第58章

"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 abasement, 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!

"Passing, 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 class--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 passed 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.'--