Ahasuerus

by Edgar Quinet

  Great saint, that’s what they were saying, I swear; and the more their faith has flowed away from their hearts, the more their steps are lacking in life. I’ve seen rivers that, doubting whether the valley still awaits them to take them to their lake, are stopping on the way and drying up their waves; I’ve seen seas that, no longer knowing what name to pronounce on the night breezes, are hollowing out a mortal silence within themselves, and dispersing their waves in secret; I’ve seen beautiful vagabond stars that, doubting tomorrow, are stopping in the night and drowning themselves in the Ocean; I’ve seen great deserts shaking their sandy manes around them over the world, weary of waiting, crouching down at the doors of temples, which the temples have opened.

  The flowers no longer believe in the dawn, and the faded flowers no longer lift themselves up to drink the dew; the shadows no longer believe in bodies, nor the waves in their source, nor the wine in its cup, nor the bench in its threshold, nor the boat in its oar, nor the valley in its ridge, nor the universe in its Lord. The young forests, which doubt their sap, wrinkled their lianas over my forehead; and the earth, at hazard, rolled beneath my claw, empty, without any more concern for its route, like the brass ball that the kings gave me, with which to amuse myself, on their gold-langued escutcheons.

  SAINT MATTHEW

  Did you still find my land of Galilee and its fig trees?

  SAINT LUKE

  And my olive garden, to which I went down every morning to pray?

  THE LION

  I no longer recognized the roads of Judea. All the cities were deserted. The evening wind was tearing their gates from their hinges, and I heard them singing: “Since our inhabitants are no longer holding celebrations, what good are our heavy walls to us? Since God is dead in the heavens, and the saints have attended his funeral, what good are our bells and basilicas, and the naves above our heads? Since neither kings nor lovers are any longer to be seen passing through our streets, let us throw down our balconies and terraces.” With every word they sang, a stone fell.

  Laughing, the cities of the Orient were sitting down on the damp earth. On a muddy wave I saw Venice pass by in its black gondola, half-submerged; it was no longer the Venice that gave me its flag to carry while descending the stairway of its ducal palace. It was Venice dead on its silken cushion, which a gondolier was talking to Jehosophat through the tempest. Unmuzzled cattle were grazing on the tomb of Rome, and wild horses were digging the earth with their hooves. “Hola! Where are you, our riders? Come and comb our long hair, which is falling over our foreheads as the rushes of the Tiber marshes accumulate on the waves that snatch them from the shores.”

  But what hurt me the most was this: Outside the walls, on the road that leads to Maremme, the great church of St. Paul was broken. Here and there, its columns were lying, having taken their stumps for bed-heads, no longer able to get up. Serpents of masonry, grass-snakes and vipers, came to lick the ciboria and carry away the white host in their fangs, for their offspring. In the enclosure of the monastery, a single brother was kneeling, in tears. It was the Christ-Giant, counting the blades of grass on the altar. Day and night, two tears streamed from his great eyes on to the stone slab, which they were wearing away. Bent double in order to sustain the crumbling nave on his shoulder, heavier than his cross, he was sighing: “I can do no more.” In consequence, my mane turned white on my back, and my tongue, with its darts, roared more loudly than in the desert: “Master, let it fall; I will lick your wounds.”

  Italy was seated like Sodom on its shore. The waves of its volcano were an army roaring as it rose to attack its battlements—and finding no one, they sought their path through the ventilation-shafts, though the crossroads, through the marble ramps; they lay down in its bed, still warm, and murmured at its gate: “Ah, my gulf, take me in your abyss. My grotto, hide me in your hollow in the rocks of Pausilippo. My Ischian boat, bring me in your sail a sigh from my islands, to refresh my bosom, devoured by the bitumen of heaven.

  Master, I have also traversed the salty sea, without moistening my claws; beneath the algae that embrace it, I found Albion with my talons, collapsed on its side like an old trireme abandoned by its pilot. In the lands whose thirst the Rhine slakes, and which the Danube, weary of eating away its fields of hops, leaves behind its waves to go and ask the Bosphorus for its share of sun and sand, the cathedrals were howling: “Martin Luther of Wittenburg, what have you done? Why have you prevented us from raising out towers to the firmament? Now we could rise without fear, making mock of our ruins.”

