Wandering Jew - Volume 02

Eugène Sue

Description

pubOne.info present you this new edition. The site is wild and rugged. It is a lofty eminence covered with huge boulders of sandstone, between which rise birch trees and oaks, their foliage already yellowed by autumn. These tall trees stand out from the background of red light, which the sun has left in the west, resembling the reflection of a great fire.

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819947646
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE WANDERING JEW
By Eugene Sue
BOOK II.
INTERVAL.
THE WANDERING JEW'S SENTENCE.
The site is wild and rugged. It is a lofty eminencecovered with huge boulders of sandstone, between which rise birchtrees and oaks, their foliage already yellowed by autumn. Thesetall trees stand out from the background of red light, which thesun has left in the west, resembling the reflection of a greatfire.
From this eminence the eye looks down into a deepvalley, shady, fertile, and half-veiled in light vapor by theevening mist. The rich meadows, the tufts of bushy trees the fieldsfrom which the ripe corn has been gathered in, all blend togetherin one dark, uniform tint, which contrasts with the limpid azure ofthe heavens. Steeples of gray stone or slate lift their pointedspires, at intervals, from the midst of this valley; for manyvillages are spread about it, bordering a high-road which leadsfrom the north to the west.
It is the hour of repose— the hour when, for themost part, every cottage window brightens to the joyous cracklingof the rustic hearth, and shines afar through shade and foliage,whilst clouds of smoke issue from the chimneys, and curl up slowlytowards the sky. But now, strange to say, every hearth in thecountry seems cold and deserted. Stranger and more fatal still,every steeple rings out a funeral knell. Whatever there is ofactivity, movement, or life, appears concentrated in thatlugubrious and far-sounding vibration.
Lights begin to show themselves in the darkvillages, but they rise not from the cheerful and pleasant rustichearth. They are as red as the fires of the herdsmen, seen at nightthrough the midst of the fog. And then these lights do not remainmotionless. They creep slowly towards the churchyard of everyvillage. Louder sounds the death-knell, the air trembles beneaththe strokes of so many bells, and, at rare intervals, the funeralchant rises faintly to the summit of the hill.
Why so many interments? What valley of desolation isthis, where the peaceful songs which follow the hard labors of theday are replaced by the death dirge? where the repose of evening isexchanged for the repose of eternity? What is this valley of theshadow, where every village mourns for its many dead, and buriesthem at the same hour of the same night?
Alas! the deaths are so sudden and numerous andfrightful that there is hardly time to bury the dead. During daythe survivors are chained to the earth by hard but necessary toil;and only in the evening, when they return from the fields, are theyable, though sinking with fatigue, to dig those other furrows, inwhich their brethren are to lie heaped like grains of corn.
And this valley is not the only one that has seenthe desolation. During a series of fatal years, many villages, manytowns, many cities, many great countries, have seen, like thisvalley, their hearths deserted and cold— have seen, like thisvalley, mourning take the place of joy, and the death-knellsubstituted for the noise of festival— have wept in the same dayfor their many dead, and buried them at night by the lurid glare oftorches.
For, during those fatal years, an awful wayfarer hadslowly journeyed over the earth, from one pole to the other— fromthe depths of India and Asia to the ice of Siberia— from the ice ofSiberia to the borders of the seas of France.
This traveller, mysterious as death, slow aseternity, implacable as fate, terrible as the hand of heaven, wasthe CHOLERA!
The tolling of bells and the funeral chants stillrose from the depths of the valley to the summit of the hill, likethe complaining of a mighty voice; the glare of the funeral torcheswas still seen afar through the mist of evening; it was the hour oftwilight— that strange hour, which gives to the most solid forms avague, indefinite fantastic appearance— when the sound of firm andregular footsteps was heard on the stony soil of the rising ground,and, between the black trunks of the trees, a man passed slowlyonward.
His figure was tall, his head was bowed upon hisbreast; his countenance was noble, gentle, and sad; his eyebrows,uniting in the midst, extended from one temple to the other, like afatal mark on his forehead.
This man did not seem to hear the distant tolling ofso many funeral bells— and yet, a few days before, repose andhappiness, health and joy, had reigned in those villages throughwhich he had slowly passed, and which he now left behind him,mourning and desolate. But the traveller continued on his way,absorbed in his own reflections.
