The wooden shoes clattered in uneasy measure on the pavements. The
street boys hurried by. They shouted, they whistled. The houses shook,
and from the courts the echo rushed out like a chained dog from his
kennel.
Faces appeared behind the window-panes. Had anything happened? Was
anything going on? The noise passed on towards the suburbs. The servant
girls hastened after, following the street boys. They clasped their
hands and screamed: “Preserve us, preserve us! Is it murder, is it
fire?” No one answered. The clattering was heard far away.
After the maids came hurrying wise matrons of the town. They asked:
“What is it? What is disturbing the morning calm? Is it a wedding? Is
it a funeral? Is it a conflagration? What is the watchman doing? Shall
the town burn up before he begins to sound the alarm?”
The whole crowd stopped before the shoemaker’s little house in the
suburbs, the little house that had vines climbing about the doors and
windows, and in front, between street and house, a yard-wide garden.
Summer-houses of straw, arbors fit for a mouse, paths for a kitten.
Everything in the best of order! Peas and beans, roses and lavender, a
mouthful of grass, three gooseberry bushes and an apple-tree.
The street boys who stood nearest stared and consulted. Through the
shining, black window-panes their glances penetrated no further than to
the white lace curtains. One of the boys climbed up on the vines and
pressed his face against the pane. “What do you see?” whispered the
others. “What do you see?” The shoemaker’s shop and the shoemaker’s
bench, grease-pots and bundles of leather, lasts and pegs, rings and
straps. “Don’t you see anybody?” He sees the apprentice, who is
repairing a shoe. Nobody else, nobody else? Big, black flies crawl over
the pane and make his sight uncertain. “Do you see nobody except the
apprentice?” Nobody. The master’s chair is empty. He looked once,
twice, three times; the master’s chair was empty.
The crowd stood still, guessing and wondering. So it was true; the old
shoemaker had absconded. Nobody would believe it. They stood and waited
for a sign. The cat came out on the steep roof. He stretched out his
claws and slid down to the gutter. Yes, the master was away, the cat
could hunt as he pleased. The sparrows fluttered and chirped, quite
helpless.
A white chicken looked round the corner of the house. He was almost
full-grown. His comb shone red as wine. He peered and spied, crowed and
called. The hens came, a row of white hens at full speed, bodies
rocking, wings fluttering, yellow legs like drumsticks. The hens hopped
among the stacked peas. Battles began. Envy broke out. A hen fled with
a full pea-pod. Two cocks pecked her in the neck. The cat left the
sparrow nests to look on. Plump, there he fell down in the midst of the
flock. The hens fled in a long, scurrying line. The crowd thought: “It
must be true that the shoemaker has run away. One can see by the cat
and the hens that the master is away.”
The uneven street, muddy from the autumn rains, resounded with talk.
Doors stood open, windows swung. Heads were put together in wondering
whisperings. “He has run off.” The people whispered, the sparrows
chirped, the wooden shoes clattered: “He has run away. The old
shoemaker has run away. The owner of the little house, the young wife’s
husband, the father of the beautiful child, he has run away. Who can
understand it? who can explain it?”
There is an old song: “Old husband in the cottage; young lover in the
wood; wife, who runs away, child who cries; home without a mistress.”
The song is old. It is often sung. Everybody understands it.
This was a new song. The old man was gone. On the workshop table lay
his explanation, that he never meant to come back. Beside it a letter
had also lain. The wife had read it, but no one else.
The young wife was in the kitchen. She was doing nothing. The neighbors
went backwards and forwards, arranging busily, set out the cups, made
up the fire, boiled the coffee, wept a little and wiped away the tears
with the dish-towel.
The good women of the quarter sat stiffly about the walls. They knew
what was suitable in a house of mourning. They kept silent by force,
mourned by force. They celebrated their holiday by supporting the
forsaken wife in her grief. Coarse hands lay quiet in their laps,
weather-beaten skin lay in deep wrinkles, thin lips were pressed
together over toothless jaws.
The wife sat among the bronze-hued women, gently blonde, with a sweet
face like a dove. She did not weep, but she trembled. She was so
afraid, that the fear was almost killing her. She bit her teeth
together, so that no one should hear how they chattered. When steps
were heard, when the clattering sounded, when some one spoke to her,
she started up.
