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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #74802 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74802)
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-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74802 ***
-
-
-
-                           THE SWEET MIRACLE
-
-
-
-First Edition, September 1904
-Second Edition, December 1904
-
-
-
-
-                               THE SWEET
-                                MIRACLE
-
-
-
-
-                           BY EÇA DE QUEIROZ
-
-
-                         DONE INTO ENGLISH BY
-                            EDGAR PRESTAGE
-                          OF THE LISBON ROYAL
-                          ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
-                          TRANSLATOR OF “THE
-                        LETTERS OF A PORTUGUESE
-                                 NUN”
-
-
-
-
-
-                         LONDON -- DAVID NUTT
-                    AT THE SIGN OF THE PHŒNIX 1904
-
-
-
-
-                             TO MY MOTHER
-
-
-
-
- Et circuibat Jesus omnes civitates et castella, docens in synagogis
- eorum et praedicans evangelium regn et curans cranem languorera et
- omnem infirmitatem.
-
- Evangelium secundum Mattbaeum, caput IX.
-
-
-
-
-PREFATORY NOTE
-
-
-_EÇA DE QUEIROZ (born 1846, died 1900) was probably Portugal’s greatest
-prose-writer of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. He is
-known to us mainly by that splendid romance, cousin basil, which has
-appeared In English under the title of “Dragon’s Teeth,”_[1] _but the_
-CORRESPONDENCE OF FRADIQUE MENDES _reveals a versatility of talent in
-this satyrist, observer, and critic of life which even the foremost
-novelists have lacked, and_ THE CITY AND THE MOUNTAINS _contains pages
-of landscape-painting which are already classical. The prose-poem here
-translated shows that his journey through Palestine had penetrated the
-Master of Realism with the spirit of the East and calls to mind scenes
-in another book of his,_ THE RELIC, _which sounds like an echo of
-Flaubert. The frontispiece is a copy of a striking water-colour sketch
-by the King of Portugal offered to the Count of Arnoso on the occasion
-of the fifteenth representation of the tatter’s charming dramatised
-version of “The Sweet Miracle.” His Majesty has graciously approved and
-the Count has very kindly permitted its reproduction here._
-
-_Other short stories of Eça de Queiroz will follow if the present one
-continues to meet with a favourable reception._
-
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-
-[Footnote 1: _Boston, U.S.A., 1889._]
-
-
-
-
-THE SWEET MIRACLE
-
-
-IN those days Jesus had not yet departed from Galilee and the fair
-luminous margins of the Lake of Tiberias; but the news of his miracles
-had already penetrated as far as Enganim, a rich city of strong
-battlements set among vineyards and olive-groves in the Country of
-Issachar.
-
-One afternoon there passed down the fresh valley a man of burning,
-dazzled eyes, who announced that a new Prophet, a handsome Rabbi, was
-traversing, the plains and villages of Galilee, foretelling the coming
-of the Kingdom of God, and curing all human ills. And while he sat
-and rested beside the Fountain of the Orchards, he went on to tell how
-this Rabbi had healed the slave of a Roman Decurion of leprosy on the
-Magdala Road, merely by spreading over him the shadow of his hands;
-and how, another morning, he had crossed by boat to the Country of the
-Gerasenes where the balsam-harvest was commencing, and had raised to
-life the daughter of Jairus, a man of consideration and learning who
-expounded the Sacred Books in the Synagogue. And when the husbandmen
-and shepherds round about, and the dark women with water-pots on their
-shoulders, inquired of him in their wonderment if this was in truth
-the Messias of Judah, and whether the sword of fire shone before him,
-and if the shadows of Gog and Magog, like the shadows of twin towers,
-walked on either side of him--the man, without even a draught of
-that thrice-cold water of which Joshua had drunk, took up his staff,
-shook his hair, and made his way pensively beneath the aqueduct, and
-straightway disappeared from sight in the mass of flowering almond
-trees. But a hope, delightful as the dew in the month when the
-grasshopper sings, refreshed these simple souls, and now, through all
-the Plain that stretches its verdure to Ascalon, the plough seemed
-easier to bury in the soil, and the stone of the winepress lighter
-to move; the children, even while they plucked bunches of anemones,
-watched, as they went, for a light to rise past the turn of the wall,
-or under the sycamore, while the aged from their stone seats at the
-city gate ran their fingers through the threads of their beards, and no
-longer unfolded the old sayings with such wise certainty as of yore.
-
-Now there lived then in Enganim an old man, named Obed, of a priestly
-family of Samaria, who had offered sacrifices on the altars of Mount
-Ebal, and was possessed of well-nourished flocks and richly bearing
-vineyards, and a heart as full of pride as his cellar was full of
-wheat. But a dry burnt wind, that wind of desolation, which, at the
-Lord’s command, blows from the savage lands of Assur, had slain the
-fattest beasts of his flocks, and, on the slopes where his vines twined
-round the elms and stretched themselves on the graceful frames, it
-had left nought round the bare trees and pillars save broken twigs,
-shrunken stalks, and leaves eaten by curly blight. And Obed squatted
-at the threshold of his gate with the end of his cloak over his face,
-fingered the dust, lamented his old age, and ruminated complaints
-against a cruel God.
