Ahasuerus

by Edgar Quinet

  II.

  Inside the city of Jerusalem, the door of Ahasuerus’ house is open.

  AHASUERUS’ BROTHERS

  Come back into the house, Ahasuerus. Let us close the latch on the door; are you not afraid of the wind that is blowing, and the noise that is audible in the city?

  AHASUERUS

  Go back in, my little brothers, go to sleep on your mats. I want to sit on my bench to watch the crowd go by.

  AHASUERUS’ BROTHERS

  Here it comes! Let’s get out of the way.

  THE CROWD, following Christ, carrying the cross

  Hail to the king, the fine king of Judea! Let us take him to the summit of Calvary, in order that he may see the extent of his empire. Has the king of Babylon, Egypt or Persia ever mounted so high a throne? At present, the enclosure of the city is not beautiful enough for him. When our high towers have fallen, when the serpents climb our staircases in our stead, when the desert has sat down at our table, he can come back, if he wishes, with his crown of thorns, his torn robe and his bloody feet, to be king of our ruin.

  AHASUERUS

  They’re coming closer. The sound of footsteps can already be heard; my heart is beating faster in my breast.

  THE CROWD

  Has Barabbas been given back his sword, his cape, his horse and his quiver full of arrows? Let us give him ten bright silver deniers in his purse. Let us dress him in red as a messenger; he will ride through the towns and say to the thieves, the net-makers and the slaves turning mill-wheels: “Have you heard the news? Your king is waiting for you on the steps of his tower of Golgotha.”

  AHASUERUS

  The voice of the people intoxicates me like a gourd of Carmel wine. Their anger is surely just.

  THE CROWD

  Pilate, sage Pilate, have you picked up your golden ewer? Again, again, regard the task of which you have not rid yourself. Rome washes her hands; that innocent virgin, who has only held the spindle in her mother’s chamber, does not want to wear a ring of blood on her finger; but we, without delay, will follow the footsteps of our king’s son. Truly, is he not better than David? Look, he is weeping, and has neither sword not sling; his cupbearers are two thieves by his side. If he wants to punish us, let him command; perhaps this time he will not send us as far as the willows of Babylon. Will it be necessary to return to return to the desert, hands bound behind our backs, all the way to Egypt? Let’s go; we’ve known the way for a long time—and a short cut by which to come back.

  AHASUERUS

  They’re coming; they’re here; they’re passing by; they’re moving on; their cries fill the street; if that man were a true prophet, the wind that blows from the desert would overturn these terraces along with the towers. He was a false prophet; put him to death!

  THE CROWD

  If he is a Chaldean magician, he has marble unicorns and winged lions for servants in the desert, beneath the remains of cities, whose manes spirits have sculpted with golden chisels; he has sphinxes for messengers that rest from their running at the gates of temples in blocks of stone. Let him tell his gryphons to come and form his cortege. But the wings of his gryphons are too heavy, the sleep of his sphinxes too deep. Before his ensorcelled troop of unicorns and winged lions can bound around him, before the ibises and stone hawks can descend from their obelisks to defend him, here come the vultures of Judea, who will take the crown from his head tomorrow to carry into the woods to their nest. Oh, don’t stop in your nest, my vulture of Carmel; rise higher than the rocks, rise higher than the clouds, rise higher than the stars, rise up all the way to Jehovah: “Do you know what I’m carrying in my beak, O Jehovah? Truly, it isn’t a scrap of Joppa cloth; it isn’t a sprig of heather; it’s a crown of Judean thorns that I took from Calvary, from the head of your son of Nazareth.”

  AHASUERUS

  As he comes closer, his aureole shines more brightly than that of a prophet elect; that’s another one of his magic spells.

  CHRIST

  Is that you, Ahasuerus?

  AHASUERUS

  I don’t know you.

  CHRIST

  I’m thirsty; give me a little water from your well.

  AHASUERUS

  My well is empty.

  CHRIST

  Take your cup to it; you’ll find it full.

  AHASUERUS

  It’s broken.

  CHRIST

  Help me to carry my cross along this hard road.

  AHASUERUS

  I’m not your cross-bearer; summon a gryphon from the desert.

  CHRIST

  Let me sit down on your bench at the door of your house.

  AHASUERUS

  My bench is full; there’s no room for anyone.

  CHRIST

  On your threshold, then?

  AHASUERUS

  It’s empty, and the door is bolted shut.

  CHRIST

  Touch it with your finger, and you’ll be able to go in to fetch a stool.

  AHASUERUS

  Be on your way.

  CHRIST

  If you wanted, your bench might become a golden stool at the door of my father’s house.

  AHASUERUS

  Go wherever you wish, blasphemer. You’re already withering my vine and my fig-tree. Don’t lean on the rail of my stairway; it would crumble on hearing you speak. You want to bewitch me.

  CHRIST

  I wanted to save you.

  AHASUERUS

  Get out of my shadow, fortune-teller. Your road is before you. Walk on, walk on.

