第32章 THE DOOR OF UNREST(3)

His body, whin he killed himself, was pitched into a lake on the Alps mountains.Now, listen to the job that 'tis mine to perform on the night of ivery Good Friday.The ould divil goes down in the pool and drags up Pontius, and the water is bilin' and spewin' like a wash pot.And the ould divil sets the body on top of a throne on the rocks, and thin comes me share of the job.Oh, sir, ye would pity me thin -- ye would pray for the poor Wandering Jew that niver was a Jew if ye could see the horror of the thing that I must do.'Tis I that must fetch a bowl of water and kneel down before it till it washes its hands.I declare to ye that Pontius Pilate, a man dead two hundred years, dragged up with the lake slime coverin' him and fishes wrigglin' inside of him widout eyes, and in the discomposition of the body, sits there, sir, and washes his hands in the bowl I hold for him on Good Fridays.'Twas so commanded."Clearly, the matter had progressed far beyond the scope of the _Bugle's_local column.There might have been employment here for the alienist or for those who circulate the pledge; but I had had enough of it.I got up, and repeated that I must go.

At this he seized my coat, grovelled upon my desk, and burst again into distressful weeping.Whatever it was about, I said to myself that his grief was genuine.

"Come now, Mr.Ader," I said, soothingly; "what is the matter?"The answer came brokenly through his racking sobs:

"Because I would not...let the poor Christ...rest...upon the step."His hallucination seemed beyond all reasonable answer; yet the effect of it upon him scarcely merited disrespect.But I knew nothing that might assuage it; and I told him once more that both of us should be leaving the office at once.

Obedient at last, he raised himself from my dishevelled desk, and permitted me to half lift him to the floor.The gale of his grief had blown away his words; his freshet of tears had soaked away the crust of his grief.Reminiscence died in him -- at least, the coherent part of it.

"'Twas me that did it," he muttered, as I led him toward the door -- "me, the shoemaker of Jerusalem."I got him to the sidewalk, and in the augmented light I saw that his face was seared and lined and warped by a sadness almost incredibly the product of a single lifetime.

And then high up in the firmamental darkness we heard the clamant cries of some great, passing birds.My Wandering Jew lifted his hand, with side-tilted head.

"The Seven Whistlers!" he said, as one introduces well-known friends.

"Wild geese," said I; "but I confess that their number is beyond me.""They follow me everywhere," he said."'Twas so commanded.What ye hear is the souls of the seven Jews that helped with the Crucifixion.

Sometimes they're plovers and sometimes geese, but ye'll find them always flyin' where I go."I stood, uncertain how to take my leave.I looked down the street, shuffled my feet, looked back again -- and felt my hair rise.The old man had disappeared.

And then my capillaries relaxed, for I dimly saw him footing it away through the darkness.But he walked so swiftly and silently and contrary to the gait promised by his age that my composure was not all restored, though I knew not why.

That night I was foolish enough to take down some dust-covered volumes from my modest shelves.I searched "Hermippus Redivvus" and "Salathiel"and the "Pepys Collection" in vain.And then in a book called "The Citizen of the World," and in one two centuries old, I came upon what Idesired.Michob Ader had indeed come to Paris in the year 1643, and related to the _Turkish Spy_ an extraordinary story.He claimed to be the Wandering Jew, and that --But here I fell asleep, for my editorial duties had not been light that day.

Judge Hoover was the _Bugle's_ candidate for congress.Having to confer with him, I sought his home early the next morning; and we walked together down town through a little street with which I was unfamiliar.

"Did you ever hear of Michob Ader?" I asked him, smiling.