-
-Now as soon as lie heard tell of the new Rabbi of Galilee, who fed
-the multitudes, scared demons, and repaired all misfortunes, Obed,
-who was a man of books, and had travelled in Phenicia, conceived in
-his mind that Jesus must be one of those soothsayers, well-known in
-Palestine, like Apollonius, or Rabbi Ben-Dossa, or Simon the Subtle.
-These men, even when the nights are dark, hold converse with the
-stars, whose secrets to them are ever clear and simple; with a wand
-they drive the gadflies, born in the mud of Egypt, from the standing
-corn, and grasping in their fingers the shadows of trees, they draw
-them like kindly screens over the threshing-floors at the hour of
-rest. Of a surety Jesus of Galilee, a younger man with newer charms,
-would, in return for a liberal largess, bring the mortality among his
-flocks to an end, and make his vineyards green once more. Thereupon
-Obed commanded his servants to set forth and search through all Galilee
-for the new Rabbi, and bring him, with promises of money or goods, to
-Enganim, in the Country of Issachar.
-
-His slaves tightened their leather belts and swung out by the road of
-the caravans that coasts the lake and stretches as far as Damascus.
-One afternoon, over against the West, red as a fully ripe pomegranate,
-they caught sight of the fine snows of Mount Hermon. Next, amid the
-freshness of a soft morning, the Lake of Tiberias shone before them,
-transparent, cloaked in silence, more blue than the heavens, with
-its margins of flowery meadows, dense orchards, porphyry rocks, and
-white terraces amid the palm groves, under the flight of the doves. A
-fisherman, who was engaged in lazily untying his boat from a grassy
-point shaded by oleanders, listened with a smile to the slaves. The
-Rabbi of Nazareth? Oh! since the month of Ijar, the Rabbi with his
-disciples had descended to the sides whither the Jordan bears its
-waters. The slaves set out at a run along the margin of the stream
-until they came in front of the ford where it rests, stretching out in
-a great pool, and for a moment slumbers, motionless and green, beneath
-the tamarinds’ shade. A man of the tribe of the Essenes, clothed from
-head to foot in white linen, was slowly gathering health-giving herbs
-by the water side with a white lambkin in his arms. The slaves humbly
-saluted him, for the people love those men of honest, pure hearts, as
-white as the vestures they wash morning by morning in the purified
-tanks. And did he know of the passing of the new Rabbi of Galilee who,
-like the Essenes, taught sweetness and cured men and cattle? The
-Essene murmured that the Rabbi had crossed the Oasis of Engaddi, and
-had passed further beyond. But where “beyond?” With a bunch of purple
-flowers he had plucked, the Essene pointed to the country over Jordan,
-the plain of Moab. The slaves forded the river and sought Jesus in
-vain, toiling breathlessly up the rough tracks to the cliffs where the
-sinister Citadel of Makaur raises its head. At Jacob’s Well they met a
-great caravan at rest that was carrying into Egypt myrrh, spices, and
-balm of Gilead, and the camel drivers, as they drew out the water in
-their leather buckets, told the slaves of Obed how in Gadara, at the
-new moon, a wonderful Rabbi, greater than David or Isaiah, had torn
-seven devils from the breast of a weaver-woman, and how at his voice
-a man, whose head had been cut off by the robber Barabbas, had risen
-from the tomb, and gone back to his garden. The slaves, still hopeful,
-straightway mounted in haste by the Pilgrim’s Way to Gadara, that city
-of lofty towers, and further on still to the Springs of Amalha. But
-that very morning, followed by a crowd singing and waving branches of
-mimosa, Jesus had embarked on the lake in a fishing smack, and made his
-way under sail towards Magdala. And the slaves of Obed, disheartened,
-passed the ford again by the Bridge of the Daughters of Jacob. One day,
-as they trod the country of Roman Judea, their sandals torn with the
-long ways, they crossed a sombre Pharisee, mounted on a mule, who was
-returning to Ephraim. With devout reverence they stopped the man of
-the Law. Had he met, perchance, this new Prophet of Galilee who, like
-a God walking the earth, sowed miracles as he went? The hooked face of
-the Pharisee darkened in every furrow, and his wrath resounded like a
-proud drum. “Oh! pagan slaves and blasphemers! Where have ye heard of
-prophets or miracles out of Jerusalem? Only Jehovah in His Temple is
-mighty. Ignorant men and impostors come out of Galilee!”
-
-And as the slaves recoiled before his raised fist wrapped round with
-sacred couplets, the furious doctor leapt from his mule and with
-stones from the road pelted the slaves of Obed, howling Racca! Racca!
-and all the ritual curses. The slaves fled to Enganim, and great was
-the sorrow of Obed because his flocks were dying and his vineyards were
-scorched, and all the time, radiant like the dawn behind the mountains,
-the fame of Jesus of Galilee, consoling and full of Divine promises,
-grew and increased.
