“You would deliberately make your second son, who loves learning, as ignorant as your firstborn, who hates it?”

“Esau is not ignorant.”

“He’s ignorant and disobedient by his own choice, and because you and Abraham encourage it.”

“Maybe if he thought his mother loved him . . .”

Rebekah was furious at such a slander, but she kept her voice quiet to answer him. “I’m the only one who loves Esau enough to try to teach him to do right. And what does it say about you and Abraham, that you treat Jacob like nothing, precisely because he is obedient?”

“More obedient than his mother.”

“Funny, isn’t it?” said Rebekah. “My father never thought I was disobedient. Maybe I am, though, and maybe Esau got his disobedience from me. But when he disobeys, you say he’s bold and needs to find his own way.”

“You’re not a five-year-old.”

“And Esau won’t always be, either. At what age do you plan to start teaching him to obey?”

“Let’s see,” said Isaac. “How old are you?”

Whereupon, as usual, he stalked away from her without allowing her any chance to reply.

This breach between them remained, though they smoothed it over with gentle words before the end of the day. It festered under the surface, and Rebekah knew that Isaac was as irritated with her as she was with him. Both of them, though, had a stubborn streak, and so Isaac became, if anything, even more indulgent of Esau, encouraging him in his hunting and teaching him his letters at a glacial pace, while Rebekah intensified her teaching of Jacob. She might not have the holy writings, but she knew the stories, and told them to Jacob, and encouraged him to write them down. She made one of the younger skinners teach her how to make parchment out of kidskin, and encouraged little Jacob to write down the stories she had told him. His versions, of course, were childish, with no real coherence, and with very odd emphases—he went on and on, for instance, with his list of the animals taken aboard Noah’s ark, including some that he simply made up.

He wrote with such earnestness and enthusiasm that Rebekah was sure that Isaac would be charmed by it and soften his opposition to Jacob’s learning. When she showed it to him, however, she saw at once that it had been a grave mistake. He grew more and more still as he read, and then turned his back on her and left with the parchment. Only a few moments later, a boy came to her tent and told her that Abraham wanted to see her and Jacob at once.

When she arrived, Jacob holding her hand, Abraham and Isaac were waiting, not inside Abraham’s tent, but in front of it, the parchment lying in the dirt beside a small fire. She realized at once what they were going to do, and it became worse after a moment when Esau leaned out from behind his grandfather’s back—they intended him to be a witness.