“Habent sua fata—feminæ.”
Although the Pilgrims’ Way is a shady arcade, yet the ascent from
Vicenza was steep enough to be something of a penance that sultry spring
evening, and I was weary of the unending pillars and the modern yet
already fading New Testament frescoes between them. But I was interested
to see which parish or family had paid for each successive section, and
what new name for the Madonna would be left to inscribe upon it. For
even the Litany of Loreto seemed exhausted, and still the epithets
poured out—“_Lumen Confessorum_,” “_Consolatrix Viduarum_,” “_Radix
Jesse_,” “_Stella Matutina_,” “_Fons Lachrymarum_,” “_Clypeus
Oppressorum_”—a very torrent of love and longing.
At last as I neared the summit of the Way, a fresco flashed upon me the
meaning of it all—an “Apparitio B.M.V. in Monte Berico, 1428,”
representing the Virgin in all her radiant beauty appearing to an old
peasant-woman. So this it was that had raised this long religious road
to the Church of Our Lady of the Mountain! I remembered the inscription
in S. Rocco, telling how 30,000 men had pilgrimed here in
1875—“spectaculum mirum visu.”
But where was the church that had been built over the spot of the
Madonna’s appearance? I looked up and sighed wearily. I was only
half-way up, I saw, for the road turned sharply to the right, and a new
set of names began, and a new set of frescoes—still cruder, for I
caught sight of nails driven into the Cross through the writhing frame
of the Christ. But even my curiosity in the cornucopia of epithets was
worn out. The corner had a picturesque outlook, and on the hill-side a
bench stood waiting. Vicenza stretched below me, I could see the
Palladian palaces admired of Goethe, the Greek theatre, the Colonnades,
the Palace of Reason with its long turtle-back roof; and, beyond the
spires and campaniles, the gleam of the Venetian Alps. A church-bell
from below sounded for “Ave Maria.” I sat down upon the bench and
abandoned myself to reverie. Why should not the Madonna appear to _me_?
I thought. Why this preference for the illiterate? And then I remembered
that this very Pilgrims’ Way had served as a battle-ground for the
Austrians and the poor Italians of ’48. How these Christians love one
another! I mused. And so my mind’s eye flitted from point to point,
seeing again things seen or read—in that inconsequent phantasmagoria of
reverie—to the pleasant droning of the vesper bell. Presently, telling
myself it was getting late, I arose and continued my ascent to the
Church of Our Lady of the Mountain.
* * * * *
But I looked in vain, as I came up the hill, for the inscriptions and
the frescoes. The sun was lower in the west, but the sunshine had grown
even sultrier, the sky even bluer, the road even steeper and rougher,
and it was leading me on to a gay-flowering plain lying in a ring of
green hills amid the singing of larks and the cooing of turtle-doves.
And on this plain I saw arising, not the church of my quest, but a
far-scattered village, whose small square, primitive houses would have
seemed ugly had their roofs not been picturesque with storks and pigeons
and their walls embowered in their own vines and fig-trees and absorbed
into the pervasive suggestion of threshing-floors and wine-presses and
rural felicity. By a central fountain I could perceive a group of
barefoot maidens, each waiting her turn with her water-jar. They seemed
gaily but lightly clad, in blue and red robes, with bracelets gleaming
at their wrists and strings of coins shining from their faces.
Anxious to learn my whereabouts, yet shy of intruding upon this girlish
group, I steered my footsteps towards one who, her urn on her shoulder,
seemed making her way by a side-track towards a somewhat lonely house on
the outskirts, overbrooded by the brow of a hill. She was brown-skinned,
I saw as I came near, very young, but of no great beauty save for her
girlish grace and the large lambent eyes under the arched black
eyebrows.
“Di grazia?” I began inquiringly.
“Aleikhem shalôm,” tripped off her tongue in heedless answer. Then, as
if grown conscious I had said something strange, she paused and looked
at me, and I instinctively became aware she was a Hebrew maiden. Yet I
had still the feeling that I must get back to Vicenza.
“How far is thy servant from the city?” I asked in my best Hebrew.
“From Yerushalaim?” she asked in surprise. “But it is many parasangs.
Impossible that thou shouldst arrive at Yerushalaim before the Passover,
even borne upon eagles’ wings. Behold the sun—the Sabbath-Passover is
nigh upon us.”