-
-At that time a Roman Centurion, named Publius Septimus, had command
-of the fort which dominates the valley of Cesarea as far as the city
-and the sea. A rough man and a veteran of Tiberius’ campaign against
-the Parthians, Publius had grown rich with prizes and plunder during
-the revolt of Samaria. He owned mines in Attica, and enjoyed, as a
-supreme favour of the Gods, the friendship of Flaccus, the Imperial
-Legate in Syria. But a sorrow gnawed his boundless prosperity, even
-as a worm gnaws a very succulent fruit. His only daughter, dearer to
-him than life and fortune, was pining away with a slow subtle malady
-which escaped even the wisdom of the doctors and magicians whom he
-sent to consult at Tyre and Sidon. White and sad like the moon in a
-cemetery, uncomplaining, with pallid smiles for her father, she grew
-weaker and more frail as she sat on the high esplanade of the fort
-under an awning, and stretched her sad dark eyes with longing regret
-over the blue of the Tyrian Sea by which she had sailed from Italy
-in a rich galley. Now and then, at her side, a legionary between
-the battlements aimed an arrow carelessly aloft and pierced a great
-eagle as it flew with serene wing in the rutilant sky. The daughter
-of Septimus followed the bird for a moment as it turned over and over
-until it crashed dead on the rocks, then with a sigh, sadder and more
-pale, began once more to gaze at the sea. Now Septimus, having heard
-the merchants of Chorazim tell of this wonderful Rabbi whose power
-over the Spirits was such that he cured the dark troubles of the soul,
-despatched three decuria of soldiers with orders to search for him
-through Galilee and in all the cities of Decapolis as far as the coast
-and up to Ascalon. The soldiers put up their shields in the canvas
-bags, fixed boughs of the olive tree in their helmets, and hurriedly
-departed, their iron-shod sandals resounding on the basalt slabs of the
-Roman road which cuts the whole Tetrarchate of Herod from Cesarea to
-the Lake. At night their arms shone out on the tops of the hills amid
-the waving flames of the torches they bore aloft. By day they invaded
-the homesteads, searched through the thickest apple orchards, and drove
-the points of their lances into the haystacks, and the frightened
-women, to appease them, hastened in with cakes of honey, new figs, and
-bowls full of wine, which they drank at one draught as they sat in the
-shade of the sycamores. In this way they traversed Lower Galilee--but
-of the Rabbi all they found was his bright track in the hearts of the
-people. Wearied with futile marching, and suspecting that the Jews were
-concealing their wonder-worker lest the Romans should avail themselves
-of his superior magic, they let loose a tumult of anger as they passed
-through the pious subject-land. At the entrance to bridges they stopped
-the Pilgrims, shouting the name of the Rabbi, tearing the veils from
-the virgins’ faces, and, at the hour when pitchers are filled at the
-cisterns, they invaded the narrow streets of towns, penetrated into
-the Synagogues and beat sacrilegiously with their sword hilts on the
-Thebahs--the holy Arks of cedar which enclosed the Sacred Books. In the
-environs of Hebron they dragged the Hermits by the beard from their
-caves to draw from them the name of the desert or palm grove where
-the Rabbi was hid, and two Phœnician merchants who were coming from
-Joppa with a cargo of malobatrum, and who had never heard the name of
-Jesus, paid one hundred drachmas for this crime to each Decurion. And
-now the peasantry, and even the wild shepherds of Idumea who bring in
-the white beasts for the Temple, fled in terror to the mountains as
-soon as they saw the arms of the violent band glittering at some turn
-of the road; while from the edge of the terraces the old women shook
-the ends of their dishevelled hair like bags, and flung ill-luck at
-them, invoking the vengeance of Elias. In this tumult they wandered
-as far as Ascalon, but failed to find Jesus, and returning along the
-coast they buried their sandals in the burning sands. One morning near
-Cesarea, as they were marching in a valley, they caught sight of a
-dark green grove of laurels on a hill, among which the elegant bright
-portico of a temple shone white in its retirement. An old man of long
-white beard, crowned with laurel leaves, clothed in a saffron tunic and
-holding a short three-stringed lyre, was gravely awaiting the rising of
-the sun on the marble steps. Down below, the soldiers waved a branch
-of olive and shouted to the priest. Did he know a new Prophet who had
-arisen in Galilee and who was so clever in miracles that he raised the
-dead to life, and changed water into wine? Quietly extending his arms,
-the serene old man cried out over the dewy verdure of the valley--“Ye
-Romans, believe ye that prophets appear working miracles in Galilee
-or Judea? How can a barbarian alter the order established by Zeus?
-Magicians and soothsayers are pedlars who murmur empty words to snatch
-an alms from simple folk. Without the permission of the Immortals, not
-a withered branch can fall from the tree, not a dry leaf be shaken.
-There are no prophets, no miracles.... The Delphic Apollo alone knoweth
-the secret of things!”
-
-Slowly then, with heads cast down as after a defeat, the soldiers
-returned to the fortress of Cesarea, and great was the despair of
-Septimus because his daughter was dying, and no complaint did she
-utter, but gazed as she lay there at the Tyrian Sea, and all the while
-the fame of Jesus, the healer of lingering maladies, grew ever fresher
-and more consoling, like the afternoon breeze that blows from Hermon
-and revives and lifts the drooping lilies in the gardens.