  Further on, where the sobbing Seine retraces its steps and makes more than one detour to search its mud for the city it watered and which still kept it company yesterday, the bank was weeping, and the waves said, lamenting to the sea, further away than it could see: “Sea, return to me, to help me save myself, what remains of my emperor of Saint-Helena.” In the same place, a people had decapitated a king, the son of an ancient race. That giant torso, which still lay without a sepulcher, was still on his knees, searching for his head and moaning. Scarcely had those around him, who were weeping, given him another, than he dropped it at his feet, like a burden that a man can no longer carry. Three times that happened; three times the head fell; three times the old torso demanded a royal head with which to crown his wound, which was bleeding on his shoulders. That sight was hard to bear, and it drew a lion’s tears from my eyes.

  SAINT MARK

  Did you find nothing but that in honored France?

  THE LION

  I stirred the sand of the abyss; I swept the beach. France has left no gold, nor vases, nor precious bracelets, nor beautiful ear-rings, nor painted mosaics, nor marble stairways. I found nothing of her but this oak-branch trampled in combats, this beak of a bronze eagle, and this stainless sword-hilt, which I have brought you to keep with your escutcheon. Everywhere around, in the heather of the human race, as when hounds run over hills when the horn sounds, mouths agape, following the wild boar into the thicket, one falls silent and listens, the other sniffs the undergrowth and bays, and the pack follows, with the hunter behind, bent over his horse, and after him, silence falls again, thus a pack of empires that Oblivion leads on a leash goes by thousands upon thousands of paths, ears pricked, heads bowed, seeking their God, who flees further on, and, always losing the track, one searches the abyss, another passes by, and then looks, becomes vexed, turns back, uttering a cry that makes the earth tremble; and they all resume the quest, each wanting to howl in turn, and to devour before nightfall his share of a shadow.

  SAINT MARK

  Tell me what passers-by you encountered after the Holy Land.

  THE LION

  When I came back, all the empires were finished, all the cities were deserted. I only encountered Time, who was descending to the shore to fill his hour-glass with the ashes of the dead, and Mob, on her pale horse, who was asking the heather whether any blade of living grass still remained. I only heard Ahasuerus, who was sighing when I passed by, and drinking his tears from the palm of his hand.

  SAINT MARK

  That’s enough. Go back now, if you wish, to your Nubian homeland.

  THE LION

  Master, what would I do now in Nubia or in Palestine? The paths have been effaced. No travelers pass in the night. Let me lie here at your feet forever. Better than the empty sky that hangs over my head, I like my golden-sequined awning. Better than that immense sea, which no longer has any pilot and murmurs without God, I like the hem of your blessed cloak. Better than the sun that is going out in the vault of humankind, I like your oil-filled lamp. Better that that desolate soul dragging himself along on my road, I like the shred of my banner and your worm-eaten niche. Better that the sobbing of the universe, which is audible from here, I like your bronze escutcheon, your stone bible, your thunderbolts, your clouds, and the globe of the world that the emperors have given me.

  SAINT MARK

  Now, St. John, here comes your eagle.

  SAINT JOHN, to the eagle

  Whe
re have you come from?

  THE EAGLE

  From the summit of Golgotha.

  SAINT JOHN

  Why so late?

  THE EAGLE

  The birds of Oblivion, which, from the rim of their nests, are falling with their vultures’ necks upon the cadaver of the world, blocked my passage. The earth was like the aerie of an eagle of Taurus when a man has taken away its eaglets to amuse his children. The shadow of my wings bloodied the summits over which I passed. Already, the resuscitated dead were sprouting everywhere through the grass. The kings, like ears or wheat, were piercing the grassy turf over their tombs as they rose with the points of their crowns. Their beards were falling to their feet and winding seven times around their stone tables. They were singing, fearlessly: “We have germinated during the winter of our furrow. Now our summer will commence. We have found, in seeing the light, our diadems blooming on our heads and our scepters verdant on our stems. We have only to await the morning dew to drink our happiness from the cups of our spring.”