Ere she ended I had divined by her mispronunciation of the gutturals and
by the Aramaic flavour of her phrases that she was a provincial and that
I was come into the land of Canaan.
“What is this place?” I inquired, no less astonished than she.
“This is Nazara.”
“Nazara? Then am I in Galila?”
“Assuredly. Doubtless thou comest from the great wedding at Cana. But
thou shouldst have returned by way of Mount Tabor and the town of Endor.
Didst thou perchance see my mother at Cana?”
“Nay; how should I know thy mother?” I replied evasively.
She smiled. “Am I not made in her image? But overlong, meseems, have ye
all feasted, for it is two days since we expect my mother and brothers.”
“Shall thy servant not carry thine urn?” I answered uneasily.
“Nay, I thank thee. It is not a bowshot to my door. And,” she added with
a gentle smile, “my brothers do not carry my burdens; why should a
stranger?”
“And how many brothers hast thou?” I asked.
“Some are dead—peace be upon them. But there are four yet left
alive—nay,” she hesitated, “five. But our eldest hath left us.”
“Ah, he hath married a wife.”
She flushed. “Nay, but we speak not of him.”
“There must ever be one black sheep in a flock,” I murmured consolingly.
She brightened up. “So my brother Yakob always says.”
“And Yakob should speak with authority on the colour of sheep, and not
as the scribes.” I laughed with forced levity.
Her brow wrinkled thoughtfully. “Doubtless Yeshua is possessed of a
demon,” she said. “One of our sisters, Deborah, was likewise a
Sabbath-breaker, but now that she is old, having nineteen years and
three strong sons, she is grown more pious than even our uncle Yehoshuah
the Pharisee.”
“Lives she here?”
“Ay, yonder, near my mother’s sister, the wife of Halphaï.”
She pointed towards a battlemented roof, but my eyes were more concerned
with her own house, at which we were just arriving. It was a one-storey
house, square and ugly like the others, redeemed by its little garden
with its hedge of prickly pear, though even this garden was littered
with new-made wheels and stools and an olive-wood table.
“Halphaï is gone up for the Passover,” she added. She stopped abruptly.
The tinkle of mule-bells was borne to us from a steep track that came to
join our slower pathway.
“Lo, my mother!” she cried joyfully; and placing her urn upon the
ground, she hastened down the narrow track. I moved delicately, yet not
without curiosity, to the flank of the hedge, and presently a little
caravan appeared, ambling gently, with the girl walking and chattering
happily by the side of her mother, who rode upon an ass. I noticed that
the woman, who was small and spare, listened but little to her
daughter’s eager talk, and seemed deaf to the home-coming laughter of
her four curly-headed sons, who rode their mules sideways, with their
legs dangling down like the fringes of their garments. Her shoulders
were sunk in bitter brooding, and when a sudden stumbling of her ass
made her raise her head mechanically to pull him up, I saw the shimmer
of tears in her large olive-tinted eyes. Certainly I should not have
called her made in the image of her daughter, I thought at that moment,
for the face was sorely lined, and under the cheap black head-shawl I
saw the greying hair that was still raven on her arched eyebrows. But
doubtless the burden of much child-bearing had worn her out, after the
sad fashion of Eastern women.
These reflections were, however, dissipated as soon as born, for a
little cry of dismay from the girl brought to my perception that it was
the forgotten water-jar that had caused the ass’s stumble, and that the
urn now lay overturned, if not shattered, amid a fast-vanishing pool.
The little mishap made her brothers smile. “Courage!” cried the eldest.
“Yeshua will fill it with wine instead.” At this all the four rustics
broke into a roar of merriment. The youngest, a mere beardless youth,
added in his vulgar Aramaic, “What one ass hath destroyed another will
make good.”
The little woman turned on him passionately. “Hold thy peace, Yehudah.
Who knows but that he did change the water into wine?”
“Let him come and do it here,” retorted the eldest. “Thou hast not
forgotten what befell when he essayed his marvels in Nazara. No mighty
works could he do here, albeit Shimeon and Yosé, inclining their ears to
Zebedee’s foolish wife, were ready to sit on his right and left hand in
the Kingdom.”