-
-Now between Enganim and Cesarea, in a wretched hut sunk in the cleft
-of a hillock, there lived at this time a widow, the most miserable of
-all the women in Israel. Her only son, a little boy crippled in every
-part, had passed from the lean breasts at which she had suckled him
-to the rags of a rotting mattress, where he had lain starving and
-groaning now seven years. And her, too, sickness had shrivelled within
-her never-changed rags until she was darker and more contorted than
-an uprooted vine. And, over the twain, misery had grown thick as the
-mould over broken potsherds lost in a desert. Even the oil in their
-red clay lamp had long since dried up, and neither seed nor crust was
-left in the painted chest. In the summer, their goat had died for lack
-of pasture; next, the fig-tree in the garden ceased to bear. So far
-were they from an inhabited place that no alms of bread or honey ever
-entered their door. Herbs plucked in the fissures of the rocks and
-cooked without salt were all that nourished those creatures of God in
-the Chosen Land where even birds of ill omen had enough and to spare!
-
-One day a beggar entered the hut and shared his wallet with the
-sorrowing mother, and as he sat for a moment at the hearthstone and
-scratched the wounds in his legs, he told of the great hope of the
-afflicted, this Rabbi who had appeared in Galilee and of one loaf in
-a basket made seven, and how he loved all little children and dried
-all tears, and promised the poor a great and luminous kingdom of more
-abundance than the Court of Solomon. The woman listened with famished
-eyes. And this sweet Rabbi, this hope of the sorrowful, where was he to
-be found? The beggar sighed. Ah, this sweet Rabbi! How many had longed
-for him and been disappointed! His fame was going over all Judea like
-the sun that leaves not even a stretch of old wall without its blessed
-rays, yet only those fortunate ones chosen of his will could gain a
-sight of his fair countenance.
-
-Obed, the rich, had sent his slaves throughout all Galilee to search
-for Jesus and bring him with promises to Enganim: Septimus, the
-powerful, had despatched his soldiers as far as the sea coast to find
-Jesus and conduct him by his orders to Cesarea. As he wandered and
-begged his bread on many a road, he had met the slaves of Obed and then
-the legionaries of Septimus. And all had returned like beaten men,
-their sandals torn, without having discovered the wood or city, hovel
-or palace, where Jesus lay hid.
-
-The evening was falling. The beggar took up his staff and descended
-by the hard track between the heather and the rocks, while the mother
-returned to her corner more cast down and desolate than before. And
-then in a murmur, weaker than the brush of a wing, her little son
-begged his mother to bring him this Rabbi who loved even the poorest
-little children and healed even the longest sicknesses. The mother
-clasped his tangled head and said:
-
-“Oh, my son! How canst thou ask me to leave thee and set out on the
-road in search of the Rabbi of Galilee? Obed is rich and hath slaves,
-and in vain they sought Jesus over hills, and through sandy plains
-from Chorazim to the Country of Moab. Septimus is mighty and hath
-soldiers, yet in vain they hunted for Jesus from Hebron to the sea!
-How canst thou ask me to leave thee? Jesus is afar off, and our grief
-abideth with us within these walls and imprisons us between them. And
-were I to meet with him, how should I persuade this longed-for Rabbi,
-for whom the rich and mighty sigh, to come down from city to city as
-far as this solitude in order to cure such a poor little impotent on
-such a ragged mattress!”
-
-But the child, with two long tears on its thin little face, murmured:
-“Mother, Jesus loveth all the little ones. And I am still so small
-and have such a heavy sickness and should so like to be cured!” To
-which the mother sobbing: “child of mine how can I leave thee? The
-roads of Galilee are long, and the pity of men is short. So ragged, so
-limping, so sorrowful am I, that even the dogs would bark at me from
-the homestead doors. None would give ear to my message, none would show
-me the dwelling-place of the sweet Rabbi. And, my child! perhaps Jesus
-is dead, for not even the rich or the mighty meet with him. Heaven
-sent him. Heaven hath taken him away. And with him the hopes of the
-sorrowful have died for ever.” The child raised his trembling little
-hands from out of his dark rags and murmured: “Mother, I want to see
-Jesus.”
-
-And immediately, opening the door slowly and smiling, Jesus said to the
-Child: “I am here.”
