Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 01.djvu/251

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THE RABBI OF BACHARACH.
235

by expressing herself so plainly, had pained a friend of her husband.

"Ah, Senora," replied Don Isaac, "he who grasps too snappishly at a rose must not complain that the thorns scratch. When the star of evening mirrors itself, gold-gleaming, in the azure flood"——

"For God's sake!" interrupted the Rabbi, "cease! If we wait till the star of evening mirrors itself, gold-gleaming in the azure flood, my wife will starve, for she has eaten nothing since yesterday, and suffered much meantime."

"Well, then, I will take you to the best cook-shop of Israel," said Don Isaac, "to the house of my friend Schnapper Elle, which is not far away. I already smell the sweet perfume of the kitchen! Oh, didst thou but know, Abraham, how this perfume woos and wins me. This it is which, since I have dwelt in this city, has so often lured me to the tents of Jacob. Intimacy with God's peculiar people is not a weakness of mine, and truly it is not to pray but to eat that I visit the Jews' Street."

"Thou hast never loved us, Don Isaac."

"Well," continued the Spaniard, "I like your cookery much better than your creed—which wants the right sauce. I really never could rightly digest you. Even in your best days, under the rule of my ancestor David, who