The two young men who had not yet spoken looked somewhat foolish.
“He laid his hand upon sick folk and healed them,” one said in apology.
“How many?” queried young Yehudah scornfully. “And how many are alive
to-day? Nay, Shimeon, if he be Messhiach let him heal us of these Roman
tyrants—not go about with their tax-farmers!”
“Peace, Yehudah!” The little mother looked round nervously, and a fresh
terror came into those tragic eyes. There was something to me deeply
moving in the sight of that shrinking little peasant-woman surrounded by
these strong, tall rustics whom she had borne and suckled.
“Let Yeshua hold his peace!” answered the lad angrily, “and not prate
about rendering unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s. But, God be
thanked, a greater Yeshua hath arisen—Ben Abbas—a true patriot, who
one day——”
“Aha! Behold my flock at last!” Startled by this sudden new angry voice,
I glanced over the hedge, and saw standing on the doorstep cut in the
rock, with a hammer in his horny hand, a big red-bearded peasant with
bushy eyebrows. “These two days, Miriam, have I awaited thee.”
The little woman slid meekly off her ass. “But, Yussef,” she said
mildly, “thou saidst thou wouldst go up for the Paschal sacrifice!”
“And how could I go up to the Holy City with all this work to finish,
and not one of my four sons to carry my work to Sepphoris before the
Sabbath!” He glared at them as they began to lead their beasts behind
the garden. “Halphaï was sorely vexed that I did not company him and
join in his lamb-group. And the house is not even ready for Passover at
home; I shall be liable to the penalty of stripes.”
“I baked the mazzoth ere I departed,” his wife protested, “and Sarah
hath purged the house of leaven.” She patted her daughter’s head.
“Sarah?” he growled, reminded of a fresh grievance. “Sarah should have
had a husband of her own. But with these idle sons of mine, feasting and
merrymaking while I saw and plane, I cannot even save fifty zuzim for
her dowry.”
Sarah blushed and hastened to pick up her urn and carry it back to the
fountain.
“Nay, but we have tarried at Kephar Nahum,” said Yakob defensively, as
he disappeared.
The carpenter turned on his wife, his eyes blazing almost like his
beard. His hammer struck the table in the garden, denting it. “’Twas to
see thy loveling thou leftest home!”
The little mother went red and white by turns. “As my soul liveth,
Yussef, I knew not he would be at the wedding.”
“He was at the wedding?” he asked, softened by his surprise.
“Ay, he and his disciples.”
“Disciples!” The carpenter sniffed wrathfully. “A pack of fishers and
women, and that yellow-veiled Miriam from Magdala.”
“The Magdala woman was not there!” she murmured, with lowered eyes.
“She knew thy kinsman would not suffer her pollution. Ah, Miriam, what a
son thou hast brought into the world!”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Thou must not pay such heed to the
Sanhedrim messengers. In their circuit to announce the time of the New
Moon they gather up all the evil rumours of Galila. This Magdala woman
is repentant; her seven devils are cast out.”
“Miriam defends Miriam,” he said sarcastically. “But thou canst not say
I trained him not up in the way he should go. Learning could we not
afford to give him, but did not thine own brother, Jehoshuah ben
Perachyah, teach him Torah, and did I not teach him his trade? His
ploughs and yokes were the best in all Galila.”
“And now his followers say his homilies are the best,” urged the poor
mother.
“Homilies?” he roared. “Blasphemies! But were his Midraschim Holy Writ
itself, I agree with Ben Sameos (his memory for a blessing!) greater is
the merit of industry than of idle piety.”
“But why should he work?” cried Yakob, who with Yehudah now reappeared
from the stable. “Would that the wife of Herod’s steward followed _me_!”
“Or even that Susannah ministered to us with her substance!” added
Yehudah. “Then I too would teach, take no thought for the morrow!” And
he laughed derisively.
“He never took thought for anything save himself,” said Yussef, shaking
his head. “Dost thou not remember, Miriam, those three dreadful days
when he was lost, as we were returning from his Bar-Mitzvah in
Yerushalaim! God of Abraham, shall I ever forget thy heart-sickness! And
what was it he answered when we at length found him in the Temple with
the doctors? He was about his father’s business! He was assuredly not
about _my_ business.”
