It was a pitiful thing to see her wasted pains, and most pitiful of all for the pains she was at to conceal them.

Thus, every day at midday she would carry her little one into the patio, and watch if its eyes should blink in the sunshine; but if Israel chanced to come upon her then, she would drop her head and say, "How sweet the air is to-day, and how pleasant to sit in the sun!" "So it is," he would answer, "so it is." Thus, too, when a bird was singing from the fig-tree that grew in the court, she would catch up her child and carry it close, and watch if its ears should hear; but if Israel saw her, she would laugh--a little shrill laugh like a cry--and cover her face in confusion.
"How merry you are, sweetheart," he would say, and then pass into the house.
For a time Israel tried to humour her, seeming not to see what he saw, and pretending not to hear what he heard.

But every day his heart bled at sight of her, and one day he could bear up no longer, for his very soul had sickened, and he cried, "Have done, Ruth!--for mercy's sake, have done! The child is a soul in chains, and a spirit in prison.

Her eyes are darkness, like the tomb's, and her ears are silence, like the grave's.

Never will she smile to her mother's smile, or answer to her father's speech.