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Page 42
"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 I
desired. 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.
"Why, yes," said the judge. "And that reminds me of my shoes he has for
mending. Here is his shop now."
Judge Hoover stepped into a dingy, small shop. I looked up at the sign,
and saw "Mike O'Bader, Boot and Shoe Maker," on it. Some wild geese
passed above, honking clearly. I scratched my ear and frowned, and then
trailed into the shop.
There sat my Wandering Jew on his shoemaker's bench, trimming a
half-sole. He was drabbled with dew, grass-stained, unkempt, and
miserable; and on his face was still the unexplained wretchedness, the
problematic sorrow, the esoteric woe, that had been written there by
nothing less, it seemed, than the stylus of the centuries.
Judge Hoover inquired kindly concerning his shoes. The old shoemaker
looked up, and spoke sanely enough. He had been ill, he said, for a few
days. The next day the shoes would be ready. He looked at me, and I
could see that I had no place in his memory. So out we went, and on our
way.
"Old Mike," remarked the candidate, "has been on one of his sprees. He
gets crazy drunk regularly once a month. But he's a good shoemaker."
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