The Wandering Jew — Complete Read online

  The Wandering Jew — Complete

  Eugène Sue

  Eugene Sue based his novel "The Wandering Jew" on a medieval folktale. The legend tells of a man named Ahaseurus who was cursed to walk the Earth until the Second Coming of Christ, as punishment for mocking Jesus as he was led to the cross.

  The novel is set in 19th-century Paris.

  THE WANDERING JEW

  By Eugene Sue

  A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR OF THE WANDERING JEW: EUGENE SUE

  (1804-1857)

  Time and again physicians and seamen have made noteworthy reputations as novelists. But it is rare in the annals of literature that a man trained in both professions should have gained his greatest fame as a writer of novels. Eugene Sue began his career as a physician and surgeon, and then spent six years in the French Navy. In 1830, when he returned to France, he inherited his father's rich estate and was free to follow his inclination to write. His first novel, "Plick et Plock", met with an unexpected success, and he at once foreswore the arts of healing and navigation for the precarious life of a man of letters. With varying success he produced books from his inexhaustible store of personal experiences as a doctor and sailor. In 1837, he wrote an authoritative work on the French Navy, "Histoire de la marine Francaise".

  More and more the novel appealed to his imagination and suited his gifts. His themes ranged from the fabulous to the strictly historical, and he became popular as a writer of romance and fictionized fact. His plays, however, were persistent failures. When he published "The Mysteries of Paris", his national fame was assured, and with the writing of "The Wandering Jew" he achieved world-wide renown. Then, at the height of his literary career, Eugene Sue was driven into exile after Louis Napoleon overthrew the Constitutional Government in a coup d'etat and had himself officially proclaimed Emperor Napoleon III. The author of "The Wandering Jew" died in banishment five years later.

  THE WANDERING JEW.

  First Part.—The Transgression.

  Prologue.

  The Land's End of Two Worlds.

  The Arctic Ocean encircles with a belt of eternal ice the desert confines of Siberia and North America—the uttermost limits of the Old and New worlds, separated by the narrow, channel, known as Behring's Straits.

  The last days of September have arrived.

  The equinox has brought with it darkness and Northern storms, and night will quickly close the short and dismal polar day. The sky of a dull and leaden blue is faintly lighted by a sun without warmth, whose white disk, scarcely seen above the horizon, pales before the dazzling, brilliancy of the snow that covers, as far as the eyes can reach, the boundless steppes.

  To the North, this desert is bounded by a ragged coast, bristling with huge black rocks.

  At the base of this Titanic mass lied enchained the petrified ocean, whose spell-bound waves appear fired as vast ranges of ice mountains, their blue peaks fading away in the far-off frost smoke, or snow vapor.

  Between the twin-peaks of Cape East, the termination of Siberia, the sullen sea is seen to drive tall icebergs across a streak of dead green. There lies Behring's Straits.

  Opposite, and towering over the channel, rise the granite masses of Cape Prince of Wales, the headland of North America.

  These lonely latitudes do not belong to the habitable world; for the piercing cold shivers the stones, splits the trees, and causes the earth to burst asunder, which, throwing forth showers of icy spangles seems capable of enduring this solitude of frost and tempest, of famine and death.

  And yet, strange to say, footprints may be traced on the snow, covering these headlands on either side of Behring's Straits.

  On the American shore, the footprints are small and light, thus betraying the passage of a woman.

  She has been hastening up the rocky peak, whence the drifts of Siberia are visible.

  On the latter ground, footprints larger and deeper betoken the passing of a man. He also was on his way to the Straits.

  It would seem that this man and woman had arrived here from opposite directions, in hope of catching a glimpse of one another, across the arm of the sea dividing the two worlds—the Old and the New.

  More strange still! the man and the woman have crossed the solitudes during a terrific storm! Black pines, the growth of centuries, pointing their bent heads in different parts of the solitude like crosses in a churchyard, have been uprooted, rent, and hurled aside by the blasts!