“The Sabbath and Passover are drawing nigh,” she murmured, and slipped
past her sons into the house.
“And what did he answer thee at Kephar Nahum?” her husband called after
her. “‘Who is my mother?’ The godless scoffer! The Jeroboam ben Nebat! I
thank the Lord _I_ did not try to bring him back home. He might have
asked, ‘Who is my father?’”
There was no reply, but I heard the nervous bustling of a broom. The
carpenter turned to Yakob.
“And what said he at Cana?”
“He demanded wine, he and his disciples!”
“Methought he was an Ebionite or an Essene!”
“Nay, as thou saidst, Yeshua was ever a law unto himself. But there was
no wine.”
“No wine?” cried Yussef. “So great a wedding company and no wine?
Methought the Chosan was rich enough to plant wine-booths all the way
from Cana to Nazara, like the Parnass of Sepphoris, and had as many gold
and silver vessels as the priests in the Temple.”
“True, my father, but Yeshua had brought with him that vile tax-farmer
Levi, who grinds the faces both of rich and poor, and, seeing the spying
publican, the bridegroom straightway bade the servants hide the precious
flagons and goblets, lest more taxes be squeezed out for the Romans.”
Yussef grinned knowingly. “And so poor Yeshua must go athirst.”
“Nay, but hear. When he clamoured for wine the servants wist not what to
do, and my mother said gently to him, ‘They have no wine.’ But Yeshua
turned upon her like a lion of Mount Yehudah upon a lamb, and he roared,
‘Woman, what have I to do with thee? My hour is not yet come to be a
Nazarite.’”
The carpenter chuckled. “Now she will know to stay at home. ‘Woman, what
have I to do with thee?’” he repeated with unction.
“Howbeit, my mother feared that his demon again possessed him, and she
besought the servants to do whatsoever he said unto them. But they still
held back. Then Yeshua, understanding what it was they feared, said,
‘Bring the water-pots.’ So they went out and brought the earthen pots
wherewith we had washed our hands for the meal—albeit Yeshua would not
wash his—and lo! they were full of wine.”
The carpenter repeated his knowing grin. “And Levi the publican—what
said he?”
“He was the first to cry ‘A miracle!’” laughed Yakob, “and
Shimeon-bar-Yonah held up his hands and cried, ‘Master of the Universe!
Now is Thy glory manifest!’”
Yussef joined in his son’s laugh. “Is not Shimeon the lake fisherman?”
“Yea, my father; him whom Yeshua calls the Rock.”
“The Rock, in sooth!” broke in fiery young Yehudah. “Say rather, the
Shifting Sand. It was from Shimeon I learned to be a Zealot, and now
this recreant Maccabæan is bosom friend of Roman tax-gatherers and
babbles of the keys of Heaven.”
“Babble not thyself, little one,” the father rebuked him. He turned to
Yakob. “And what said Yeshua after the wine?”
“When he beheld his disciples had drunk new faith in him, he too was
flown, and prophesied darkly that he would appear on the right hand of
power, with clouds of glory and twelve legions of angels, whereat my
mother feared that his madness was come upon him as of yore, and she
made us follow in his train as far as his lodging in Kephar Nahum. And
we spake privily to Yudas that he should watch over him till his unclean
spirit was exorcised.”
“Yudas!” cried Yussef. “What doth an honest Israelite like Yudas in such
company? But did I not foretell what would come of all these baptizings
of Rabbi Jochanan, all these new foolish sects with their white garments
and paddles and ablutions? Canaan is full of wandering madmen. The Torah
I had from my father, Eli—peace be upon him!—is holy enough for me,
and may God forgive me that I have not gone up to kill the Paschal
lamb.”
Yakob lowered his voice. “Thou wouldst have met the madman.”
“What! Yeshua is gone to Yerushalaim?”
“Sh! My mother knoweth naught. We spake him secretly as though
converted, saying, ‘Lo! we have seen this day how thou workest miracles.
But if thou do these things, show thyself to the world. Depart hence and
go into Yudæa, that men may see the works that thou doest.’ For there is
no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known
openly. So he is gone up to Yerushalaim!”
The malicious glee on Yakob’s face was reflected in his father’s. “Now
shall the mocker be mocked! Even thy learned uncle, Ben Perachyah, they
scoff at for his accent, nor will they let him read the prayers. How
much less, then, will they listen to Yeshua!”