  CHRIST

  Why do you say that, Ahasuerus? It’s you who will walk, until the last judgment, for more than a thousand years. Go get your sandals and your traveling clothes. Everywhere you pass, people will call you the Wandering Jew. It’s you who will find neither a seat on which to sit down nor a mountain spring to slake your thirst. In my stead, you will bear the burden that I shall quit upon the cross. For your thirst, you will drink what I leave in the bottom of my chalice. Others will take my tunic; you will inherit my eternal dolor. Hyssop will sprout on your traveler’s staff, absinthe will grow in your water-skin; despair will squeeze your loins in your leather belt. You will be the man who never dies. Your age will be mine. To see you pass, the eagles will perch on the edge of the aerie. The little birds will hide under the crests of rocks. The stars will lean over on their clouds to hear your tears fall, one drop at a time, into the abyss.

  I am going to Golgotha; you will walk from one ruin to the next, one kingdom to the next, without ever attaining your Calvary. You will break your stairway under your feet, and you will no longer be able to come back down. The gates of cities will say to you: “Go further, my bench is worn out;” and the river where you want to sit down will say: “Go further, go further on, all the way to the sea; my bank is my own and full of brambles;” and the sea too will say: “Go further, go further on, are you not the eternal voyager who goes from one people to the next, century after century, drinking his tears from his cup, who does not sleep by day or by night, neither on silk nor on stone, and who cannot go back along the path he has followed?”

  The gryphons will sit down, the sphinxes will sleep, but you will have neither seat not slumber. It is you who will go to ask for me in one temple after another, without ever encountering me. It’s you who will cry: “Where is he?” until the dead show you the way to the last judgment. When you see me again, my eyes will be ablaze; my finger with rise up beneath my robe to summon you to the valley of Jehosophat.

  A ROMAN SOLDIER

  Did you hear him? While he was speaking my sword was moaning in its scabbard, my spear was sweating blood, and my horse was weeping. I have had my sword and my spear for a long time. On listening to that voice, my heart has been worn away in my bosom. Open the door to me, my wife and my little children, to hide me in my Calabrian hut.

  THE CROWD

  What do I have to do to rise higher than Calvary? What if he were, by chance, a God of an unknown country, or a son that the Eternal
has forgotten in his old age? Before he can recognize us, let us go shut ourselves up in our courtyards. Let us put out our lamps on our tables. Did you see the brazen hand that wrote on Ahasuerus’ house: THE WANDERING JEW? Don’t let that name remain on the stone! Let the man of the door be the scapegoat of Judah. When he passes by, Babylon, Thebes and the surrounding lands will pick up stones from their ruins to hurl at him. But we, without ever quitting our staircases and our vines, will fill our gourd with our Carmel wine for the Passover.

  III.

  AHASUERUS, alone

  1.

  Where are they? Where is the crowd? Come back, Jesus of Nazareth and listen to me. Let me speak to you again. My name is Ahasuerus, son of Nathan, of the tribe of Levi. What other name did he give me? Who knows it? Who heard him? Who will remember it? Grass by the roadside, don’t tell it to the sole of my foot, if you don’t want to be uprooted; stone of my threshold, don’t tell it to my sandals, if you don’t want to be broken; furrow of my inherited field, don’t tell it to my plough, if you don’t want to be filled in.

  2.

  Has he not attached a burning aureole to my head? No, it’s the desert wind blowing through my hair. Has he not put a cup full of tears in my hand? No, it’s the rain of Carmel that has filled it to the brim. What does the desert have against me? What does Carmel have against me? I shall go back into my house, where the rain doesn’t come in; I climb my stairway, which the wind doesn’t climb.

  3.

  Go! Go where? The water of my well is too fresh; my date-palm is too shady. Where else would I find another land of Judah? Tomorrow I shall drown the memory of the cross-bearer in the wine of my vine. With my chisel I shall efface the tracks that his feet left on the pavement. In advance, I see my table full; not one place is empty. No, my guests, go home, all of you. Woe! Isn’t my wine murmuring in my cup: “It’s the Wandering Jew who is drinking?”

  4.

  No, truly, I don’t want any banquets, or a full table. When the wineskin is empty, joy often remains at the bottom. I want to go up the stairs of my sister Martha; only she can sing me a song while plying her distaff; she’ll chase away the brazen voice that is resonating in my ears. Woe! Who do I see on the stairway of my door? It’s not my father Nathan, nor my little brothers, nor my sister Martha. It’s an angel of death, looking at me; his black wings are hanging down to the ground; his breastplate and coat of mail are shining like a naphtha well. He’s holding his pipe in his hand; he’s standing up on the black mane of a horse that is sweating blood.

  IV.

  THE ANGEL SAINT MICHAEL

  Is this your name that is written on your door?

  AHASUERUS

  Efface the fiery name; my name is Ahasuerus.

  SAINT MICHAEL

  Where are you going?

  AHASUERUS

  Home.

  SAINT MICHAEL

  Your door is closed; you shall not pass that way again.