-
-
-
-
-BALLANTYNE PRESS
-
-
-
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74802 ***
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-<span class="large">THE SWEET MIRACLE</span></p>
-
-
-<p class="nindc">First Edition, September 1904<br>
-Second Edition, December 1904 </p>
-
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-
-<h1>THE SWEET
-MIRACLE</h1>
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-
-
-
-<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2">
-<span class="large">BY EÇA DE QUEIROZ</span></p>
-
-
-<p class="nindc">
-<span class="allsmcap">DONE INTO ENGLISH BY</span><br>
-EDGAR PRESTAGE<br>
-<span class="allsmcap">OF THE LISBON ROYAL</span><br>
-<span class="allsmcap">ACADEMY OF SCIENCES</span><br>
-<span class="allsmcap">TRANSLATOR OF “THE</span><br>
-<span class="allsmcap">LETTERS OF A PORTUGUESE</span><br>
-<span class="allsmcap">NUN”</span></p>
-
-
-<figure class="figcenter width120" id="logo">
-<img src="images/logo.jpg" width="90" height="89" alt="logo">
-</figure>
-
-
-
-<p class="nindc space-above2">LONDON — DAVID NUTT<br>
-<span class="allsmcap">AT THE SIGN OF THE PHŒNIX 1904</span>
-</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p class="nindc">
-TO MY MOTHER
-</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-<div class="chapter">
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p class="nind">
-Et circuibat Jesus omnes civitates et castella, docens in synagogis
-eorum et praedicans evangelium regn et curans cranem languorera et
-omnem infirmitatem.</p>
-
-<p class="right">Evangelium secundum Mattbaeum, caput IX.</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFATORY_NOTE">PREFATORY NOTE</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p class="nind">
-<i><span class="allsmcap">EÇA DE QUEIROZ</span> (born 1846, died
-1900) was probably Portugal’s greatest prose-writer of the last
-quarter of the nineteenth century. He is known to us mainly by that
-splendid romance, cousin basil, which has appeared In English under
-the title of “Dragon’s Teeth,”</i><a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
-<i>but the</i> CORRESPONDENCE OF FRADIQUE MENDES <i>reveals a
-versatility of talent in this satyrist, observer, and critic of life
-which even the foremost novelists have lacked, and</i> THE CITY AND THE
-MOUNTAINS <i>contains pages of landscape-painting which are already
-classical. The prose-poem here translated shows that his journey
-through Palestine had penetrated the Master of Realism with the spirit
-of the East and calls to mind scenes in another book of his,</i> THE
-RELIC, <i>which sounds like an echo of Flaubert. The frontispiece is a
-copy of a striking water-colour sketch by the King of Portugal offered
-to the Count of Arnoso on the occasion of the fifteenth representation
-of the tatter’s charming dramatised version of “The Sweet Miracle.” His
-Majesty has graciously approved and the Count has very kindly permitted
-its reproduction here.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>Other short stories of Eça de Queiroz will follow if the present one
-continues to meet with a favourable reception.</i></p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a>
-<i>Boston, U.S.A., 1889.</i></p>
-
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_SWEET_MIRACLE">THE SWEET MIRACLE</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p class="nind">
-<span class="dropcap">I</span>N those days Jesus had not yet departed
-from Galilee and the fair luminous margins of the Lake of Tiberias; but
-the news of his miracles had already penetrated as far as Enganim, a
-rich city of strong battlements set among vineyards and olive-groves in
-the Country of Issachar.</p>
-
-<p>One afternoon there passed down the fresh valley a man of burning,
-dazzled eyes, who announced that a new Prophet, a handsome Rabbi, was
-traversing, the plains and villages of Galilee, foretelling the coming
-of the Kingdom of God, and curing all human ills. And while he sat
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>
-and rested beside the Fountain of the Orchards, he went on to tell how
-this Rabbi had healed the slave of a Roman Decurion of leprosy on the
-Magdala Road, merely by spreading over him the shadow of his hands;
-and how, another morning, he had crossed by boat to the Country of the
-Gerasenes where the balsam-harvest was commencing, and had raised to
-life the daughter of Jairus, a man of consideration and learning who
-expounded the Sacred Books in the Synagogue. And when the husbandmen
-and shepherds round about, and the dark women with water-pots on their
-shoulders, inquired of him in their wonderment if this was in truth
-the Messias of Judah, and whether the sword of fire shone before him,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>
-and if the shadows of Gog and Magog, like the shadows of twin towers,
-walked on either side of him—the man, without even a draught of
-that thrice-cold water of which Joshua had drunk, took up his staff,
-shook his hair, and made his way pensively beneath the aqueduct, and
-straightway disappeared from sight in the mass of flowering almond
-trees. But a hope, delightful as the dew in the month when the
-grasshopper sings, refreshed these simple souls, and now, through all
-the Plain that stretches its verdure to Ascalon, the plough seemed
-easier to bury in the soil, and the stone of the winepress lighter
-to move; the children, even while they plucked bunches of anemones,
-watched, as they went, for a light to rise past the turn of the wall,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>
-or under the sycamore, while the aged from their stone seats at the
-city gate ran their fingers through the threads of their beards, and no
-longer unfolded the old sayings with such wise certainty as of yore.</p>
-
-<p>Now there lived then in Enganim an old man, named Obed, of a priestly
-family of Samaria, who had offered sacrifices on the altars of Mount
-Ebal, and was possessed of well-nourished flocks and richly bearing
-vineyards, and a heart as full of pride as his cellar was full of
-wheat. But a dry burnt wind, that wind of desolation, which, at the
-Lord’s command, blows from the savage lands of Assur, had slain the
-fattest beasts of his flocks, and, on the slopes where his vines twined
-round the elms and stretched themselves on the graceful frames, it
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>
-had left nought round the bare trees and pillars save broken twigs,
-shrunken stalks, and leaves eaten by curly blight. And Obed squatted
-at the threshold of his gate with the end of his cloak over his face,
-fingered the dust, lamented his old age, and ruminated complaints
-against a cruel God.</p>
-
-<p>Now as soon as lie heard tell of the new Rabbi of Galilee, who fed
-the multitudes, scared demons, and repaired all misfortunes, Obed,
-who was a man of books, and had travelled in Phenicia, conceived in
-his mind that Jesus must be one of those soothsayers, well-known in
-Palestine, like Apollonius, or Rabbi Ben-Dossa, or Simon the Subtle.
