CHAPTER L. THE RUINS OF THE ABBEY OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST.
The sun is fast sinking. In the depths of an immense piny wood, in themidst of profound solitude, rise the ruins of an abbey, once sacred toSt. John the Baptist. Ivy, moss, and creeping plants, almost entirelyconceal the stones, now black with age. Some broken arches, somewalls pierced with ovals, still remain standing, visible on the darkbackground of the thick wood. Looking down upon this mass of ruins froma broken pedestal, half-covered with ivy, a mutilated, but colossalstatue of stone still keeps its place. This statue is strange and awful.It represents a headless human figure. Clad in the antique toga, itholds in its hand a dish and on that dish is a head. This head is itsown. It is the statue of St. John the Baptist and Martyr, put to deathby wish of Herodias.
The silence around is solemn. From time to time, however, is heard thedull rustling of the enormous branches of the pine-trees, shaken by thewind. Copper-colored clouds, reddened by the setting sun, pass slowlyover the forest, and are reflected in the current of a brook, which,deriving its source from a neighboring mass of rocks, flows through theruins. The water flows, the clouds pass on, the ancient trees tremble,the breeze murmurs.
Suddenly, through the shadow thrown by the overhanging wood, whichstretches far into endless depths, a human form appears. It is a woman.She advances slowly towards the ruins. She has reached them. She treadsthe once sacred ground. This woman is pale, her look sad, her longrobe floats on the wind, her feet covered with dust. She walks withdifficulty and pain. A block of stone is placed near the stream, almostat the foot of the statue of John the Baptist. Upon this stone she sinksbreathless and exhausted, worn out with fatigue. And yet, for many days,many years, many centuries, she has walked on unwearied.
For the first time, she feels an unconquerable sense of lassitude. Forthe first time, her feet begin to fail her. For the first time, she,who traversed, with firm and equal footsteps, the moving lava of torriddeserts, while whole caravans were buried in drifts of fiery sand--whopassed, with steady and disdainful tread, over the eternal snows ofArctic regions, over icy solitudes, in which no other human being couldlive--who had been spared by the devouring flames of conflagrations, andby the impetuous waters of torrents--she, in brief, who for centurieshad had nothing in common with humanity--for the first time suffersmortal pain.
Her feet bleed, her limbs ache with fatigue, she is devoured by burningthirst. She feels these infirmities, yet scarcely dares to believe themreal. Her joy would be too immense! But now, her throat becomes dry,contracted, all on fire. She sees the stream, and throws herself on herknees, to quench her thirst in that crystal current, transparent asa mirror. What happens then? Hardly have her fevered lips touched thefresh, pure water, than, still kneeling, supported on her hands, shesuddenly ceases to drink, and gazes eagerly on the limpid stream.Forgetting the thirst which devours her, she utters a loud cry--a cryof deep, earnest, religious joy, like a note of praise and infinitegratitude to heaven. In that deep mirror, she perceives that she hasgrown older.
In a few days, a few hours, a few minutes, perhaps in a single second,she has attained the maturity of age. She, who for more than eighteencenturies has been as a woman of twenty, carrying through successivegenerations the load of her imperishable youth--she has grown old, andmay, perhaps, at length, hope to die. Every minute of her life may nowbring her nearer to the last home! Transported by that ineffable hope,she rises, and lifts her eyes to heaven, clasping her hands in anattitude of fervent prayer. Then her eyes rest on the tall statue ofstone, representing St. John. The head, which the martyr carries in hishand, seems, from beneath its half-closed granite eyelid, to cast uponthe Wandering Jewess a glance of commiseration and pity. And it was she,Herodias who, in the cruel intoxication of a pagan festival, demandedthe murder of the saint! And it is at the foot of the martyr's image,that, for the first time, the immortality, which weighed on her for somany centuries, seems likely to find a term!
"Oh, impenetrable mystery! oh, divine hope!" she cries. "The wrath ofheaven is at length appeased. The hand of the Lord brings me to thefeet of the blessed martyr, and I begin once more to feel myself ahuman creature. And yet it was to avenge his death, that the same heavencondemned me to eternal wanderings!
"Oh, Lord! grant that I may not be the only one forgiven. Mayhe--the artisan, who like me, daughter of a king, wanders on forcenturies--likewise hope to reach the end of that immense journey!
"Where is he, Lord? where is he? Hast thou deprived me of the power oncebestowed, to see and hear him through the vastness of intervening space?Oh, in this mighty moment, restore me that divine gift--for the more Ifeel these human infirmities, which I hail and bless as the end ofmy eternity of ills, the more my sight loses the power to traverseimmensity, and my ear to catch the sound of that wanderer's accent, fromthe other extremity of the globe?"
Night had fallen, dark and stormy. The wind rose in the midst of thegreat pine-trees. Behind their black summits, through masses of darkcloud, slowly sailed the silver disk of the moon. The invocation of theWandering Jewess had perhaps been heard. Suddenly, her eyes closed--withhands clasped together, she remained kneeling in the heart of theruins--motionless as a statue upon a tomb. And then she had a wondrousdream!