Also there was this
about him, as she was soon quick enough to learn: he worshipped her.
Whatever else might be false, that note in his nature rang true. If one
child could love another, then Caleb loved Miriam, first with the love
of children, then as a man loves a woman. Only--and this was the sorrow
of it--Miriam never loved Caleb. Had she done so both their stories
would have been very different. To her he was a clever companion and no
more.
What made the thing more strange was that he loved no one else, except,
mayhap, himself. In this way and in that the lad soon came to learn his
own history, which was sad enough, with the result that if he hated the
Romans who had invaded the country and trampled it beneath their heel,
still more did he hate those of the Jews who looked upon his father
as their enemy and had stolen all the lands and goods that were his by
right. As for the Essenes who reared and protected him, so soon as
he came to an age when he could weigh such matters, he held them in
contempt, and because of their continual habit of bathing themselves and
purifying their garments, called them the company of washer-women. On
him their doctrines left but a shallow mark. He thought, as he explained
to Miriam, that people who were in the world should take the world as
they found it, without dreaming ceaselessly of another world to which,
as yet, they did not belong; a sentiment that to some extent Nehushta
shared.
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