-These men, even when the nights are dark, hold converse with the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>
-stars, whose secrets to them are ever clear and simple; with a wand
-they drive the gadflies, born in the mud of Egypt, from the standing
-corn, and grasping in their fingers the shadows of trees, they draw
-them like kindly screens over the threshing-floors at the hour of
-rest. Of a surety Jesus of Galilee, a younger man with newer charms,
-would, in return for a liberal largess, bring the mortality among his
-flocks to an end, and make his vineyards green once more. Thereupon
-Obed commanded his servants to set forth and search through all Galilee
-for the new Rabbi, and bring him, with promises of money or goods, to
-Enganim, in the Country of Issachar.</p>
-
-<p>His slaves tightened their leather belts and swung out by the road of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>
-the caravans that coasts the lake and stretches as far as Damascus.
-One afternoon, over against the West, red as a fully ripe pomegranate,
-they caught sight of the fine snows of Mount Hermon. Next, amid the
-freshness of a soft morning, the Lake of Tiberias shone before them,
-transparent, cloaked in silence, more blue than the heavens, with
-its margins of flowery meadows, dense orchards, porphyry rocks, and
-white terraces amid the palm groves, under the flight of the doves. A
-fisherman, who was engaged in lazily untying his boat from a grassy
-point shaded by oleanders, listened with a smile to the slaves. The
-Rabbi of Nazareth? Oh! since the month of Ijar, the Rabbi with his
-disciples had descended to the sides whither the Jordan bears its
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>
-waters. The slaves set out at a run along the margin of the stream
-until they came in front of the ford where it rests, stretching out in
-a great pool, and for a moment slumbers, motionless and green, beneath
-the tamarinds’ shade. A man of the tribe of the Essenes, clothed from
-head to foot in white linen, was slowly gathering health-giving herbs
-by the water side with a white lambkin in his arms. The slaves humbly
-saluted him, for the people love those men of honest, pure hearts, as
-white as the vestures they wash morning by morning in the purified
-tanks. And did he know of the passing of the new Rabbi of Galilee who,
-like the Essenes, taught sweetness and cured men and cattle? The
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>
-Essene murmured that the Rabbi had crossed the Oasis of Engaddi, and
-had passed further beyond. But where “beyond?” With a bunch of purple
-flowers he had plucked, the Essene pointed to the country over Jordan,
-the plain of Moab. The slaves forded the river and sought Jesus in
-vain, toiling breathlessly up the rough tracks to the cliffs where the
-sinister Citadel of Makaur raises its head. At Jacob’s Well they met a
-great caravan at rest that was carrying into Egypt myrrh, spices, and
-balm of Gilead, and the camel drivers, as they drew out the water in
-their leather buckets, told the slaves of Obed how in Gadara, at the
-new moon, a wonderful Rabbi, greater than David or Isaiah, had torn
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>
-seven devils from the breast of a weaver-woman, and how at his voice
-a man, whose head had been cut off by the robber Barabbas, had risen
-from the tomb, and gone back to his garden. The slaves, still hopeful,
-straightway mounted in haste by the Pilgrim’s Way to Gadara, that city
-of lofty towers, and further on still to the Springs of Amalha. But
-that very morning, followed by a crowd singing and waving branches of
-mimosa, Jesus had embarked on the lake in a fishing smack, and made his
-way under sail towards Magdala. And the slaves of Obed, disheartened,
-passed the ford again by the Bridge of the Daughters of Jacob. One day,
-as they trod the country of Roman Judea, their sandals torn with the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>
-long ways, they crossed a sombre Pharisee, mounted on a mule, who was
-returning to Ephraim. With devout reverence they stopped the man of
-the Law. Had he met, perchance, this new Prophet of Galilee who, like
-a God walking the earth, sowed miracles as he went? The hooked face of
-the Pharisee darkened in every furrow, and his wrath resounded like a
-proud drum. “Oh! pagan slaves and blasphemers! Where have ye heard of
-prophets or miracles out of Jerusalem? Only Jehovah in His Temple is
-mighty. Ignorant men and impostors come out of Galilee!”</p>
-
-<p>And as the slaves recoiled before his raised fist wrapped round with
-sacred couplets, the furious doctor leapt from his mule and with
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>
-stones from the road pelted the slaves of Obed, howling Racca! Racca!