She sat with her husband’s letter in her pocket. She thought of now one
line in it and now another. There stood: “I can bear no longer to see
you both.” And in another place: “I know now that you and Erikson mean
to elope.” And again: “You shall not do that, for people’s evil talk
would make you unhappy. I shall disappear, so that you can get a
divorce and be properly married. Erikson is a good workman and can
support you well.” Then farther down: “Let people say what they will
about me. I am content if only they do not think any evil of you, for
you could not bear it.”
She did not understand it. She had not meant to deceive him. Even if
she had liked to chat with the young apprentice, what had her husband
to do with that? Love is an illness, but it is not mortal. She had
meant to bear it through life with patience. How had her husband
discovered her most secret thoughts?
She was tortured at the thought of him! He must have grieved and
brooded. He had wept over his years. He had raged over the young man’s
strength and spirits. He had trembled at the whisperings, at the
smiles, at the hand pressures. In burning madness, in glowing jealousy,
he had made it into a whole elopement history, of which there was as
yet nothing.
She thought how old he must have been that night when he went. His back
was bent, his hands shook. The agony of many long nights had made him
so. He had gone to escape that existence of passionate doubting.
She remembered other lines in the letter: “It is not my intention to
destroy your character. I have always been too old for you.” And then
another: “You shall always be respected and honored. Only be silent,
and all the shame will fall on me!”
The wife felt deeper and deeper remorse. Was it possible that people
would be deceived? Would it do to lie so too before God? Why did she
sit in the cottage, pitied like a mourning mother, honored like a bride
on her wedding day? Why was it not she who was homeless, friendless,
despised? How can such things be? How can God let himself be so
deceived?
Over the great dresser hung a little bookcase. On the top shelf stood a
big book with brass clasps. Behind those clasps was hidden the story of
a man and a woman who lied before God and men. “Who has suggested to
you, woman, to do such things? Look, young men stand outside to lead
you away.”
The woman stared at the book, listened for the young men’s footsteps.
She trembled at every knock, shuddered at every step. She was ready to
stand up and confess, ready to fall down and die.
The coffee was ready. The women glided sedately forward to the table.
They filled their cups, took a lump of sugar in their mouths and began
to sip their boiling coffee, silently and decently, the wives of
mechanics first, the scrub-women last. But the wife did not see what
was going on. Remorse made her quite beside herself. She had a vision.
She sat at night out in a freshly ploughed field. Round about her sat
great birds with mighty wings and pointed beaks. They were gray,
scarcely perceptible against the gray ground, but they held watch over
her. They were passing sentence upon her. Suddenly they flew up and
sank down over her head. She saw their sharp claws, their pointed
beaks, their beating wings coming nearer and nearer. It was like a
deadly rain of steel. She bent her head and knew that she must die. But
when they came near, quite near to her, she had to look up. Then she
saw that the gray birds were all these old women.
One of them began to speak. She knew what was proper, what was fitting
in a house of mourning. They had now been silent long enough. But the
wife started up as from a blow. What did the woman mean to say? “You,
Matts Wik’s wife, Anna Wik, confess! You have lied long enough before
God and before us. We are your judges. We will judge you and rend you
to pieces.”
No, the woman began to speak of husbands. And the others chimed in, as
the occasion demanded. What was said was not in the husbands’ praise.
All the evil husbands had done was dragged forward. It was as
consolation for a deserted wife.
Injury was heaped upon injury. Strange beings these husbands! They beat
us, they drink up our money, they pawn our furniture. Why on earth had
Our Lord created them?
The tongues became like dragons’ fangs; they spat venom, they spouted
fire. Each one added her word. Anecdotes were piled upon anecdotes. A
wife fled from her home before a drunken husband. Wives slaved for idle
husbands. Wives were deserted for other women. The tongues whistled
like whip lashes. The misery of homes was laid bare. Long litanies were
read. From the tyranny of the husband deliver us, good Lord!
Illness and poverty, the children’s death, the winter’s cold, trouble
with the old people, everything was the husband’s fault. The slaves
hissed at their masters. They turned their stings against them, before
whose feet they crept.
The deserted wife felt how it cut and stabbed in her ears. She dared to
defend the incorrigible ones. “My husband,” she said, “is good.” The
women started up, hissed and snorted. “He has run away. He is no better
than anybody else. He, who is an old man, ought to know better than to
run away from wife and child. Can you believe that he is better than
the others?”