“And the Pharisees hate him,” said Yakob, “because he hath called them
vipers, and the Shammaites for profaning the Sabbath; even the Essenes
for not washing his hands before meals.”
“And all the Zealots hold him a traitor!” cried Yehudah with flashing
eyes.
“Nor will the Sadducees or the Bœthusians listen to a carpenter’s son,”
added Yakob laughingly.
“Shame on thee, Yakob, for fouling thine own well!” And Sarah, returning
with her pitcher on her shoulder, went angrily within.
Yakob grew red. “And dost thou think the nobles of Yerushalaim who eat
off gold and silver will follow him like fishers?” he called after her.
“Say they not already, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazara?’”
“Yeshua is gone to Yerushalaim?” The little mother had dashed to the
door, her eyes wide with terror. The urn she had just taken from her
daughter fell from her trembling hand and shattered itself on the rocky
doorstep, splashing husband and son.
“Woman!” cried the carpenter angrily, “have more care of my substance!”
“Yeshua is gone to Yerushalaim!” she repeated frenziedly.
“Ay, like a good son of Israel. He hath gone up for the Paschal
sacrifice. Mayhap,” he added with his chuckle, “he will do wonders with
the blood of the lamb. Come, Miriam, let us change our garments and
anoint ourselves for the festival.”
He pushed the woman gently within the room, but she stood there as one
turned into a pillar of salt, and with an Eastern shrug he went in.
Presently Sarah came and wiped the steps with a clout and gathered up
the shards, and then, with a new pitcher on her shoulder, she bent her
steps towards the fountain.
I skirted round to meet her on her return, not a little to her
amazement; but this time she surrendered her burden to my entreaty,
though the ungainly manner in which I poised the pitcher lightened her
clouded brow with inner laughter.
“This wandering brother of thine,” I ventured to ask at length, “dost
thou think harm will befall him in Yerushalaim?”
Her brow puckered thoughtfully. “Perchance these strangers will believe
on him, not knowing as we do that he hath a demon. Yeshua was wroth with
us when he came, crying out that a man’s foes are those of his own
household, and a prophet is nowhere without honour save in his own
country. But how should Yeshua be able to work miracles more than Yakob
or Yehudah? When he stood up in our synagogue on the Shabbos to read and
expound the prophet Yeshaiah, his lips were touched with the same
burning coal—almost he persuaded me to be a heretic—but inasmuch as he
could do no miracles, all they in the synagogue were filled with wrath,
and rose up and thrust him out of the city.” She pointed to the brow of
the hill hanging over us. “Up there they led him, that they might cast
him down headlong. But out of compassion for my mother, who had followed
with the crowd, they let him go, and he returned to Kephar Nahum and
continued to make yokes and wheels for his livelihood.”
“And he still works there?”
“Nay, he neglected his craft to preach in the great synagogue built by
the centurion—indeed, it is a hot place for work down there by the
lake, neither is it so healthy as here in Nazara. Also he had free
lodging with the family of Shimeon-bar-Yonah whom they call Petros,
while Shalome, the wife of Zebedee, and other women tended him and
mended his garments. But his fever took him and he began to wander about
all Galila, teaching in the synagogues and preaching his strange
gospel?”
“What gospel?”
“How should a girl know? Some heresy anent the Kingdom. And there went
out a fame of him through all the region round about, and some said he
healed all manner of sickness, so that there followed him great
multitudes of people. But many came to us and said, ‘Alas! he is beside
himself.’ And the Messengers of the New Moon told us many strange tales,
so that my mother was nigh distraught, and when it was bruited that he
had said Kephar Nahum shall be thrust down to hell, she journeyed
thither, she and my brothers, to bring him home and watch over his
affliction. But lo! they could not lay hold of him, for he was
surrounded by such a press of people that they could not even come nigh
unto him. So she sent a message that his mother and brothers desired to
have speech of him. And he answered, ‘Who is my mother? Who are my
brothers?’ and he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples and
said, ‘Behold my mother and my brothers.’ So she returned home sorely
stricken, and put on mourning garments, and even the birth of her
grandchildren gave her no joy. But when came the marriage of her rich
kinsman in Cana my father would have her go, being weary of her weeping
and thinking to cheer her heart; but lo! her last state is worse than
her first, inasmuch as——” She broke off abruptly as we reached the
hedge of prickly pear. “But why have I told all this to a stranger?”
