And this valley is not the only one that has seen the desolation. During a series of fatal years, many villages, many towns, many cities, many great countries, have seen, like this valley, their hearths deserted and cold--have seen, like this valley, mourning take the place of joy, and the death-knell subst.i.tuted for the noise of festival--have wept in the same day for their many dead, and buried them at night by the lurid glare of torches.
For, during those fatal years, an awful wayfarer had slowly journeyed over the earth, from one pole to the other--from the depths of India and Asia to the ice of Siberia--from the ice of Siberia to the borders of the seas of France.
This traveller, mysterious as death, slow as eternity, implacable as fate, terrible as the hand of heaven, was the CHOLERA!
The tolling of bells and the funeral chants still rose from the depths of the valley to the summit of the hill, like the complaining of a mighty voice; the glare of the funeral torches was still seen afar through the mist of evening; it was the hour of twilight--that strange hour, which gives to the most solid forms a vague, indefinite fantastic appearance--when the sound of firm and regular footsteps was heard on the stony soil of the rising ground, and, between the black trunks of the trees, a man pa.s.sed slowly onward.
His figure was tall, his head was bowed upon his breast; his countenance was n.o.ble, gentle, and sad; his eyebrows, uniting in the midst, extended from one temple to the other, like a fatal mark on his forehead.
This man did not seem to hear the distant tolling of so many funeral bells--and yet, a few days before, repose and happiness, health and joy, had reigned in those villages through which he had slowly pa.s.sed, and which he now left behind him, mourning and desolate. But the traveller continued on his way, absorbed in his own reflections.
"The 13th of February approaches," thought he; "the day approaches, in which the descendants of my beloved sister, the last scions of our race, should meet in Paris. Alas! it is now a hundred and fifty years since, for the third time, persecution scattered this family over all the earth--this family, that I have watched over with tenderness for eighteen centuries, through all its migrations and exiles, its changes of religion, fortune, and name!
"Oh! for this family, descended from the sister of the poor shoemaker,(2) what grandeur and what abas.e.m.e.nt, what obscurity and what splendor, what misery and what glory! By how many crimes has it been sullied, by how many virtues honored! The history of this single family is the history of the human race!
"Pa.s.sing, in the course of so many generations, through the veins of the poor and the rich, of the sovereign and the bandit, of the wise man and the fool, of the coward and the brave, of the saint and the atheist, the blood of my sister has transmitted itself to this hour.
"What scions of this family are now remaining? Seven only.
"Two orphans, the daughters of proscribed parents--a dethroned prince--a poor missionary priest--a man of the middle cla.s.s--a young girl of a great name and large fortune--a mechanic.
"Together, they comprise in themselves the virtues, the courage, the degradation, the splendor, the miseries of our species!
"Siberia--India--America--France--behold the divers places where fate has thrown them!
"My instinct teaches me when one of them is in peril. Then, from the North to the South, from the East to the West, I go to seek them.
Yesterday amid the polar frosts--to-day in the temperate zone--to-morrow beneath the fires of the tropics--but often, alas! at the moment when my presence might save them, the invisible hand impels me, the whirlwind carries me away, and the voice speaks in my ear: "GO ON! GO ON!"
"Oh, that I might only finish my task!--"GO ON!"--A single hour--only a single hour of repose!--"GO ON!"--Alas! I leave those I love on the brink of the abyss!--"GO ON! GO ON!"
"Such is my punishment. If it is great, my crime was greater still! An artisan, devoted to privations and misery, my misfortunes had made me cruel.
"Oh, cursed, cursed be the day, when, as I bent over my work, sullen with hate and despair, because, in spite of my incessant labor, I and mine wanted for everything, the Saviour pa.s.sed before my door.
"Reviled, insulted, covered with blows, hardly able to sustain the weight of his heavy cross, He asked me to let Him rest a moment on my stone bench. The sweat poured from His forehead, His feet were bleeding, He was well-nigh sinking with fatigue, and He said to me, in a mild, heart piercing voice: "I suffer!" "And I too suffer," I replied, as with harsh anger I pushed Him from the place; "I suffer, and no one comes to help me! I find no pity, and will give none. Go on! go on!" Then, with a deep sigh of pain, He answered, and spake this sentence: "Verily, thou shalt go on till the day of thy redemption, for so wills the Father which art in heaven!"
"And so my punishment began. Too late I opened these eyes to the light, too late I learned repentance and charity, too late I understood those divine words of Him I had outraged, words which should be the law of the whole human race. "LOVE YE ONE ANOTHER."
"In vain through successive ages, gathering strength and eloquence from those celestial words, have I labored to earn my pardon, by filling with commiseration and love hearts that were overflowing with envy and bitterness, by inspiring many a soul with a sacred horror of oppression and injustice. For me the day of mercy has not yet dawned!
