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THE INNKEEPER’S WIFE

At dawn, Seraia, wife of the innkeeper, awoke, and her first instinctive glance showed that Elah, her husband, was not there beside her. She sighed and for some moments lay still, facing another day, feeling anew the weight of sadness that bore down upon her heart. She thought of the troubles in Judea, the last trace of liberty gone, the people oppressed by the harsh rule of the Roman procurator, forced to worship as idols the images of the deified Emperor set up in the temple. Through-out the land, between apathy and recklessness, a blight had spread, brigandage and robbery were rife, the taint of moral decay, of sacrilege, exaction and hung in the air. Would nothing, she asked herself, ever come to change it? Above all, with deepening anxiety, she thought of her own difficulties, and of the painful problem which, beneath her own roof, increasingly beset her.

The morning was grey and cheerless with a harsh breeze blowing across from Mount Hermon but, urged by her sense of duty, she stirred, got up and began to clothe herself, shivering slightly, for Bethlehem lay high on its windswept spur and the air at this season was sharp and chill. She was a comely woman still, despite her forty odd years, short and trim in figure and with an open face marked by lines of kindness. Her expression in repose showed a pleasant quietude. Her grey eyes, matching the sober hue of the robe she now girded about her, had in their depths the look of one who sees more than outward things, one who has, perhaps of necessity, created an interior life all her own.

She had finished dressing and, with a last look around the room to ensure its order, was about to leave when slowly, with a cautious touch, the door opened. It was her husband.

Plainly discomfited to find her up, he hesitated irresolutely on the threshold then, too hastily, launched into an explanation of his absence: he had gone downstairs at an early hour to prepare for the crowd of guests that must flock to the inn today; and with a sudden gust of that fretful irritability which had lately come upon him, he began to grumble at the extra work which they would have because of the great movement of people to register in the census ordained by Herod Antipas. When he paused, appearing to expect some reply, she said quietly:

"It is not like you to complain of trade, Elah . "

"Of good trade, no," he retorted. "But today’s may be of a mixed variety. The rabble will be on the move. "

"Then why concern yourself so deeply… you must have risen in darkness, long before the dawn?"

He reddened perceptibly under her steady gaze.

"Someone must make arrangements… yes, yes, someone must do it… so why not I…?"

While he ran on with increased confusion she answered little, pitying his weakness and shame, yet finding in these manifest emotions and in his sidelong questing glances, a faint encouragement that he still cared something for her.

As she went downstairs the light was brightening, already there were movements in the kitchen-her two good maids, Rachel and Athalea, both devoted to her, had begun the many preparations for this busy day. The cooking pots of lentils were al ready on the fire, water had been drawn from the well, the goat’s flesh was roasting on the spit, as was proper under the Mosaic law. To Rachel, kneading the dark barley flour she had ground in the stone handmill, Seraia said: