THE WANDERING JEW.
"'It was a fair summer-morning in holy Jerusalem, and I sat and
wrought at my trade, for I sewed a pair of sandals for the feet of
the high priest Caiaphas. And I wrought diligently, for it behoved
me to cease an hour ere set of sun, for it was the day of
preparation for the eating of the Passover.
"'Now all that night there had been a going to and fro in the city,
for the chief priests and their followers had at length laid hands
upon him that was called Jesus, whom some believed to be the
Messiah, and others, with my fool-self amongst them, an
arch-impostor and blasphemer. For I was of the house of Caiaphas,
and heartily did desire that the man my lord declared a deceiver of
the people, should meet with the just reward of his doings. Thus I
sat and worked, and thought and rejoiced; and the morning passed and
the noon came.
"'It was a day of sultry summer, and the street burned beneath the
sun, and I sat in the shadow and looked out upon the glare; and ever
I wrought at the sandals of my lord, with many fine stitches, in
cunning workmanship. All had been for some time very still, when
suddenly I thought I heard a far-off tumult. And soon came the idle
children, who ever run first that they be not swallowed up of the
crowd; and they ran and looked behind as they ran. And after them
came the crowd, crying and shouting, and swaying hither and thither;
and in the midst of it arose the one arm of a cross, beneath the
weight of which that same Jesus bent so low that I saw him not.
Truly, said I, he hath not seldom borne heavier burdens in the
workshop of his father the Galilean, but now his sins and his
idleness have found him, and taken from him his vigour; for he that
despiseth the law shall perish, while they that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength. For I was wroth with the man who taught
the people to despise the great ones that administered the law, and
give honour to the small ones who only kept it. Besides, he had
driven my father's brother from the court of the Gentiles with a
whip, which truly hurt him not outwardly, but stung him to the soul;
and yet that very temple which he pretended thus to honour, he had
threatened to destroy and build again in three days! Such were the
thoughts of my heart; and when I learned from the boys that it was
in truth Jesus of Nazareth who passed on his way to Calvary to be
crucified, my heart leaped within me at the thought that the law had
at length overtaken the malefactor. I laid down the sandal and my
awl, and rose and went forth and stood in the front of my shop. And
Jesus drew nigh, and as he passed, lo, the end of the cross dragged
upon the street. And one in the crowd came behind, and lifted it up
and pushed therewith, so that Jesus staggered and had nigh fallen.
Then would be fain have rested the arm of the cross on the stone by
which I was wont to go up into my shop from the street. But I cried
out, and drove him thence, saying scornfully, "Go on Jesus; go on.
Truly thou restest not on stone of mine!" Then turned he his eyes
upon me, and said, "I go indeed, but thou goest not;" and therewith
he rose again under the weight of the cross, and staggered on,
"'And I followed in the crowd to Calvary.'"
Here the reader paused and said,
"I can give you but a few passages now. You see it is a large
manuscript. I will therefore choose some of those that bear upon the
subject of which we have been talking. A detailed account of the
crucifixion follows here, which I could not bring myself to read
aloud. The eclipse is in it, and the earthquake, and the white faces
of the risen dead gleaming through the darkness about the cross. It
ends thus:
"'And all the time, I stood not far from the foot of the cross, nor
dared go nearer, for around it were his mother and they that were
with her, and my heart was sore for her also. And I would have
withdrawn my foot from the place where I stood, and gone home to
weep, but something, I know not what, held me there as it were
rooted to the ground. At length the end was drawing near. He opened
his mouth and spake to his mother and the disciple who stood by her,
but truly I know not what he said, for as his eyes turned from them,
they looked upon me, and my heart died within me. He said nought,
but his eyes had that in them that would have slain me with sorrow,
had not death, although I knew it not, already shrunk from my
presence, daring no more come nigh such a malefactor.--Oh Death, how
gladly would I build thee a temple, set thee in a lofty place, and
worship thee with the sacrifice of vultures on a fire of dead men's
bones, wouldst thou but hear my cry!--But I rave again in my folly!
God forgive me. All the days of my appointed time will I wait until
my change come.--With that look--a well of everlasting tears in my
throbbing brain--my feet were unrooted, and I fled.'"
Here the reader paused again, and turned over many leaves.
"'And ever as I passed at night through the lands, when I came to a
cross by the wayside, thereon would I climb, and, winding my arms
about its arms and my feet about its stem, would there hang in the
darkness or the moon, in rain or hail, in wind or snow or frost,
until my sinews gave way, and my body dropped, and I knew no more
until I found myself lying at its foot in the morning. For, ever in
such case, I lay without sense until again the sun shone upon me.
