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 III

THE VIRGIN WITH THE LAMP

HATEVER Marie Zerkovitch's feelings might be, Fate had its hand on her and turned her to its uses. It was she who had directed Sophy's steps to the old house ten doors down the Street of the Fountain from St. Michael's Square. It was no more than half a mile from her own villa on the south boulevard (from which the Street ran to the Square), and she had long known the decent old couple—German Jews—who lived and carried on their trade in the house over whose front hung the sign of the Silver Cock. The face of the building was covered with carved timbers of great age; the door of the shop stood far back within a black and ancient porch. Behind the shop were a couple of rooms where Meyerstein and his wife lived; above it one large room, with a window which jutted far out over the narrow street. In this room, which was reached by a separate door in the left side of the porch and a crazy flight of a dozen winding stairs, lived Sophy, and thence she sallied out daily to give her lessons to her two pupils.

By the window she sat on the night of the King's name-day, on a low chair. The heavy figure of a girl carrying a lamp—a specimen of her landlord's superfluous stock—stood unemployed on the window-sill. The room was dark, for the path of light 101