"And even as the first man, by his fall, devoted his posterity to misfortune, it would seem as if I, the workman, had consigned the whole race of artisans to endless sorrows, and as if they were expiating my crime: for they alone, during these eighteen centuries, have not yet been delivered.
"For eighteen centuries, the powerful and the happy of this world have said to the toiling people what I said to the imploring and suffering Saviour: "Go on! go on!" And the people, sinking with fatigue, bearing their heavy cross, have answered in the bitterness of their grief: "Oh, for pity"s sake! a few moments of repose; we are worn out with toil."--Go on!"--"And if we perish in our pain, what will become of our little children and our aged mothers?"--"Go on! go on!" And, for eighteen centuries, they and I have continued to struggle forward and to suffer, and no charitable voice has yet p.r.o.nounced the word "Enough!"
"Alas! such is my punishment. It is immense, it is two-fold. I suffer in the name of humanity, when I see these wretched mult.i.tudes consigned without respite to profitless and oppressive toil. I suffer in the name of my family, when, poor and wandering, I am unable to bring aid to the descendants of my dear sister. But, when the sorrow is above my strength, when I foresee some danger from which I cannot preserve my own, then my thoughts, travelling over the world, go in search of that woman like me accursed, that daughter of a queen, who, like me, the son of a laborer, wanders, and will wander on, till the day of her redemption.(3)
"Once in a century, as two planets draw nigh to each other in their revolutions, I am permitted to meet this woman during the dread week of the Pa.s.sion. And after this interview, filled with terrible remembrances and boundless griefs, wandering stars of eternity, we pursue our infinite course.
"And this woman, the only one upon earth who, like me, sees the end of every century, and exclaims: "What another?" this woman responds to my thought, from the furthest extremity of the world. She, who alone shares my terrible destiny, has chosen to share also the only interest that has consoled me for so many ages. Those descendants of my dear sister, she too loves, she too protects them. For them she journeys likewise from East to West and from North to South.
"But alas! the invisible hand impels her, the whirlwind carries her away, and the voice speaks in her ear: "Go on!"--"Oh that I might finish my sentence!" repeats she also,--"Go on!"--"A single hour--only a single hour of repose!"--Go on!"--"I leave those I love on the brink of the abyss."--"Go on! Go on!--""
Whilst this man thus went over the hill absorbed in his thoughts, the light evening breeze increased almost to a gale, a vivid flash streamed across the sky, and long, deep whistlings announced the coming of a tempest.
On a sudden this doomed man, who could no longer weep or smile, started with a shudder. No physical pain could reach him, and yet he pressed his hand hastily to his heart, as though he had experienced a cruel pang.
"Oh!" cried he; "I feel it. This hour, many of those whom I love--the descendants of my dear sister--suffer, and are in great peril. Some in the centre of India--some in America--some here in Germany. The struggle recommences, the detestable pa.s.sions are again awake. Oh, thou that hearest me--thou, like myself wandering and accursed--Herodias! help me to protect them! May my invocation reach thee, in those American solitudes where thou now lingerest--and may we arrive in time!"
Thereon an extraordinary event happened. Night was come. The man made a movement; precipitately, to retrace his steps--but an invisible force prevented him, and carried him forward in the opposite direction.
At this moment, the storm burst forth in its murky majesty. One of those whirlwinds, which tear up trees by the roots and shake the foundations of the rocks, rushed over the hill rapid and loud as thunder.
In the midst of the roaring of the hurricane, by the glare of the fiery flashes, the man with the black mark on his brow was seen descending the hill, stalking with huge strides among the rocks, and between trees bent beneath the efforts of the storm.
The tread of this man was no longer slow, firm, and steady--but painfully irregular, like that of one impelled by an irresistible power, or carried along by the whirl of a frightful wind. In vain he extended his supplicating hands to heaven. Soon he disappeared in the shades of night, and amid the roar of the tempest.
(2) It is known that, according to the legend, the Wandering Jew was a shoemaker at Jerusalem. The Saviour, carrying his cross, pa.s.sed before the house of the artisan, and asked him to be allowed to rest an instant on the stone bench at his door. "Go on! go on!" said the Jew harshly, pushing him away. "Thou shalt go on till the end of time," answered the Saviour, in a stern though sorrowful tone. For further details, see the eloquent and learned notice by Charles Magnin, appended to the magnificent poem "Ahasuerus," by Ed. Quinet.--E. S.
(3) According to a legend very little known, for we are indebted to the kindness of M. Maury, the learned sub-librarian of the Inst.i.tute, Herodias was condemned to wander till the day of judgement, for having asked for the death of John the Baptist--E. S.