  AHASUERUS

  I haven’t got my sandals, my belt or my traveling cloak.

  SAINT MICHAEL

  You have no need of them. You shall have for a coat of mail the tissue of your dolors, and for a cloak, the wind, snow and rain of an eternal cloud.

  AHASUERUS

  I don’t know the road out of Palestine and Egypt.

  SAINT MICHAEL

  You shall follow the storks; you shall walk through the brambles.

  AHASUERUS

  Tell me what cities I’ll find on my route.

  SAINT MICHAEL

  The cities through which you pass will crumble behind you, and the peoples you leave behind when you get up will not to see another day.

  AHASUERUS

  How are their walls made?

  SAINT MICHAEL

  They are still dormant under hedges of hawthorn, like a bird beneath its wing. The stone of their crenellated walls is still in the rock; the beam of their well is still in the forest; the trefoil of their arched windows is still in the meadow.

  AHASUERUS

  Where does their road lead?

  SAINT MICHAEL

  Wherever the one who has cursed you has gone.

  AHASUERUS

  How shall I fare in unknown forests, where there are no paths?

  SAINT MICHAEL

  You shall go by way of the heather to knock on the door of unknown peoples who are asleep on their elbows around their fires of dry grass. You shall shout at their window that it is time to get up, that their master is awaiting them in Rome, and that they should take down from the vault their clubs, their quivers and their maple-wood arrows.

  AHASUERUS

  And when I reach the shore of the sea, where there are no boats or fishermen?

  SAINT MICHAEL

  You shall shout to the shore that it is time to chase away its vessels, as the bird expels its young from the nest when they have grown up, and that it should send them all, laden with catapults and slings, to stone the people of Judea.

  AHASUERUS

  And in the desert where there is no host?

  SAINT MICHAEL

  To the shepherds of Arabia, lying down to drink the nocturnal dew, you will shout that they should whet their scimitars, saddle their horses, wind their turbans around their heads, and sharpen their silver spurs in order to carry behind them, wrapped in their tents, the torso of a decapitated people, which my master wants to give them.

  AHASUERUS

  If my knees carry me, I shall obey you. At present, I sense something like a wound from your pike in my bosom; will it still be there tomorrow?

  SAINT MICHAEL

  Judean wild boar, you are dragging the hunter’s spear in your back.

  AHASUERUS

  Tell me what it is necessary to seek on my route in order to heal myself.

  SAINT MICHAEL

  You shall seek a balm, and find a venom; you shall seek your dream when you rise from your mat, and find your wound in your heart.

  AHASUERUS

  I feel a poison on my lips, which I drink at every breath. Will it be as bitter tomorrow?

  SAINT MICHAEL

  More bitter the next day than the day before, in the evening than the morning; more bitter in the depths of your water-skin than at the rim; more bitter in your shelter than while traveling, while traveling than on departure; more bitter in a golden cup than in the palm of your hand; more bitter in the stars than in the tempest; more bitter than in the stars and the tempest on the lips and in the eyes of your host.

  AHASUERUS

  My feet are heavy; I shall not be able to reach the shepherds of Arabia, the peoples of the forests.

  SAINT MICHAEL

  I have brought you the horse Séméhé, which has been wandering night and day since the morning of the world. On seeing you, his mane will bristle; his tears will fall upon the sand. With his silver hoof he will hollow out the threshold of your door; the Devis of the desert have bitten his flanks; in his nostrils, he summons the Wandering Jew. Take your whip in your hand, in order that his blood might trace your route.

  AHASUERUS

  Night has not yet fallen. Please, let me say adieu to my father, my sister and my little brothers.

  SAINT MICHAEL

  I will allow that. That farewell will be long. If I were human, I would mourn. Go! Before summoning you, I shall wait until David’s cart has climbed above your head with its four starry wheels.

  V.

  Inside Ahasuerus’ House.

  Ahasuerus’ brothers, Joel and Elia, little children, are playing on mats

  JOEL

  When I am grown up I want to have silver beard that hangs down to the ground, like my father.

  ELIA

  And I shall carry a patriarch’s staff as long as his.

  JOEL

  I shall also buy a cup from the potter, which will hold an entire water-skin; no one shall drink from it but me.

  ELIA

  And I shall buy a fig-wood bench from the carpenter, in order to sit higher than everyone e
lse at the table.

  JOEL

  Shut up; our father is looking at us.

  NATHAN, Ahasuerus’ father

  What are you saying, children? Put on your colored robes for today. Rejoice with me in the house. The false king of the Jews has climbed on to his throne of Calvary. He will not come down from it again. Who knows whether we shall see the true Messiah one day?

  JOEL

  So there will be a more powerful king than the Christ, Father?

  NATHAN

  So great that all the others will serve as his cupbearers.

  JOEL

  Will he have a palace as fine as the king of Sheba?

  NATHAN

  His palace will have a hundred doors, for his hundred messengers.

  JOEL

  What is it necessary to do to be the Messiah? I already read in your book every evening; I sing prayers in the temple with my sister.