying guests, who enter unbidden into the human soul! Hark, the rustling of their raven-hued plumage! They take wing, they fly aloft; ’tis the shriek of the vulture, swooping down upon the guileless dove. Is there no eye to watch thee? Doth not thine own kin see thy foul deeds? Desist! ’Tis too late… Open is the window, no grating noise has accompanied the unbolting of the shutter… The evil spirits have taken care that the faintest sound shall die away…even the rough iron obeys their voices…it is they who have bidden: “Be silent; betray him not; he is one of us.” Even the key in the door of the old bureau is turned lightly and without noise. Groping fingers are searching for a bulky volume. Have they found it? Is there none there to cry in a voice of thunder: “Cursed be the father who stretches forth his desecrating hand towards the things that are his children’s”?… They HAVE found it, the greedy fingers! and now, but a spring through the open window, and out into the night… At that moment a sudden ray of light shines through a crack in the door of the room… Swiftly the door opens, a girlish figure appears on the threshold, a lighted lamp in her hand… “Gudule!” he shrieks, horror-stricken, and falls senseless at her feet.