-and all the ritual curses. The slaves fled to Enganim, and great was
-the sorrow of Obed because his flocks were dying and his vineyards were
-scorched, and all the time, radiant like the dawn behind the mountains,
-the fame of Jesus of Galilee, consoling and full of Divine promises,
-grew and increased.</p>
-
-<p>At that time a Roman Centurion, named Publius Septimus, had command
-of the fort which dominates the valley of Cesarea as far as the city
-and the sea. A rough man and a veteran of Tiberius’ campaign against
-the Parthians, Publius had grown rich with prizes and plunder during
-the revolt of Samaria. He owned mines in Attica, and enjoyed, as a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>
-supreme favour of the Gods, the friendship of Flaccus, the Imperial
-Legate in Syria. But a sorrow gnawed his boundless prosperity, even
-as a worm gnaws a very succulent fruit. His only daughter, dearer to
-him than life and fortune, was pining away with a slow subtle malady
-which escaped even the wisdom of the doctors and magicians whom he
-sent to consult at Tyre and Sidon. White and sad like the moon in a
-cemetery, uncomplaining, with pallid smiles for her father, she grew
-weaker and more frail as she sat on the high esplanade of the fort
-under an awning, and stretched her sad dark eyes with longing regret
-over the blue of the Tyrian Sea by which she had sailed from Italy
-in a rich galley. Now and then, at her side, a legionary between
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>
-the battlements aimed an arrow carelessly aloft and pierced a great
-eagle as it flew with serene wing in the rutilant sky. The daughter
-of Septimus followed the bird for a moment as it turned over and over
-until it crashed dead on the rocks, then with a sigh, sadder and more
-pale, began once more to gaze at the sea. Now Septimus, having heard
-the merchants of Chorazim tell of this wonderful Rabbi whose power
-over the Spirits was such that he cured the dark troubles of the soul,
-despatched three decuria of soldiers with orders to search for him
-through Galilee and in all the cities of Decapolis as far as the coast
-and up to Ascalon. The soldiers put up their shields in the canvas
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>
-bags, fixed boughs of the olive tree in their helmets, and hurriedly
-departed, their iron-shod sandals resounding on the basalt slabs of the
-Roman road which cuts the whole Tetrarchate of Herod from Cesarea to
-the Lake. At night their arms shone out on the tops of the hills amid
-the waving flames of the torches they bore aloft. By day they invaded
-the homesteads, searched through the thickest apple orchards, and drove
-the points of their lances into the haystacks, and the frightened
-women, to appease them, hastened in with cakes of honey, new figs, and
-bowls full of wine, which they drank at one draught as they sat in the
-shade of the sycamores. In this way they traversed Lower Galilee—but
-of the Rabbi all they found was his bright track in the hearts of the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>
-people. Wearied with futile marching, and suspecting that the Jews were
-concealing their wonder-worker lest the Romans should avail themselves
-of his superior magic, they let loose a tumult of anger as they passed
-through the pious subject-land. At the entrance to bridges they stopped
-the Pilgrims, shouting the name of the Rabbi, tearing the veils from
-the virgins’ faces, and, at the hour when pitchers are filled at the
-cisterns, they invaded the narrow streets of towns, penetrated into
-the Synagogues and beat sacrilegiously with their sword hilts on the
-Thebahs—the holy Arks of cedar which enclosed the Sacred Books. In the
-environs of Hebron they dragged the Hermits by the beard from their
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>
-caves to draw from them the name of the desert or palm grove where
-the Rabbi was hid, and two Phœnician merchants who were coming from
-Joppa with a cargo of malobatrum, and who had never heard the name of
-Jesus, paid one hundred drachmas for this crime to each Decurion. And
-now the peasantry, and even the wild shepherds of Idumea who bring in
-the white beasts for the Temple, fled in terror to the mountains as
-soon as they saw the arms of the violent band glittering at some turn
-of the road; while from the edge of the terraces the old women shook
-the ends of their dishevelled hair like bags, and flung ill-luck at
-them, invoking the vengeance of Elias. In this tumult they wandered
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>
-as far as Ascalon, but failed to find Jesus, and returning along the
-coast they buried their sandals in the burning sands. One morning near
-Cesarea, as they were marching in a valley, they caught sight of a
-dark green grove of laurels on a hill, among which the elegant bright
-portico of a temple shone white in its retirement. An old man of long
-white beard, crowned with laurel leaves, clothed in a saffron tunic and
-holding a short three-stringed lyre, was gravely awaiting the rising of
-the sun on the marble steps. Down below, the soldiers waved a branch
-of olive and shouted to the priest. Did he know a new Prophet who had
-arisen in Galilee and who was so clever in miracles that he raised the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>
-dead to life, and changed water into wine? Quietly extending his arms,
-the serene old man cried out over the dewy verdure of the valley—“Ye
-Romans, believe ye that prophets appear working miracles in Galilee
-or Judea? How can a barbarian alter the order established by Zeus?
-Magicians and soothsayers are pedlars who murmur empty words to snatch
-an alms from simple folk. Without the permission of the Immortals, not
-a withered branch can fall from the tree, not a dry leaf be shaken.