  Yet the two travellers face this furious tempest, which has plucked up trees, and pounded the frozen masses into splinters, with the roar of thunder.

  They face it, without for one single instant deviating from the straight line hitherto followed by them.

  Who then are these two beings who advance thus calmly amidst the storms and convulsions of nature?

  Is it by chance, or design, or destiny, that the seven nails in the sole of the man's shoe form a cross—thus:

  * * *

  * * *

  * * *

  * * *

  * * *

  Everywhere he leaves this impress behind him.

  On the smooth and polished snow, these footmarks seem imprinted by a foot of brass on a marble floor.

  Night without twilight has soon succeeded day—a night of foreboding gloom.

  The brilliant reflection of the snow renders the white steppes still visible beneath the azure darkness of the sky; and the pale stars glimmer on the obscure and frozen dome.

  Solemn silence reigns.

  But, towards the Straits, a faint light appears.

  At first, a gentle, bluish light, such as precedes moonrise; it increases in brightness, and assumes a ruddy hue.

  Darkness thickens in every other direction; the white wilds of the desert are now scarcely visible under the black vault of the firmament.

  Strange and confused noises are heard amidst this obscurity.

  They sound like the flight of large night—birds—now flapping now-heavily skimming over the steppes-now descending.

  But no cry is heard.

  This silent terror heralds the approach of one of those imposing phenomena that awe alike the most ferocious and the most harmless, of animated beings. An Aurora Borealis (magnificent sight!) common in the polar regions, suddenly beams forth.

  A half circle of dazzling whiteness becomes visible in the horizon. Immense columns of light stream forth from this dazzling centre, rising to a great height, illuminating earth, sea, and sky. Then a brilliant reflection, like the blaze of a conflagration, steals over the snow of the desert, purples the summits of the mountains of ice, and imparts a dark red hue to the black rocks of both continents.

  After attaining this magnificent brilliancy, the Northern Lights fade away gradually, and their vivid glow is lost in a luminous fog.

  Just then, by a wondrous mirage an effect very common in high latitudes, the American Coast, though separated from Siberia by a broad arm of the sea, loomed so close that a bridge might seemingly be thrown from one world to other.

  Then human forms appeared in the transparent azure haze overspreading both forelands.

  On the Siberian Cape, a man on his knees, stretched his arms towards America, with an expression of inconceivable despair.

  On the American promontory, a young and handsome woman replied to the man's despairing gesture by pointing to heaven.

  For some seconds, these two tall figures stood out, pale and shadowy, in the farewell gleams of the Aurora.

  But the fog thickens, and all is lost in the darkness.

  Whence came the two beings, who met thus amidst polar glaciers, at the extremities of the Old and New worlds?

  Who were the two creatures, brought near for a moment by a deceitful mirage, but
who seemed eternally separated?

  CHAPTER I. MOROK.

  The month of October, 1831, draws to its close.

  Though it is still day, a brass lamp, with four burners, illumines the cracked walls of a large loft, whose solitary window is closed against outer light. A ladder, with its top rungs coming up through an open trap leads to it.

  Here and there at random on the floor lie iron chains, spiked collars, saw-toothed snaffles, muzzles bristling with nails, and long iron rods set in wooden handles. In one corner stands a portable furnace, such as tinkers use to melt their spelter; charcoal and dry chips fill it, so that a spark would suffice to kindle this furnace in a minute.

  Not far from this collection of ugly instruments, putting one in mind of a torturer's kit of tools, there are some articles of defence and offence of a bygone age. A coat of mail, with links so flexible, close, and light, that it resembles steel tissue, hangs from a box beside iron cuishes and arm-pieces, in good condition, even to being properly fitted with straps. A mace, and two long three-cornered-headed pikes, with ash handles, strong, and light at the same time; spotted with lately-shed blood, complete the armory, modernized somewhat by the presence of two Tyrolese rifles, loaded and primed.