“Because I have none else with whom to eat the Passover,” I answered
boldly.
She turned and looked at me. Then, taking her pitcher from me with a
word of thanks, “I will tell my father,” she answered gravely.
I waited in the little garden, watching a patriarchal tortoise.
Presently the carpenter reappeared on the doorstep, a new man in festal
garment and mien, his head anointed with oil.
“Baruch Habaa!” he cried cordially. “Since I cannot go up to
Yerushalaim, Yerushalaim comes up to me.”
I followed him into the house, duly kissing the mezuzah as I went
through the door. The room was small and dark, with bare walls built of
little liver-coloured blocks of cemented stone, and the matted floor
seemed to hold less furniture than that which littered the garden. The
carpenter’s bench had been covered with cushions, and I could see that
the divan was used for a bed. Very humble was the house-gear, these
earthenware dishes and metal drinking-cups and brass candlesticks on the
Passover table, and I saw no ornaments save a few terra-cotta vases, a
Hebrew scroll or two, and a rudely painted coffer. The housewife, busy
at the hearth with the roasted egg and bone of the ritual, greeted me
with wistful eyes and lips that vainly tried to murmur or smile a
welcome, and I watched her deft mechanic movements as I sat lightly
gossiping with the males over the exegesis of the seventh chapter of
Yeshaiah. I told them that the Septuagint translator had darkened the
fourteenth verse by loosely rendering עלמה as παρθένος, or “virgin,”
instead of “maiden,” but this did not interest them, as they knew no
Greek. The room took a more cheerful air when the mother lit the Sabbath
candles with a blessing almost as inaudible as her welcome to me, and
soon my host began the Haggadah service by holding his hands over the
wine-goblet. But Yehudah asked the ritual question, “Why does this night
differ from all other nights?” with a touch of sarcasm, and interrupted
himself to cry passionately: “How can we celebrate our deliverance from
Egypt when the Roman Eagle hangs at the very door of our Temple?” At
this the little mother turned yet paler, and every eye glanced uneasily
towards the stranger.
“Nay, I am no friend of the Romans,” I said reassuringly.
Yehudah continued the formula sullenly. It was as I had always heard it,
save for the question, “Why is the meat all roasted and none sodden or
boiled?” But the father had scarcely begun his ritual reply when we
heard a loud knocking on the door, the latch was lifted, and in another
instant we saw a burly man panting on the threshold, and behind him,
more vaguely in the dusk, an agitated woman under a head-shawl.
“O Reb Yussef!” breathed the newcomer.
“Halphaï!” cried the carpenter in amaze. “Art not in Yerushalaim?”
The little mother had sprung to her feet.
“They have killed my Yeshua!” she shrieked.
“Sit down, woman!” said the carpenter sternly.
But she gestured to the figure in the rear: “Speak, my sister, speak.”
“Nay, _I_ will speak,” grumbled her sister’s husband. “Why else did I
take horse from the Holy City without hearing the Levites sing or the
trumpets blow for the blood-sprinkling? Thy Yeshua came up through the
Fountain Gate riding on an ass, and as one flown with new wine.”
“Yea, the wine of the water-pots!” laughed Yakob.
“And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut
down branches from the trees and strewed them in the way. And the
multitudes that went before and that followed cried, ‘Hosanna to the son
of David!’” He paused for breath, leaving this picture suspended, and I
saw a new light leap into the mother’s tragic eyes, a strange exaltation
as of a secret hope incredulously confirmed.
“In Yerushalaim?” she breathed. “They cry Hosanna in Yerushalaim?”
“Yea,” said her sister. “And Halphaï told me, even the little children
cried, ‘Hosanna to the son of David!’”
The carpenter was crumbling a mazzo with nervous fingers; an angry vein
swelled on his forehead. “And Pilatus permitted this?” he cried.