-There are no prophets, no miracles.... The Delphic Apollo alone knoweth
-the secret of things!”</p>
-
-<p>Slowly then, with heads cast down as after a defeat, the soldiers
-returned to the fortress of Cesarea, and great was the despair of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>
-Septimus because his daughter was dying, and no complaint did she
-utter, but gazed as she lay there at the Tyrian Sea, and all the while
-the fame of Jesus, the healer of lingering maladies, grew ever fresher
-and more consoling, like the afternoon breeze that blows from Hermon
-and revives and lifts the drooping lilies in the gardens.</p>
-
-<p>Now between Enganim and Cesarea, in a wretched hut sunk in the cleft
-of a hillock, there lived at this time a widow, the most miserable of
-all the women in Israel. Her only son, a little boy crippled in every
-part, had passed from the lean breasts at which she had suckled him
-to the rags of a rotting mattress, where he had lain starving and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>
-groaning now seven years. And her, too, sickness had shrivelled within
-her never-changed rags until she was darker and more contorted than
-an uprooted vine. And, over the twain, misery had grown thick as the
-mould over broken potsherds lost in a desert. Even the oil in their
-red clay lamp had long since dried up, and neither seed nor crust was
-left in the painted chest. In the summer, their goat had died for lack
-of pasture; next, the fig-tree in the garden ceased to bear. So far
-were they from an inhabited place that no alms of bread or honey ever
-entered their door. Herbs plucked in the fissures of the rocks and
-cooked without salt were all that nourished those creatures of God in
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>
-the Chosen Land where even birds of ill omen had enough and to spare!</p>
-
-<p>One day a beggar entered the hut and shared his wallet with the
-sorrowing mother, and as he sat for a moment at the hearthstone and
-scratched the wounds in his legs, he told of the great hope of the
-afflicted, this Rabbi who had appeared in Galilee and of one loaf in
-a basket made seven, and how he loved all little children and dried
-all tears, and promised the poor a great and luminous kingdom of more
-abundance than the Court of Solomon. The woman listened with famished
-eyes. And this sweet Rabbi, this hope of the sorrowful, where was he to
-be found? The beggar sighed. Ah, this sweet Rabbi! How many had longed
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>
-for him and been disappointed! His fame was going over all Judea like
-the sun that leaves not even a stretch of old wall without its blessed
-rays, yet only those fortunate ones chosen of his will could gain a
-sight of his fair countenance.</p>
-
-<p>Obed, the rich, had sent his slaves throughout all Galilee to search
-for Jesus and bring him with promises to Enganim: Septimus, the
-powerful, had despatched his soldiers as far as the sea coast to find
-Jesus and conduct him by his orders to Cesarea. As he wandered and
-begged his bread on many a road, he had met the slaves of Obed and then
-the legionaries of Septimus. And all had returned like beaten men,
-their sandals torn, without having discovered the wood or city, hovel
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>
-or palace, where Jesus lay hid.</p>
-
-<p>The evening was falling. The beggar took up his staff and descended
-by the hard track between the heather and the rocks, while the mother
-returned to her corner more cast down and desolate than before. And
-then in a murmur, weaker than the brush of a wing, her little son
-begged his mother to bring him this Rabbi who loved even the poorest
-little children and healed even the longest sicknesses. The mother
-clasped his tangled head and said:</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, my son! How canst thou ask me to leave thee and set out on the
-road in search of the Rabbi of Galilee? Obed is rich and hath slaves,
-and in vain they sought Jesus over hills, and through sandy plains
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>
-from Chorazim to the Country of Moab. Septimus is mighty and hath
-soldiers, yet in vain they hunted for Jesus from Hebron to the sea!
-How canst thou ask me to leave thee? Jesus is afar off, and our grief
-abideth with us within these walls and imprisons us between them. And
-were I to meet with him, how should I persuade this longed-for Rabbi,
-for whom the rich and mighty sigh, to come down from city to city as
-far as this solitude in order to cure such a poor little impotent on
-such a ragged mattress!”</p>
-
-<p>But the child, with two long tears on its thin little face, murmured:
-“Mother, Jesus loveth all the little ones. And I am still so small
-and have such a heavy sickness and should so like to be cured!” To
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>
-which the mother sobbing: “child of mine how can I leave thee? The
-roads of Galilee are long, and the pity of men is short. So ragged, so
-limping, so sorrowful am I, that even the dogs would bark at me from
-the homestead doors. None would give ear to my message, none would show
-me the dwelling-place of the sweet Rabbi. And, my child! perhaps Jesus
-is dead, for not even the rich or the mighty meet with him. Heaven
-sent him. Heaven hath taken him away. And with him the hopes of the
-sorrowful have died for ever.” The child raised his trembling little
-hands from out of his dark rags and murmured: “Mother, I want to see
-Jesus.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span></p>
-
-<p>And immediately, opening the door slowly and smiling, Jesus said to the
-Child: “I am here.”</p>
-
-
-<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2">BALLANTYNE PRESS</p>
-
-
-<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74802 ***</div>
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