"Some evil is about to befall--I know it, I feel it." But he only rallied her and laughed again, and prophesied joy on the morrow.

Then, returning to the patio, where the passover cakes had been broken, he called for the supper, and bade his guests to eat and drink as much as their hearts desired.
They could do neither now, for the fear that possessed them at sight of Israel's frenzy.

The three old usurers, Abraham, Judah, and Reuben, rose to go, but Israel cried, "Stay! Stay, and see what is come!" and under the very force of his will they yielded and sat down again.
Still Israel drank and laughed and derided them.

In the wild torrent of his madness he called them by names they knew and by names they did not know--Harpagon, Shylock, Bildad, Elihu--and at every new name he laughed again.

And while he carried himself so in the outer court the slave woman Fatimah came from the inner room with word that the child was born.
At that Israel was like a man distraught.