The wife trembled; she felt as if she was being dragged through prickly
bramble-bushes. Her husband considered a sinner! She flushed with
shame, wished to speak, but was silent. She was afraid; she had not the
power. But why did God keep silent? Why did God let such things be?
If she should take the letter and read it aloud, then the stream of
poison would be turned. The venom would sprinkle upon her. The horror
of death came over her. She did not dare. She half wished that an
insolent hand had been thrust into her pocket and had drawn out the
letter. She could not give herself as a prize. Within the workshop was
heard a shoemaker’s hammer. Did no one hear how it hammered in triumph?
She had heard that hammering and had been vexed by it the whole day.
But none of the women understood it. Omniscient God, hast Thou no
servant who could read hearts? She would gladly accept her sentence, if
only she did not need to confess. She wished to hear some one say: “Who
has given you the idea to lie before God?” She listened for the sound
of the young men’s footsteps in order to fall down and die.
Several years after this a divorced woman was married to a shoemaker,
who had been apprentice to her husband. She had not wished it, but had
been drawn to it, as a pickerel is drawn to the side of a boat when it
has been caught on the line. The fisherman lets it play. He lets it
rush here and there. He lets it believe it is free. But when it is
tired out, when it can do no more, then he drags with a light pull,
then he lifts it up and jerks it down into the bottom of the boat
before it knows what it is all about.
The wife of the absconded shoemaker had dismissed her apprentice and
wished to live alone. She had wished to show her husband that she was
innocent. But where was her husband? Did he not care for her
faithfulness. She suffered want. Her child went in rags. How long did
her husband think that she could wait? She was unhappy when she had no
one upon whom she could depend.
Erikson succeeded. He had a shop in the town. His shoes stood on glass
shelves behind broad plate-glass windows. His workshop grew. He hired
an apartment and put plush furniture in the parlor. Everything waited
only for her. When she was too wearied of poverty, she came.
She was very much afraid in the beginning. But no misfortunes befell
her. She became more confident as time went on and more happy. She had
people’s regard, and knew within herself that she had not deserved it.
That kept her conscience awake, so that she became a good woman.
Her first husband, after some years, came back to the house in the
suburbs. It was still his, and he settled down again there and wished
to begin work. But he got no work, nor would anybody have anything to
do with him. He was despised, while his wife enjoyed great honor. It
was nevertheless he who had done right, and she who had done wrong.
The husband kept his secret, but it almost suffocated him. He felt how
he sank, because everybody considered him bad. No one had any
confidence in him, no one would trust any work to him. He took what
company he could get, and learned to drink.
While he was going down hill, the Salvation Army came to the town. It
hired a big hall and began its work. From the very first evening all
the loafers gathered at the meetings to make a disturbance. When it had
gone on for about a week, Matts Wik came too to take part in the fun.
There was a crowd in the street, a crowd in the door-way. Sharp elbows
and angry tongues were there; street boys and soldiers, maids and
scrub-women; peaceable police and stormy rabble. The army was new and
the fashion. The well-to-do and the wharf-rats, everybody went to the
Salvation Army. Within, the hall was low-studded. At the farthest end
was an empty platform; unpainted benches, borrowed chairs, an uneven
floor, blotches on the ceiling, lamps that smoked. The iron stove in
the middle of the floor gave out warmth and coal gas. All the places
were filled in a moment. Nearest the platform sat the women, demure as
if in church, and back of them workmen and sewing-women. Farthest away
sat the boys on one another’s knees, and in the door-way there was a
fight among those who could not get in.
The platform was empty. The clock had not struck, the entertainment had
not begun. One whistled, one laughed. The benches were kicked to
pieces. “The War-cry” flew like a kite between the groups. The public
were enjoying themselves.
A side-door opened. Cold air streamed into the room. The fire flamed
up. There was silence. Attentive expectation filled the hall. At last
they came, three young women, carrying guitars and with faces almost
hidden by broad-brimmed hats. They fell on their knees as soon as they
had ascended the steps of the platform.
One of them prayed aloud. She lifted her head, but closed her eyes. Her
voice cut like a knife. During the prayer there was silence. The
street-boys and loafers had not yet begun. They were waiting for the
confessions and the inspiring music.
The women settled down to their work. They sang and prayed, sang and
preached. They smiled and spoke of their happiness. In front of them
they had an audience of ruffians. They began to rise, they climbed upon
the benches. A threatening noise passed through the throng. The women
on the platform caught glimpses of dreadful faces through the smoky
air. The men had wet, dirty clothes, which smelt badly. They spat
tobacco every other second, swore with every word. Those women, who
were to struggle with them, spoke of their happiness.