  By the roadsides, the peoples were raising themselves up, supporting their heads on their elbows. The tears they were weeping are flowing from the hollows of their eyes down their shrouds to the ground. They were extending their worm-eaten mantles over their skeletal feet. Their hair had continued to grow in their tombs, partly covering them. When I passed by, their tongues, swollen by the sand, stammered: “If I had the brazen wings of that passing eagle, if I had his claws and his diamond beak, I would quit the glebe of my field forever and carry away the wicker door of my hut. I would fly to the summit of heaven, in order no longer to see the harsh furrow in which I have mingled my sweat with the water from my pitcher. But my arms are weary; I already have difficulty stretching out my hand on the Lord’s road to beg every day for my new life, as for an obol.”

  On the summit of the world three children were sitting, in tears, crying: “We no longer have a father or a mother; take us under your wings.” From a distance, I said to the first: “Who are you?” and he, without getting up or wiping his cheeks, said: “Who am I? Perhaps he will remember, he who has so often woken me up in the night on my pillow, that at this hour, I am still sleep and my eyes can no longer open. I am Louis Capet.28 I have wept many tears; I was born on a throne and died in a harsh prison. My hands, which ought to be attaching my crown to my head, have clung on more than one to the shoelaces of passers by. Like my master in his shop, Eternity has said to me too soon in my tomb: ‘Are you asleep, Louis Capet?’ I’m awake, and now I’m weeping, because my father and my mother are already half-resuscitated, and they both lack a head on their shoulders.”

  And I said to the second: “Who are you?” And he said: “I was, when I was alive, Henri de France, descendant of a hundred kings, Prince of Navarre, heir to Sicily and Naples, Duc de Bordeaux.29 At present, I no longer have a name. In my glass, I was given honey at first, but bitterness is at the bottom; I don’t want to drink it. The bread of exile is ashen; I don’t want to eat it. That’s why I’m weeping.”

  The third was leaning over toward the sand, like an eaglet, and I asked him: “What are you looking for?” “My heritage,” he said. “I am the one who was named King of Rome but never wore a crown.30 Later, I had another name, but my pain was still the same. France has had my heart, Germany my bones, the world knew my father; he only held me on his knees one evening, to teach me to spell his giant name. Go seek him out so that he can take me to my kingdom.”

  One bound and I crossed the land; another and I crossed the Ocean. On an island in the sea, under a willow, am emperor was standing like an eagle. I said to him: “What is your name?” and he said: “The universe knows it well.”

  “The universe only knows one name; are you the man named Napoléon?”

  And when, without speaking, he had said yes, I was afraid of more than one arrow launched, and I wanted to run away, but smiling, he said: “Have no fear; the eagles know me. If you have come from France, give me news. What are my soldiers doing?”

  “They’re reawakening.”

  “And my son?”

  “He’s crying: Where is my father?”

  “And my marshals? Kléber? Desaix? Lannes? Duroc? Ney? Murat? Rapp? Bertrand? and Montholon?”

  “They’re waiting for you.”

  “And my throne?”

  “Is broken.”

  “And my column?”

  “That’s standing.”

  “And my glory?”

  “It’s wearing out my eyelids. Let me leave.”

  Master, that’s what I’ve seen. When I came back up, the angels had already put their trumpets to their mouths.

  THE FOUR EVANGELISTS

  We can hear them from here. Our entire bodies are trembling. Our awnings are about to collapse.

  THE EAGLE

  Look! Just now, Ahasuerus’ horse reared up when the trumpets turned in his direction.

  THE FOUR EVANGELISTS

  Now they’re resonating in the direction of the ruins of cities to awaken them more rapidly. Listen!

  IV.

  THE CHORUS OF THE ANGELS OF THE LAST JUDGMENT

  1.

  Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus, Deus Sabaoth. Now is the hour, now is the hour. World, if you are asleep, get up! Let the withered flower gather its crown around it in the mud and replace it on its head. Let the Ocean pass, trembling like a brook, so that its judge might count its waves. Let the dead stars, one by one, spring forth from oblivion, like a procession of candlesticks, in order that their master might look, beneath the crimson of the sky, to see whether their faces are pale!

  2.

  Humankind too, get up! Gather around you, in your oblivion, your memories, your desires, your hopes, your regrets and your long grief, in order to remake your own clay. Knead it in your tears, dress yourselves in despair. In the Campo-Santo, and there, where many naves pour darkness upon their tombstones with full hands, and in the cemeteries where the bullfinches whistle in the hedges, and there, where nobles sleep in African marble, and there, beneath the strand where the sea manipulates what was a people between its fingers, as a child does, get up, get up, get up! If your soul, which remembers your dolor, and falls half-sleep again, murmuring “It’s too soon,” my redoubled cry will awaken it.

  3.

  Cities, too, of the Levant and the Ponent, of marble or fire-baked bricks, remount your stairways. Collect your great bones that are whitening in the wilderness. Insect-giants, regird your loins with your long aqueducts that serve you as antennae to drink from distant springs. Coif your foreheads with your cupolas; comb your tresses of blonde columns with a golden comb, over your shoulders. High and low, as before, you are already brim-full of sighs and wailing. You are shaking your heavy heads and sobbing. In your street, your crowds are returning to life. Another hour, and you will only have to go up on to your roofs to see the coming of your Christ.

  ATHENS

  I’m ready, Lord; the sun has spun my gilded tunic around my column every year, and dressed my chiseled marble every morning. I have only to bend down to pick up the robe my sculptor has made from my steps. Come on, lovely Pallichares,31 bring me the basket of beautiful wedding-gifts that the master has given me; my acanthi plucked in the heart of the rock, my funerary urns that accumulate so rapidly in the potter’s house, my centuries of genius, and my entire history, once emptied in full into my alabaster cup. To make me more beautiful than the others, pick three anemones from my bush and put them in my hair. Now, untie my ship, raise the anchor of my floating mountains, my marble summits, my islands swaying in the wind, my battlefields, my citrus woods, my blazing rivers, my paths worn by my chariot, and all my memories, in order that I might overflow with hem in the valley of Jehosophat. Now, bring, bring the veil! My boat is so small, and the sea is so vast!

  THE ANGEL OF JUDGMENT

  Wake up, wake up!

  ROME

  One more day, I beg you. I’m searching my dust for my clothes, in order to get dressed, without be
ing able to find them. Beautiful angel, tell me, what robe should I put on to please the Lord best? Should it be my Sabine tunic, from when I was a girl, and I spun the cloth of my days to come on my doorstep? Should I take my priestess’ book in my hand, my Etrurian mantle, or my bloody crown, from when I was a queen seated on a sheaf of ripe wheat? Should I draw my sword, rusted for ten years in my Thrasymene lake, or buckle around my waist my belt of freedom, or put out to dry at my window my mantle, reddened all the way to the neck with the blood of my emperors?

  THE ANGEL

  Have you nothing better to wear for the fête?

  ROME

  Do you prefer my old man’s miter and crosier, and the blessed cupola with which they have charged my head? Do you prefer my hundred ringing bells, my marble chasuble that the world has made me with all the gold in the world and the debris of the past that ornaments my mantle, as a Lateran pilgrim wears the seashells of his shipwreck on his shoulders? Would it not be better, to reenter the crowd without being recognized, to retain my harvester’s sickle in my hand, which I now carry every summer to my mountains of Abruzzi? At present, my feet are bare. Look at them! My eyes are dark, my robe is white linen. I have two steel needles in my hair; in my basket I carry, for the passing traveler, figs from Velletri and strawberries from Umbria. If I hold my basket and my sickle, the Eternal himself will no longer recognize Rome. Instead of my past, my hundred emperors, the peoples fallen in my path and my gigantic years, he will only put into his balance the days of a suntanned girl of Perugia or Terni, her harvested grain, her blessed rosary, her songs of springtime and the Madonna suspended from her velvet collar.