“The 13th of February approaches, ” thought he; "theday approaches, in which the descendants of my beloved sister, thelast scions of our race, should meet in Paris. Alas! it is now ahundred and fifty years since, for the third time, persecutionscattered this family over all the earth— this family, that I havewatched over with tenderness for eighteen centuries, through allits migrations and exiles, its changes of religion, fortune, andname!
"Oh! for this family, descended from the sister ofthe poor shoemaker, [2] what grandeur and whatabasement, what obscurity and what splendor, what misery and whatglory! By how many crimes has it been sullied, by how many virtueshonored! The history of this single family is the history of thehuman race!
"Passing, in the course of so many generations,through the veins of the poor and the rich, of the sovereign andthe bandit, of the wise man and the fool, of the coward and thebrave, of the saint and the atheist, the blood of my sister hastransmitted itself to this hour.
"What scions of this family are now remaining? Sevenonly.
"Two orphans, the daughters of proscribed parents— adethroned prince— a poor missionary priest— a man of the middleclass— a young girl of a great name and large fortune— amechanic.
"Together, they comprise in themselves the virtues,the courage, the degradation, the splendor, the miseries of ourspecies!
"Siberia— India— America— France— behold the diversplaces where fate has thrown them!
"My instinct teaches me when one of them is inperil. Then, from the North to the South, from the East to theWest, I go to seek them. Yesterday amid the polar frosts— to-day inthe temperate zone— to-morrow beneath the fires of the tropics— butoften, alas! at the moment when my presence might save them, theinvisible hand impels me, the whirlwind carries me away, and thevoice speaks in my ear: 'GO ON! GO ON! '
"Oh, that I might only finish my task! — 'GO ON! '—A single hour— only a single hour of repose! — 'GO ON! '— Alas! Ileave those I love on the brink of the abyss! — 'GO ON! GO ON!'
"Such is my punishment. If it is great, my crime wasgreater still! An artisan, devoted to privations and misery, mymisfortunes had made me cruel.
"Oh, cursed, cursed be the day, when, as I bent overmy work, sullen with hate and despair, because, in spite of myincessant labor, I and mine wanted for everything, the Saviourpassed before my door.
"Reviled, insulted, covered with blows, hardly ableto sustain the weight of his heavy cross, He asked me to let Himrest a moment on my stone bench. The sweat poured from Hisforehead, His feet were bleeding, He was well-nigh sinking withfatigue, and He said to me, in a mild, heart piercing voice: 'Isuffer! ' 'And I too suffer, ' I replied, as with harsh anger Ipushed Him from the place; 'I suffer, and no one comes to help me!I find no pity, and will give none. Go on! go on! ' Then, with adeep sigh of pain, He answered, and spake this sentence: 'Verily,thou shalt go on till the day of thy redemption, for so wills theFather which art in heaven! '
"And so my punishment began. Too late I opened theseeyes to the light, too late I learned repentance and charity, toolate I understood those divine words of Him I had outraged, wordswhich should be the law of the whole human race. 'LOVE YE ONEANOTHER. '
"In vain through successive ages, gathering strengthand eloquence from those celestial words, have I labored to earn mypardon, by filling with commiseration and love hearts that wereoverflowing with envy and bitterness, by inspiring many a soul witha sacred horror of oppression and injustice. For me the day ofmercy has not yet dawned!
"And even as the first man, by his fall, devoted hisposterity to misfortune, it would seem as if I, the workman, hadconsigned the whole race of artisans to endless sorrows, and as ifthey were expiating my crime: for they alone, during these eighteencenturies, have not yet been delivered.
"For eighteen centuries, the powerful and the happyof this world have said to the toiling people what I said to theimploring and suffering Saviour: 'Go on! go on! ' And the people,sinking with fatigue, bearing their heavy cross, have answered inthe bitterness of their grief: 'Oh, for pity's sake! a few momentsof repose; we are worn out with toil. '— Go on! '— 'And if weperish in our pain, what will become of our little children and ouraged mothers? '— 'Go on! go on! ' And, for eighteen centuries, theyand I have continued to struggle forward and to suffer, and nocharitable voice has yet pronounced the word 'Enough! '
"Alas! such is my punishment. It is immense, it istwo-fold. I suffer in the name of humanity, when I see thesewretched multitudes consigned without respite to profitless andoppressive toil. I suffer in the name of my family, when, poor andwandering, I am unable to bring aid to the descendants of my dearsister. But, when the sorrow is above my strength, when I foreseesome danger from which I cannot preserve my own, then my thoughts,travelling over the world, go in search of that woman like meaccursed, that daughter of a queen, who, like me, the son of alaborer, wanders, and will wander on, till the day of herredemption. [3]
"Once in a century, as two planets draw nigh to eachother in their revolutions, I am permitted to meet this womanduring the dread week of the Passion. And after this interview,filled with terrible remembrances and boundless griefs, wanderingstars of eternity,