How brave that little army was! Ah, is it not beautiful to be brave? Is
it not something to be proud of to have God on one’s side? It was not
worth while to laugh at them in their big hats. It was most probable
that they would conquer the hard hands, the cruel faces, the
blaspheming lips.
“Sing with us!” cried the Salvation Army soldiers; “sing with us! It is
good to sing.” They started a well-known melody. They struck their
guitars and repeated the same verse over and over. They got one or two
of those sitting nearest to join in, but now sounded down by the door a
light street song. Notes struggled against notes, words against words,
guitar against whistle. The women’s strong, trained voices contested
with the boys’ hoarse falsetto, with the men’s growling bass. When the
street song was almost conquered, they began to stamp and whistle down
by the door. The Salvation Army song sank like a wounded warrior. The
noise was terrifying. The women fell on their knees.
They knelt as if powerless. Their eyes were closed. Their bodies rocked
in silent pain. The noise died down. The Salvation Army captain began
instantly: “Lord, all these Thou wilt make Thine own. We thank Thee,
Lord, that Thou wilt lead them all into Thy host! We thank Thee, Lord,
that it is granted to us to lead them to Thee!”
The crowd hissed, howled, screamed. It was as if all those throats had
been tickled by a sharp knife. It was as if the people had been afraid
to be won over, as if they had forgotten that they had come there of
their own will.
But the woman continued, and it was her sharp, piercing voice which
conquered. They had to hear.
“You shout and scream; the old serpent within you is twisting and
raging. But that is just the sign. Blessings on the old serpent’s
roarings! It shows that he is tortured, that he is afraid. Laugh at us!
Break our windows! Drive us away from the platform! To-morrow you will
belong to us. We shall possess the earth. How can you withstand us? How
can you withstand God?”
Then the captain commanded one of her comrades to come forward and make
her confession. She came smiling. She stood brave and undaunted and
told the story of her sin and her conversion to the mockers. Where had
that kitchen-girl learned to stand smiling under all that scorn? Some
of those who had come to scoff grew pale. Where had these women found
their courage and their strength? Some one stood behind them.
The third woman stepped forward. She was a beautiful child, daughter of
rich parents, with a sweet, clear voice. She did not tell of herself.
Her testimony was one of the usual songs.
It was like the shadow of a victory. The audience forgot itself and
listened. The child was lovely to look at, sweet to hear. But when she
ceased, the noise became even more dreadful. Down by the door they
built a platform of benches, climbed up and confessed.
It became worse and worse in the hall. The stove became red hot,
devoured air and belched heat. The respectable women on the front
benches looked about for a way to escape, but there was no possibility
of getting out. The soldiers on the platform perspired and wilted. They
cried and prayed for strength. Suddenly a breath came through the air,
a whisper reached their ear. They knew not from where, but they felt a
change. God was with them. He fought for them.
To the struggle again! The captain stepped forward and lifted the Bible
over her head. Stop, stop! We feel that God is working among us. A
conversion is near. Help us to pray! God will give us a soul.
They fell on their knees in silent prayer. Some in the hall joined in
the prayer. All felt an intense expectation. Was it true? Was something
great taking place in a fellow-creature’s soul, here, in their midst?
Should it be granted to them to see it? Could it be influenced by these
women?
For the moment the crowd was won. They were now just as eager for a
miracle as lately for blasphemy. No one dared to move. All panted from
excitement, but nothing happened. “O God, Thou forsakest us! Thou
forsakest us, O God!”
The beautiful salvation soldier began to sing. She chose the mildest of
melodies: “Oh, my beloved, wilt Thou not come soon?”
Touching as a praying child, the song entered their souls—like a
caress, like a blessing.
The crowd was silent, wrapped in those notes. “Mountains and forests
long, heaven and earth languish. Man, everything in the world, thirsts
that you shall open your soul to the light. Then glory will spread over
the earth, then the beasts will rise up from their degradation.
“Oh, my beloved, wilt thou not come soon?”
“It is not true that thou dost linger in lofty halls. In the dark wood,
in miserable hovels thou dwellest. And thou wilt not come. My bright
heaven does not tempt thee.
“Oh, my beloved, wilt thou not come soon?”