"'... And if ever the memory of that look passed from me, then,
straightway I began to long for death, and so longed until the
memory and the power of the look came again, and with the sorrow in
my soul came the patience to live. And truly, although I speak of
forgetting and remembering, such motions of my spirit in me were not
as those of another man; in me they are not measured by the scale of
men's lives; they are not of years, but of centuries; for the
seconds of my life are ticked by a clock whose pendulum swings
through an arc of motionless stars.
"'... Once I had a vision of Death. Methinks it must have been a
precursive vapour of the madness that afterwards infolded me, for I
know well that there is not one called Death, that he is but a word
needful to the weakness of human thought and the poverty of human
speech; that he is a no-being, and but a change from that which
is.--I had a vision of Death, I say. And it was on this wise:
"'I was walking over a wide plain of sand, like Egypt, so that ever
and anon I looked around me to see if nowhere, from the base of the
horizon, the pyramids cut their triangle out of the blue night of
heaven; but I saw none. The stars came down and sparkled on the dry
sands, and all was waste, and wide desolation. The air also was
still as the air of a walled-up tomb, where there are but dry bones,
and not even the wind of an evil vapour that rises from decay. And
through the dead air came ever the low moaning of a distant sea,
towards which my feet did bear me. I had been journeying thus for
years, and in their lapse it had grown but a little louder.--Suddenly
I was aware that I was not alone. A dim figure strode beside me,
vague, but certain of presence. And I feared him not, seeing that
which men fear the most was itself that which by me was the most
desired. So I stood and turned and would have spoken. But the shade
that seemed not a shadow, went on and regarded me not. Then I also
turned again towards the moaning of the sea and went on. And lo!
the shade which had gone before until it seemed but as a vapour
among the stars, was again by my side walking. And I said, and stood
not, but walked on: Thou shade that art not a shadow, seeing there
shineth no sun or moon, and the stars are many, and the one slayeth
the shadow of the other, what art thou, and wherefore goest thou by
my side? Think not to make me afraid, for I fear nothing in the
universe but that which I love the best.--I spake of the eyes of the
Lord Jesus.--Then the shade that seemed no shadow answered me and
spake and said: Little knowest thou what I am, seeing the very thing
thou sayest I am not, that I am, and nought else, and there is no
other but me. I am Shadow, the shadow, the only shadow--none such as
those from which the light hideth in terror, yet like them, for life
hideth from me and turneth away, yet if life were not, neither were
I, for I am nothing; and yet again, as soon as anything is, there am
I, and needed no maker, but came of myself, for I am Death.--Ha!
Death! I cried, and would have cast myself before him with outstretched
arms of worshipful entreaty; but lo, there was a shadow upon the belt
of Orion, and no shadow by my side! and I sighed, and walked on towards
the ever moaning sea. Then again the shadow was by my side. And again
I spake and said: Thou thing of flitting and return, I despise thee,
for thou wilt not abide the conflict. And I would have cast myself upon
him and wrestled with him there, for defeat and not for victory. But I
could not lay hold upon him. Thou art a powerless nothing, I cried; I
will not even defy thee.--Thou wouldst provoke me, said the shadow; but
it availeth not. I cannot be provoked. Truly, I am but a shadow, yet
know I my own worth, for I am the Shadow of the Almighty, and where
he is, there am I--Thou art nothing, I said.--Nay, nay, I am not
Nothing. Thou, nor any man--God only knoweth what that word
meaneth. I am but the shadow of Nothing, and when THOU sayest
NOTHING, thou meanest only me; but what God meaneth when he sayeth
NOTHING--the nothing without him, that nothing which is no shadow
but the very substance of Unbeing--no created soul can know.--Then
art thou not Death? I asked.--I am what thou thinkest of when thou
sayest Death, he answered, but I am not Death.--Alas, then! why
comest thou to me in the desert places, for I did think thou wast
Death indeed, and couldst take me unto thee so that I should be no
more.--That is what death cannot do for thee, said the shadow; none
but he that created thee can cause that thou shouldst be no more.
Thou art until he will that thou be not. I have heard it said
amongst the wise that, hard as it is to create, it is harder still
to uncreate. Truly I cannot tell. But wouldst thou be uncreated by
the hand of Death? Wouldst thou have thy no-being the gift of a
shadow?--Then I thought of the eyes of the Lord Jesus, and the look
he cast upon me, and I said, No: I would not be carried away of
Death. I would be fulfilled of Life, and stand before God for ever.