“Patience, Reb Yussef!” said Halphaï. “There is more to come. For,
growing yet more swollen in his presumption, Yeshua went to the Holy
Temple, and, entering the Court of the Gentiles, where sit those who
sell the sheep and the oxen and doves, instead of purchasing a sacrifice
for his sins, he drove them all out with a scourge of small cords and
poured out the changers’ money!”
Horror held the household dumb. I saw Halphaï look round complacently,
as though compensated for his hot ride to Nazara. “And ye know what
profit Hanan makes out of his bazaars,” he added significantly.
The mother was wringing her hands. “Hanan will never forgive him,” she
cried. “They will kill him as they killed Jochanan the Baptizer.”
“Peace, woman,” said Yussef impatiently. “The High Priest and the Elders
will but drive him from the city.”
“Nay, nay,” said Halphaï. “They hold him captive. And his disciples are
fled. All save Yudas, who led a multitude with swords and staves to find
him. And Shimeon-bar-Yonah too is taken, merely because his speech
betrayeth him as a Galilæan. How then should _I_ dare stay, who have the
ill-hap to be married to his mother’s sister!”
The little mother was moving towards the door. Her husband stopped her.
“Whither goest thou?”
“To saddle the ass. I must to Yerushalaim!”
“Thou!”
“Who else? Shall that yellow-veiled woman of Magdala give him comfort?”
“And will he take comfort from _thee_? Doth he not teach his followers
to hate their father and their mother? And doth he not scoff at the womb
that bare him?”
“Not he, but his demon,” she answered obstinately, and pressed forward
again.
His brow grew black. “But it is the Sabbath!”
“It is my first-born.”
“Thou speakest more foolishly than Job’s wife. Now we see whence Yeshua
sucked his blasphemies.”
“It is my first-born!” she repeated more frenziedly.
“Thy first-born! But did he keep to-day the Fast of the First-born?”
“Let her go, Yussef,” pleaded Halphaï. “As Rabbi Hillel taught (his
memory for a blessing), the Sabbath was handed to man, not man to the
Sabbath!”
“And the wife to the husband,” retorted Yussef, “not the husband to the
wife. I forbid thee, Miriam, to disturb the Passover peace. Go—and I
put thee away publicly!”
She blenched and sank back on the divan. “Peace?” she moaned. “Thou
callest this peace!”
“Obey thy lord, Miriam! _I_ will go.” And Halphaï’s wife stooped and
kissed her.
Miriam burst into loud sobs. She caught her sister to her breast, and
the two women mingled their tears.
The carpenter shrugged his shoulders. “Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who
hast not made me a woman,” he said drily.
* * * * *
The walls of the little room seemed higher, the light stronger, the
prayer devouter, the company more numerous. Instead of the two little
Sabbath candles and the earthenware dishes, I saw a barbaric blaze of
gold and rich stuffs and jewels, and my eyes blinked before the flames
of tall candles shining in gold candlesticks on a magnificent altar, in
the niche of which stood a black cedar-wood idol, crowned and holding a
crowned doll, and wrapped in a marvellous ornate vestment widening out
like a bell. Over my head around the rough, liver-coloured stone walls
hung lamps and bronzes and candles held by Cupids, and gilded busts, and
medallions and hearts and bronze reliefs and pictures, and even a
cannon-ball, and at my feet surged the white head-shawls of prostrate
worshippers, like a great wave breaking on the crimson steps of the
altar.
And gradually I became aware that the room had now doors on the right
and the left, and these of bronze and wondrously wrought after the
fashion of the Renaissance, through which a stream of worshippers
poured, kissing the bronze as they passed in and out. And following one
stream and vaguely looking for Miriam and her husband and the Passover
table, I was borne back into the room, through another door, and now
found myself in a narrow and still more crowded space at the back of the
altar, where the gorgeous jewelled black idol with her doll stood in her
niche in the gleam of ever-burning silver lamps, and I saw a golden
eagle in a yellow sun flying over her head, and over the eagle two
gilded angels holding a glittering wreath, and still higher, through a
hole in the roof, as riding on clouds, a blue-mantled Mother and Child
among a soaring escort of angels, while near the floor I beheld a large
metal box with a yawning slit, into which a kneeling, weeping press of
people rained money.
“_Il Santo Camino, signore!_” said an ingratiating voice, and looking up
I perceived at my side a beadle with a wand.
“The holy kitchen?” I repeated in amaze.