In the hall more and more began to sing the burden. Voice after voice
joined in. They did not rightly know what words they used. The tune was
enough. All their longing could sing itself free in those tones. They
sang, too, down by the door. Hearts were bursting. Wills were subdued.
It no longer sounded like a pitiful lament, but strong, imperative,
commanding.
“Oh, my beloved, wilt thou not come soon?”
Down by the door, in the worst of the crowd, stood Matts Wik. He looked
much intoxicated, but that evening he had not drunk. He stood and
thought. “If I might speak, if I might speak!”
It was the strangest room he had ever seen, the most wonderful chance.
A voice seemed to say to him: “These are the rushes to which you can
whisper, the waves which will bear your voice.”
The singers started. It was as if they had heard a lion roar in their
ears. A mighty, terrible voice spoke dreadful words.
It scoffed at God. Why did men serve God? He forsook all those who
served him. He had failed his own son. God helped no one.
The voice grew louder, more like a roar every minute. No one could have
believed that human lungs could have such strength. No one had ever
heard such ravings burst from bruised heart. All bent their heads like
wanderers in the desert, when the storm beats on them.
Terrible, terrible words! They were like thundering hammer strokes
against God’s throne. Against Him who had tortured Job, who had let the
martyrs suffer, who let those who professed his faith burn at the
stake.
A few had at first tried to laugh. Some of them had thought that it was
a joke. But now they heard, quaking, that it was in earnest. Already
some rose up to flee to the platform. They asked the protection of the
Salvation Army from him who drew down upon them the wrath of God.
The voice asked them in hissing tones what rewards they expected for
their trouble in serving God. They need not count on heaven. God was
not freehanded with His heaven. A man, he said, had done more good than
was needed to be blessed. He had brought greater offerings than God
demanded. But then he had been tempted to sin. Life is long. He paid
out his hard-earned grace already in this world. He would go the way of
the damned.
The speech was the terrifying north-wind, which drives the ship into
the harbor. While the scoffer spoke, women rushed up to the platform.
The Salvation Army soldiers’ hands were embraced and kissed; they were
scarcely able to receive them all. The boys and the old men praised
God.
He who spoke continued. The words intoxicated him. He said to himself:
“I speak, I speak, at last I speak. I tell them my secret, and yet I do
not tell them.” For the first time since he made the great sacrifice he
was free from care.
It was a Sunday afternoon in the height of the summer. The town looked
like a desert of stones, like a moon landscape. There was not a cat to
be seen, nor a sparrow, hardly a fly on the sunny wall. Not a chimney
smoked. There was not a breath of air in the sultry streets. The whole
was only a stony field, out of which grew stone walls.
Where were the dogs and the people? Where were the young ladies in
narrow skirts and wide sleeves, long gloves and red sunshades? Where
were the soldiers and the fine people, the Salvation Army and the
street boys?
Whither had all those gay picnickers gone in the dewy cool of the
morning, all the baskets and accordions and bottles, which the steamer
landed? And what had happened to the procession of Good Templars?
Banners fluttered, drums thundered, boys swarmed, stamped, and
hurrahed. Or what had happened to the blue awnings under which the
little ones slept while father and mother pushed them solemnly up the
street.
All were on their way out to the wood. They complained of the long
streets. It seemed as if the stone houses followed them. At last, at
last they caught a glimpse of green. And just outside of the town,
where the road wound over flat, moist fields, where the song of the
lark sounded loudest, where the clover steamed with honey, there lay
the first of those left behind; heads in the moss, noses in the grass.
Bodies bathed in sunshine and fragrance, souls refreshed with idleness
and rest.
On the way to the wood toiled bicyclists and bearers of luncheon
baskets. Boys came with trowels and shiny knapsacks. Girls danced in
clouds of dust. Sky and banners and children and trumpets. Mechanics
and their families and crowds of laborers. The rearing horses of an
omnibus waved their forelegs over the crowd. A young man, half drunk,
jumped up on the wheel. He was pulled down, and lay kicking on his back
in the dust of the road.
In the wood a nightingale trilled and sang, piped and gurgled. The
birches were not thriving, their trunks were black. The beeches built
high temples, layer upon layer of streaky green. A toad sat and took
aim with its tongue. It caught a fly at every shot. A hedgehog trotted
about in the dried, rustling beech leaves. Dragonflies darted about
with glittering wings. The people sat down around the luncheon-baskets.