CHAPTER XVII. THE AJOUPA.
While Rodin despatched his cosmopolite correspondence, from his retreat in the Rue du Milieu des Ursins, in Paris--while the daughters of General Simon, after quitting as fugitives the White Falcon, were detained prisoners at Leipsic along with Dagobert--other scenes, deeply interesting to these different personages, were pa.s.sing, almost as it were at the same moment, at the other extremity of the world, in the furthermost parts of Asia--that is to say, in the island of Java, not far from the city of Batavia, the residence of M. Joshua Van Dael, one of the correspondents of Rodin.
Java! magnificent and fatal country, where the most admirable flowers conceal hideous reptiles, where the brightest fruits contain subtle poisons, where grow splendid trees, whose very shadow is death--where the gigantic vampire bat sucks the blood of its victims whilst it prolongs their sleep, by surrounding them with a fresh and balmy air, no fan moving so rapidly as the great perfumed wings of this monster!
The month of October, 1831, draws near its close. It is noon--an hour well nigh mortal to him who encounters the fiery heat of the sun, which spreads a sheet of dazzling light over the deep blue enamel of the sky.
An ajoupa, or hut, made of cane mats, suspended from long bamboos, which are driven far into the ground, rises in the midst of the bluish shadows cast by a tuft of trees, whose glittering verdure resembles green porcelain. These quaintly formed trees, rounded into arches, pointing like spires, overspreading like parasols, are so thick in foliage, so entangled one with the other, that their dome is impenetrable to the rain.
The soil, ever marshy, notwithstanding the insupportable heat, disappears beneath an inextricable ma.s.s of creepers, ferns, and tufted reeds, of a freshness and vigor of vegetation almost incredible, reaching nearly to the top of the ajoupa, which lies hid like a nest among the gra.s.s.
Nothing can be more suffocating than the atmosphere, heavily laden with moist exhalations like the steam of hot water, and impregnated with the strongest and sharpest scents; for the cinnamon-tree, ginger-plant, stephanotis and Cape jasmine, mixed with these trees and creepers, spread around in puffs their penetrating odors. A roof, formed of large Indian fig-leaves, covers the cabin; at one end is a square opening, which serves for a window, shut in with a fine lattice-work of vegetable fibres, so as to prevent the reptiles and venomous insects from creeping into the ajoupa. The huge trunk of a dead tree, still standing, but much bent, and with its summit reaching to the roof of the ajoupa, rises from the midst of the brushwood. From every crevice in its black, rugged, mossy bark, springs a strange, almost fantastic flower; the wing of a b.u.t.terfly is not of a finer tissue, of a more brilliant purple, of a more glossy black: those unknown birds we see in our dreams, have no more grotesque forms than these specimens of the orchis--winged flowers, that seem always ready to fly from their frail and leafless stalks. The long, flexible stems of the cactus, which might be taken for reptiles, encircle also this trunk, and clothe it with their bunches of silvery white, shaded inside with bright orange. These flowers emit a strong scent of vanilla.
A serpent, of a brick-red, about the thickness of a large quill, and five or six inches long, half protrudes its flat head from one of those enormous, perfumed calyces, in which it lies closely curled up.
Within the ajoupa, a young man is extended on a mat in a profound sleep.
His complexion of a clear golden yellow, gives him the appearance of a statue of pale bronze, on which a ray of sun is playing. His att.i.tude is simple and graceful; his right arm sustains his head, a little raised and turned on one side; his ample robe of white muslin, with hanging sleeves, leaves uncovered his chest and arms worthy of the Antoinous.
Marble is not more firm, more polished than his skin, the golden hue of which contracts strongly with the whiteness of his garments. Upon his broad manly chest a deep scar is visible--the mark of the musket-ball he received in defending the life of General Simon, the father of Rose and Blanche.
Suspended from his neck, he wears a medal similar to that in the possession of the two sisters. This Indian is Djalma.
His features are at once very n.o.ble and very beautiful. His hair of a blue black, parted upon his forehead, falls waving, but not curled over his shoulders; whilst his eyebrows, boldly and yet delicately defined, are of as deep a jet as the long eyelashes, that cast their shadow upon his beardless cheek. His bright, red lips are slightly apart, and he breathes uneasily; his sleep is heavy and troubled, for the heat becomes every moment more and more suffocating.
Without, the silence is profound. Not a breath of air is stirring.
Yet now the tall ferns, which cover the soil, begin to move almost imperceptibly, as though their stems were shaken by the slow progress of some crawling body. From time to time, this trifling oscillation suddenly ceases, and all is again motionless. But, after several of these alternations of rustling and deep silence, a human head appears in the midst of the jungle, a little distance from the trunk of the dead tree.