“_Si, signore._ Here is the hearth at which the Madonna cooked for the
Holy Family.”
He pointed to the money-box, and I now indeed recognised the fireplace
whence Miriam had taken the roasted bone and egg. But it had moved to
another side of the living-room, unless I was confused by the altar
planted in the place of the Passover table.
“Then this is the house of Nazara?” I said in a whisper, for, dazed as I
was, I feared to disturb the worshippers.
“_Sicuro!_” He smiled reassuringly. “_La Santa Casa!_ Here the Holy
Family abode in the peace and love of the Holy Ghost. And here there is
Plenary Indulgence every day in the year. _Ecco!_ One of their pots!”
And he produced a terra-cotta vessel, not unlike one I had seen the
little olive-eyed woman wiping, save that it was lined with gold and
adorned with bas-reliefs of the Manger and the Annunciation.
“That must have cost money,” I murmured feebly.
“_Già_,” he assented complacently. “And behold the _Madonna Nera_,
carved by St. Luke. Her attire is worth 1,800,000 lire.”
“_Come?_” I gasped.
He spurned a sobbing peasant-woman with his foot and cleared a space
with his staff that he might plant me at the centre of the money-box.
“_Passi_,” he said pleasantly, seeing I hesitated to displace these
passionate souls. “Regard the jewels and precious stones of her robe,
the diamonds, emeralds, and pearls in her crown, the collars of Oriental
pearl, the rings, the crosses of topaz and diamonds, the Bambino’s
diamond necklace, the ring on his finger, the medallion with the great
diamonds given by the King of Saxony——” He trolled off the glittering
catalogue, on and on, in a joyous, dominant voice, to which the sighs
and groans of the worshippers made an undertone. Countesses and
Cardinals, Popes and Marchese had vied in dressing the idol, and
decorating the kitchen. “And you must see the Treasury,” he wound up.
“Gifts from all the royal houses of Europe to Our Lady of Loreto!”
“Loreto?” I repeated dully.
He looked at me sharply, as at a scoffer.
“But how did the Holy House get to Loreto?” I added hastily.
“It was carried by angels,” he answered simply.
“But when?”
“On the night of the tenth of December in the year 1294 from the bearing
of the Virgin.”
“Who saw it carried?”
“You are an Englishman,” he answered briefly. “You shall see it in
English.”
He made a path through the praying crowd, and I followed him without,
and my breath failed me as I became aware that the Holy House was
inclosed in a precious outer casing of marble, carved with beautiful
reliefs of the life and death of the Virgin, holding all round its four
lofty walls niches with statues of prophets and sybils and other
gleaming altars, each with its surf of worshippers, and that this
marvellous screen, so rich in the work of the Masters, was itself
engirdled by a vast high-domed church with rich-dyed windows, gilded
like a Venetian palace and full of arches and pillars and altars and
chapels and mosaics and statues and busts and thick-populated frescoes,
while from the centre of the choir windows a haloed Lady in a blue
mantle gazed down upon her white-hooded ghostly worshippers filling the
nave. And all around her from the interlacing of the arches and from the
painted walls haloes gleamed like a firmament of crescent moons.
“Behold there!” said the beadle, pointing with his staff, and I saw that
round the projecting base of the marble walls ran two deep parallel
furrows. “Worn in the stone by the knees of six centuries of pilgrims,”
he said pleasantly. “Of course there are not many to-day, being an
ordinary Sunday, but in the year there are a hundred thousand, and in
the season of the pilgrimages, or on the Feast of the Assumption——” An
expressive gesture wound up the sentence.
We passed along the aisles, just peeping into the copious chapels, all
pervaded by the ubiquitous Maria in picture or mosaic, in statue or
bas-relief—Maria Immaculate, Maria the Virgin, Maria the Mother of God,
Maria the Compassionate, Maria the Mediatress, Maria Crowned; and the
marriage of Maria, and her death, and the visit to Elizabeth, and the
Annunciation, and her family tree, and the disputes of the Sorbonne over
the dogmas concerning her. And as we walked the organ began pealing, and
priests and choristers chanted.
“_Ecco!_” cried the beadle, as he stopped in the left aisle and pointed
to a great black-framed slate between two altars. “In your own English!”