  Along with this arsenal of murderous weapons and out-of-date instruments, is strangely mingled a collection of very different objects, being small glass-lidded boxes, full of rosaries, chaplets, medals, AGNUS DEI, holy water bottles, framed pictures of saints, etc., not to forget a goodly number of those chapbooks, struck off in Friburg on coarse bluish paper, in which you can hear about miracles of our own time, or "Jesus Christ's Letter to a true believer," containing awful predictions, as for the years 1831 and '32, about impious revolutionary France.

  One of those canvas daubs, with which strolling showmen adorn their booths, hangs from a rafter, no doubt to prevent its being spoilt by too long rolling up. It bore the following legend:

  "THE DOWNRIGHT TRUE AND MOST MEMORABLE CONVERSION OF IGNATIUS MOROK,

  KNOWN AS THE PROPHET, HAPPENING IN FRIBURG, 1828TH YEAR OF GRACE."

  This picture, of a size larger than natural, of gaudy color, and in bad taste, is divided into three parts, each presenting an important phase in the life of the convert, surnamed "The Prophet." In the first, behold a long-bearded man, the hair almost white, with uncouth face, and clad in reindeer skin, like the Siberian savage. His black foreskin cap is topped with a raven's head; his features express terror. Bent forward in his sledge, which half-a-dozen huge tawny dogs draw over the snow, he is fleeing from the pursuit of a pack of foxes, wolves, and big bears, whose gaping jaws, and formidable teeth, seem quite capable of devouring man, sledge, and dogs, a hundred times over. Beneath this section, reads:

  "IN 1810, MOROK, THE IDOLATER, FLED FROM WILD BEASTS."

  In the second picture, Morok, decently clad in a catechumen's white gown kneels, with clasped hands, to a man who wears a white neckcloth, and flowing black robe. In a corner, a tall angel, of repulsive aspect, holds a trumpet in one hand, and flourishes a flaming sword with the other, while the words which follow flow out of his mouth, in red letters on a black ground:

  "MOROK, THE IDOLATER, FLED FROM WILD BEASTS; BUT WILD BEASTS WILL FLEE

  FROM IGNATIUS MOROK, CONVERTED AND BAPTIZED IN FRIBURG."

  Thus, in the last compartment, the new convert proudly, boastfully, and triumphantly parades himself in a flowing robe of blue; head up, left arm akimbo, right hand outstretched, he seems to scare the wits out of a multitude of lions, tigers, hyenas, and bears, who, with sheathed claws, and masked teeth, crouch at his feet, awestricken, and submissive.

  Under this, is the concluding moral:

  "IGNATIUS MOROK BEING CONVERTED, WILD BEASTS CROUCH BEFORE HIM."

  Not far from this canvas are several parcels of halfpenny books, likewise from the Friburg press, which relate by what an astounding miracle Morok, the Idolater, acquired a supernatural power almost divine, the moment he was converted—a power which the wildest animal could not resist, and which was testified to every day by the lion tamer's performances, "given less to display his courage than to show his praise unto the Lord."

  Through the trap-door which opens into the loft, reek up puffs of a rank, sour, penetrating odor. From time to time are heard sonorous growls and deep breathings, followed by a dull sound, as of great bodies stretching themselves heavily along the floor.

  A man is alone in this loft. It is Morok, the tamer of wild beasts, surnamed the Prophet.

  He is forty years old, of middle height, with lank limbs, and an exceedingly spare frame; he is wrapped in a long, blood-red pelisse, lined with black fur; his complexion, fair by nature is bronzed by the wandering life he has led from childhood; his hair, of that dead yellow peculiar to certain races of the Polar countries, falls straight and stiff down his shoulders; and his thin, sharp, hooked nose, and prominent cheek-bones, surmount a long beard, bleached almost to whiteness. Peculiarly marking the physiognomy of this man is the wide open eye, with its tawny pupil ever encircled by a rim of white. This fixed, extraordinary look, exercises a real fascination over animals—which, however, does not prevent the Prophet from also employing, to tame them, the terrible arsenal around him.

