



Produced by David Widger and Pat Castevens





THE WANDERING JEW

By Eugene Sue



BOOK VIII.



PART THIRD.--THE REDEMPTION.


I.        The Wandering Jew's Chastisement
II.       The Descendants of the Wandering Jew
III.      The Attack
IV.       The Wolves and the Devourers
V.        The Return
VI.       The Go-Between
VII.      Another Secret
VIII.     The Confession
IX.       Love
X.        The Execution
XI.       The Champs-Elysees
XII.      Behind the Scenes
XIII.     Up with the Curtain
XIV.      Death



PART THIRD.--THE REDEMPTION.



CHAPTER I.

THE WANDERING JEW'S CHASTISEMENT.

'Tis night--the moon is brightly shining, the brilliant stars are
sparkling in a sky of melancholy calmness, the shrill whistlings of a
northerly wind--cold, bleak, and evil-bearing--are increasing: winding
about, and bursting into violent blasts, with their harsh and hissing
gusts, they are sweeping the heights of Montmartre. A man is standing on
the very summit of the hill; his lengthened shadow, thrown out by the
moon's pale beams, darkens the rocky ground in the distance. The
traveller is surveying the huge city lying at his feet--the City of
Paris--from whose profundities are cast up its towers, cupolas, domes,
and steeples, in the bluish moisture of the horizon; while from the very
centre of this sea of stones is rising a luminous vapor, reddening the
starry azure of the sky above. It is the distant light of a myriad lamps
which at night, the season for pleasure, is illuminating the noisy
capital.

"No!" said the traveller, "it will not be. The Lord surely will not
suffer it. Twice is quite enough. Five centuries ago, the avenging hand
of the Almighty drove me hither from the depths of Asia. A solitary
wanderer, I left in my track more mourning, despair, disaster, and death,
than the innumerable armies of a hundred devastating conquerors could
have produced. I then entered this city, and it was decimated. Two
centuries ago that inexorable hand which led me through the world again
conducted me here; and on that occasion, as on the previous one, that
scourge, which at intervals the Almighty binds to my footsteps, ravaged
this city, attacking first my brethren, already wearied by wretchedness
and toil. My brethren! through me--the laborer of Jerusalem, cursed by
the Lord, who in my person cursed the race of laborers--a race always
suffering, always disinherited, always slaves, who like me, go on, on,
on, without rest or intermission, without recompense, or hope; until at
length, women, men, children, and old men, die under their iron yoke of
self-murder, that others in their turn then take up, borne from age to
age on their willing but aching shoulders. And here again, for the third
time, in the course of five centuries, I have arrived at the summit of
one of the hills which overlooks the city; and perhaps I bring again with
me terror, desolation, and death. And this unhappy city, intoxicated in a
whirl of joys, and nocturnal revelries, knows nothing about it--oh! it
knows not that I am at its very gate. But no! no! my presence will not be
a source of fresh calamity to it. The Lord, in His unsearchable wisdom,
has brought me hither across France, making me avoid on my route all but
the humblest villages, so that no increase of the funeral knell has,
marked my journey. And then, moreover, the spectre has left me--that
spectre, livid and green, with its deep bloodshot eyes. When I touched
the soil of France, its moist and icy hand abandoned mine--it
disappeared. And yet I feel the atmosphere of death surrounding me still.
There is no cessation; the biting gusts of this sinister wind, which
envelop me in their breath, seem by their envenomed breath to propagate
the scourge. Doubtless the anger of the Lord is appeased. Maybe, my
presence here is meant only as a threat, intending to bring those to
their senses whom it ought to intimidate. It must be so; for were it
otherwise, it would, on the contrary, strike a loud-sounding blow of
greater terror, casting at once dread and death into the very heart of
the country, into the bosom of this immense city. Oh, no! no! the Lord
will have mercy; He will not condemn me to this new affliction. Alas! in
this city my brethren are more numerous and more wretched than in any
other. And must I bring death to them? No! the Lord will have mercy; for,
alas! the seven descendants of my sister are at last all united in this
city. And must I bring death to them? Death! instead of that immediate
assistance they stand so much in need of? For that woman who, like
myself, wanders from one end of the world into the other, has gone now on
her everlasting journey,