With unmixed feeling. Smiling, a jew, he heard with pleasure and saw the unbroken kitchen window.
Recite the second part (minor) of the legend.
Then out came the jew’s daughter And she all dressed in green. « Come back, come back, you pretty little boy, And play your ball again. »
« I can’t come back and I won’t come back Without my schoolfellows all. For if my master he did hear He’d make it a sorry ball. »
She took him by the lilywhite hand And led him along the hall Until she led him to a room Where none could hear him call.
She took a penknife out of her pocket And cut off his little head And now he’ll play his ball no more For he lies among the dead.
How did the father of Millicent receive this second part?
With mixed feelings. Unsmiling, he heard and saw with wonder a jew’s daughter, all dressed in green.
Condense Stephen’s commentary.
One of all, the least of all, is the victim predestined. Once by inadvertence, twice by design he challenges his destiny. It comes when he is abandoned and challenges him reluctant and, as an apparition of hope and youth, holds him unresisting. It leads him to a strange habitation, to a secret infidel apartment, and there, implacable, immolates him, consenting.
Why was the host (victim predestined) sad?