  Seated at a table, he has just opened the false bottom of a box, filled with chaplets and other toys, for the use of the devout. Beneath this false bottom, secured by a secret lock, are several sealed envelopes, with no other address than a number, combined with a letter of the alphabet. The Prophet takes one of these packets, conceals it in the pocket of his pelisse, and, closing the secret fastening of the false bottom, replaces the box upon a shelf.

  This scene occurs about four o'clock in the afternoon, in the White Falcon, the only hostelry in the little village of Mockern, situated near Leipsic, as you come from the north towards France.

  After a few moments, the loft is shaken by a hoarse roaring from below.

  "Judas! be quiet!" exclaims the Prophet, in a menacing tone, as he turns his head towards the trap door.

  Another deep growl is heard, formidable as distant thunder.

  "Lie down, Cain!" cries Morok, starting from his seat.

  A third roar, of inexpressible ferocity, bursts suddenly on the ear.

  "Death! Will you have done," cries the Prophet, rushing towards the trap door, and addressing a third invisible animal, which bears this ghastly name.

  Notwithstanding the habitual authority of his voice—notwithstanding his reiterated threats—the brute-tamer cannot obtain silence: on the contrary, the barking of several dogs is soon added to the roaring of the wild beasts. Morok seizes a pike, and approaches the ladder; he is about to descend, when he sees some one issuing from the aperture.

  The new-comer has a brown, sun-burnt face; he wears a gray hat, bell crowned and broad-brimmed, with a short jacket, and wide trousers of green cloth; his dusty leathern gaiters show that he has walked some distance; a game-bag is fastened by straps to his back.

  "The devil take the brutes!" cried he, as he set foot on the floor; "one would think they'd forgotten me in three days. Judas thrust his paw through the bars of his cage, and Death danced like a fury. They don't know me any more, it seems?"

  This was said in German. Morok answered in the same language, but with a slightly foreign accent.

  "Good or bad news, Karl?" he inquired, with some uneasiness.

  "Good news."

  "You've met them!"

  "Yesterday; two leagues from Wittenberg."

  "Heaven be praised!" cried Morok, clasping his hands with intense satisfaction.

  "Oh, of course, 'tis the direct road from Russia to France, 'twas a thousand to one that we should find them somewhere between Wittenberg and Leipsic."

  "And the description?"

  "Very close: two young girls in mourning; horse, white; the old man has long moustache, blue forage-cap; gray topcoat and a Siberian dog at his heels."

  "And where did you leave them?"

  "A league hence. They w
ill be here within the hour."

  "And in this inn—since it is the only one in the village," said Morok, with a pensive air.

  "And night drawing on," added Karl.

  "Did you get the old man to talk?"

  "Him!—you don't suppose it!"

  "Why not?"

  "Go, and try yourself."

  "And for what reason?"

  "Impossible."

  "Impossible—why?"

  "You shall know all about it. Yesterday, as if I had fallen in with them by chance, I followed them to the place where they stopped for the night. I spoke in German to the tall old man, accosting him, as is usual with wayfarers, 'Good-day, and a pleasant journey, comrade!' But, for an answer, he looked askant at me, and pointed with, the end of his stick to the other side of the road."

  "He is a Frenchman, and, perhaps, does not understand German."

  "He speaks it, at least as well as you; for at the inn I heard him ask the host for whatever he and the young girls wanted."

  "And did you not again attempt to engage him in conversation?"

  "Once only; but I met with such a rough reception, that for fear of making mischief, I did not try again. Besides, between ourselves, I can tell you this man has a devilish ugly look; believe me, in spite of his gray moustache, he looks so vigorous and resolute, though with no more flesh on him than a carcass, that I don't know whether he or my mate Giant Goliath, would have the best of it in a struggle. I know not your plans: only take care, master—take care!"

  "My black panther of Java was also very vigorous and very vicious," said Morok, with a grim, disdainful, smile.

  "What, Death? Yes; in truth; and she is vigorous and vicious as ever. Only to you she is almost mild."

  "And thus I will break this tall old man; notwithstanding his strength and surliness."