Then once again the belt of Orion grew dim, and I saw the shadow no
more. And yet did I long for Death, for I thought he might bring me
to those eyes, and the pardon that lay in them.
"'But again, as the years went on, and each brought less hope than
that before it, I forgot the look the Lord had cast upon me, and in
the weariness of the life that was mortal and yet would not cease,
in the longing after the natural end of that which against nature
endured, I began to long even for the end of being itself. And in a
city of the Germans, I found certain men of my own nation who said
unto me: Fear not, Ahasuerus; there is no life beyond the grave.
Live on until thy end come, and cease thy complaints. Who is there
among us who would not gladly take upon him thy judgment, and live
until he was weary of living?--Yea, but to live after thou art
weary? I said. But they heeded me not, answering me and saying:
Search thou the Scriptures, even the Book of the Law, and see if
thou find there one leaf of this gourd of a faith that hath sprung
up in a night. Verily, this immortality is but a flash in the brain
of men that would rise above their fate. Sayeth Moses, or sayeth
Job, or sayeth David or Daniel a word of the matter? And I listened
unto them, and became of their mind. But therewithal the longing
after death returned with tenfold force and I rose up and girt my
garment about me, and went forth once more to search for him whom I
now took for the porter of the gate of eternal silence and unfelt
repose. And I said unto myself as I walked: What in the old days was
sweeter when I was weary with my labour at making of shoes, than to
find myself dropping into the death of sleep! how much sweeter then
must it not be to sink into the sleepiest of sleeps, the
father-sleep, the mother-bosomed death of nothingness and unawaking
rest! Then shall all this endless whir of the wheels of thought and
desire be over; then welcome the night whose darkness doth not
seethe, and which no morning shall ever stir!
"'And wherever armies were drawing nigh, each to the other, and the
day of battle was near, thither I flew in hot haste, that I might be
first upon the field, and ready to welcome hottest peril. I fought
not, for I would not slay those that counted it not the good thing
to be slain, as I counted it. But had the armies been of men that
loved death like me, how had I raged among them then, even as the
angel Azrael to give them their sore-desired rest! for I loved and
hated not my kind, and would diligently have mown them down out of
the stinging air of life into the soft balm of the sepulchre. But
what they sought not, and I therefore would not give, that searched
I after the more eagerly for myself. And my sight grew so keen that,
when yet no bigger than a mote in the sunbeam, I could always descry
the vulture-scout, hanging aloft over the field of destiny. Then
would I hasten on and on, until a swoop would have brought him
straight on my head.
"'And with that a troop of horsemen, horses and men mad with living
fear, came with a level rush towards the spot where I sat, faint
with woe. And I sprang up, and bounded to meet them, throwing my
arms aloft and shouting, as one who would turn a herd. And like a
wave of the rising tide before a swift wind, a wave that sweeps on
and breaks not, they came hard-buffeting over my head. Ah! that was
a torrent indeed!--a thunderous succession of solid billows, alive,
hurled along by the hurricane-fear in the heart of them! For one
moment only I felt and knew what I lay beneath, and then for a time
there was nothing.--I woke in silence, and thought I was dying, that
I had all but passed across the invisible line between, and in a
moment there would be for evermore nothing and nothing. Then
followed again an empty space as it seemed. And now I am dead and
gone, I said, and shall wander no more. And with that came the agony
of hell, for, lo, still _I_ THOUGHT! And I said to myself, Alas! O
God! for, notwithstanding I no more see or hear or taste or smell or
touch, and my body hath dropped from me, still am I Ahasuerus, the
Wanderer, and must go on and on and on, blind and deaf, through the
unutterable wastes that know not the senses of man--nevermore to
find rest! Alas! death is not death, seeing he slayeth but the
leathern bottle, and spilleth not the wine of life upon the earth.
Alas! alas! for I cannot die! And with that a finger twitched, and I
shouted aloud for joy: I was yet in the body! And I sprang to my
feet jubilant, and, lame and bruised and broken-armed, tottered away
after Death, who yet might hold the secret of eternal repose. I was
alive, but yet there was hope, for Death was yet before me! I was
alive, but I had not died, and who could tell but I might yet find
the lovely night that hath neither clouds nor stars! I had not
passed into the land of the dead and found myself yet living! The
wise men of my nation in the city of the Almains might yet be wise!
And for an hour I rejoiced, and was glad greatly.'"