quite
out of proportion to their size, made a great impression on me. Young
as I was, I guessed they were no ordinary things; I felt in my heart
that they were exciting, precious. And my first thought was that none
of my schoolfriends had seen the like and would call me a liar if I
started boasting. And then and thereafter it was always my experience
that people always get their own back on boasters somehow or other.
My
second thought almost took my breath away. What if . . . what if ... by
some great good fortune, there should be among that great array of
stones one or more that had once found a place on the High Priest's
breastplate—that breastplate which with the rest of the sacerdotal
regalia had been carried off by the ogre Titus, emperor-to-be of the
Romans, who had destroyed our Holy Temple?
I put out my hand and tugged impatiently at the paper wrapper. "Let me see!" I demanded.
"Be careful, then," said my mother, "and I'll tell you the names of the stones as you pick them up."
And
that was how I first made the acquaintance of— among others—a
carbuncle. It was not the carbuncle of the Scriptures, which is the
modern emerald, but handsome enough, all the same. I saw that it was
of a deep wine-red colour and of a shape altogether unlike that of most
of the other stones in the collection. Its underside was hollowed out,
while on top it was slightly domed. I did not know then, of course, and
I was not told, that this particular way of fashioning a garnet (for a
carbuncle is a red garnet) brings out admirably such virtue as the