The piping, chirping crickets tried to make their Sunday a glad one.
Suddenly the hedgehog disappeared, terrified he rolled himself up in
his prickles. The crickets crept into the grass, quite silenced. The
nightingale sang as if its throat would burst. It was guitars, guitars.
The Salvation Army marched forward under the beeches. The people
started up from their rest under the trees. The dancing-green and
croquet-ground were deserted. The swings and merry-go-rounds had an
hour’s rest. Everybody followed to the Salvation Army’s camp. The
benches filled, and listeners sat on every hillock. The army had waxed
strong and powerful. About many a fair cheek was tied the Salvation
Army hat. Many a strong man wore the red shirt. There was peace and
order in the crowd. Bad words did not venture to pass the lips. Oaths
rumbled harmlessly behind teeth. And Matts Wik, the shoemaker, the
terrible blasphemer, stood now as standard-bearer by the platform. He,
too, was one of the believers. The red flag caressed his gray head.
The Salvation Army soldiers had not forgotten the old man. They had him
to thank for their first victory. They had come to him in his
loneliness. They washed his floor and mended his clothes. They did not
refuse to associate with him. And at their meetings he was allowed to
speak.
Ever since he had broken his silence he was happy. He stood no longer
as an enemy of God. There was a raging power in him. He was happy when
he could let it out. When souls were shaken by his lion voice, he was
happy.
He spoke always of himself. He always told his own story. He described
the fate of the misjudged. He spoke of sacrifices of life itself, made
without a hope of reward, without acknowledgment. He disguised what he
related. He told his secret and yet did not tell it.
He became a poet. He had the power of winning hearts. For his sake
crowds gathered in front of the Salvation Army platform. He drew them
by the fantastic images which filled his diseased brain. He captivated
them with the words of affecting lament, which the oppression of his
heart had taught him.
Perhaps his spirit in days of old had visited this world of death and
change. Perhaps he had then been a mighty skald, skilful in playing on
heartstrings. But for some evil deed he had been condemned to begin
again his earthly life, to live by the work of his hands, without the
knowledge of the strength of his spirit. But now his grief had broken
his spirit’s chains. His soul was a newly released bird. Timid and
confused, but still rejoicing in its freedom, it flew onward over the
old battlefields.
The wild, ignorant singer, the black thrush, which had grown among
starlings, listened diffidently to the words which came to his lips.
Where did he get the power to compel the crowd to listen in ecstasy to
his speech? Where did he get the power to force proud men down upon
their knees, wringing their hands? He trembled before he began to
speak. Then a quiet confidence came over him. From the inexhaustible
depths of his suffering rose ever torrents of agonized words.
Those speeches were never printed. They were hunting-cries, ringing
trumpet-notes, rousing, animating, terrifying, urgent; not to capture,
not to give again. They were lightning flashes and rolling thunder.
They shook hearts with terrible alarms. But they were transient, never
could they be caught. The cataract can be measured to its last drop,
the dizzy play of foam can be painted, but not the elusive, delirious,
swift, growing, mighty stream of those speeches.
That day in the wood he asked the gathering if they knew how they
should serve God?—as Uria served his king.
Then he, the man in the pulpit, became Uria. He rode through the desert
with the letter of his king. He was alone. The solitude terrified him.
His thoughts were gloomy. But he smiled when he thought of his wife.
The desert became a flowering meadow when he remembered his wife.
Springs gushed up from the ground at the thought of her.
His camel fell. His soul was filled with forebodings of evil.
Misfortune, he thought, is a vulture, which loves the desert. He did
not turn, but went onward with the king’s letter. He trod upon thorns.
He walked among serpents and scorpions. He thirsted and hungered. He
saw caravans drag their dark length through the sands. He did not join
them. He dared not seek strangers. He, who bears a royal letter, must
go alone. He saw at eventide the white tents of shepherds. He was
tempted, as if by his wife’s smiling dwelling. He thought he saw white
veils waving to him. He turned away from the tents out into solitude.
Woe to him if they had stolen the letter of his king!
He hesitates when he sees searching brigands pursuing him. He thinks of
the king’s letter. He reads it in order to then destroy it. He reads
it, and finds new courage. Stand up, warrior of Judah! He does not
destroy the letter. He does not give himself up to the robbers. He
fights and conquers. And so onward, onward! He bears his sentence of
death through a thousand dangers. …